Chapter 24

Aurora POV

The kiss changes everything.

One moment I’m standing in a quiet park with the man I was supposed to blackmail back trying to protect my own and the next I’m falling into him, letting his hands slide down my sides, gripping onto his jacket like it’s the only thing anchoring me to the earth.

I should stop this. I know I should.

But the second his mouth moves to my neck and his breath is hot against my skin, reason slips further and further away.

There’s no softness to any of this, no pretense of romance. Just desperate urgency and that maddening electricity that’s always buzzed between us ever since we first met back at that damn club, building toward this moment like pressure behind a dam finally cracking open.

I gasp when his hands dip under my shirt, a trail of fire following the pattern he traces up to where my bra strap is. He pauses just long enough for me to push him away if I wanted to but I don’t. Instead, I tug him closer.

He groans, low and wrecked, barely holding himself together as he lifts me up from my feet.

The grass beneath us is cool and damp when we finally tumble down on top of it, the sky above scattered with stars, but none of that matters. All I can feel is his weight on top of me, the scent of his cologne that has driven me wild, the way his mouth claims mine again as we lose ourselves in another kiss.

Our clothes are messily shoved aside, moving together as we rut into each other. I grab at the shirt hidden beneath his jacket and hold on when my legs are kneed apart, the head of his cock brushing against my aching hole as he fits himself there.

There’s nothing tender about this, or the way he finally shoves inside of me, making me see stars.

It’s a collision. It’s a war. I hate how much I want it all.

He moves inside me, his cock thrusting hard with each roll of his hips, slamming over and over until I’m nothing but breathy moans and his name tingling the tip of my tongue. He pants against my neck, one of his hands sneaking down to grab at my waist to pin me against the grass.

My orgasm slams into me before I can feel it building—it takes over, stealing the air from my lungs and making everything short circuit as I ride it through, Dominic’s thrusts not letting up for a single second while he continues to pound into me.

It’s only when he pulls out of me and spills over my stomach that I finally can pull a single breath in. He coats me in his seed, pumping his hand over his wet cock while marking me, branding me like he owns me.

It takes me a while to realize I’m shaking. Not from the cold of the grass beneath me or from fear of him finding out my plans to blackmail him but from something else entirely.

I feel cracked open. Exposed and raw in a way I’ve never felt before in my life.

And worst of all I don’t regret it.

I sit up, tugging my clothes back into place when he leans back, but it does nothing to fix how tangled up I feel inside. Gianna’s face flashes in my mind along with our plans.

I know there’s something wrong with me because now I don’t know if I can go through with it. How do you ruin a man you just let have the most vulnerable pieces of you? How do you blackmail someone you crave even while knowing he might be the end of you?

We stay in that park longer than we should, long enough for the stars to shift in the sky and for the chill to finally sink into my bones and remind me I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be. That if my father were to ever find out, he’d kill me.

Dominic rises to his feet after tucking his clothes back into place, holding out a hand for me to take once I have myself mostly situated too. His cum still stains my skin, coating me in a sticky layer I don’t at all mind.

Maybe it’s that same sick part of my brain that allowed me to let him touch me in the first place that likes it, likes that he marked me like a dog pissing on a tree.

He brings me back to the car and helps me into the passenger seat before sealing me inside, getting in on his and behind the wheel before pulling out of the park’s parking lot and heading back for my family’s estate.

The drive back is quiet again but it’s a different kind of silence than the first time. Less strained. Just… heavy.

It isn’t until he pulls back up to the gate I snuck out of and parks his car again that he says, “I’ll be in touch soon. Keep your phone on you.”

I glance at him. “Okay.”

He watches me for a long moment before saying, “Have a good night, Aurora.

I slip out of his car and through the gate again, heading back to the side door I’d come from and then safely sealing myself inside my gilded cage once more. Inside, everything feels colder despite the chill from outside being chased from my limbs.

The second I get up to my room, I collapse back against the door.

I slept with him. Again.

The plan I’ve been painstakingly putting together now feels like it’s slipping through my fingers. All because my stupid heart can’t seem to get with the memo—that Dominic is supposed to be off-limits.

The truth is that I don’t know if I can go through with blackmailing him anymore. I don’t know if there’s an ounce of good in him, or if I’m just seeing things that aren’t really there, but no matter how hard I try to tell myself, it doesn’t seem like any of that matters.

I know if I don’t do this, Gianna and her father may be at risk. Actually, I know they will be if my hunch about Dominic’s plan is correct.

All I know is that this, whatever is going on between Dominic and I, is going to ruin one of us.

I just have no idea which one it'll be.

Dominic POV

He hadn’t meant to sleep with her again but when it happened, when her mouth was crushed against his he hadn’t stopped it.

Couldn’t.

Something in her always lit a fuse inside him. She made him forget the rules, the mission. Even the consequences that would follow if he allowed himself to keep becoming distracted. Romero was right in a way, pegging down the issue that was so obviously plaguing him.

Yet Dominic had no intention of fixing it. Of alleviating himself from the burden that was to befall him if he allowed this to continue. He wasn’t sure why he’d admitted any of it to Aurora in the first place, let alone allowed her to see a vulnerable side no one else in the world was privy to.

Not even Romero.

It had felt right at the time to share the weight of the world with her. She’d accepted it without so much as batting an eye.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that—shame, regret, frustration? All at himself for losing control for a second time when it came to her.

The more time he spent with Aurora, the more he found himself thinking about her when he shouldn’t, wondering what she was up to or whether she was still awake. If she was thinking about him, too

It was dangerous, this fondness. Creeping into the spaces where cold calculation used to be. Maybe that was why Romero kept warning him to stay away from her. Because he knew Dominic better than he knew himself what Aurora was turning into for him: a weakness.

The elevator dinged as soon as it reached the top floor, pausing only a moment before the doors parted for him. Stepping out into the hallway, Dominic made his way to his door, pulling out his card to swipe against the keypad next to the handle.

It was late in the evening, meaning the penthouse would be vacant, giving him the blissful alone time he desperately needed. As soon as the door swung shut behind him, he toed off his shoes and headed for his study, intent on finishing off that bottle of whiskey he’d neglected before leaving.

The last thing he expected to see when stepping into his study was someone perched on the edge of his desk, a tumbler filled with amber liquid clutched in their hand.

Dominic paused in the doorway. “Theo.”

He looked nervous despite lifting the glass to his lips. There was a subtle shake to his hand, to the glass as it touched his mouth and a few drops of the amber liquid disappeared past it.

When he finally rested the glass back down onto his knee, he said, “We need to talk.”

Funny for someone like him to be demanding things. Especially in his position. “About?”

“Aurora.”

Dominic raised a single brow in response.

“I know you’re sleeping with her.” His throat bobbed as soon as the accusation left his mouth. “Behind your father’s back.”

“Is there a point to this?” He replied, already growing bored.

Theo stiffened the moment Dominic stepped into the room, his eyes pinned tightly on him as he crossed over to his desk, slipping his own glass off of the wet bar and pouring himself a drink. The liquor stung going down, warming his belly once it settled.

“You tell me.” Theo continued “Are you planning to use her against Leonardo?”

He let out a soft snort. How ridiculous. To be accused of this now of all times when they were finally at the finish line. “You think I need to sleep with someone in order to use them?”

“I think,” Theo says carefully, “that you’re going to use her against Leonardo. Seduce the bride, knock her up, then parade her around with your heir in her arms like some fucking one-up.”

That stopped Dominic in his tracks.