Supernova (7 page)

She would think he was a spineless coward, that’s what.

He plopped down onto the futon and raked his hands over his face. There were secrets he would have to keep from her, and he hoped he would be able to do so with her living in such close proximity. Availia had put so much faith in him. It scared the shit out of him because as much as he wanted to grant her the one favor she had asked of him, he just didn’t know if he had it in him to give. He was only half a man now, but he would do the best that he could and hope that Kerrigan would prove not to be too much trouble.

Oh, who the hell was he kidding? She was going to be a handful. Although Dominic knew full well the dangers that existed outside that house, she had no clue, and it was his job to protect her. She had already almost caused him to have to beat someone’s ass within moments of meeting her on the very first day. And they hadn’t even left the house. Her bastard of a fiancé must have lost his mind if he thought Dominic would just stand by and allow him to put his hands on Availia Cruz’s pride and joy. Not on his watch. Dominic would rip him limb from limb.

He stood up and grabbed a clean pair of jeans and a towel before heading down to the bathroom on the second floor for a shower. He could hear Kerrigan and her mother through the cracked door of the bedroom right under his. From the sound of their conversation, they were unpacking and setting the room up to make her more comfortable.

Gabe came out of the room closest to Availia’s old room and stopped when he saw Dominic in the hall. “Hey there, Dominatrix. Hitting the shower?”

“Um, yeah.” Dominic looked down at the towel in his hands as if to point out the obvious. “Where I come from, that’s what people usually do when they feel dirty.”

“Mm, I feel dirty, too. Shall I join you? I promise to drop the soap.”

Dominic’s normally tanned face went almost white, but he light-heartedly laughed off Gabe’s suggestive comment.

“Look, Gabe, I have no problem with whatever sexual preference you have because I’m secure enough with my own manhood to not freak out over it. But, please know that I am not batting for the same team. Okay? You’re wasting your time barking up that tree because I’m not in it.”

“Sassy mouth,” Gabe chastised as he smacked at the air between them before placing his hand on his hip. “You spout all that
I-am-man, me-like-woman
Neanderthal bullshit, and then you start talking about wood. You’re nothing but a big ol’ tease.”

“Whatever, Gabe,” Dominic sighed with a roll of his eyes.

“It’s all right, scrumptious. I get it. I mean, I’m
not
getting it, but I get that I’m not getting it – at least not from you. It’s cool.”

“Cool.” Dominic pushed the door to the bathroom open and went inside.

“Oh, and hey,” Gabe said, stopping him before he could close the door. “Thanks for what you did down there for my Kerr Bear. I never could stand that bastard, but she wouldn’t let me smack the taste out his mouth.”

Dominic only nodded in response, and then disappeared behind the door.

Gabe strolled on down the hallway and flung Kerrigan’s bedroom door open in a flamboyant fashion. “Divas! Your main flame has arrived. You may now grovel and worship at my feet.”

Priscilla picked up a pillow from the box in front of her and threw it at his head. Gabe put both of his hands up in front of his face to guard the attack. He caught the pillow and held it up by the tag, giving her a stern look. “You could’ve taken my eye out with this tag, Prissy. What kind of mother does that kind of shit?”

Priscilla giggled at his absurdity.

“Are you already done unpacking?” Kerrigan asked, tucking some of her clothes into the bottom drawer of her dresser.

Gabe stomped his foot and let his arms slump down to his sides. Then he cocked his head to the side and stuck his bottom lip out in a pout. “Will you help me?” he whined.

“No. Uh-uh,” Kerrigan said, shaking her head at him. “Helping you translates into me doing all the work while you prop up your precious tootsies and bark orders at me from your throne as you file your nails. And then, you’ll just yell at me for mishandling your beloved Prada. Nuh-uh, not going to happen.”

“Damn, bitch! Dramatic much?” Gabe said with a smack of his lips and a roll of his head.

“Come on, you big baby,” Priscilla said with a sigh. “I’ll help you.”

“Yayee!” Gabe bounced up and down as he clapped his hands like a three-year-old. “Thank you, Mommy.”

Gabe had taken to calling Priscilla that shortly after meeting her, especially when she let him have his way.

“You spoil him. You know that, right?” Kerrigan asked. She shook her head at her mother. “He’s going to get a rude awakening when you and Dad leave tomorrow and I won’t cater to him like you do.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Priscilla said, walking over to the dresser to set the pictures she was holding down. Gabe took the opportunity while Priscilla’s back was turned to flip Kerrigan the bird. “You say that, but you and I both know that you’ll be joining us very shortly,” she said, turning to follow Gabe out the door.

She was right. Kerrigan catered to Gabe almost as much as her mother did. She just couldn’t help it. She loved her friend, and they were the only family he had.

Twenty minutes later, once she had finished putting away her own clothes, she set out for his room, chastising herself for being an enabler to Gabe’s guilty pleasures.

As she walked down the hall, the bathroom door opened and she smacked right into a very naked, very wet wall of flesh over rippling muscles.

Kerrigan stumbled, and Dominic grabbed for her. He managed to get a hold on her right hip and something ignited within her. A wave of euphoric bliss shot through her body, radiating from the spot where his thumb pressed into her skin. Kerrigan couldn’t help but close her eyes as the immense feeling of pleasure undulated through her. It was like that fluttering feeling one gets in their stomach as they’re perched on the top of a roller coaster, teetering on the edge just before the big drop.

His touch was too much to absorb, and she was growing increasingly dizzy. The room spun like she was on a merry-go-round, and a gush of air escaped her mouth. She clung to Dominic’s forearm with one hand and pressed the other to his chest. When she stumbled back toward the railing, Dominic dropped the towel he had been using to dry his hair and wrapped his other arm around her waist. Gravity pulled them both toward the edge of the landing, so he grabbed onto the banister and pinned Kerrigan to him, preventing their fall.

“Whoa there!” Dominic chuckled as he looked down at her. “Are you okay?”

He removed the hold he had on her hip and slid his hand around to her lower back, keeping her from tilting and falling over the edge. The dizzy feeling didn’t dissipate completely, but it was markedly diminishing. His breath fanned out over her face – cold, like fresh fallen snow. The unusual coolness of his breath wasn’t possible, but she couldn’t deny the goose bumps that broke out across her skin. Surely she was just imagining things in her state of delirium. Kerrigan inhaled his scent, her mouth parting in anticipation of something that didn’t come.

“Open your eyes,” he whispered, his frosty breath floating across her parted lips.

It was all Dominic could do to stave off the urge to take her pouty bottom lip between his and taste her. It would have been so easy. He was so close, and her body seemed to be so receptive to his. But he knew it would never stop there. He would want more.

Finally, her eyelids fluttered open, and she just smiled up at him. It was a docile smile, one of complete and utter contentment. Dominic searched her face with a concerned furrow between his brows, trying to decipher if she was lucid enough to stand on her own because he really didn’t know what she had to be so damn happy about. She could have fallen over the banister and been seriously injured or worse, and she was smiling like she was tripping on ecstasy. Maybe she
was
tripping.

“Hey.” Kerrigan bashfully caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she fought to stop grinning like an idiot.

“Hey.” His voice was deep, seductive, and he was smiling down at her.

Just then, Gabe’s bedroom door opened. “Damn, Kerr, you don’t waste any time do you? I told you those yoga sessions I forced you to go to would come in handy. Quick, downward facing dog! Put it
on
him, girl!” he said while making lewd motions with his hips.

Priscilla grabbed Gabe by his shoulder and yanked him back into the bedroom before closing the door. Kerrigan rolled her eyes and tried to right herself, but Dominic’s body was still pressed to hers, leaving no room to move. His chest vibrated against hers as he laughed at Gabe, and Kerrigan struggled to straighten.

“Oh.” Dominic pulled back to give her some mobility. “Sorry about that.”

“So, um, what the hell was that?” Kerrigan’s finger did a circular twirl in the air.

“You were going to fall, so I caught you.” He ran his long fingers through his wet hair. Kerrigan itched to touch it.

“No, not that.” She tilted her head to the side in contemplation. “You seriously didn’t feel that?”

Dominic smiled a row of perfect white teeth that reminded her of magazine ads with men in tight boxer briefs. “Well I suppose that depends on what exactly it was that you were feeling,” he said suggestively.

He lowered his hand to readjust himself in his pants and chuckled when he noticed Kerrigan’s eyes following his movement. She quickly averted her attention to his chest and then to his eyes, not able to find anywhere to look that wouldn’t make her blush in discomfort.

Dominic stood there. All bronze-skinned, wet hair, and sexy green eyes. He was half naked, wearing nothing but a pair of perfectly fitted jeans, with a perfectly chiseled chest, and a perfectly seductive smile. Her gaze raked over his neck where the tattoo extended over his left shoulder and down to cover his left bicep. She continued her assessment further, over his perfectly toned abdominal muscles, the little happy trail smattering of hair on his stomach, and then inadvertently landing on his…

Oh. My. God bless the makers of Levi’s
.

The jeans he wore hung low on his hips, showcasing that perfect V-shape of muscles that dipped under the snug waistband. Sweet baby Jesus, they were button-flies.

Her eyes swept toward the floor where she found his bare feet, not surprised they were perfect, too. Trying not to look at him wasn’t working because there was just so much to look at, and he was in such close proximity. She closed her eyes instead and took in a deep breath to gather her senses. That wasn’t much help either, because then she got a whiff of him.

His smell. She caught the distinct aroma of soap, mixed with a minty freshness and wrapped up in a hint of cologne that smelled amazingly similar to the scent that always wafted through the air when she walked through the doors at Abercrombie and Fitch. She exhaled in a gush, disappointed that she couldn’t keep inhaling him, but deliriously happy that she could start all over again with another breath. Her delirium was probably an effect of her light-headedness, too much oxygen and eau de Dominic to the brain.

“You like what you see?” His deep voice shook her out of her haze as his cool breath washed over her cheeks.

Her eyes shot open as embarrassment at being caught in a daze crept up her neck and flushed her cheeks. “I, um…” she stuttered.

Dominic laughed at her blundering and bent over to pick up the towel he had dropped. Her gaze momentarily landed on his right shoulder. There, she saw a flicker of a scar before he swung the towel over it and hid it from view. She was even more confused than she had ever been up to that point. She thought she knew that scar. Its shape was so familiar.

“Get your fat ass in here!” Gabe yelled, peeking out his door again. “This shit ain’t gonna’ put itself away.”

I am going to kill my best friend
, Kerrigan thought, but she knew that if she didn’t go, he would just keep it up and probably say something even more embarrassing.

She turned back toward Dominic and found his piercing green eyes still trained on her. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Although she had a lot of questions she wanted to ask him, Gabe was still standing there with his hands on his hips, tapping his foot.

“So, I’ll see you later?” Kerrigan asked. Then she rolled her eyes at her own statement and mumbled under her breath. “Of course you’ll see him later, you idiot. He lives here.”

“Definitely later,” he answered with a lopsided grin, drying his hair with the end of the towel. “And for the record, I happen to think your ass is perfect.” He ogled it unabashedly from the side and then turned toward the staircase leading back up to his room.

Kerrigan watched him walk away. The muscles in his back flexed with his movements, and she followed the smooth lines down to the waistband of his jeans where she caught sight of two dimples on either side of his lower back. She tilted her head to the side to check out his ass as he turned the corner to go up the stairs. He definitely had the total package. She silently thanked the makers of Levi’s once again for constructing those jeans just for him and all his assets.

She half-laughed to herself and drew her attention away from his retreating form to go to Gabe’s room. She needed to get a grip on herself. She had no clue why he had even been staying there – although she knew that her grandmother would’ve had good reason – and there she was, barely able to keep from throwing herself at him.