She sobs, crying out, her reaction honest and open. We were always fully honest in bed.
Too bad we couldn’t be honest out of it.
The thought slides into my mind like a cold knife. Gritting my teeth
, I banish it as I chase her orgasm and mine.
She arches her back, her inner muscles starting to spasm. I know she’s at the precipice, and I thrust even harder.
She throws her head back and screams, her nails digging into me. I keep driving into her, letting her ride the orgasm, then pull out at the last second and spurt all over her belly, my whole body tight and shaking.
I collapse, shifting so I land heavily next to her, waiting for my breathing to even out. I wanted to lose myself inside her. Instead, it feels like I found myself.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Elizabeth
“You need more sleep.”
My step falters. The way Dominic speaks, the words he says, remind me of the way Tolyan usually nags at me to take better care of myself. Shaking my head inwardly, I resume my way to the table set up by the room service staff in the living room. In a fluffy white robe, his hair damp from a shower, Dominic comes inside from the balcony. My hair’s still wrapped in a towel, my body nude under my own robe.
He pulls out a chair, and I sit, arranging the robe and placing a stiff white cloth napkin on my lap. He takes the seat across the table, which is laden with breakfast staples—bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes and toasted egg bagels with cream cheese. I look inside the silver bowl and smile a little when I see the cheese is whipped.
He remembered.
I pour him a cup of coffee, black and strong. “I slept well enough,” I say, pushing the cup his way, then serve myself.
“You still have dark circles.”
“Which you’re supposed to pretend not to see. You were doing a good job of that, too.”
“I didn’t notice them earlier.” He frowns.
“Makeup. It does wonders if you know what you’re doing.” L.A. has tons of artists, and I made a point of mastering all the techniques to disguise fatigue and blemishes. I can be sickly and pale, but with a few layers of foundation, concealer, blush and contouring, I can project an image of vibrant, glowing health.
“Better just to get more sleep,” he says.
“I got plenty. It’s rare for me to nap and get over seven hours of sleep later the same day.”
Usually, when I’m stressed or worried, I’m up for a day or two before I can crash. I don’t use sleeping pills or see a therapist for the problem. Pills are temporary and can become addictive, and I can’t see myself opening up to a stranger, even one sworn to secrecy. There’s no such thing as a secret that stays a secret forever. The greater the number of people who know, the faster it’s going to come out.
I reach for half a bagel and spread a generous helping of the cream cheese on it, all the while waiting for him to ask about last night. The vodka’s gone, along with the corkscrew, but surely he has questions.
But he doesn’t say a word, quietly eating his eggs and bacon. The lack of probing bothers me more than an inquisition would.
I put down the half-nibbled bagel and take a strip of crisp bacon from his plate with my fingers. “The hotel probably won’t give me a separate room tonight, either,” I say to fill in the silence and to give him the opening he’s probably been looking for.
A dark brow rises. “Oh?”
“Ming Ming’s behind this. She’s notoriously meddlesome when she decides she wants to be ‘helpful.’ She’s been trying to set me up with men since I was sixteen.”
“Ming Ming?” Outrage, disbelief and something else I can’t quite catch fleet over him. “This is going too far, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but she won’t see it that way. She’s helping.”
“Doesn’t she know you and Nate are—” Abruptly, he clicks his mouth shut.
“We’re just friends. Very close ones…but that’s all.”