Chapter 4

The front door opened fully.

Aria’s mother stepped into the entryway with a bright smile and a rolling suitcase, the scent of airport and perfume trailing behind her. She looked tired but happy, hair pulled back, blouse slightly wrinkled from the long flight.

“I couldn’t stand another week away,” she said, setting her bag down. “The meetings wrapped early and I grabbed the first flight I could. Surprised?”

Dominic recovered faster than Aria. He stepped forward and kissed her mother’s cheek, the picture of a normal husband.

“You should have called,” he said. His voice sounded steady. Only Aria saw the way his hand flexed once at his side.

“And ruin the surprise?” Her mother laughed and turned toward the kitchen. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. You two look like I caught you mid-conversation.”

Aria’s pulse slammed so hard she felt it in her throat. Her shorts were still damp. The taste of Dominic’s mouth lingered on her tongue. She kept her back against the counter and forced a smile.

“We were just talking about dinner,” she managed.

Her mother pulled her into a warm hug. Aria held on a second longer than usual, using the contact to steady herself. Over her mother’s shoulder she met Dominic’s eyes. The look he gave her was dark and full of warning and something hotter that made her stomach flip.

“I’m exhausted,” her mother said, pulling back. “I’m going to shower and then I want to hear everything about your first days home. Dominic, be a love and bring my bag upstairs?”

“Of course.”

He lifted the suitcase and followed her mother toward the stairs. Aria stayed in the kitchen, legs still shaky, listening to their footsteps overhead. The ordinary sounds of a reunion. Closet doors. The shower starting.

She pressed her thighs together and tried to breathe normally. It didn’t help. Her body still hummed from his fingers. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the way he had looked at her while he tasted her off his own hand.

Fifteen minutes later her mother came back down in soft lounge clothes, hair damp. Dominic followed. He had changed his shirt. Aria noticed. She wondered if the other one had smelled like her.

They sat in the living room. Her mother asked questions. Aria answered on autopilot. How was the drive. How was she settling in. Had Dominic been taking good care of her.

Dominic’s jaw tightened almost invisibly at that last one.

“He’s been great,” Aria said. Her voice came out softer than she meant it to.

Her mother’s smile was warm. “I knew he would be. You two always got along so well.”

The conversation drifted. Jet lag pulled at her mother’s eyelids. By nine she was yawning every few minutes.

“I’m going to call it a night,” she said finally, standing. “Don’t stay up too late, you two.”

She kissed Aria’s forehead, then Dominic’s cheek, and disappeared upstairs. The soft click of the master bedroom door felt like a starting gun.

Silence settled over the first floor.

Dominic stayed on the couch, elbows on his knees, staring at the dark television screen. Aria sat curled in the armchair across from him. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

Finally he looked at her.

“Go to bed, Aria.”

She didn’t move.

“I mean it.” His voice was quiet but firm. “Your mother is home. Whatever this is, it stops tonight.”

She stood anyway and crossed the small space between them. He tracked every step. When she stopped in front of him he leaned back against the cushions, eyes wary.

“You don’t get to decide that alone,” she said.

“Yes I do.”

She placed one knee on the couch beside his thigh, then the other, straddling his lap slowly. His hands shot to her hips on instinct, gripping hard enough to bruise.

“Aria—”

“She could come downstairs,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“So stop me.”

He didn’t.

His fingers dug into her hips through the thin shorts. She felt him hardening beneath her. The thick ridge of him pressed right against where she was still sensitive and wet. A soft sound escaped her throat.

Dominic’s eyes flashed. One hand slid up her back and fisted in her hair, tilting her face down to his.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he murmured against her mouth.

“Then play it with me.”

He kissed her like he was starving. Deep and messy and full of the same fury from the kitchen. His tongue stroked against hers while his other hand shoved under her shirt and claimed her breast again. She rocked against the hard length of him and felt him groan into her mouth.

They stayed like that, grinding and kissing in the dim living room, the risk of discovery making every second sharper. His hand slipped back into her shorts. Two fingers pushed inside her without warning. She bit his bottom lip to stay quiet.

“Still so wet for me,” he whispered against her cheek. “Even with her right upstairs.”

She nodded, hips moving with the slow thrust of his fingers.

“Tell me what you want.”

“You,” she breathed.

“Be specific.”

“I want you to fuck me, Daddy.”

The word made him shudder. His fingers curled harder inside her. She had to press her face into his neck to muffle the sounds.

Footsteps sounded overhead.

Both of them froze.

The master bedroom door opened. Soft footsteps moved down the hall toward the stairs.

Dominic pulled his hand free and lifted her off his lap in one swift motion. Aria dropped onto the couch beside him just as her mother’s voice floated down.

“Dominic? Have you seen my phone charger? I think I left it in my carry-on.”

He stood, voice remarkably steady. “I’ll find it.”

He walked toward the stairs without looking back.

Aria sat alone on the couch, heart slamming, shorts damp, the ghost of his fingers still inside her. She listened to the low murmur of their voices upstairs and pressed her thighs together hard.

The house felt smaller than it ever had before.

And far more dangerous.