The Scandal You Started, page 18
Dominic
She’d left him. Rayna had fucking left him to go meet someone.
She’d informed him of these plans the previous night but had answered his questions of who and where and why so bloody vaguely before shutting him out of her room the way she had done for the past week.
In fact, Rayna had been shutting him out in every way possible. All because he’d asked her to admit how she truly felt towards him.
But Dominic had done his utmost best to be patient with her, knowing her concern for the consequences was entirely reasonable. He’d still approached her, still tried to help her in every way he was able to. And he didn’t stop showering her with his affection, no matter how many stinging cuts her rejections wounded him with.
He hadn’t forgotten about Jake, but his anger with the young man’s appearance was a whisper in comparison to the fear of losing Rayna entirely.
Except when she’d announced that she was going to see a nameless friend, that fury had risen again, his blood spitting balls of fire, even as his hands shook, and his heart sweated in panic.
Dominic wasn’t a clueless idiot. She might not have told him who she was meeting, but he found it rather suspicious that so soon after bumping into Jake, Rayna suddenly had an evening planned that she hadn’t ever mentioned before.
And that betrayal was a smallsword to the gut.
He’d intended to confront her before she left that evening, but the moment there’d been a knock at the front door, she’d shot down the stairs, allowed River in, and disappeared out of the farmhouse with not a single glance taken backwards.
All Dominic saw of her was the black fabric of her shorts before the edges of his vision clouded with red, agonising rage, jealousy, and hurt.
Had River not held him away from the door, desperately spouting words of reason, Dominic would have charged out after her and hauled her back inside.
He would have locked Rayna in her room. Forbidden her from setting foot outside. He would rather have fought with her until they’d blown the house down, begged her to stay with him, than have been forced to helplessly listen to the sound of her car tires against the gravel path as she drove away.
Away from him and towards Jake.
And he’d been powerless. In a new place, with no idea how to get around, with no ability to get to her, he’d felt painfully, pathetically unable to do anything to change the fate he was facing. The only other time he’d felt thus was upon the sudden death of his father, knowing there was nothing he could do other than remain by the late marquess’s side until his last breath.
Dominic had wanted to go on a blind rampage of violence in the moments that followed. He’d wanted to shred River to pieces for having stopped him from stopping Rayna. Only after somehow managing to walk away had Dominic accepted that River wasn’t at fault.
But his agitation didn’t settle, didn’t loosen its grip on his heart at any point during the evening. He barely had a few forkfuls of the dinner River made, couldn’t focus on the show River tried to get him to watch. His eyes kept going to every clock—his mobile’s one, the one above the oven door, the ticking face in the sitting room—counting the seconds that passed. All he did was wonder where Rayna was, what she was doing with Jake, and when she’d return.
Until finally, River came into the kitchen some time after the clocks struck eleven while Dominic was drinking a glass of cold water at the sink and said, “Rayna messaged to let me know she’s on her way back.”
Dominic’s grip tightened around the cup before he threw a glance over his shoulder. “How long will she be?”
River gave an awkward shrug. “Ten, fifteen minutes.” He opened his mouth again, but only a puff of air came out. Seeming to think better of it, he clapped his lips together and shifted on his feet. “Do you…do you want to watch another episode? Maybe cool off a bit before she…”
Rather than staring mindlessly at a screen until Rayna arrived, Dominic paced. And paced. And paced. Sitting when he was strung up so high just wasn’t an option.
Then a knock sounded at the door.
He went as still and as solid as a hot rock, his muscles heavy but vibrating with the hundred-degree heat that coated his skin.
Through the open archway of the kitchen-diner, he watched River slip out of the sitting room into the corridor. After a hesitant glance at Dominic, the man opened the door.
Rayna stepped through the threshold of the farmhouse, lugging a small grey trunk on wheels with her, faintly smiling at River as she greeted him. He closed the door, and they exchanged a few words, but Dominic could barely hear anything over the raw, visceral sound that ripped through every inch of him as he finally got a real look at her.
How completely devastating she looked.
So scantily dressed that she might as well have been naked.
That wasn’t what she’d left wearing. Which meant she’d changed at some point.
She went to see Jake looking like that. She dressed up for him.
Abandoning the trunk by the sitting room wall, Rayna finally looked down the corridor, and her charcoal gaze, so shielded and glassy, almost had him howling his woes there and then.
How could you, sweetheart? Why…
Dominic clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached and dug his blunt nails into his palms as she came silently down the corridor towards him. Each step was a stomp on his heart.
The non-existent skirt of the cream dress patterned with small blue flowers skimmed so high up on her supple, golden thighs that if she’d bent forward, her entire fucking derriere would have been on display for every man to lust over. For Jake to lust over.
The thin fabric gently hugged the curve of her hips, the softness of her belly, the dip in her waist before…before…fuck, it barely even covered her generous chest!
Cut in a sharp V, the fabric was tied in a flimsy bow between the valley of her breasts with a small, exposed triangle of skin underneath. A slight ruffle went up either side of the neckline and formed the barely there sleeves that sat on the bones of her shoulders.
There was a delicate gold chain around her neck, a thin sheen on her warm skin, the soft rumples of a long night on the waves of her hair, a pink rouge on her cheeks, and black paint coating her long lashes, giving them their signature, seductive flutter with every blink.
All. For. Jake.
Rayna slipped the small cream bag dangling on the tip of her fingers off onto the sofa by the archway upon walking through it. She stopped at the edge of the rug, less than two metres from him, and kept a hold of his burning stare as River came up beside her.
Only then did she look at the other man again. “How was your evening?” she asked calmly, but there was a slight roughness to her tone.
“Yeah, it was—it was fine. Good.” River let out an awkward, unconvincing chuckle as he ruffled the back of his dark blond hair. “I made pasta, and we watched a few episodes of Born to Lie. That was pretty much it.”
She hummed and smiled. “Thanks for staying with him.”
Dominic ground his teeth together. He bloody hated the way he was being treated like a child who needed supervision. He was a powerful marquess with every member even remotely associated with the peerage knocking on his door and hundreds of people in his employ.
“No, it was no issue. And if you need to—” River immediately cut himself off, his wide grey eyes flicking to Dominic before dropping away. “Never mind.”
“It’s late,” she then said. “You should get home to Kelly before she starts messaging me that I’m overworking you.”
Rather than laughing at her joke, River cleared his throat. “Will…” He glanced between them. “Will you two be okay?”
“Yes,” Dominic bit out at the same time as Rayna said, “Yeah.”
“Okay.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “I’ll let myself out. See you.”
River nodded to Dominic with a tight-lipped smile as he picked up his car keys from the kitchen counter. He gently squeezed Rayna’s elbow as she greeted him before heading down the corridor.
The front door clicked shut, and the atmosphere around them suddenly grew ten times thicker and hotter. Neither of them moved or uttered a sound for several seconds.
“Why have you returned so late?” Dominic eventually heard himself say.
“It’s half past eleven,” she replied firmly. “It’s not that late.”
“You left at half past five, Rayna.”
“What’s your point? It’s not as if I left you by yourself while I was out. And I had stuff to get from my house, so that took time too.”
Scorching hot blood curled over the curves of his ears, making them sting. “Was it necessary to clothe yourself in the smallest scrap of fabric you could find?”
Her eyes flashed bright with anger. “What has that got to do with anything?”
His own wrath latched on to the fact she knew she was wearing little to no clothing, and he lurched towards her. “Because you dressed in this manner to see Jake!”
Silence. Ringing, harsh, and long.
Rayna swallowed, shifting slightly on her feet. “Did River tell you?”
He huffed a sardonic sound. “I’m not the fool you think I am. Neither did it take much effort to figure out. It is abundantly clear from the way you have behaved—from the way you are bloody dressed—that he is the ‘friend’ you met with.”
“There’s nothing wrong with what I’m wearing, Dominic.”
“You are naked, Rayna!”
“No, I’m not.” She jerked forward, squaring up to him. “This isn’t your fucking time. Don’t start imposing your ideas of clothing on me again.”
“I am not imposing anything, and you know that.” He jabbed a hand past her. “My complaint lies in the fact you wore next to nothing for him.”
“Stop acting like I’m in my bloody underwear. I’m wearing a dress. But I sure as fuck didn’t wear it for Jake.”
“Do you truly expect me to believe that?”
“I do, you fucking bastard, because that’s what I’m telling you!”
Her furious roar leapt off the four walls of the room before it went deadly quiet.
“I didn’t wear this dress for Jake,” she hissed. “I wore it because I wanted to, because I like it. Because I wanted to look and feel my best while I was out—”
“Why must you have looked your best in his company?”
“Because that’s normally how people want to feel when they go out with someone; it doesn’t matter who, you fucking asshole!”
Phantom echoes of their voices darted around as Dominic’s jaw and temple ticked, and Rayna’s chest lifted and fell with her rapid breaths.
“Why did you hide that it was him you were meeting?” he then growled.
“Don’t you think that’s pretty self-explanatory from the way you’re acting?”
“Well, how else am I to react?” He ducked his head. “I forbade you from seeing him, and yet you went behind my back and did so anyway.”
“You can’t forbid me from doing anything, Dominic.” She slammed her palms against his chest with the last irate syllable of his name, swaying him on the spot.
He caught her wrists in either hand, refusing to let her retreat as she tried to tug free. “Then why did you lie about it?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Yes, you did. You said you were to see a friend—”
“He is my friend.”
“No, he is not. He longs for you, and you went to see him knowing that. Why?” He tugged her hands towards his shoulders, forcing her to arch closer. “What were you hoping for?” His fingers tightened around her delicate skin. “Did you wish to continue where you had left off on your holiday?”
She kept twisting her wrists, the colour in her cheeks deepening past the pink rouge she already wore. “Is that really what you think?”
“That is what it seems to me, yes.” A pained smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Why else have you spent the last week rebuffing my affection if not to accept his instead?”
She shook her arms in frustration. “Maybe because I’m your Guardian and can’t fucking accept your affection! Did that occur to you, considering how many times I’ve said it?”
“Then why did you go see Jake? Was it to prove thus? That I cannot have you?”
“It’s not—”
“Or was it to kiss him again?” he snarled, the thought disgusting him. “Because I do not doubt that he has longed to taste your lips since that day at the supermarket. And with how you ran from the farmhouse today, I am not unconvinced that is what you wanted too.”
“If that was true, I wouldn’t be here right now, arguing with you. I’d be in his bed getting fucked by him.”
Her words sliced at his heart even though it was a theoretical situation. He released her from his grasp, slinking a step away. “Then why are you here?” he couldn’t help goading.
“Because the whole time I was with him, I was thinking about you, you stupid fucking bastard!”
Silence.
In fact, nothing at all.
Not a single tremor in his chest, no breath passed his lips, neither did his fingers give a twitch, and the ringing vanished from his ears as if it’d been a figment of his imagination the whole time.
Did she…just now…she said…
Rayna’s face crumpled. Not in sadness, or with tears or hurt. Maybe anger. But it seemed more like frustration.
The way her beautiful, blazing eyes crinkled, and a strain appeared on her brows, but her lips twisted up rather than down. It was a look of frustrated defeat. Of reluctant surrender. She looked tired, but it also seemed like if he stepped towards her, she would land a fist to his face.
Until it didn’t.
Because she let out a stifled sound, and then she was looking upon him with a determination that didn’t quite make sense as she swiftly closed the gap between them.
“And it’s all your bloody fault,” she rasped breathlessly.
Her hands shot out, and she grabbed two fistfuls of his T-shirt.
Then yanking him down, she crashed her lips right over his.
Chapter 23
Rayna
He was a bastard. The biggest fucking asshole.
Why did he have to push her and corner her and incite her into acting so unlike herself?
Why did he make her want him when she couldn’t fucking have him?
But Rayna couldn’t take it anymore. Something in her snapped when Dominic accused her of wanting Jake instead, as if she hadn’t had to suffer through her pulse panting Dominic’s stupid bloody name the whole drive back to the farmhouse.
Her body flicked the standby switch on in her brain, and she stopped thinking. She simply reacted to what she craved.
A taste of him.
Just one. Even if it was the only one she took. One. One taste. Just fucking one.
So she fisted his T-shirt, pulled him down as she pushed onto her toes, and her lips finally, finally, finally collided with his.
At first, Dominic remained frozen, but then he let out a sharp, shuddering sound and one arm went around her waist, cinching her flush against his hot, hard, broad body. He shoved a hand into the back of her hair, bending her backwards over his arm, as he moulded his wide mouth to hers with purpose.
And that initial collision came to life by a delayed second.
A dam exploded inside her, releasing all the desire and frustration of the past three weeks in one all-consuming tidal wave. She was pulled under, suffocating her lungs in the sensation of too much, but it was laced with a drug that made her feel so fucking high.
The base compound of said drug was Dominic. And he was dangerously addictive.
Reacting to his ownership of her kiss, Rayna slid one hand to his nape, the ends of his thick hair tickling her fingers as she dug her blunt nails into his skin and kissed him back just as greedily.
It wasn’t a finessed kiss of passion, but they weren’t trying to seduce each other. This was a kiss of raw need that was simply meant to quench a desperate thirst. But when Rayna opened her mouth, allowing Dominic to shove his tongue in, the warm, masculine taste of him with a hint of grapes only made that thirst grow.
Gasps and grunts and groans poured from them, louder and bolder. His hands scrunched her hair harder, and he weighed her back some more. She nipped at his lips, sucking on the softer bottom one with the hope it’d bruise. But just in case it didn’t, she clawed at his skin, grazing the back of his neck and up over his scalp. Every time his hand squeezed her waist, his rhythm growing faster and needier, her pussy gave another wet, painfully hollow throb.
Until Dominic was grinding his massive erection into the softness of her belly—or maybe the one moving was her, because Rayna couldn’t keep still. It was impossible.
She was liquid between her legs, and his pawing hands, the sounds he made, the warm taste and scent of him, the promise of his dick stretching her so good had her frantic for more.
More. More.
“More.”
She barely registered her own voice, and that alone should have been a wake-up call. She’d never been within the territory of lust where she completely lost herself.
But she didn’t want to go back just yet.
Dominic must’ve heard her, because his hand slid down from her hair and gripped the back of one of her bare thighs, hoisting her up effortlessly.
Their kiss momentarily broke as she wrapped her legs around his sturdy waist and looped her arm around his neck. She pulled his head back by the hair and swallowed the soft gasp he let out, claiming his mouth again like he held her last breath.
He moaned against her swirling tongue and walked them around towards the kitchen. When he reached where he wanted to take her, his grip loosened, and she slid down his body onto the kitchen counter. He might as well have slapped her down on it, because the cold granite lashed at the scorched skin on the back of her thighs with a million little whips.
She whimpered into his mouth at the shock of the sensation. He kept kissing her, smothering her, as he dragged her hips to the very edge of the counter, and buried the tent of his hard-on right against the molten puddle between her legs.
