I drag my fingertip across the rim of the wineglass, mulling over my last four days there. “It was fine. Nothing overly exciting happened unless you count the fact that some of the kids threw tomatoes at the Ottawa police and promptly got arrested.”
Dominik laughs. “Ever do anything like that when you were in college?”
“What makes you think I went to college?” I ask.
“Don’t play mysterious with me,” he counters with a stern expression. “I know you went to Michigan State. What was your degree in?”
No clue how he knows that. Maybe social media, maybe my brother, or hell… maybe my parents spilled it at some point in one of the few times they’d met him. Not really important.
“Photojournalism,” I say, then add. “And of course I did crazy stuff in college. Didn’t you?”
“I never finished college,” he says, which absolutely shocks me. How did I not know this about him?
“You’re kidding me?” My jaw hangs slightly open, and I clamp it shut. “I mean… is that common knowledge?”
Dominik shrugs. “It’s no secret. I mean, the press made a big deal about it when I first bought the Quakes, but it’s not such hot news these days.”
I just stare… agog. A man who thinks nothing of plopping down almost seven thousand a night on a hotel room hadn’t even finished college. I mean, not that people must have a degree to be successful in this life. I know that much.
But damn if this doesn’t make him all the more mysterious and exciting, and I want to know more.
“So how exactly did you get to be so rich and—”
“Gorgeous?” he cuts in, his lips quirked up mischievously.
“You’re passable,” I mutter, taking another sip of my wine. “But seriously… tell me how you did it. I mean, maybe I can become a multimillionaire like you.”
“Billionaire,” he corrects.
“Whatever,” I reply with an eyeroll. “So, dish. Tell me every gory detail.”
Dominik settles into the pillows propped up against the headboard, then takes another sip of his drink. “Well, I went to UCLA and was halfway through my sophomore year—general business degree—when a friend and I started an on-campus internet radio company. It was more of a hobby than anything else, but then we started getting sponsors and drawing in decent advertising money. Our pitch was not categorizing music by decades or genres but by emotions.”
“Emotions?” I ask, my chin pulling inward.
“Let’s say you came home from a hard day at work, and your brain is just absolutely hurting. You want to take a hot bubble bath and just let everything melt away. Imagine having a playlist of appropriate music at your fingertips.”
“Calgon take me away.” I laugh, referencing the old, iconic commercial.
Dominik nods, chuckling. “We called it the Calgon channel. Or say you were angry and pissed off—just wanted to throw stuff and rage against the world. We had a playlist of angry, aggressive music. Or you wanted to have a dance party. Or lullabies for your kid. All our channels targeted moods.”
“That’s brilliant,” I say, my voice suffused with awe.
“We named it Verve Radio. Before the end of our sophomore year, we had an offer to buy us out for forty-eight-million dollars.”
“Oh my God,” I breathe out.
“Took that money, then invested some in high-risk startup ventures. When those paid off, I dropped out of school and never went back.”
“And then you bought a basketball team,” I murmur.
“And a hockey team.”
“And a hockey team,” I agree with a laugh. I take another sip of my wine. “By the way, Dax told me the lawsuit against him, Erik, and Sebastian got dropped.”
Dominik nods, his eyes lit with self-satisfaction. I know why, too, because my brother also told me that Dominik went off on Nanette Pearson, told her that she was a flat-out liar and if she wanted to take him on, it was going to be like going to war. Apparently, the next morning, they got notice her attorney had dismissed the lawsuit and made a short statement to the press about it. The Vengeance remained stoically quiet about the situation.
“Dax was extremely impressed by you.” I smile, very much aware of how much my brother doesn’t like Dominik.
Rather, didn’t like.
They’ll probably have a bromance now.
“It was the right thing to do,” Dominik says offhandedly.
“Most multimillion—”
“Billion.” He gives me a wicked grin.
“Most multibillionaires would have paid her something to make her go away. It would have been the easiest thing to do. In my experience, business decisions are rarely made on the right thing to do, but rather whatever is easiest.”
“I don’t operate that way.” Dominik takes a healthy slug of his drink before depositing it on the nightstand. “It’s not who I am.”
“Is it weird I’m attracted to more than just your body and your magic dick right now?” I ask, scooting a bit closer.
Dominik smirks. “You really think my dick has magical properties?”
“It’s got something,” I reply seductively.
This prompts Dominik to take my glass. The look in his eyes is proof I’m okay with this. He sits it on the nightstand beside his near empty glass, then rolls back, his hand going behind my head.
When his mouth hits mine, I settle on my back, arms wrapping around him to pull him with me.
Dominik’s big body covers mine, his tongue sliding into my mouth. It solidifies what has been in the back of my mind—I’ve been more than obsessing about him over the last four days.
I’ve actually missed him.
CHAPTER 11
Willow
When I pull up at Shërim Ranch, I silently thank Regan for giving me the use of her car today since she’s hanging out with Dax. It’s a rare day he has off while in the playoffs, but the first round is over and the Vengeance ended up sweeping the Seattle Storm in four games. The next round doesn’t start for four more days when we’ll be hosting the Vancouver Flash for game one.
Waking up in Dominik Carlson’s bed for the fourth day in a row is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it almost seemed natural I ended up there each night. I stayed with him in his Presidential Suite in Seattle as the Vengeance summarily defeated the Storm in games three and four. We returned to Phoenix with nothing but time on our hands until the second round started, and I stayed in his new house the following two nights.
I tried to put up a fight, arguing we didn’t need to spend every night together. He countered with, “Fine. Then have lunch with me during the day, and I’ll gladly give you a reprieve on the night.”
My mouth had snapped shut. Arguing was futile. He’d made his point clear. He wanted time with me and he preferred nights—same as I did—but if I wouldn’t give him those, he was going to insist on taking something.
As he’d told me before, he was greedy when it came to me and frankly, that was more of a turn-on than a turn-off.
At this point, I’ve resigned myself to enjoying Dominik’s attention and he’s a nice distraction while I’m in the area to root my brother on in the playoffs.