“Will you hit me if I say I don’t know how you ever married the guy?”
She rolled her shoulders. “He wasn’t always a dick. At least, not to my face. I should never have married him, but we had an accident when we were dating. I got pregnant.”
“Shit, you’re a mom?” He’d never have guessed.
She shook her head. “I lost the baby. But by then, we’d already gotten hitched because Thomas was determined that we not have a bastard. I tried to make it work for a while, but it got to the point where every time my phone rang, or someone knocked on the door, I was hoping it was someone coming to tell me he’d died in an accident. Before I started plotting his death myself, I asked for a divorce.”
“He doesn’t appear to have taken it well.”
“That scum-sucking bastard took everything I had and then some,” she huffed. “I’ve been trying to rebuild my life since, but he just won’t leave me alone.”
At her vehement statement, Dominick really wanted to chase after the fucker and beat the living crap out of him. Maybe dangle him from a tree and use him as bait for the wildlife. Pity he couldn’t get a hold of those ants he’d encountered from his time spent in that prison camp.
“If you ever need a hand dealing with him, I’d be more than happy.”
She shook her head. “This is my problem.”
For now. She didn’t know it, but it’d just become Dom’s, too.
“You look a little wound up. How about we go for a coffee and talk?” Said more gruffly than intended. Probably too soon.
She’d say no for sure.
He’d ruined his chance.
The longer she eyed him without replying, the more he braced himself. When her mouth opened, he expected her to say no, to give him an excuse.
Instead, she knocked him flat when she said, “Sure. Why don’t we go to my place and save ourselves the outrageous prices?”
8
Anika should have said no. Could have. Would have.
But the encounter with Thomas had left her simmering. Angry. And feeling a bit spiteful, too.
So she invited Dominick to her place, not sure what would happen.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. She knew what she wanted to happen, and Dominick was handy. She’d fuck him and send him on his way.
He didn’t reply immediately, and shame started heating within her. He must think her a whore. Or crazy, given she’d been giving him the cold shoulder.
“Are you sure?”
It surprised her that he’d asked. “Are you planning to kill me?”
“No!”
“Then, yes, I’m sure.” Had he been a pig about it, she would have probably changed her mind, but he seemed genuinely shocked.
He didn’t say much as he got into her car.
What was there to say? The wrong word might wake her to the insanity of what she did. She had to fill the void, though. “How did you like your first day of work?”
He uttered a choked laugh. “Okay, I guess. I mean, easy enough. Boring.”
“If it’s so boring, then why did you ask for the job?”
He glanced at her. “Because I wanted to be closer to you.”
Said every stalker in the world. What did it say about her that it gave her a cheap thrill?
“I still don’t like you.” She stared straight ahead.
“If it helps, my feelings toward you are complicated. Hell, my whole life is complicated.”
“Then why ask me out?”
“For the same reason I got a job at the store. I want to be around you.”
That had her snorting. “You just met me yesterday.”
“But I’ve known you longer.”
“I hadn’t seen you since high school,” she pointed out.
“True, but did you know I crushed on you for months before graduation?”
The claim drew her gaze. “Why? I hit you and told you to jump off a bridge.”
He shrugged. “What can I say? I liked that you said no.”
The excuse caused her to snort. “So, in other words, if I’d said yes back then, you’d have lost interest?”
He leaned closer to say, “If you’d have said yes, we would have made out, and you’d have become my girlfriend.”
“Until you went into the military.”
He shrugged. “Probably. I didn’t have the grades for college, and I wasn’t interested in anything else at the time.”
“What about now? And don’t tell me you plan to be a stock boy for life.”
“I don’t know. My brother Stefan works the bar scene, which I hate. Raymond is some techno-geek. They’ve both offered to help me find something, but…” He shrugged. “None of it interests me.”
“What do you like?” she asked him, more interested in his reply than expected.
“I liked the military.”
“Then why leave?”
He went silent.
“That bad, huh?”
He huffed a breath. “Yes, and no. I started having episodes. Blackouts. They claimed PTSD and medically discharged me.”
“You don’t sound like you believe the diagnosis.”
“Because despite all the wars and the things I did”—he rolled his shoulders—“it honestly didn’t bother me. And my nightmares weren’t about the missions.”
“What do you have nightmares about?” This was the most he’d talked, and she found herself curious to know more.
“I dream about not being myself.”
“Who are you?”
“Not who. What.” He laughed. “I dream I’m a fucking jungle cat of all things. Which is why they thought I was crazy. For a while, I was convinced I had something living inside me.”
“And now?” she asked.
“Now, I still feel as if my body is too small. When it gets to be too much, I jog.”
She pulled into the spot for her apartment, the basement of a converted house. She paused, wondering if she should have driven them to a motel, only she didn’t have that kind of cash. And really, best let him see the real truth of her life.
Maybe he’d save them the bother and run.
He got out, and while he glanced around, he said nothing.
They entered her apartment, and she felt shame for a moment. Embarrassment at its shabbiness. But it was clean. She might be poor, but you could damned well eat off her floor.
He didn’t say anything disparaging. Nor did his expression convey any kind of disgust.
He pointed to her kitchen. “How about I get a pot of coffee started while you change?”
Did he seriously still think this invitation to her place was about coffee?
Since he apparently needed a stronger hint, she grabbed him by the shirt and mashed her mouth to his.
For a moment, he stilled, frozen against her.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“Sex, if you’d ever shut up.”
“But—”
She slid him some tongue before she changed her mind.
He got the hint and kissed her back, his mouth hard and insistent against hers.
Passion erupted, the kind that soon had them panting against each other. Sucking at tongues. Biting at lips.