ChapterEleven
“Wake up.”
The sound reached my ears in a caress and filled me from head to toe. For the past two years, the only thing that had woken me up in the morning had been my alarm clock.
But my alarm clock had never sounded so…nice before. So rough and sexy and…
My eyes opened and two green ones stared down at me through swollen lids. Lips that were probably drawn by a very skilled artist parted and moved.
“Rise and shine.”
That sound gathered into a ball of flames in my stomach. I smiled, welcoming the heat.
Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up like this every single day? With those eyes looking down at me, and those lips, and that sound coming out of…
Dominic Dane.
I sat up with a jolt, my heart tripping all over itself. Silk all around me—and a giant of a man sitting right next to me, wearing an old baggy shirt that did nothing to hide the bulging muscles of his biceps. Biceps that were attached to huge arms and wide shoulders, topped with a thick neck and a head with possibly the most striking face I’d ever seen. His eyes were almost swollen completely shut, and his black hair was all over the place. His lips were even redder than usual, like he’d just rolled out of bed.
He hadn’t rolled out of bed, in fact. He was still sitting there with me.
“What time is it?” I blurted, pulling the covers off me and jumping off the bed like my ass was on fire.
Alarm bells rang in my head. Too much hotness. It fried my braincells, just like Eva said, and I couldn’t think without braincells. I needed water. No, I needed—
“Almost noon. The crew will be here any second. Get dressed,” Dominic said with that hoarse voice of his that had my lady parts tingling because—like Eva said—fried braincells.
“Chocolate,” I breathed. “I need chocolate.”
He’d just stood up from the bed, his back turned to me, when he froze. He turned, swollen eyes squinted almost completely closed.
“What?”
“Focus, Dominic! I need chocolate.” How many times would I need to say it for him to understand?
Shaking his head, he strode over to the open door and walked out of the room.
The panic finally settled on my chest, taking my breath away. Had he slept in that bed, right next to me? Had I snored in my sleep? Worse yet—had I touched him?
I hadn’t heard anything. I must have fallen asleep before he came in the room because I didn’t remember him even opening the door. Or turning off the lights. Or turning on the bedside lamps.
But seconds later, when he came back, I was still alive by some miracle. He threw a bar at me—full of yummy chocolate, and I ripped the wrapper so fast, it might have been funny if I wasn’t so desperate. I bit into the chocolate and moaned. So good. So sweet. So calming.
With a sigh, I sat on the edge of the bed again to gather myself. It was okay. My mouth was full of chocolate. There were no more invisible flames anywhere on my body. I was fully functional for the moment.
And when I turned to look behind me, I thought Dominic wouldn’t be there. He’d been so perfectly silent, watching me, I had no chance of hearing a thing. But he was still there, wearing that shirt and some grey sweatpants that had probably been black once. They looked baggy on him, too, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t pull it off. Runway worthy, my mind concluded.
“What?” I asked, biting the last of the chocolate.
He still stared at me like I was a three-headed monster, and when his eyes fell on his shirt hanging on my shoulders, he shook his head and closed his eyes. “Get dressed. They’ll be here in five.” And he strode to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
“I love you,” I whispered to the empty bar wrapper in my hand. My stomach wasn’t nearly as full as I liked it to be, but it was full enough for the moment. I pulled off the shirt and the pajama bottoms when the water of the shower turned on in the bathroom.
And I listened to it while I got dressed.
Hot water
Dominic Dane.