Page 51 of Dirty Hit
He couldn’t do it.
He tried and couldn’t.
Because ofme.
“But…. You didn’t kill anyone… That’s good.”
“Good?” he spits out. “You think my leaving those assholes wasgood?”
“Of course, it is! Dominic, that’s the definition of good. That’s literally the best possible outcome.”
He shakes his head, frustrated. “You’re missing the point.”
“Then spell it out,” I say, anger edging into my voice now. If he’s going to blame me for him not murdering someone, I need to hear the full, insane logic.
“It means I’m not just obsessed with what you are, I’m obsessed with what you do to me. It means you’re in my headwhen I’m at my worst, and instead of making me stop being that, you’re just… rerouting it. I stand there, ready to put my hands on someone, and all I can think about is putting them on you. I go out to fuck someone, and my dick won’t get with the program because it’s too busy remembering the way you whine. You think that’s noble? You think that makes me safer? It doesn’t; It just means all the shit I usually spread around is bottlenecking in one direction.”
I stare up at him, heart pounding, torn between relief and something that feels dangerously like responsibility. “Mine.”
He lowers his face until his forehead almost touches mine. “You walking up my driveway tonight is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
I blink up at him. “I know that.”
“And we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about you showing up here at night without warning. But first, I need you to understand something,” he says, his blue eyes full of fury, making me feel frozen in place. “You’re the weight on the fucking scale now, Brendon.”
My heart kicks hard at that. There’s fear in me, yeah, because he’s still who he is—still dangerous as hell—but there’s also this dark, awful flicker of something like relief that he walked away tonight. Relief that if I’m in his way, at least that means someone else isn’t under his hands. “You make your own choices.”
His eyes search mine, and for the first time since I’ve known him I see something that looks disturbingly close to vulnerability flicker across his face, before he slams the door on it.
“I do; but now, you’re here in my house on a night I went out looking for blood or sex or both, and came home with nothing. You really expect me to believe you didn’t know exactly what you were walking into?”
I don’t have an answer for him. I don’t even have an answer for myself. All I know is I came here to make sure he wasn’t doingsomething terrible, and now he’s got me pinned to a wall while admitting he tried and couldn’t. Somehow, that feels worse and better at the same time.
And from the way his fingers flex against my chest, from the tension in his jaw, from the heat in his eyes, I know one thing with terrifying clarity—
Whatever he decides to do with that wrench in his gears, I’m already in the machine with him.
Dominic
I’mnotusedtofeeling off-balance in my own damn house.
Everything has its box. Football goes in the box with drills and film and press conferences, where I sell the golden-boy lie with a charming smile.
Killing goes in the box with dark corners, quick, clean endings, and disposal calls to Seth.
Sex goes in the box with bar bathrooms and strangers who don’t ask questions.
None of those boxes ever had anything to do with each other; they’re separate channels, separate highs. I decide when to turn them on and off. I decide who gets access.
And then this stupid, stubborn, soft-spoken TA walked into my living room two weeks ago, interrupted a kill, and now everything is bleeding together because my brain can’t shut him off.
He’s pressed against my wall right now, with my forearm across his chest and my hand fisted in his shirt. His eyes are wideand bright and so goddamn green it borders on unreal. His pulse is hammering against his neck, where my gaze keeps going like a magnet. The leather bracelet still sits on his wrist between us.
My cuff, my mark, my official fucking problem.
He showed up here because he was worried about me; I still can’t wrap my head around that. No one worries about me. People worry about what I can do. They worry I’ll get injured, because that fucks with their draft boards. They worry I’ll fuck up, because that makes them look bad by association.
They don’t worry aboutme—not the way he just said it. Not with that desperate, earnest look on his face that made it seem like he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he found out I’d picked someone tonight and followed through.
