Page 56 of Snowbound with the Vineyard Owner
Dominic’s whole body tightens, like he’s holding himself still with sheer willpower.
"You’ll always be safe with me, but that’s not the word you mean." Dominic’s whole body tightens, like he’s holding himself still with sheer willpower.
"What word do you think I mean?"
"Trust. I don’t think you’ve been with a man you trusted enough to let go and enjoy the moment. A trust so deep that all your inhibitions fall away. Where feelingsafeis exactly the opposite of what you need."
“I don’t know how to surrender,” I whisper.
“You do,” Dominic says, voice soft but certain. “You’re just scared of what falling will feel like.”
I close my eyes, the fire spinning behind my lids.
“Dominic—” My voice is a wreck.
“I’m not pushing. I’m just trying to understand you better."
The aching gentleness of that undoes me worse than anything else.
“Anyway, I promised not to push you, and I’m dangerously close to stepping over that line." He stands slowly, towering over me, a shadow carved out of gold and flame. "It’s late. Time for bed."
I take his hand, and he leads me upstairs.In his room, he pulls back the covers.
“Get under the covers,” he says, voice rough velvet. “Close your eyes and sleep.”
He turns toward the stairs without another word, leaving me burning in his bed, the taste of wine and wildfire on my tongue.
The clock ticks loudly in the silence, each second hammering inside my skull like a slow, relentless drumbeat. The sound fills the dark, fills the cavernous space he left inside me when he walked away, when he ordered me to bed like a child he didn’t trust himself around.
I lie still beneath Dominic’s heavy quilts, the lingering heat of his body bleeding into mine. It seeps under my skin, into my blood, sinking into places too deep to claw him out. Every inhale drags the scent of him—pine soap, woodsmoke, the darker, wilder thing I can’t name—deeper into my lungs until even breathing feels dangerous.
Sleep won’t come. It never had a chance.
Not after the way he looked at me downstairs—like he could see every locked door inside me and knew exactly how to break them open.
Not after the truths he gave me—quiet, devastating truths about trust, freedom, and the kind of surrender that terrifies me even as it calls to something deep and desperate inside my soul.
Not after the way he left me here…burning. Alone. Wanting.
I turn onto my side, fists clenching tight into the borrowed flannel, the fabric rough against my palms. My body aches—thighs pressed against the slow, merciless pulse pounding between them, muscles quivering with tension that has nowhere to go. I breathe him in with every shallow gasp, but it only makes the ache worse, sharper, more unbearable.
This isn’t desire. It’s starvation.
A hollowing need that scrapes me raw from the inside out,that leaves me aching for something real enough, fierce enough, to finally fill the empty spaces I’ve spent a lifetime pretending didn’t exist. It’s every craving I’ve ever buried breaking free, roaring to life in the darkness.
Unafraid and unstoppable.
He’s right. I don’t want safe. I don’t want walls and careful distances and the polite detachment that keeps people untouched but hollow. Not with him. Not anymore.
I want the man who showed me what it means to be free.
I want the fire that burns downstairs—steady, waiting, alive.
I want to fall, reckless and breathless, into the space he’s holding wide open for me, no shields, no second-guessing.
The decision isn’t something I make. It’s already made, etched into my bones, written in the frantic beat of my heart.
I push the quilt aside, rising on legs that barely feel solid beneath me. The cold air bites against my bare skin, prickling across my thighs and up the vulnerable strip of flesh left exposed by the hem of the oversized flannel. The floorboards are icy against my feet, but I barely feel them through the trembling rush of blood in my veins.
