Page 55 of Snowbound with the Vineyard Owner
Dominic leans back on one hand, cradling his glass in the other, his body sprawled and loose, but his gaze pinned to mine with unnerving precision.
“You gave me something today,” he says quietly, the words roughened like they cost him something to admit.
I blink, thrown off guard.
“What do you mean?”
A small smile curves his mouth, not mocking. Sad.
“We forget how to play,” he says, echoing his earlier sentiment. “The older we get, the more we lose it. The silliness. The freedom.” His thumb brushes the rim of his glass idly. “We get careful. Controlled. Until we don’t know how to let go anymore.”
The words catch at something inside me. Something too tender to touch.
“Life beats it out of you,” I murmur, leaning closer to the fire, needing the warmth, needing him. “Deadlines. Expectations. Responsibilities."
“I needed that today,” he says, his voice a low scrape in the quiet. “More than I realized.”
Emotion wells hot and fast behind my ribs. I don’t know what to say to that — how to thank him for trusting me with something so vulnerable.
I take a sip of wine, forcing my throat to work, but it’s not the wine making my hands shake. It’s the quiet truth in his voice.
It reflects my life staring back at me across the fire. He leans a shoulder againstthe stone of the fireplace, watching me with those unreadable eyes. The silence stretches, heavy, aching, until I can’t bear it.
“I miss it,” I say softly, the admission dragging up from someplace raw. “That wildness. That… abandon.”
For a long moment, Dominic says nothing.
Just looks at me.
“When you’re not hurling snowballs at innocent women and losing terribly at snowman building? How do you find that freedom?” I ask, voice thinner than I mean it to be.
His mouth curves into a darker smile. A more dangerous one.
“There’s still one place,” he says, voice like rough velvet, “where adults remember how to play.”
“Where?” I blink, feeling the air tighten between us.
Then he murmurs, almost to himself, “You’re closer to it than you think.”
The words sink into my skin, hot and undeniable. They terrify me more than any storm.
"When you’re ready, I’ll show you." His eyes never leave mine. "Just cross the line."
The words land like a match on dry kindling. Flare straight through me.
Dominic shifts, slow and deliberate, setting his glass aside, leaning in enough that his heat brushes against my skin. Not touching. Waiting.
“In the right hands,” he murmurs, voice a low rumble, “sex isn’t release. It’s abandon. It’s raw, honest play. A place where nothing matters but sensation and trust.” His gaze drops to my mouth, then drags back up, scorching. “No lies. No pretending. Just two people stripped bare of everything the world taught them to hide.”
I suck in a breath, dizzy from the force of him and the image he paints. From the brutal ache blooming low and deep inside me.
“That kind of freedom…” Dominic continues, voice softer now, almost reverent. “It demands something most people are too afraid to give.”
“I’ve never…” The words stumble out before I can stop them. “I’ve never done that before. What you’re describing.”
“What have you done?” A muscle ticks in his jaw.
“Just… normal sex." Heat scalds my face. “Safe. Vanilla.” My voice breaks on the word.
