Three Hard Lessons (Blindfold Club 2)

Dominic’s hand curled under my chin and forced my eyes up. “No, it’s not. I love you. That’s real.”

I stared into his eyes. Since Ian, I’d become the human lie detector, and I didn’t see any tell that Dominic was lying, but my damaged heart refused to accept it.

“Please stop saying it.”

“Goddamnit, you are the most frustrating girl . . . Okay, yeah, you had a really shitty experience a long time ago, but we’re going to get past it.” He’d said we’re. Like this was his problem now, too?

And, what the hell? Did he not think I’d tried to get past it? There had been Joel, and a few others, and I’d felt nothing with any of them. In fact, before Dominic, my fucked up relationship with Joseph was the closest I’d gotten to love with a man. My manager certainly didn’t love me, but I knew he at least cared about me.

Dominic pulled me into his lap and wrapped his warm arms tight around me. “Now that I put it out there, it’s out. Get used to hearing me say it.”

“Then get used to not hearing it back.”

I didn’t argue to try to stop him, because Dominic did whatever he wanted. His hands started at the base of my neck and slid up gently until he had my face cradled in his palms, him just a breath away. The pad of his thumb brushed over my lips, pausing at the center.

“I love you.”

The thumb slipped away and was replaced by his kiss, the same one he’d given me at the club. He’d kissed me then as a man who’d waited a year to kiss, but this time it was worse. This was a kiss he’d waited his whole life to give. One that tasted like love.

My eyes stung and I turned away.

“Are you . . . crying?”

I blinked and glared at him. Whatever was going on with my eyes dried up. “No,” I spat out. “I don’t cry.”

A short laugh came out of him. “You know, saying you don’t do something? That doesn’t actually make it true.”

I rolled my eyes and crawled off of him. “You better watch yourself. Your truth serum made me sleepy and bitchy.”

He turned off the light and curled up around me like he always did, but I felt him all around me now. Like he was tattooed to my skin.

“Thanks for staying,” he said. I don’t know if he meant through the holidays, or the fact that I hadn’t bolted from the apartment when the L word came out.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered back. “Merry Christmas.”

Every morning before he left for work, it was the same. He’d take my face in his hands, brush his thumb over my lips and tell me he loved me. That thumb would slide out of the way just as he replaced it with his lips to kiss me goodbye.

It snowed my final week in Tokyo. The city was more beautiful with the fat snowflakes drifting down to melt on the neon. My ticket home was for Monday afternoon, and as the weekend approached, the familiar panic crept in. I didn’t love this place. I’d gotten more homesick in my five weeks here than my entire semester in Amsterdam. But I didn’t know how I was going to get on that goddamn plane.

He’d been late getting home this whole week, cutting deeper into our remaining time together.

“I was hoping we could go to Kyoto for the weekend. You want to?” Dominic asked over dinner on Thursday.

“Well, yeah.” When else was I going to get the chance to go there? “What did you have in mind?”

“We could stay at a Ryokan. It’s like a traditional inn so you get the full Japanese experience. I’ve wanted to stay at one, but it’d be weird to go by myself.” Something suspicious flashed behind the aqua eyes.

“Okay, sure, but what’s going on with you?”

“Maybe I made reservations for us already. There’s a really good one that has an onsen. You know what that is?”

“Yeah, a hot spring.” But the weird expression continued on his face. “That’s not what’s got you nervous, though.”

He gave me a tight smile. “You’re not going to like this next part.” He leaned back in his seat across the dinner table from me, massaging a hand on the back of his neck, giving me a view of the bicep flexing under his T-shirt.

“Out with it.”

“The place I booked, it’s supposed to be really great.”