Page 165 of Dial F for Finance

“Jenna,” he breathes, voice wrecked.

“Partner,” I correct softly, stepping into his space.

He lets out a sound that is half-laugh, half-groan, and then his mouth is on mine. There’s no strategy here. No angles to play. He backs me toward the edge of the mattress, his hands sliding down to grip my hips.

I surrender to this feeling—us—body and mind, every last barricade. I want him to feel how much I want this to his marrow, how much I need this. How all my strategy is just a paper shield shredding under the direct hit of his hands. He lifts me up again and sets me on the edge of the bed, then kneels in front of me like he’s about to pray. He kisses me with the patience of a man who’s lost everything and knows exactly what it costs to get it back.

He peels down my leggings, slow and unhurried, as if he needs to make sure I won’t vanish halfway through. His knuckles leave faint gray smudges on my thighs. When he looks up, his eyes are filled with hunger and awe.

“I don’t deserve you,” he says, voice barely even there.

I lace my fingers through his hair and yank, gentle but insistent. “That makes two of us. Get over it.”

He laughs, hoarse and real. His head tips forward—mouth against my knee, then my hip, then the waistband of my underwear. He buries his face there and groans, and it’s so good, so devastatingly him, that I actually forget to breathe for a second.

He doesn’t drag it out. He slides my panties down, then pushes my knees apart with hands that tremble just the slightest bit. I want to tease him, do something to draw this moment out, but then his mouth finds me and all sense of superiority is vaporized.

Dominic Cruz is unholy with his mouth. Strategic but greedy, no patience for wasted effort—every flick and pressure is thought out and perfect. My hands claw at the sheets, my breath coming out in short, impossible bursts. I try to keep my eyes open, to watch the way he looks up at me, but at a certain point the pleasure shorts out my vision and throws up a blue screen of absolute surrender.

When I come, it’s loud. His name and a string of inarticulate syllables I don’t recognize as my own. He keeps going, dragging it out, greedy for every shudder and curse I give him, and only then does he let go and climb up, caging me against the mattress.

“God, I missed having your come all over my face.”

I laugh—wrecked, irreverent, and so gloriously unguarded it hurts on the inhale. “I missed you, too,” I say, hot and honest, wrapping my arms around his neck to pull him in, tasting myself on his tongue.

He hums into the kiss, his hand fisting in my hair as his mouth moves in a languid reclamation of mine, tongue moving slow, his weight balanced above me, the world spinning on the axis of this bed and this room and the fact that we are here, together, after everything. Maybe because of it.

I want to keep kissing him, want to feel every molecule of regret burn off in the heat between us, but even more than that, I want to watch him fall apart by my mouth and hands.

I roll us with a twist of my hips and suddenly he’s on his back, sprawled in the wreck of sheets, mouth open with something halfway between a gasp and a growl.

There is a look on his face I’ve never seen before—eyes blown wide, war zone raw, every edge of his control eroded until just this wild, almost terrified certainty is left behind. I slide down his body, planting slow, deliberate kisses along the ridged muscle of his chest, stopping to taste the salt at his collarbone, the sharp curve of his clavicle. My hands trail south, mapping the familiar. When I get to the waistband of his jeans, I sit back on my heels and just look at him for a beat—his breath coming hard, his abdomen flexing under my palm.

“Jen,” he rasps, and I’m not sure if he’s trying to warn me off or urge me on.

I pop the button and draw the zipper down, slow and smooth. He watches me, not moving, just letting me do what I want. He lifts his hips as I tug his jeans and boxers down his legs, then kicks free of both. The moment I wrap my hand around his thick length, he makes this involuntary little sound—half relief, half shock.

“Jesus, Jenna,” he says, breath hitching as I lean in. I stroke him once, twice, loving the way his whole body tenses. The taste of him is as familiar as an old fight, as new as every concession we’ve made to get back here.

He fists the sheets above his head, not even touching me, and I realize with a jolt that he’s letting me absolutely wreck him. Usually, he’d be in control, directing the pace, but right now he’s giving it up. Letting go.

His hips cant up, just a little, demanding and desperate. I take him in my mouth, slow and deep, hollowing out my cheeks and dragging my tongue along the sensitive underside just to watch what it does to him. Dominic doesn’t disappoint. His thigh muscles go rigid, his entire body bracing like he’s waiting for an impact.

“Fuck. Jenna—sweetheart. I’m not gonna last long if you do this. Fuck—” I cut him off, swirling my tongue around the head, watching his eyes roll back.

His hand flies to my hair, curling against my scalp like I’m the only constant in a world spinning out of control. I bob my head, slow at first, letting him feel every tight drag and velvet squeeze. When I bottom out, he swears under his breath—loud, reverent, as if prayer is the only language left to him.

I look up, wanting to see the ruin on his face, and he’s looking at me with a focus so raw and unfiltered it makes my spine shiver. I pick up the pace, sucking harder, twisting with my hand, swallowing around him until his thighs tremble and his voice is nothing but jagged syllables and empty air.

“Holy fuck, Jenna, I—” He loses the thread, fists both hands in my hair, and I let him push, let him set the depth and the pace. I suck him hard, slick and messy, and when I press my tongue under the rim he shouts, a broken exhale, and the sound of it sends a jolt of heat between my legs so sharp I nearly come a second time, just from the power of it.

He comes fast, thick and hot, hips surging up, and I swallow him down, greedy for every drop. I don’t look away. I want him to see me take it, want him to know he’s mine, what I choose, what I crave.

When he finally drops back to the mattress, sweating and stunned, I crawl up and press my cheek to his chest. His heart is a jackhammer. I rest my hand over it, fingers splayed, and just let the feeling linger—connection, communion, whatever it is that makes two broken people fit together for a minute or a hundred years.

After a few long, shattered breaths, he hauls me up and kisses me, slow and so fucking deep. I taste him, taste myself, and he doesn’t shy away from it. He never does.

“God, Jen. Your mouth.” With his hand wrapped around the back of my neck, he sweeps his tongue along mine, building the heat one teasing stroke at a time.