He stills. “What?”
“I mean…” I lick my lips, but press forward, heart racing. “I don’t know what this is. I’ve never had a—a partner before. I have nothing to compare this to. Does it always feel this overwhelming and… intimate?”
His eyes soften and his thumb brushes my cheekbone. “No,” he says quietly. “It doesn’t.”
“Then if this is different… what is it?” I whisper.
Dom takes my face in both hands, gentle and careful.
“I was your first,” he murmurs.
“That’s probably stroking your ego like crazy,” I laugh softly.
“Let me finish.” He brushes his nose against mine. “I was your first,” he repeats, “but in a way, you were mine, too.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he pauses, “you’re the first woman to ever make me frozen with fear at the thought of you walking away.”
I wet my lips. “So… does that mean you like me?”
He laughs softly and leans in until we’re eye to eye, nothing between us but an inch of space and everything he’s too stubborn to say.
“Jessica,” he murmurs, voice low and rough, “the things you do to me… like doesn’t even fucking begin to cover it.”
Chapter twenty-two
~DOMINIC~
I walk through the Blazers’ building, reminding myself to unclench my teeth for the tenth time and let my shoulders relax.
Five days.
It’s been five fucking days since I fucked Jessica in the kitchen, and I’ve been crawling out of my skin wanting her again. Not just the sex — though fuck me, yeah, that too — but… I miss her.
Playoff season doesn’t care what you want or miss. It means away games. And away games mean time away from her. Time away from home. And somehow she’s become home.
In the middle of fake press releases, media training, and trying to keep my team from losing their minds during the most important stretch of the season, I found a woman who feels like home.
I wanted to drag her with me to Seattle and Ohio. Selfish as hell, I almost did. But she’s got her hands full. The fashion show’s eating her time, and the show coordinator is bringing high-level people to her atelier this week, so she had to stay in Miami.
It took everything in me not to book her a ticket and chain her to my hotel bed.
We landed late last night. I came home to find her knocked out cold in my bed, curled under the covers. My flight-wrecked body didn’t care. All I wanted was to wake her, tear the blanket off, and fuck her until neither of us remembered what city I’d just flown in from.
But I didn’t. I let her sleep. Half of me is proud of it; the other half regrets it.
Now I’m walking through the Blazers’ facility on maybe four hours of sleep, stomach tight, nerves shot to hell, trying to keep my shit together for the meeting I’m heading to.
I know in my gut, this is the one. The make-it-or-break-it meeting. The youth foundation. The Blazers’ community expansion initiative. If today doesn’t go right, if the board doesn’t sign off on what we’re proposing, it’s over.
A large, heavy hand lands on my upper trap and starts massaging the muscle, taking me out of my head for a second.
Jace. He showed up at my house uninvited at 7 AM sharp, fully dressed, fully wired, holding two coffees and a list of affirmations on his phone.
“I am grounded. My feet are rooted in the earth,” Jace chants behind me, one hand squeezing my shoulder like I’m about to birth a child.
“Jace,”
