Page 97 of Sinner's Vows

My cock is so fucking eager, what with the image of her and her spread legs flashing behind my closed eyes, I fist it through the layers of my pants and underwear to give it some reprieve.My mind is on board, because like every other dickhead on the planet, I can argue for sex until all logic has left the room. But my heart…my fucking useless heart keeps on whispering this is madness.

You aren’t the one she needs. You have no business bringing her into your world. You have no right to endanger her by making her yours. Even worse: by becoming hers.

My heart tells me to walk out, find a fucking parachute, and jump out of this plane. Except that isn’t an option. We’re trapped for a ten-hour flight, with nothing to do but think about everything we could do to each other if we give ourselves free rein.

I’m not a complete dumbass. Ariana is on a route of re-discovery, she’s finding herself, and neither of us needs her in love with me—or rather with my process—at the end of it.

Because I’m already in love with her.

The thought comes down like a ton of bricks on my heart. I exhale a haggard breath, clutching the vanity tighter.Fuck. When did that happen?

I blink at my reflection in the mirror. I look at least five years older than my mere thirty-one. Hard lines cup my mouth, the signs of shit I’ve gone through carved out in the deep grooves on my forehead and between my eyes. And here comes the bitter line of my lips as I face reality.I’m in fucking love with her.

The status quo has been fucked from the start with her. If she falls for me, too, I won’t be able to push her away as I will have to when the time comes. No woman falls for me. I don’t let anybody get close enough for feelings to develop.

Now, once I go all the way with her, show her the world as I function in it, I don’t know if I can go back to life before Ariana Morelli. Or if I’d even want to.

I have my antidote…but what if she’s my cure? My silver bullet.

After a few deep breaths, fighting my indecision, the body and brain win. The heart will break either way—it’s the sunk cost in this whole mess.

I pluck open the bathroom cupboards. Towels. Robes. Pajamas. There’s a big medical aid kit with all kinds of rolled up bandages and gauze that could work. It’s also stocked with everything you need from razors to scissors to shampoo and condoms. Well, well, there’s even some lube. I’ll make sure to add a list of sex toys for next time to please whichever brother gets to fly with the love of his life.

What the hell? Love of my life? Did I just think that?Fuck. Matteo called it earlier. Smitten. That fucker.

I smirk as I walk back into the bedroom where Ariana is exactly as I left her, wet, wanton, and so fucking beautiful, I stop in my tracks to stare at her. She’s closed her eyes, but her chest heaves as she becomes aware of my presence.

As I step up to the edge of the bed to drop my loot to the mattress, her instincts take over, and she collapses her legs together, closing up.

“No, sweetheart,” I say, kneeling onto the bed to rest a hand on her knee. The command is there to open up again, to let me in. I was just about to get up close and personal with that sweet pussy.

“Dominic,” she protests as she struggles up, eyes begging, hands reaching for me. “You made me wait.”

I tip her chin up, trace lines with my fingers down her neck, and splay my hand over her chest. “Part of the process, sweetheart.”

I guide her back down as I straddle her, effectively trapping her with my body but not putting my weight on her yet. I wait for her to react to this position, to the power I have over her like this, to leave this room we’re in and go back to that night in her head,whichever room it exists in, but her hands are on my thighs and sliding up to my cock.

A quiver of need ripples down my spine, tightening my balls as my cock hardens even more.

Fuck.

Here’s the thing. I’m planning to spend hours here, edging her, kissing her, caressing and teasing her until she comes with a single lick to her clit, but if she starts touching me, I’m not going to last.

At least she’s still completely with me, and she doesn’t react to some trauma memory. ‘I don’t think of any of that when I’m with you.’What man doesn’t fall in love with that?

When she’s on her back, I take her hands and gather them above her head again.

“Here, sweetheart. Keep them here for me,” I murmur close to her lips, and then I kiss her. Deeply and ardently, my revelation in the bathroom in every sweep of my tongue, in every kiss I close off, needing to pull away but finding I can’t stop. I need more.

When I eventually come up for breath, I reach for the gauze and unwrap it. She’s staring at me in a haze, arms limp above her head, and she doesn’t protest when I tie her wrists together.

“This is good?” I ask as I do a simple bow.

“Yes. More, please.”

She bites her lip to hide a smile, and my heart swells.

My sweetheart is a fast learner.

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