Page 39 of Snowbound with the Vineyard Owner
He pulls back just enough that I see the fire raging behind his eyes.
“But understand this…” His hand curls under my chin again, tipping my face up—holding me there, suspended on the razor’s edge. He pulls back just enough that I see the fire raging behind his eyes.
He doesn’t kiss me. Just looks at me. Strips me down with the smoldering heat in his eyes.
A beat.
His voice sinks lower, thick with promise, brutal with certainty.
"When you cross that line…" His thumb drags slowly over my lower lip, making my body lock tight with need. “I won’t hold back.”
The words hit me like a blow—savage and dark and unholy. Every cell in my body responds,wild and desperate.
My breath catches. My body clenches tight with need, the hunger ripping through me so raw I almost stagger.
He stares at me for one endless moment—watching, measuring.
Then, he releases me.
Steps away.
Withdraws so completely it feels like a wound.
“Now, eat your breakfast,” Dominic commands, his voice gruff and indifferent. Like nothing just happened. “You’re going to need your strength.”
The words snap through the charged air between us, cutting the last fragile thread tethering me to sanity.
I stand there, reeling.
Burning.
Shaken down to the bone by a man who can light me up with a single look—and then turn away like it meant nothing.
Dominic moves back to the stove with the casualness of a man checking the weather, not a man who just promised to ruin me the second I let him.
He flips a pancake with an easy flick of his wrist. The sizzle of batter hitting hot iron fills the silence. The scent of strong coffee curls through the kitchen.
I scrape my chair back and sink onto a chair at the table, fingers trembling as I reach for the mug he set in front of me. The heat of it burns my palms, but I welcome the sting. Anything to ground myself.
Because inside, I’m shaking.
“We have more pressing concerns anyway.” His voice is steady, completely detached now, as if he hadn’t just pulled my soul out and set it on fire.
He jerks his chin toward the window, where thick snow blurs the world into a featureless white curtain.
"Concerns?"
“Radio said this storm system is intensifying.”
I tear my gaze from him, forcing myself to focus on the storm.
Forcing myself to remember why I’m here.
Business.
Boundaries.
Survival.
