Page 64 of Dirty Hit
I have Dominic’s taste on my tongue, his cuff on my wrist, and I fell asleep without saying a single word to the God I have spent my whole life talking to.
That should scare me more than it does. Even more than the gay panic I amnotfeeling.
My alarm starts shrilling on the nightstand and I groan, rolling over to slap it quiet. My throat protests, scraping from the noise, and I wince.
“Okay,” I mutter to myself, voice hoarse because of… reasons. “Consequences. There they are.”
Jericho jumps up onto the bed with the offended dignity only a black cat can manage, and steps right onto my stomach, then my chest, then my throat.
“Traitor,” I rasp, pushing him away gently. He gives me a slow blink that clearly says ‘you did this to yourself,’and settles at my feet instead, tail twitching.
I roll onto my side and look at the clock, then at my phone. Our texts from last night sit at the top of the screen—my “inside” message sent with shaky fingers by my front door, like he told me to. His three-word reply came a minute later.
Dominic:Good boy. Sleep.
There was a second one five minutes after that, when I was already half under, the screen lighting up my dark room with his name.
Dominic:Eat in the morning.
I didn’t answer, but his voice sat in my head anyway. So I drag myself up for toast and coffee before showering because apparently, if Dominic Volkov tells me to maintain my blood sugar, I start structuring my day around it.
In the bathroom mirror, my face looks more or less normal; maybe a little pale, maybe a little hollow-eyed, but nothing screaming ‘you put a killer’s cock in your mouth less than twelve hours ago.’
By the time I’m on campus, backpack over one shoulder, the familiar concrete of the law building rising in front of me, I’ve already spent an hour scanning myself for those signs Dominic listed in that maddeningly calm voice in his kitchen.
Low mood, emptiness, random crying, intrusive guilt. The works.
I grip the little silver cross under my shirt as I walk, thumb running over the edges until they press a dull ache into my skin. There’s a weird lightness instead: not exactly happiness, but something similar to the absence of static.
Con Law starts, and my brain slots into autopilot. Normally, this is where my mind wanders to lists—assignments, errands, who needs notes, which undergrad I promised to tutor, what emails I haven’t answered—but today, every time it strays it goes straight back to him.
Dominic’s face twisted in pleasure above me, his mouth open on a curse, his hair falling out of its tie in damp strands around his face. The sound I made when his hand tightened in my hair, or when he called me‘Little Sin’in that voice that makes it feel less like name-calling and more like a title.
Three classes in, and the drop still hasn’t hit. My body feels pleasantly used, my knees complaining a little when I sit down too fast and a faint ache in my jaw when I yawn, but emotionallyI’m weirdly steady. I keep doing little mental checks between lectures, as if I were a hypochondriac checking a symptom list.
Am I sad? Am I numb? Am I disgusted? Am I about to cry? Nothing.
At lunch, I sit on a bench outside the law building with a sandwich I’m not really tasting, watching people move across the quad in familiar patterns. Undergrads with backpacks too big for their shoulders, athletes in team gear, sorority girls laughing too loud as they film TikToks by the fountain. My phone buzzes on the table, and my stomach jumps before I even flip it over. Dominic doesn’t text like normal people—he texts like he’s kicking a door open.
Dominic:How’s the throat, Little Sin?
Heat rushes up my neck. I glance around automatically, as if anyone nearby could be reading over my shoulder, even though the message preview was tucked safely behind the lock screen. I swipe the phone open with fingers that are only shaking a little.
Me:Sore. Thank you for asking, I guess.
Dots appear almost immediately.
Dominic:That ‘thank you’ sounded suspiciously like sarcasm.
Dominic:Need me to kiss it better?
I make a strangled noise in my throat, that definitely does not help said throat, then slam my lips together and type with slightly too much aggression.
Me:You already did enough.
Me:And I have class.
Dominic:You had class last night, too. Look how that turned out.
