Could Dominic like my plus size shape?
I almost let out a giggle at the mere thought, though his presence here does pique curiosity within me.
“Hello,” I say, deciding that I’ll slip into another skin and play a character. Confident girl. Not, shy girl. A girl who doesn’t want to sink into a hole in the ground. “Can I help you?”
“So polite,” he says, striding to my bed. For a moment, I’m sure there’s a note of teasing in his voice, subtly jibing. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” I say. “Glad I get to go home today. All of this was just a formality, really.”
I could reach out and grab him right now, squeeze down on his arms, feel the way my fingernails would bend under their unyielding firmness. I almost do it, but then a voice in my mind viciously reminds me that he’d probably just puke if I expressed something like that toward him.
But I can smell him, his cologne mixed with man scent almost overwhelming me.
“So you’re ready?” he says, glancing down at me.
I lay the script aside and nod down at myself, dressed in a summer skirt I now regret, showing off my thighs, and my bag in the corner.
“Yep, all set.”
“Shall we get going, then?” he mutters, a note of impatience entering his voice.
I flinch, the truth taking a long moment to clatter down in my head.
“Wait, are you taking me home?”
A smirk touches his lips.
“Didn’t your old man tell you?” he asks. “He asked me to come and get you. So are we going or not?”
“He might’ve mentioned something.”
I jump up way too fast, and feel a crunching in my chest, a silly-girl-silly-girl voice singing in my head. I make up for it by taking my sweet, leisurely time getting my bag, and then carefully folding my script and putting it inside, even pretending to fiddle with the zipper for a little while …
Okay, I’m not pretending, the zipper has been a bane for quite a while now.
When I turn back to Dominic, I see that his jaw is tight and his gaze is biting sharply into me, his intense brown eyes roaming down to my skirt, and bare legs.
And for a crazy second I think he’s going to dart across the room and grab my thighs, hard, sliding his hand up toward my panties and prying them loose.
Maybe just snapping them.
And then—
“Shall we go?” he says, cutting my thoughts short.
“Sure,” I say as breezily as I can, still putting on my actor’s face, hoping I can mask the uncertainty wavering inside of me.
He nods and strides from the room, leaving me to follow after him, giving me a view of his broad, muscled back.
Light sweat has flecked his shirt, making it stick to his skin. I try not to let my eyes magnetize to the muscles, but it’s difficult, and I lose over and over.
In the parking lot, he starts walking toward a jet black sports car, pressing a button on the key so that the doors flip upward. I’m not an expert when it comes to cars, but I think it’s fitting that it’s a Jaguar, sleek and handsome and intense and deadly, just like him.
He walks around to the driver’s side and I climb into the passenger’s side, and then with a yelp I almost drop a good two feet into the seat like the biggest dork in the universe.
As quick as a shadow, Dominic is there, his arms looped around my waist as he lowers me into the seat, lower to the ground than I’m used to. His breath is sultry on my skin and his muscles press against my hip, firm, solid, and for a moment we just stay like that.
“Thank you,” I stammer. “I guess I’m not used to sports cars.”
“It’s fine,” he says, voice husky and low as he moves away.
I guess the last thing he wanted to do today was wrap his arms around my body, and now he turns to the road, eyes narrowed.
“Let’s get going.”
He handles the car deftly as the air conditioning blessedly blasts us with air straight from the Arctic. I find myself toying with the hem of my skirt, the silence something I’ve never liked.
Actors shout and talk a mile a minute and laugh for no reason, but we don’t sit well in silence. And even if I’m just a wannabe actor, I still slide effortlessly into that mold. A classic cliché.
So I ask about his businesses.
“Dad said it was investments? But he never said what.”
“Oh, this and that,” he says casually. “I got in on the ground floor of a few Silicon Valley companies, becoming a silent partner. I patented an axe design and that ended up doing quite well. Believe it or not, I co-own a tire company and that brings in a decent amount of revenue. And more. Lots more. But it’s nothing exciting. It’s just money. The excitement comes from fighting fires, from risking my life, from saving people.”
His hands have tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white, and unexpectedly he chuckles and shakes his head.
“What’s funny?” I ask. “That sounds amazing, Dom, really.”
Dom.
We both hear it, me using the shortened version of his name, which I’ve never done before. When I was growing up, it was Mr. Dallison, and lately it seems to have become Dominic.
But Dom?
“Where are we going?” I ask, when we pass the exit that would lead to the suburbs where Mom and Dad’s house is.
My house, until I get my own apartment.
“I want to take you to my place,” he says. “I suppose I should’ve asked first. I was distracted. Will you come, Lilah? Will you come for me?”
Come for me.
Dirty thoughts dance temptingly in my mind with newfound vigor, screaming at me that yes, I’ll come for him, on him, let him taste it and drink it and smear it all over me in sinful delight.
“Yes,” I whisper, my voice a croak.
“Good,” he says, voice a deeper rumble than the engine. “Because I’ll explode if I don’t finally get this off my chest.”
What?
What the heck does that mean?
But then he’s asking me about my play and I don’t really have a chance to process what that could mean.
“It’s a small production,” I say.
“But you want bigger things,” he notes, reading me effortlessly.
“Yes,” I say, passion infusing the word. “It’s not that I want to be rich or famous. I mean, sure, I guess that would be okay. But I want to hone my craft, the chance to dedicate my life to it, the chance to live and breathe life into different roles, the chance to …”
I stop, my breath coming frantically, my words hanging embarrassingly in the air.
“What?” Dom says quietly, gliding off the exit ramp, the sun kissing the sea and glowing across the city. “What do you want, Lilah?”
Apart from you?
I wring my hands.
“I guess I want to stop embarrassing myself in my dad’s friend’s car,” I laugh, but without humor.
“You’re not embarrassing yourself,” he says seriously. “And yes, I’m Mark’s friend, and you’re his daughter, but that doesn’t mean …”
“What?” I urge when he cuts off, daring to dream. “What, Dom?”
“Let’s talk at the house,” he says.
“Okay,” I whisper, mind fuming, doing all kinds of acrobatics as I try to puzzle out just what the heck is happening here.