Chapter 120: Chapter 120
Dominic continued kissing her, as he slowly took off her blouse. Celeste smiled in the kiss, and unbuttoned his shirt.
Dominic hand went down, and got buried into her pantie. Celeste moaned, and threw her head back. She finally took off his shirt, and dropped kisses from his neck down to his shoulder blade.
Dominic kissed her neck, down to her bare chest. Celeste wrapped her arms around his neck, and then, she paused.
She frowned lightly looking at his arm, and pulled away. Dominic stopped, sensing the shift in the air.
His eyes traced her eye sight, amd landed in the scratches on his arms.
Celeate gulped, her mind going back to the photo Landon sent. She met Dominic’s eyes, disbelief and fear in hers.
Dominic caged her between his arms, and said. "I met Theresa today." His voice was careful, and ready to explain. He didn’t want to scare her away. "Things got violent, and this happened. Its nothing. It doesn’t hurt."
Celeste swallowed. She said nothing, and came down from the counter table. In silence, she walked over to the pan. She stired it one more time, tasted it, and switched off the gas.
Dominic turned, and stared at her. His brows arched, a bit confused.
"Celeste_"
"Tell me all about it," Celeste cut him off, turning to him. She folded her arms across her breast. "Tell me what happened with her."
Dominic drew in a deep breath, relieved she finally said something.
Dominic didn’t flinch. He wasn’t the kind of man who invented easy excuses, and she wasn’t the kind of woman who would accept them anyway. He leaned back against the counter, stretching his neck, his tone steady.
Celeste returned to the chopping board, and her hands stilled on it. For a second, only the faint tick of the wall clock filled the kitchen. "You met her," she repeated.
Dominic’s eyes held her back, unblinking. "I had to sort out some things."
And then, because he never did half-confessions, he laid it all out. How he’d seen the man trailing her steps. How he’d cornered him, dragged answers out of him the hard way. His voice didn’t rise or soften.
It was factual, like describing a weather report, but the edges carried violence. He told her about the basement, the blood, and the way the man broke beneath his hands.
Her chest tightened, not from fear of him, but from the brutal clarity of it all. This was Dominic. He would never be clean, and never be merciful when it came to her safety.
"And it was her," he continued. "Theresa. She sent him."
The name landed like venom in the kitchen. Celeste’s grip on the knife tightened, though she forced her face to remain unreadable.
"I went to her," Dominic said, lowering his head slightly, as if daring her to accuse him. "Sat across from her in that restaurant, and told her exactly what would happen if she ever tried again."
Celeste turned to him again. Her gaze slid back to the faint scratches along his chest, his forearm, and the ghost of a mark near his jaw. She didn’t need to ask where they’d come from. Another woman with sharp nails and sharper spite did that.
Celeste exhaled through her nose. "So she clawed you up before you walked away?"
He almost smiled, but it was humorless. "She tried to provoke me. That was all she managed."
Her lips curved, not in amusement, but in something harder. Her smile said that she believed him, because Dominic wasn’t the kind of man who lied to her about the dirt under his hands. If anything, he offered it too raw, and too unpolished.
"Next time," she said quietly, setting the knife down, "don’t come home with marks she left. I don’t like it."
Dominic pushed off the counter, crossing the space between them until the heat of him brushed her skin. He held both sides of her shoulders, and gently turned her to him. His voice dropped, low and uncompromising.
"There won’t be a next time, Celeste. Not for her. Not for anyone who touches what’s mine."
Her pulse gave a betraying kick, but she held his gaze, refusing to let him see the way those words branded.
She tiptoed, and her lips brushed his first, soft, almost chasted. But the second she tasted the faint copper tang of his split lip, it ignited something darker in her.
It ignited possession.
Celeste pressed harder, biting, and pulling, her tongue pushing past his teeth until she stole his breath with the force of it.
Dominic growled low in his chest, and with one hand snapping to the back of her head, he tangled his hand in her hair, and with the other flattened against her hip as he shove her back against the counter.
The marble edge bit into her lower spine, but she arched into it, into him, with her nails clawing into the scratches Theresa had left. She dragged down hard, claiming over the marks of another.
The groan he gave her for it was savage. His body tightened against hers.
"You don’t like her claws on me?" he rasped against her mouth, biting the corner of her lip until it stung. "Then mark me deeper. Let me carry yours instead."
Her answer came in the sharp sting of her teeth closing on his jaw. Her nails dragged down his chest, reopening the faint streaks of marks, so fresh blood smeared across her fingertips.
The taste of salt and iron lingered when she licked her fingers slowly, and deliberately, her gaze never leaving his.
Dominic’s restraint shattered. He lifted her off the ground in one brutal motion, setting her on the counter with her thighs split wide. His hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back so her throat arched beautifully, and his mouth crashed down on the curve of her neck, biting, sucking, and leaving his brand on top of her pulse.
Celeste’s breath stuttered out of her lungs as his other hand slid beneath her skirt, rough and unhesitating. His fingers pushed aside the thin scrap of lace between her legs, and the guttural sound he made when he found her soaked nearly unraveled her on the spot.
"Wet from this?" His voice was a threat and a promise, vibrating low against her skin. "Wet from me talking about breaking her?"
Her laugh was breathless, trembling, and wicked. "Wet from you being mine."
His thumb pressed to her clit, in sharp moving relentless circles that made her thighs quiver. But it wasn’t enough. Not for him. Not for her.
He shoved the lace aside completely and thrust two fingers into her, hard, and curling them deep as his palm ground against her clit. The counter shook with the force of her body jerking under him.
Her hands tore at his belt, fumbling, and frantic. She needed him inside her. She needed the punishment of his cock to match the fury of his confession.
Dominic let her struggle with the buckle, as his lips dragged up her throat, as his teeth tugged at her earlobe, until finally he snapped the leather loose himself, ripping his pants open with a single vicious movement.
When he freed himself, thick and rigid and already slick at the tip, her pupils dilated so wide they nearly swallowed her irises.
"Show me," she whispered, her voice shredded with need. "Show me I’m the only one who gets this."
Dominic didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her waist, slammed her hips forward, and buried himself inside her in one brutal thrust.
Celeste’s cry ripped through the kitchen, echoing off the tiles, raw and unrestrained. He swallowed it with his mouth, kissing her like he was trying to devour her whole. His cock pounding deep into her, over and over, until she was clawing at his back again, with her nails digging trenches into his flesh.
The counter banged against the cabinets with each thrust, dishes rattling from the force, but neither of them cared. All that existed was the brutal rhythm of his hips, the slick slap of their bodies colliding, and the way her pussy clenched tight and desperate around him.
Dominic broke the kiss to bite her shoulder, hard enough to bruise, and hissed against her skin. "Never her. Only you. Always you. Forever you."
Her head snapped back, her eyes half-lidded, and her lips trembling with moans she couldn’t hold back. She grabbed his face with both hands, pulling him to look at her even as he fucked her raw. "Good," she gasped, breaking between thrusts. "Because I’ll bleed for you... and you’ll bleed for me."
The sound he made then wasn’t human. His thrusts grew merciless, punishing, and became a violent promise sealed with every slam of his cock into her soaked heat.
Her body was already breaking apart again, pleasure tearing through her nerve endings like fire, but she clung to him, rode it out, and screamed into his mouth as her orgasm shook her to the core.
He followed a heartbeat later, driving himself impossibly deeper, groaning against her lips as he emptied into her, hot and overflowing, until she could feel it spill down her thighs and onto the counter beneath them.
But even then, Dominic didn’t pull out. He didn’t let go. His forehead pressed to hers, both of them panting, trembling, and still locked together in heat and fury and possession.
His hand gripped her jaw, tilting her face so he could look her dead in the eye when he growled it. "Mine. Always mine."
Their lips locked again.