Domination (Explicitly Yours 2)

“There’s always a plan, Lola. Tonight was about you and me, and that’s why I wanted to stay in the hotel room. Just be with you. This is all my fault for not sticking to the plan.”

“But it was my idea,” she said.

He pulled her against him hard and hugged her. He buried his face in her hair. “Goddamn it,” he whispered.

He released her all at once and strode out of the convenience store. The attendant was already in front. She stood frozen to the spot. Her breathing hadn’t calmed. Her heart felt like it was bottoming out.

She’d almost lost everything in minutes. Her life. Her future. Their future. Beau. She shook her head. He wasn’t everything. He was just a man she’d spent two nights with. A man she’d already been planning to say goodbye to in a few hours.

She’d risked her life for that man. For a man she’d never see again after tonight. And he—he had done the same by not letting her out of his sight, even to save himself.

She’d almost lost him in minutes. He was everything.

There was a word for that—it was love.

* * *

The car dipped as they entered the hotel’s underground garage. The gun’s cold metal was still under Lola’s chin. She wanted Beau’s touch to replace it. To replace the last hour of being separated from him as policemen questioned each of them. Lola rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. She’d stopped shaking, but she was jittery.

Beau pulled into a parking spot and shut off the car. “In the morning, we’ll—” He stopped.

What, go get a bite to eat? Give the credit card companies a call? Pick her up a replacement cell phone? That wasn’t their life. Their life followed the sun’s schedule, and it would be waking up soon. “In the morning, we’ll nothing,” she said. “Nothing.”

They were silent. The police had asked if Beau was her boyfriend. Where they’d been. Where they were going. Why they needed a hotel if they lived in Los Angeles. The dashboard in front of Lola blurred and doubled. She breathed in and out.

What would they have said if she’d told them the truth?

“We’re not what you think, Officer. He’s paying me to be here right now. In this gas station. I’m being paid for this.”

She didn’t want Beau’s money. She could give it back and not leave in the morning, but then there was Johnny. Johnny, who hadn’t protected her. He hadn’t known if Beau would hurt her, or if she’d come home in one piece. He’d sent her off into a potentially dangerous situation—twice. He would’ve let the man with the gun take her outside to save his ass.

She undid her seatbelt.

“Lola?” Beau asked.

She put a knee ove

r the console and climbed onto him. He didn’t protest, just took her hips as she settled into his lap. She put her hands on both sides of his face and kissed him. He was solid. Real. Immovable. He tasted salty. One of them was crying.

“It’s okay to be scared,” Beau whispered. “You don’t have to be strong all hours of the day.”

“For you.” She was trembling again, but this time it wasn’t because of the gun. She couldn’t say goodbye to him. She wouldn’t. She’d walked into the gas station. He’d had a gun to his head. It was branded into her heart. His stubble scraped against her fingertips and her palms. She might’ve never felt that again.

“I was scared for you,” she said, her tears sliding down both their cheeks. “Scared something would happen to you.”

His arms tightened around her. “We’re both safe now,” he said in a humming, soothing voice. “I’ll keep you safe.”

He had needs too. She kissed his lips, his cheek. “What about you? Who will keep you safe?”

“You did, Lola.”

She shuddered. If she had saved him, it was to protect herself. She couldn’t live without knowing if all of her life had been leading up to this moment. She stayed in his lap, dug her fingers into his face and released. She fought herself.

“What is it?” he asked, his eyebrows heavy. “We’re running out of time.”

She reached for his fly to undo it, but stopped. Sobs racked her body. She fisted his shirt, stretching it. There was everything, and there was everything else. Beau had remained solid through it all. Beau had been strong and unwavering. Beau was hers. Nobody was going to take him away from her.

She clung to him. “I’m falling in love with you.”

He stilled completely. It was dark, but his eyes were green as they looked up into hers. She felt his chest again, as if checking for a bullet wound. He slid his hands down her back and into the seat of her pants, pulling her against him. Their lips met fast and hot like flames licking at their faces, every touch gasoline on the fire. He opened her jeans, yanking them down over and over, trying to get to her. She had to lift her knee to get one pant leg off so he could angle upward, his own pants barely undone, to find his way inside her. He took control of her hips, pushing her down on him. There wasn’t even time to moan, to think, to do anything but feel him hard and filling her.