Page 106 of Dirty Hit
I huff a wet laugh, sniffing once. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re loud when you’re getting fucked,” he says mildly.
“Dominic.” My face flames. “Shut up. I swear to God.”
He laughs, low and warm against my ear. “There’s my brat again,” he murmurs. “You’re feeling better if you can threaten me.”
“I’m threatening your dick, specifically,” I say. “If I ever see those fucking bars again, I’m calling OSHA.”
He throws his head back and laughs for real, the sound reverberating through his chest into my back.
I’m sore, I’m a mess, I’m probably going to walk funny for two days—and somehow, under all that, I’m stupidly, recklessly happy.
My Devil runs my bath and holds my pinky and calls me his, and I grip the edge of the porcelain and let myself want that for a little while without apologising for it.
Dominic
Thewrenchslipsinmy hand, and my knuckles crack against the edge of the engine block.
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath, jerking my hand back; a smear of grease and a thin line of red bloom across my skin. It stings, but it’s nothing. I’ve had worse from opening a beer bottle the wrong way. I wipe my hand absently on the rag tucked into the waistband of my sweats, and lean back against the Charger, staring into the open hood.
I heard a rattling noise when I turned off the ignition yesterday—a little stutter that only someone who knows this car like a second body would notice. I popped the hood and found the loose bracket ten minutes ago.
It should’ve only taken me five minutes to fix. I’ve now been standing here for half an hour, listening to the soft murmur of Brendon’s complaints at the dining table through the open door.
Jericho is here, too. He’s parked himself at the threshold between the kitchen and the driveway, like a tiny, furry sentry—tail flicking, yellow eyes moving from me to his human and back again, as if he is taking attendance.
This is day three of whatever the fuck this is.
Three days of this weirdly soft domestic bullshit I keep telling myself I don’t want, and then easily sink into anyway.
Three days of waking up with someone in my bed who isn’t a one-night distraction.
Three days of Brendon shuffling around my kitchen in socks, making coffee too strong for normal people, and grading papers at my dining table.
Three days of nothing but football, sex, studying, and that domestic bullshit I have no business liking as much as I do.
It’s starting to feel dangerous in a way I don’t usually allow myself to feel. Dangerous because I know exactly what moments to point to if I ever want to lie to myself about where this goes wrong.
It isn’t the sex; that part was always going to happen. From the second he walked into my cottage, saw me with blood on my hands, and still sat down at my table, I knew this ended with his mouth open under mine and my name ruined on his tongue. That was never the dangerous part.
The danger is this—the in-between.
I scrub at the bracket again, and tighten the bolt harder than necessary; metal clicks into place. The fix is done. I know it’s done. I still don’t lower the hood.
Because the second I stop pretending to work on the Charger, I have to deal with what’s been pacing circles in my head since two fucking nights ago.
“Love you, Beast.”
My grip on the wrench tightens.
He said it half-asleep, voice thick and soft, and completely unaware of what he was doing. Just a sleepy little confession dropped onto my chest.“Love you, Beast.”Then he passed thefuck out on me, all warm and boneless and trusting, while I lay there, staring at the ceiling like someone’s just put a bullet through my ribs and left it there to glow.
He doesn’t even remember saying it.
I know he doesn’t; if he did, there would be tension in him by morning. A blush. A stammer. Some tight little silence, while he tried to decide whether to pretend it didn’t happen or claw the words back into his mouth.
Brendon doesn’t say things like that casually when he’s awake; he thinks them in the dark. He hides them behind bratty little comments, and pink cheeks, and that sweet, wrecked expression he gets when I press him just right. But he doesn’t hand me his heart in broad daylight and call it a small thing.
