Chapter 27

Aurora POV

I pace the small bathroom while I wait. Fix my lipstick, try not to hyperventilate, fail at doing both.

I know I messed up the plan. It was all supposed to be controlled, rehearsed, calculated just like we planned for.

But sitting there for another second longer was impossible. It was either run or vomit in his lap in front of everyone and risk the wrath of not only Leonardo but my father too for embarrassing him.

As much as I want to stick it to my father, I’m still in a precarious position with no way to protect myself. Even if Leonardo cared enough to stop my father from beating me at the table, none of that would matter once we were behind closed doors back at the Caruso family estate.

I wince at myself in the mirror.

Actually, that may still happen after running out like that…

Suddenly, the door is pushed open.

I jump at the sound of it, whirling around to face the entrance while backing up a little. The space is small and cramped, not meant for more than one person and especially not someone as tall and filled out as Dominic.

He swings the door shut behind him, flipping the lock.

It feels strange to be this close to him for the first time in days, trapped together in this cramped space.

He eyes me carefully, a frown tugging his lips down.

“Why did you run?” he asks.

The question stuns me. I’m surprised he cares, let alone enough to ask me. I figured the first thing out of his mouth would’ve been to interrogate me on why I texted him for this meeting.

When I swallow to try and summon the strength I’d practiced, the speech I’d rehearsed over and over again with Gianna, in order to blackmail him, my tongue ties. All I can remember is the way Leonardo’s voice crawled into my ear as he whispered his plan.

My entire body trembles at the memory.

“I can’t…” I choke, eyes burning. “I couldn’t let him touch me. I couldn’t listen to another filthy word out of his mouth.”

Dominic’s jaw tightens. “What did he say to you?”

The words are hard to form, even hard to push them past my lips. “That he was going to get me pregnant. On our wedding night. He… he sounded like he was counting down the seconds until he owns me from the inside out.”

The tears break through.

Damn it.

I didn’t want to cry. Not in front of Dominic of all people. I’m supposed to be threatening him, not opening myself up and begging for a shoulder to cry on.

But it’s all too much—the dinner, the plan, the pressure of the upcoming wedding, the constant performance of being a good little housewife-to-be.

I’m crumbling from the inside out, the cracks in my resolve splintering and breaking off into fractured pieces I can’t possibly fix in time. My hands come up to cover my face as I sob into them, not being able to hold my tears back any longer.

I feel Dominic move before I see it. His hands are on me a second later, gripping my shoulders firmly.

“That’s not going to happen,” he says. “He’s not going to touch you, Aurora.”

“How can you even promise that?” I ask, my voice breaking.

“Because I won’t let him.” He answers.

Something in me snaps. All the confusion, the desire, the frustration, the rage—it explodes like a powder keg.

I surge forward and kiss him.

Hard.

It’s messy and needy, nothing like the last time in the park.

He groans against my mouth, moving me around until I’m pressed back against the sink. His hands slide down to my waist to cup my ass, my dress bunching under his fingers when he flexes them around my cheek. I claw at his suit jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, needing him closer to feel the heat of him against me.

He lifts me onto the sink’s counter in one fluid motion, knocking over a bottle of soap on the edge of it. It clatters to the floor by his feet, neither of us care.

I moan into his mouth as his hands slide up my thighs, pushing the fabric aside in order to get at my panties that are growing more soaked by the second.

We should stop before this gets out of hand. Neither of us do, though.

We can’t.

When he finally sinks into me, it’s like the world stops spinning. My head drops back against the mirror, my fingers gripping his biceps and letting him anchor me like he’s the only thing keeping me from completely unraveling.

He moves inside me with long, deep strokes, marking me with his possession like he did back in the park. I revel in it, let it consume me until all I feel is him.

“Mine,” he mutters into my mouth, his breath ragged.

I don’t argue. I want him. I want to be his if only for this stolen moment.

My hands tangle in his hair, my legs wrap around his waist and when I fall over the edge, I take him with me.

After, the silence is almost deafening.

Dominic leans against the counter, arms braced on either side of me, his forehead just barely out of reach to rest against mine as we both struggle to regulate our breathing.

His lips are swollen, a dazed look in his eyes while he stares at me. I don’t feel the least bit sorry about any of it even though I hadn’t called him here for this.

He pulls back slightly to look at me. For a second, I see it, the flicker of softness in his eyes, the ghost of something unspoken. But it vanishes too fast for me to memorize.

“We should get back,” I say.

He nods once, pulling out of me. Cum spills from between my legs, dipping down to the floor by his feet. For some reason, feeling him fill me had been more erotic than him coming on my stomach. He’d claimed me in a deeper way, in one I hoped his father never would.

Snagging a paper towel from the rack next to my head, he cleans me up before helping me down from the counter.

This is the first time he’s shown such care for me.

What’s gotten into him?