Fighting for Control (Dominion Book 2), page 1
FIGHTING FOR CONTROL
A LESBIAN ROMANCE
DOMINION
BOOK TWO
J.J. ARIAS
Copyright © 2023 by J.J. Arias
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
By JJ Arias
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Epilogue
Ready for more DOMINION?
About the Author
BY JJ ARIAS
Dominion Series
Losing Control
Fighting for Control
Relinquishing Control
Standalone Contemporary Lesbian Romance
The Single Matchmaker
Objecting to Her
Undercover Madam
Whipped
Body Check
Crossing the Line
Guava Flavored Lies
Destination You
The Love Conspiracy
For Love or Scandal
Other Contemporary Lesbian Romance Series
Goode Girl Series
Paranormal Lesbian Romance Series
Dusk Queen Series
YA Fantasy
Magic Unseen
For my wife. Always.
CHAPTER 1
Lola gripped the steering wheel of her BMW with both hands and glared at the red streetlight at the corner of her Downtown Miami high rise building. With all of her energy, she willed the damn thing to turn green.
The coffee in the holder next to her was getting colder by the second. Of all days for the drink warmer that plugged into the car’s USB port to crap out.
Lola was drafting the one-star review in her head. She’d be sure to warn people to buy a backup if arriving at their destination with hot coffee was important enough to buy the freaking thing in the first place. If only she could give zero stars.
It was still early, she told herself while taking a deep breath. With the sunrise only just starting to turn the sky pink behind the glass skyscrapers, she could go to a different coffee shop. It wouldn’t be her favorite, but it was better than a sub-optimal offering. If only Natalia didn’t have the uncanny ability to detect when something had been popped into the microwave. Even for a second.
Attention darting between the cup with Natalia written in black sharpie and the red light determined to vex her, Lola was confronted with a sickening sight. Nostrils flaring, she narrowed her gaze. It was the last thing she needed on a day that was already less than smooth.
Across the busy intersection, just behind the city bus dipping down to let passengers off near the garage entrance to her building, a familiar white Audi SUV sat waiting to turn into the garage. Heat crept over the back of her neck, nudging awake her hackles.
“Come on,” Lola muttered like an ancient witch whispering an incantation over a simmering cauldron, but the light refused to turn green.
How long could a single light take? She’d been there at least five minutes; she was sure of that. Lola leaned forward as if that might make her presence known to the traffic light.
Maybe the light was broken. If it was broken, she could dart across the street when there was a break in traffic, right? That was a rule somewhere. It had to be. What were people expected to do? Sit at broken lights? The city couldn’t ticket her for that. It was their own light they’d been derelict in keeping in good working order.
Hydraulics hissed on the other side of the street. Lola could feel them rushing over her skin as the bus rose to its regular height after the last person stepped off. As the bus started to pull away from the curb, Lola clenched the steering wheel harder, ready to go off like a transatlantic missile.
She could not let Carmen and her stupid wide-ass SUV get ahead of her. She’d know Lola was in a hurry. She’d crawl up to her floor, hogging the entire lane in the tight parking garage so Lola couldn’t get around her car. Driving so slowly it would make anyone insane, Carmen would intentionally block Lola’s path to make her late. She’d done it before, and Lola wasn’t going to let her do it again.
The moment the light turned mercifully green, Lola slammed her high-heeled foot on the gas. She was going to get in that garage before Carmen if it killed her.
Neither her tires screeching, the stink of burning rubber, nor the pedestrian screaming a curse at her in Spanish made Lola hesitate. Like she’d been driving Formula One her entire life, she prepared to brake hard and make a left into the garage before the bus blocked her in and handed the undeserved win to Carmen.
But the bus driver didn’t slow when he saw her coming. If the white in his hair was any indication, he’d been battling Miami drivers — universally considered the worst and most aggressive in the country — longer than Lola had been alive.
Behind his enormous glass windshield, he looked Lola dead in the eye like a 1950s gangster swinging a chain and telepathically asked if she wanted to dance.
He wasn’t going to stop, she realized when the huge blue bus barreled toward her, picking up steam faster than should be possible for such a lumbering beast. Necessity forced her to wait for the bus to pass, but only for a second.
Carmen was a fraction too slow, giving Lola the space she needed to cut-in between the back of the bus and the front of the Audi. Focused on exploiting the gap, Lola bit her bottom lip, looked through the crosshairs, and squeezed the trigger.
The shrill cry of Carmen laying on her horn echoed in Lola’s car when she turned the wheel and crossed the lane. Pulse pounding, she squeezed into the shade of the garage first.
She laughed, ready to wave the international flag of victory — a middle finger through the rearview — when Julio, the maintenance guy, was suddenly in front of her car.
Slamming on her brakes to avoid hitting the man crossing the entrance while pushing a garbage bin on casters. Everything around Lola moved in slow motion.
“Fuck!” The sound of her shout banged against her own eardrums as she lurched forward, seatbelt biting into her throat.
Like confetti exploding out of a cannon, paper from the trash littered the sky as Julio pushed the bin into the front of Lola’s car and dove backward and out of her way.
Next to her, Natalia’s lovingly crafted Ristretto launched from the carrier and spun through the air before landing all over her white leather interior. Behind her, the horrific yawn of metal crunching echoed in her chest.
CHAPTER 2
Carmen looked up from her phone where she’d been responding to a client’s email when a black BMW — always shiny like it had just been detailed — glittered in the pale sunlight as it darted across the intersection toward her. She wouldn’t have noticed it if it hadn’t been for the flurry of honks from other cars. The start of her day had been calm, but Lola shattered it like a screaming meteor burning up in the atmosphere, prepared to obliterate life where it landed.
Gripping her steering wheel, all sense fled as the BMW neared. She knew without a shred of unreasonable doubt that Lola was trying to beat her into the garage. Everything was a competition with her. A battle for supremacy.
If Carmen had given herself time to think about it, she would have let her go first, then mocked her for being so desperate to beat her at something that she broke several traffic laws for the empty victory. But Carmen didn’t have any reflection time. She was all reaction and instinct.
“Fuck no you don’t,” Carmen said through gritted teeth, stepping on the gas at the same time that she punched the horn with her palm.
The rest happened in a flash. Julio out of the corner of her eye. The brake lights on Lola’s sedan a fraction of a second before the rear jerked up. A nanosecond before Carmen jammed on her own brakes with both feet.
But a nano
Rage was a high-pitched battle cry warming her blood. Alive with adrenaline, Carmen all but kicked her driver’s side door open. Fingers trembling and itching for a fight, she struggled to unfasten her seatbelt, pushing the release latch three times before it finally let her go.
On wobbly legs, Carmen regretted having worn heels instead of flats, but she would have stomped out of her car even if she were on stilts. She wasn’t about to show Lola, that reckless lunatic, an ounce of weakness.
In her periphery, she could see that the sleek black BMW was now wedged into the front of her Audi. The damage was nothing compared to the huge dent she probably had in her passenger side door.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Carmen shouted, slamming her door closed before storming to Lola’s car.
Lola, in her overpriced suit, was getting out, already screaming as if she wasn’t completely at fault. She always had the uncanny ability to blame other people for her mistakes.
Stomping toward her, Lola’s small frame vibrated with misplaced anger. In the shade of the garage, her big brown eyes were darker than usual, matte black instead of a deep glossy burnt umber.
“What the actual fuck were you thinking?” Lola shouted back, indignation a flush on her tanned cheeks.
“Me?” Carmen laughed, charging toward Lola and unsure what she’d do when she reached her. “I’m not the one playing Fast and Furious trying to kill people!” She pushed past her, forcing her attention onto Julio and ignoring the force of nature thundering at her side.
In Spanish, Carmen asked the shaken-up Julio whether he was hurt. Apart from looking terrified, he said nothing happened. Even the trash can was physically unscathed.
To her shock, Lola broke out of her selfish, entitled bubble long enough to apologize to Julio. Carmen would have almost guessed she was actually concerned if she didn’t know better. Lola only cared about herself. Her faux worry was more likely a product of her not wanting to get sued.
When Julio promised he was okay and retreated to the maintenance office before Lola could assault him again, Carmen turned her ire back on Lola.
“I hope whatever the hell you were doing was worth it.” Carmen heard her mother in her tone. “All the damage you caused—”
Lola’s unexpected laugh was an icepick in her ear. She flung an arm dramatically at the crash she’d caused. “You’re the one eating my ass!”
Carmen’s eyes widened at the same moment that Lola heard what she’d said. Guessing that they’d both had the same memory flash in their minds, Lola’s throat flushed dark with heat.
“Slamming into my car’s trunk shows that you’re completely at fault,” Lola said, choosing her words more carefully. Less reminiscent of a December night six months ago.
At the use of legal terms, Carmen slipped into lawyer mode. “That would be true,” she agreed, forcing together a calmer exterior. “If you hadn’t cut me off and then come to a screeching halt, thereby acting as the proximate and singular cause of the accident.” She pointed at the undeniable black tire marks the BMW had burned into the smooth cement. “And there is a camera on every corner,” she pointed at the intersection, “what do you think they captured?”
Lola wore her every thought, every emotion, on her face. Her full lips, still unpainted that morning, half disappeared into an irate line. Her eyes, already large and expressive, grew larger. The fear reflected in them made Carmen soften, but only for a moment, only until Lola opened her mouth again.
Because Lola could never help herself. Never make anything easy. She crossed her arms over her chest and doubled down. “If you won’t take accountability—”
“You’re the one who cut me off!” Carmen leaned in, invading her space, exploiting the few inches she had over her while wearing heels — they were both roughly the same height in bare feet.
Lola’s glare darkened, her jaw clenching. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she shot back, tone dripping with sarcasm. “I should have just let you slither in first, like you always do.”
Close enough to smell Lola’s perfume, the sweet earthy scent transporting Carmen to her biggest mistake, her body forgot how it was supposed to react. Forgot about how infinitely frustrating Lola was and remembered the sensation of her hands on her body. Her touch had been as determined and unrelenting as the woman herself.
Looking back at her, Lola’s face was a slipping mask. Heart thumping in her throat and heat racing over her skin, Carmen almost anticipated an apology. A moment of something other than antagonistic insults before a new presence created a ripple around them.
Standing next to the gunmetal Rolls-Royce, Sky Bamford was clutching her white fennec fox to her chest. Sleeping in her arms, the little thing that could be mistaken for a chihuahua if its ears weren’t bigger than its body, was a strange sight. No stranger than Bamford herself, who was dressed in monochrome blush pink from head to toe with her wispy white hair shaped like a swirl of cotton candy. Oh, to be so rich and powerful that appearances didn’t matter.
“What’s happened here?” Bamford’s question was aimed at both of them, her dull brown eyes shifting between them.
“She—” Lola started.
Carmen didn’t let her finish. By the tone alone, she could tell that Lola was about to throw her under the bus, even though she was the one that nearly threw herself in front of it.
“She threw herself in front of me and almost killed Julio in the process,” Carmen said calmly, knowing that the more she pretended to keep her cool, the quicker Lola would lose hers. She was so easy to play, it was almost criminal to do it.
“She obviously saw me making a legal turn into the garage,” Lola cut in. Her calm was still an earthquake threatening to blow ash and magma straight into the sky and blot out the sun. “She hit me on purpose—”
“Why the hell would I do that?” Carmen roared at the insanity of the accusation, turning away from Bamford, Lola taking up her entire field of vision.
“Because you’re obsessed with me,” Lola replied, shine returning to her eyes along with the sparks of fire.
Pulse stomping to a high-energy dance song, Carmen lost control of herself. “You’re completely delusional. Only you could cause a car accident and blame anyone but yourself—”
“You could have waited,” she repeated, jaw tight and aura around her singing, “but you’re always trying to fuck—”
“Enough,” Bamford said, voice soft, as if she’d never had to do more than whisper to command a room. “I’ve made my decision.”
Carmen and Lola turned to the woman in unison. Without knowing she was arguing before a judge, Carmen hadn’t been able to craft an appropriate case. At her side, Lola was keeping her body still, but inside she was a can of soda that had been shaken up with one of those machines that combine paint.
“You will complete an anger management course,” she said, her fox still sleeping in her arms and blissfully unaware of the surrounding chaos. “It is apparent that both of you could stand to learn how to communicate without screeching.”
Lola stepped forward, carbonation pushing at the seal, keeping the building energy contained. “Ms. Bamford, what do you mean by—”
