She stopped, and felt Dominic stiffen.
He said nothing, however, and she went on haltingly, “Suddenly, I might be losing Jay, and I’ve been completely knocked off my feet by what’s happening between you and me, and it hit home how—”
“How badly you could be hurt again.”
“It was . . . horrific, the first time.” She picked her way very carefully now. Neither of them had ventured into direct “L-word” territory yet, and she’d just wept all over him. She needed to be honest, but self-consciousness was prickling. “I suspect it would be even worse now.”
His arm tightened reflexively.
“Thank you for the deer,” she said. “It’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.”
“If it’s going to make you sad—”
“No.” She looked into the little carved eyes. It had a more piquant expression than Mallory’s, a glint of mischief that made her smile. “No.”
The lighting scheme in the Dark Forest was changing, softening to a warm glow, the spooky effects fading into flitting fireflies and the gentlest rustling whisper of the trees.
Evidently, Mabel was making a few adjustments upstairs.
Over the rustling, Sylvie heard the snick of the automated door lock clicking into place—keeping out any further visitors.
Mabel had definitely earned that Christmas bonus this year.
With his hand tucked up under her messy hair, his palm warm against her neck, Dominic kissed her cheek and the corner of her mouth. Sylvie turned her head obligingly, and their mouths met.
Unlike the usual flare of passion, desire was a slow burn, flickering under a surge of comfort and growing intimacy.
She carefully set the deer aside and Dominic took her all the way down to the floor, the kiss starting to deepen as the hardness of his body lowered onto hers, his hands slipping up under her top as he pressed closer.
They slid away layers of clothing, undoing buckles, lifting and arching. Their skin was a bare, shivery glide against each other when he belatedly hesitated, removing his lips from her throat.
“What’s wrong?” she asked huskily, her hips moving just a little restlessly against his shirt, spread on the ground beneath them as an impromptu, inadequate blanket.
“You’re still upset.” A bit of sex growl nonetheless roughened his voice. “It’s in your eyes, and I can feel it in your body. I don’t want to take advantage if you—”
“I want you.” It came out as more of a significant, final statement than she’d intended. But she meant it, in every respect. More quietly, holding his gaze, she murmured, “I want you.”
As they continued to look into each other’s eyes, seeking something and mutually finding it, Sylvie took his hand and brought it to her mouth. His breath coming faster, he slipped his first two fingers between her lips and she wet them, a sensual tug, before she slid his hand down her body.
In the dim, dancing light, under the trees, he stroked her as they lay side by side, heads turned to watch the tiniest changes in each other’s expressions. The hitches in breathing, the deepening flush in their cheeks and chests. Sylvie arched her head back with a small sound when he carefully slipped a finger inside her. Blindly, she reached for him, ran her own hand down his slightly damp abdomen.
“Can I—”
“You can touch me wherever you want.” A rasp. “Whenever you want.”
Words that she might have taken lightly from another man.
That meant a very great deal from him.
His head jerked to the side as she teasingly ran her fingers down his erection, cupped him, curved her thumb and forefinger as far as she could around his length.
Neither of them had a condom or any real desire for penetration. They lay for a long time just touching each other, looking at each other, existing in a bubble of slow, lazy, helpless pleasure and unbelievable closeness.
Their lips were just touching when she cried out, and he went rigid against her when she got her breath back and slid down to take him in her mouth.
She had no idea how long it was later when they sat together under her favorite tree, Sylvie tucked between Dominic’s legs as he rested back against the trunk, her cheek nestled on his chest.
“I need to finish my proposal,” she murmured, her whole body feeling deliciously limp and lethargic.
His muscles, however, tensed. He stretched out an arm toward the crumpled pile of clothing and extracted his phone. “About that.”
She sat up, curling her legs to the side, and stared in horror at the news headline on the screen as he recounted the call from Rosie. But when he got to the part about Pet, she reached up and curled her arms back around his neck, a tight hug of comfort.
“She wouldn’t do that,” she said quietly, kissing his throat.
“I knew that the moment I said it, but the damage is done.” The words were bleak and grim. “To a far greater extent than I realized.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “She left the bakery before I did. I don’t know if she’s coming back.”
She puffed out a breath. What a total sodding disaster all round. “She’ll come back,” she said with certainty. “She loves you.”
He jerked his head to the side, not quite a shake, but a negation, nonetheless. She held his veiled gaze. “She loves you,” she repeated, and after a moment he touched her cheek.
And very unsubtly changed the subject. “Sylvie.” The seriousness in his tone and renewed tautness in his body warned her. “What did you mean about losing Jay?”
She couldn’t respond immediately. With the way she felt about Dominic, it was—and should be—completely natural to talk to him about something that was eating away at her like a corrosive burn.
It also felt like the most colossal betrayal of Jay’s feelings.
No matter how dismayed she was by his threat to leave the business, she cared, very much, about that.
And bluntly, she still found it totally surreal, such a shift in viewpoint, to realize he was even looking at her like that. Vocalizing the surreal—it suddenly solidified into reality before a person was necessarily ready to cope.
She continued to hesitate; and in the end, as he’d done so many times lately, he made it easy for her.
Dominic pulled away far enough that she could see his face and he hers. His expression was nothing like what she’d expected.
Gentleness. Sympathy. The sudden burning of tears caught her by surprise.
He bent and touched his mouth to hers. “He’s in love with you.”
It wasn’t a question.
Her fingers curled into the scattering of hair on his bare chest. “He says he is.” She shook her head slightly. “He’s family to me. I thought I knew him to his core. I thought I knew us. How could I not even notice?”
“Because he’s family to you,” he reiterated simply, his thumb moving in a featherlight stroke.
“In the true meaning of the word, to me, which has nothing to do with biology. And which is unconditional. Forever.” She searched his eyes. “Did you know?”
“I wondered. The way he looked at you.”
One tear slid free. “Dom, he’s already slipping away.”
He caught the tear with his lips. His forearm flexed, warm and strong, when she wrapped her fingers around his wrist.