Page 35 of It Started With a Scarf

"Perfect. Handsome. You look like a dream." She ran her fingertips gently along his jaw. "You look like a statue."

"Stone?"

"Beautiful. You really are, Dominic. And I’m not just saying that because of the free smoothie."

"It's because of the free scarf."

"The scarf, yeah, rescuing the scarf earns extreme favor, but the comment still had nothing to do with that. I'm just saying, objectively, you have a face that's simply beautiful—you know with the symmetry and proportion and everything—art class stuff."

He stared at her, feeling like he was hopelessly in love. "How many guys have you said something like that to?" he asked.

"None," she said with a little giggle like she was surprised by the question. "How many girls have you… never mind. I don't even know what I was going to ask."

"How many guys have you gotten close to, Marley?"

"Y-y-you mean like, you and I are right now?"

"No, please don’t tell me every time you—I mean how many have you been—"

"None," she said, cutting him off. "I'm sheltered, Dominic—a small-town Texas girl. I don't go to bars or anything. I certainly don't get myself in locked offices with handsome young gentlemen."

Several seconds of silence passed.

"I think we're past the handsome gentleman stage, though, right? I’m Dom now. You're locked in an office with Dominic. That's okay."

"Yeah, it's okay," She answered with quiet certainty.

And suddenly they were kissing again. Her mouth opened, and he took her. He tried to be gentle, but he had been waiting for months, and she asked for it, so he kissed her deeply. She held onto him, molding to him, clinging to his body. They shared a few scorching seconds and then he softened his touch, pulling back and kissing her gently again. He kissed her precious mouth over and over, tasting her, loving her, finding it impossible to stop.

Chapter 12

Marley

Dominic Decker was a really good kisser.

His office was dimly lit, it smelled nice, and we were completely alone. He kissed the living daylights out of me. No one had ever kissed me like that before. We were truly alone for the first time in a while, and he had done it greedily. He knew what he was doing, and it caused me to have bodily sensations I had never experienced before.

It was a good thing we were alone. No one had come down the hall since that first group left. It didn't matter. The door was locked, and we were oblivious to anything but each other. He held me and kissed me and looked at me like I was something important to him.How in the world was Dominic Decker holding me like this? How was I in this position with this man?I didn't understand it, but I was careful not to question it.

Dominic pulled back eventually and reached out for the light switch. "I'm turning this on," he said as he flipped the switch. "Sorry, it's bright. We have a couple of hours before we go get your car. I think my sister has a pair of skates in here. Do you want to do some ice skating? I can see if you're the same size as her."

"I wouldn't mind ice skating if you're okay with me falling a little. Is it similar to roller skating? If the skates fit me, I'll take it as a sign that I'm going to be great at it."

"That sounds good, I'll let you try them on and we'll see if you live up to that hype."

"Is the rink open right now?"

"It's always open to us," he said. "Even if they're having hockey practice, I'll work it out with the coach for us to have a corner of the ice."

"Is it safe to assume you're good at it?"

"Well, yes, Marley, I think you'll find that I'm good at skating, and really, at most things. I hate to put it like that, but it's pretty hard to find something I'm not great at." Dominic was being hilariously serious before he grinned at me. He was honestly good at most things, and so that statement rolled off his tongue easily, but he was one hundred percent joking around. I loved his sense of humor. "I am a pretty good skater, but you have to understand the context. I grew up in Chicago with a competitive family. Lila's really good at it. She figure skates and everything. She was doing it as a little girl—before we had this gym or anything."

He stooped and began to dig in a lower cabinet of a built-in bookcase. There were multiple pairs of ice skates in there.

"She was really into it. That's why I have some of her skates in here—she's got about a dozen pairs. Yep. These are good ones. Try these on and see if they fit. They should be snug."

I sat on the small sofa and tried on one skate. It took me a minute because they were rigid compared to roller skates. Dominic was doing something on his computer.

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