Love Her or Lose Her: A Novel (Hot and Hammered, 2)

Dominic couldn’t stop staring at Rosie.

All seven of them—Dominic, Rosie, Travis, Georgie, Bethany, Stephen, and Wes—sat in a circle in the middle of the empty restaurant scarfing down pizza like it might be their last. Rosie had disappeared twenty minutes ago and returned with boxed wine, to the resounding cheers of everyone who’d spent the day laboring. She was already playing hostess, and, damn, it suited her. Cross-legged on the floor, dust in her hair, jacket long since discarded, she lit up the whole place. Forget decorating, she was going to be the attraction.

Dominic ignored the churn in his stomach that had been there since the morning. When he’d walked back into the hotel room, he’d hovered between two choices. Tell her about the house or keep it to himself. Seeing her this happy, it was hard to believe he’d made the wrong decision, but his conscience seemed hell-bent on making him question himself. He finished his Solo cup of cheap wine, setting it down in between himself and Rosie. The action caught her eye and she raised an eyebrow, asking without words if he wanted more. Dominic shook his head slowly and reached over to thread their fingers together.

“You’re celebrating. Have another,” Dominic said, leaning over to speak in her ear and press a lingering kiss on her cheek. “I’ll make sure you get back to Bethany’s safe.”

“Thanks,” she replied after a moment, her eyelids significantly droopier. There might be an animated conversation taking place all around them, but they could have been the only two people in the room. As much as he appreciated the support their friends had shown his wife today, he wouldn’t mind being alone with Rosie. No, he sure as hell wouldn’t mind that.

Wouldn’t be long before he’d have to share her every night. That thought made his shoulder perform a jerky roll, but he disguised the motion by refilling Rosie’s cup.

A lull in the conversation had the group taking a collective breath.

“So, Rosie,” Stephen said around pizza crust. “Do you have a name for the place yet?”

Dominic held his breath as Rosie pressed her lips together, hands folding and unfolding in her lap.

“I’m not totally settled yet, but I was thinking . . . Buena Onda. The rough translation of that is ‘good vibes.’” She smiled over at Dominic, almost shyly, like he didn’t worship every word out of her mouth, every idea in her head. “The kind I want this place to have.”

“Buena Onda,” Dominic said involuntarily. Maybe he just wanted to be the first one. “Perfect, Rosie.”

They didn’t break eye contact until Bethany spoke. “I love it, too. It sounds comforting. Welcoming. Like a neighborhood family place, with flair.” She twirled a finger in the air, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply through her nose. “I’m envisioning a big scripty O on the awning . . .”

Eyes trained on the blonde, Wes cleared his throat into his Solo cup. “Sounds like you’re thinking of a totally different kind of big O.”

Bethany cooed at the man to her left. “Awww, poor thing. Need instructions on how to deliver one?”

“Like hell I do.”

They smiled at each other through gritted teeth and everyone tried not to laugh.

Everyone except Stephen, who appeared to have lost all interest in his pizza. “One day I woke up and everyone was talking about my sisters like sexual objects.”

“Eww, Stephen,” Georgie complained from her position in Travis’s lap. “Gross.”

“Oh, it’s only gross when I point it out?”

Travis’s hearty laugh echoed off the walls. “Come on, baby,” he said, standing and hoisting his fiancée up against his chest. “Let’s spare your poor brother his misery.”

“Thank you.” Stephen heaved himself forward, reaching for another piece of pizza.

“Yeah.” Travis strode for the door. “Let’s go home and get into our pajamas.” He winked at the group. “And straight back out of them.”

Stephen dropped the slice like it was on fire. “Okay. I’ve hit my limit.” The foreman stood and dusted off his jeans, turning to a chuckling Rosie. “I’m happy for you, Rosie. You’re going to add something really special to this town.” He leaned down and shook Dominic’s hand. “You’re fast becoming my favorite, Dom, since you’re the only man left not sleeping with one of my sisters.”

“Hey,” Bethany exclaimed, her spine snapping straight. “I’m not sleeping with Wes.”

“Give it time,” Stephen muttered on his way out the door.

And then there were four.

Wes looked like a pig in shit. “Give you a ride”—he paused to sip his drink—“home, Bethany?”

With a shriek contained in her throat—mostly—Bethany stood and marched out. Wes followed a moment later. Rosie and Dominic turned to each other and burst into laughter. He caught Rosie as she toppled sideways, her head landing against his chest, the musical sound of her amusement warming every corner of his insides. He couldn’t help it when the laughter died in his throat. Couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his lap in one desperate move and burying his face in her neck.

“I’m proud of you, Rosie.”

He took a deep inhale of her and let it out, trusting the prodding in his gut. They were one entity. They shared a life. They either moved forward in the right direction or they would end up off course again. Dominic didn’t think he could survive losing her a second time.

“I’m proud as hell. I believe in you.” He swallowed. “I’m also selfish when it comes to my wife and I don’t like the idea of everyone else taking a piece of you.”

Rosie lifted her head, a line forming between her brows. “What do you mean, everyone taking a piece of me?”

“I mean . . .”

Dominic sounded as if he’d been running, his attention landing on different spots around the vacant restaurant. Hell, maybe therapy hadn’t been such a stupid idea, because when he normally would have balked at sharing his feelings, they lifted to the surface now without effort. Apparently his stiff upper lip was loosening up.

“All these people around you. Asking for things. Stressing you out. Even the good they get—the things you want to give them, like comfort and happiness? I’ve had them all to myself for a long time. I’m greedy with you. And I know, honey girl, I know that has to change so you can have your dream and be happy. I want that. I want your dream for you so fucking bad. But it means letting you fly without me. I’m scared of that.”

His wife took his face in her hands, her breath coming in short puffs. “Dominic—”

“Scared of you finding happiness in something that has nothing to do with me.” Unlike the house I bought for us. “That makes me a bastard, and I don’t know how to change it.”

She stopped his flow of words with her mouth, staying there until the rise and fall of his chest wasn’t so severe, then pulling back an inch. Searching his eyes.

“There are parts of me that I will never share with anyone else in this world. Not a single soul. Only you. And that is never, ever going to change,” she said.

She turned in his lap, straddling him, laying soft kisses on his mouth, his cheeks, ruining him. Winding him all over again.

“No one is ever going to see me cry or be at my weakest inside these four walls. That’s something I’ll always save for you, because you’re the only one who can make me stronger. No one is ever going to turn me on and piss me off at the same time or make me feel protected. Or alive. You’re the only one who’ll ever do that.”

Every word out of her mouth stitched shut the gaping wound inside him, tied knots, made sure it was securely closed. Maybe his wife wasn’t the only one who craved words. And Jesus, he hadn’t cried since he was a kid, but he was suspiciously close to it right now. Had to drop his head back and look up at the ceiling, so the suspicious moisture in his eyes wouldn’t escape.

“Dominic, do you honestly think I could ever love anyone the way I love you?”

That snapped his head and eyes forward, sent the organ in his chest into a frenzy. Had he heard her right? “You’re back to loving me?”

Rosie made a small sound, her expression a mixture of regret and love. “I’m sorry I said that. Maybe at the time I was angry enough to convince myself I meant it. But, Dominic, I couldn’t stop loving you if they cut the heart out of my chest.”

With a gruff exhale of her name, he shot forward and snared her mouth in a rough kiss. Oh Jesus Christ. His heart was going to beat hard enough to incite an earthquake. Rosie loved him. His wife loved him and nothing else on this fucking earth mattered but thanking her for it. If he took his mouth off hers, he was pretty sure poems were going to come tumbling out and he’d never written a damn poem in his life, so he pried her lips apart with his own instead, licking into her mouth and intercepting her unrestrained moan.

Dominic knew his wife’s signals better than the back of his hand, so when her thighs got restless around his hips, he wasted no time standing. It would be a cold day in hell before he fucked this incredible woman on a floor covered in sawdust and dirt.

When Dominic reached his full height, her thighs tightened around him like a wrench, her hands busy stroking his face, mewling coming from her throat. It was everything he could do to stumble toward the back of the empty room, toward the kitchen, when all he wanted to do was jerk down his zipper, impale Rosie, and bounce her to an orgasm. They’d ripped some of the paper coverings off the window throughout the evening, however, so anyone passing by would see them—and he wasn’t having that.

“Please, baby, please,” she whimpered in his ear, her teeth tugging on the lobe—hard—making his cock swell like a motherfucker in his pants. “Now, now, now.”

Dominic strode toward the kitchen with the word “baby” tumbling through his head. “You haven’t called me that in a long time. God, Rosie. I’ve missed it. I had no idea how much.”

“Baby,” she whispered, working the juncture of her thighs against his erection. “Baby.”

His groan echoed in the dark kitchen when they stumbled inside, ramming into a metal storage rack and sending it flying into a nearby wall. Not that either of them stopped kissing long enough to care. Dominic took two steps and threw his wife up against the first flat surface he encountered. A stainless steel fridge. Having her sexy body cling to his made Dominic feel like a god, so he flattened his palms on the steel above her head and forced her to cling harder. And when he looked her square in the eye and started to roll his hips, she climbed higher, her head falling back on a moan of his name.

“Dominic.”

He reached down and lowered his zipper, releasing a rough expulsion of breath when his dick finally had the room it needed. “Going to give this to you, honey girl.” He stroked himself a few times and felt moisture bead at his crown. “Take your pants off and tell me how you need it,” he rasped, nipping at her chin with his teeth. “You always want it hard enough to last the week, but we’re not doing that shit anymore. No more games. No more building up until we’re ready to explode. I’m going to satisfy my wife’s tight pussy every night of the week.”

Her eyes were dazed and glowing as they locked on him, wicked intentions like he’d never seen before in Rosie’s expression. She leaned in and spoke just above a whisper at his mouth, her tongue sliding out to taste him, slowly, teasingly. “I want to satisfy my husband’s huge cock just as much.”

Dominic growled and thrust himself against the seam of her jeans involuntarily, his blood heating to a fevered state over the wetness of the material. Their mouths fused together, heads tilting, and fucking hell, she tasted so sweet, he had to bang his fist against the fridge. Dominic was two seconds from ripping the crotch out of her jeans so he could get inside his wife without losing the perfect death grip of her thighs around his hips. Before he could proceed, Rosie’s legs dropped, her palms pushing against his heaving shoulders to ease him back. Away. Confused, needing more, Dominic didn’t want to go—but then she dropped to her knees and swirled her tongue around the head of his dick.

“Rosie.” Watching from above as half of his inches sunk into Rosie’s mouth, Dominic beat off the remaining length of his stretched cock, angling himself toward her giving lips. “Ohhh. Jesus. Jesus. You’re asking for it.”

Looking up at him, she nodded, her plump, wet mouth riding up and down his erection. They were tempting fate with him so clearly ready to burst, but when was fucking Rosie not a combination of pain and perfection? That’s how it would be until the end of time. The attraction was too fierce, too consuming. They challenged, they taunted, they didn’t hold back a single thing. No choice but to savor this, Dominic planted one hand on the fridge and wrapped the opposite fist in Rosie’s hair, slowly fucking her mouth, his hips pitching forward and stopping short when he felt resistance, well aware she needed a little longer before welcoming him into her throat. He anticipated that moment the way a prisoner anticipates getting sprung from prison. His queen might be on her knees, but he was the one begging for that reward, harsh pleas falling from his mouth without permission.

“So good, Rosie. Honey, can I, please. Please. Rosie.”

Her eyes teased him from below, that pink tongue dancing up the side of his length in a featherlight lick before she wrapped him in a fist and went lower to draw one of his balls into her mouth. Sucking hard while he shouted epithets in the dark kitchen. She moved on to the other one, and Dominic reached down, pinching himself in the right spot to stave off release. His wife took mercy on him, but by no means was she finished. Letting go of his sack with a pop, she took his cock back between her lips and consumed the entire length.

Dominic bit down on his lower lip so hard he tasted blood. “Shit,” he gritted out, his fingers tightening in her hair, his thighs quaking, his hips remaining still despite the overwhelming urge to rock deeper. “Can’t. Ah, Christ. Can’t take any more. Stand up,” he ordered raggedly, dragging his dick out of her mouth with a curse.

No sooner had she swayed to her feet with a feline smile did Dominic strip off his shirt. Her smile disappeared, her eyes glazing over more than they already had. Smirking as much as he could when his balls were full and welded against his lower body, he yanked the jeans down Rosie’s legs. The button ripped off and pinged on the floor, but Dominic could only shove at her panties with frantic movements, wanting them out of the way. They landed on the floor with a soft whoosh that could barely be heard over his and Rosie’s uneven breathing. Dominic stooped down, picked her up, and urged Rosie’s thighs back around his hips, sinking his teeth into her neck and making her cry out, her fingernails breaking the skin on his shoulders.

Finally, finally, he guided his cock to her drenched entrance and thrust inside, pushing her a good foot higher against the fridge. He caught her scream in his palm at the very last second, but could do nothing to muffle his own deafening groan. The walls of her pussy wrapped around him, clenching, her scream rising another octave, making it almost impossible for Dominic not to ejaculate on the spot. How he resisted when his wife was shaking and coming for him, her knees digging into his waist, he had no goddamn clue.

Commanding his body to hold off, Dominic dropped his head to her shoulder and breathed through his nose. In, out, in, out, all while Rosie clawed at his back, her pussy squeezing on and off around his aching sex. A month ago, he would have already been driving into her almost angrily—and now, in this moment, he realized he’d been searching frantically for their old connection. The one he’d known was there, but had been buried deep. It wasn’t anymore. It was a burning flame between them, more real than anything he’d ever known. His wife. God, he loved her so much, his heart threatened to crack under the pressure.

“Tell me you’ll come home tonight. To our home.” He caught her chin in his hands, tilting her face up and waiting for her dazed eyes to focus on him. To see him. “Give me that, Rosie. Say you’ll come home and I’ll fuck you harder than I ever have in our lives. Your screams will still be echoing in this kitchen when you open for business.”

Her breathing accelerated. “I never knew you could play so dirty,” she murmured.

“Yes, you did.” He flicked open two of her blouse buttons and yanked the material aside, licking the swell of her breast, his tongue sneaking under the lace cup of her bra to graze her nipple. Maintaining eye contact, he trailed his tongue across to her other breast and loved it with a growl. “You want a preview? Will that help you decide?”

“I’m afraid to say yes.”

Dominic clamped his teeth around the lace hiding her tits, pulling it away from her body, farther and farther until the material started to tear. Only when it was a limp tatter did he let it go. Rosie made a soft exclamation, her back arching, inviting him to suck her tits—Dominic had already planned on complying. She turned into a shameless little attention seeker, her pussy growing more and more slippery around his cockstand the longer he licked at her nipples, drawing them deep into his mouth and rolling them around on his tongue.

Only when she was sobbing his name did Dominic take her ass in both hands and position her against the fridge. “Time for that preview.” He tucked his hips back, pulling several inches of his cock from her wet, warm body, before ramming himself deep. Again, he caught Rosie’s scream with his mouth. “Keep quiet,” he growled, molding the supple flesh of her butt in his palms. “Don’t say another word, unless you’re telling me you’ll come home.”

“I . . .” She sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m—”

Dominic let loose on her. Maybe he didn’t want to hear a no. Or hell, maybe he simply couldn’t deprive his body of her perfection any longer. Whatever the cause, he fucked her like an animal against the refrigerator, rocking the foundation of the appliance, muffling her cries with his mouth. Her thighs held on as long as they could to his bucking hips, then lost purchase, jostling around him with every savage drive. He could feel blood trickling down his back, thanks to her nails, but the evidence of her pleasure only curved his lips against her mouth.

Rosie’s head tossed left, right, fingernails clawing at his chest. “I’m coming,” she whimpered, the slap of his flesh entering her pussy almost drowning out her voice. “I—I’m coming again. Yes. Oh God. Dominic.”

The refrigerator groaned and rocked with the force of one more thrust before Dominic ceased all motion. Ignoring her frantic protests, he released the right cheek of her backside and cupped the back of her head. He dragged their foreheads together. “Mine. Tell me I’m bringing home what’s mine.” He pushed his cock deep and ground down, making her cry out. “That’s yours. That’s what you get for belonging to me. And my—” He cut himself off to gather his emotions, but it was impossible. “My heart. You get that, too. All of it. I’m begging you to take it back before it stops working. You’re my home. I need you with me, Rosie. Please.”

“I was trying to tell you . . .” she panted, her hands dragging across his shoulders, over the curve of his neck to clasp his face. “I was already planning on coming home.”

Dominic couldn’t breathe. “You were?”

“Yes.” She kissed him so sweetly, with such trust, his head grew light. “What part of ‘you make me feel alive and protected’ didn’t you understand? What part of ‘I love you’ didn’t you understand? I’m coming home.”

“God, I love you, too,” he breathed into her neck. Relief set him free. Driven by a primal need to please now that the weight was off his shoulders, Dominic angled his dick and pumped deep, grinding himself on her clit with every rough, deliberate thrust. They both looked down, watching the sexual friction take place between their bodies, their breath coming in accelerated puffs. Rosie started to tighten up again almost immediately, her snug, wet pussy pulsing, pulsing, constricting. With a guttural groan, he picked up the pace, his satisfaction speeding closer from watching her perky tits bounce in the opening of her blouse, witnessing her beautiful eyes go blind.

“Yes, baby,” she whined, pressing her middle finger to her clit and rubbing in quick circles, the walls of her cunt swelling and leaving him almost no room to thrust. “Yes.”

The second she broke, Dominic lost it, too. He fell on her with a snarl, sandwiching her between himself and the refrigerator, rocking the appliance as he fucked his release into his wife’s body. Into the woman he loved beyond all recognition. Her screams of his name were trapped by his palm, Dominic setting his own growls of pleasure into her neck, wave after wave of bliss pulling him under, deeper, so deeply in love with this woman, he wasn’t sure his head would ever comprehend the magnitude.

That love only increased when she kissed him with soft, smiling lips and said, “Let’s go home.”

It wasn’t until minutes later, when they walked hand in hand out of Rosie’s future restaurant, did Dominic remember how he’d made it possible . . . and a tiny ribbon of dread slithered into his stomach. Ignoring it, he scooped Rosie up into his arms and carried her all the way to his truck. Nothing but blue skies ahead.