Dominque (Knights to Remember) (18 page)

“WOLF!”

Everything stopped, including Jacob’s heart. He looked down on the tear streaked face of Dominque and felt every bit of blood run from his body.

“No,” Jacob whispered. “No.”

“Wolf,” Dominque repeated weakly.

D
ominque took in a shuddery breath as Jacob rolled off him, lying beside him, his gentle touch seeming too much and he brushed his hand from his arm and stopped a sob from escaping his throat.

“I… Dominque… I'm so sorry.”

He probably didn’t even understand. Dominque didn’t understand. Everything was good… right up until the kiss.

“Dominque, please.”

The whole night had been perfect, exactly what Dominque wanted. Every single second was intense and so passionate. Dominque had never felt like that with anyone, never had a partner so in tune with what he needed. It was like Jacob could see into his mind, taking his thoughts and turning them into reality.

“Dominque…”

To use his safeword… Dominque hid his face in the pillow, crying into it, not being able to look Jacob in the face. Everything had been good and then the kiss.

“Talk to me, please.”

He could hear the fear in Jacob. Understood that fear. No Dom wanted to hear their sub’s safeword, and Jacob had been so understanding, so careful. He didn’t want to hurt Jacob, didn’t want to use his safeword.

“Please, baby.”

The soft endearment made him smile through his tears. He was positive that word had never come from Jacob’s lips before.

“It was the kiss.” Jacob stroked his hair back before running his hands down his arm, lifting his palm to his mouth and kissing it. “This shouldn’t have happened. We shouldn’t have moved on without—”

“Normal people don’t need contracts or rules about what they do in bed. I just wanted to be normal for once. No restrictions, no limits. I wanted to fall into bed and let it happen.”

Jacob sighed against his shoulder.

“With no play involved, I thought I was okay to do that. Obviously I fucked up.”

Jacob kissed his shoulder again. “You didn’t fuck up. I didn’t… I should have realised. It was my mistake.”

“There’s no mistakes!” Dominque fisted his hand in the sheet. “Everything you did was perfect.”

“Perfect doesn’t involve your safeword being used in my world.”

“I panicked. I shouldn’t have used it.”

“Panicking is exactly why we have it, Dominque.”

“It won't happen again.”

“You're right, it won't, because we’ll talk this through and overcome it, decide on how we move on. Your limit was passed, a limit you weren’t expecting, but it happened all the same.”

Dominque turned slowly, still not looking in Jacob’s eyes, but hiding in his chest. “I’ve never felt so good. You
were
perfect. The way you touched me, how your body fitted against mine… in mine.” Dominque smiled a little, running his fingers over Jacob’s chest hair. “You were in my mind. You knew what I wanted as soon as I did.”

“We connect in a way I’ve never experienced either. I’ve wanted this bond for so long, it seems like a dream. To hear you use your safeword… I'm so sorry, Dominque. That’s the thing I wanted to never do, push you so much.” Jacob kissed his cheek. “The kiss. It’s not usually an issue for me because I don’t do it.”

Dominque paused, his fingers stilling in Jacob’s hair and he looked up, seeing how glassy Jacob’s green eyes were. The realisation he was so full of hurt and shame he was almost crying made Dominque sit up, capturing his face in his hands and searching those green eyes with his own. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Dominque…”

“Nothing, Jacob. Nothing!” He leaned down, slowly pressing his lips on Jacob’s. “I don’t kiss either. I never have done, not once.” He deepened the kiss, wanting to eradicate the horrible memories from both of them by making it right.

Jacob stopped him, pulling back and shaking his head. “Too soon.”

“No, too late.” Dominque fell back on his lips, this time straddling his chest and holding him down on the bed, kissing him with such wildness and passion both of them lost themselves in it.

Jacob gasped when Dominque pulled off his lips, quickly stopping him from kissing him again by holding his head firmly in his hands and forcing him to look him in the eyes.

“I'm falling in love with you, Dominque. If you don’t want that to happen, you need to stop. Stop everything. Leave me here.” His brilliant, shiny green eyes bore into Dominque. “Leave me or love me.”

“I'm not going anywhere, Jacob.”

D
ominque chuckled over the rim of his tea cup in the sunny dining room, listening to Helen giving both Jacob and his giant of a brother Krane a stern talking to while the others ate breakfast.

Apparently, her hubby-to-be was in a really bad state all night. So bad he didn’t make it back to bed. He passed out in one of his mates’ rooms, which Dominque thought was much better than keeping Helen up all night being sick, but apparently she’d woken at three a.m. and found him missing and turned the hotel upside down searching for him.

Being pregnant, having no sleep
and
in a bad mood showed Dominque a new level of pissed off, one he really hoped he wouldn’t see again. Considering she was two feet shorter than Krane, the way she pushed him around and frightened the shit out of him, made Dominque cringe. He was a good guy from what he’d seen and he was sure this was all down to Jacob in some way.

“Jacob,” he cut off Helen mid-rant and they turned to look at him. “Apologise to your sister and stop letting poor Krane take all the crap.”

Jacob paused, mouth open, arms stiff by his thighs, then he turned to his sister and apologised, promising to help her groom in any way he could do. She gave him a huge list of stuff to do which Shaun couldn't due to his hangover, then left for a nap.

Jacob glared at Dominque, but he just shrugged.

“You two got yourself in this mess, so you two can sort yourself out of it. I’ll be here with your mum. Supervising.”

Beside him, Jacob’s mum gave a snort of laughter. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. You two… just be off with you.”

“Dominque, I don’t really kn—”

“You'll figure it out, Jacob. You're a surgeon with God knows how many degrees, and this one—” Dominque pointed his finger at the imposing but soft teddy bearish stance of Krane. “—you’re an architect with numerous degrees who runs his own firm, so between all that
knowledge
… a wedding should be easy as baking a pie.”

“I can't bake.” They both said it simultaneously, then grunted at the other.

Dominque took the list from Jacob and pointed his finger at the top one. “You can call up the firms who are due to arrive tomorrow and check up on them, Krane, and you can do the rounds of the castle, Jacob, and make sure everyone is organised.”

“Oh really?” Jacob opened his eyes wider.

“Yes.” Dominque stood up, brushing his lips over Jacob’s with slow determination and tenderness. “You will, Mr Buchanan.”

“Hmm.” Jacob moaned softly over his lips before Dominque pushed their mouths together, deepening the kiss, but making sure it was still PG for the stunned members of his family trying to not notice their frozen-hearted surgeon was melting at the knees for him.

Dominque pulled back reluctantly and smiled up into Jacob’s cloudy eyes. “Don’t take too long. I wanted to go for a walk in the garden this afternoon. Just me and you and these lips on mine at every available opportunity.”

Jacob groaned as he wrapped his arms around Dominque’s waist, kissing him more passionately than one of his nephews enjoyed seeing first thing in the morning.

“Ugh. Adults are gross.”

Dominque chuckled with the rest of them, but Jacob stuck his tongue out at the six year old.

“You say that now…” Jacob faded off and everyone laughed except the kid who was now too busy eating his cereal. “Okay, fine. I’ll do this. No… we’ll do this.” He raised his brow at Krane, who sagged his shoulders in defeat and nodded. “
But
I'm doing this for you.” He looked down into Dominque’s eyes, a soft smile playing on those sexy lips.

“At least you're doing it.”

“I’ll give you a call to see where you are when I'm finished.” Jacob kissed him one last time and then gave his brother a shove. “Let’s go. Oh, and when I next see Shaun, the pansy arsed fucker, I'm going to give him a talking to. He had five shots.”

“Five triple shots, Jay.”

“Yeah, but still…”

“Let’s just do it without the bitching, brother.”

“Bitching? I don’t bitch.”

“You do, you just call it something else.”

“Huh.” Jacob and Krane disappeared and Dominque was still chuckling.

Jacob’s mum took hold of his hand and smiled at him. “You two look to be much more relaxed about everything today. I was worried about you yesterday. You seemed a little distant.”

“I feel much better this morning. Jacob and I… talked.”

“Talked?” She burst out laughing and so did two of his sisters who were sitting next to him at the table.

“Yeah, talked.” One of them shook her head and Dominque felt a little hotter.

His brother, three seats down, bent his head and stared right at Dominque. “I'm two doors down from you and I heard parts of your, um… talk. It mainly consisted of—” His wife must have kicked him under the table because he yelped.

“Jacob, you're so good,” one of his sisters whined out, holding her hand at her forehead.

“The sound of Jacob, um, arriving—” Another brother shot a quick look at his son eating beside him before turning to Dominque. “—will forever be imprinted on my mind. Tagged with hashtag jealous, hashtag things you should never hear again but secretly want to.” He grinned at Dominque. “Who knew he had it in him, right?”

There was a little murmur around the table before their mum coughed loudly. “Enough of that talk. Honestly, and at breakfast.” She took Dominque’s hand in hers and leaned in. “Don’t ever be ashamed of making your man weak in the knees. A good relationship involves being a supportive and caring partner who they can be proud of in front of their friends, and a total slut in the bedroom who they can be prouder still when they look at all the sad bastards with blue balls.” She glanced at Melanie as she said the last part and got such a scowl back it could have frozen the sun.

Dominque coughed in his tea and then laughed loudly. He loved this woman. He leaned in and whispered, “Can we go for a walk so we can gossip about her? What’s her deal?” Melanie had been so bitter toward him. She was the only one to take a dislike to him, and he had to know why.

“Ah, her.” Karen nodded, already standing up and reaching for her walking stick. “We’re off for a walk. Be back soon. It’s private, so you stay right there, Philip.” She waved off her son’s hand and linked her arm through Dominque’s. “Well, where do I start with her?” They stepped out into the morning sun and she took in a deep breath. “Frigid I would say. Fanny’s so cold there’s penguins sheltering from the freezing temperature in her flaps.”

Dominque was howling with laughter.

“Seriously though.” Karen shook her head. “It’s not her fault things are so bad between them. I want them both to be happy, but they’ll never find happiness together. I just wish that oaf of a son of mine would find his balls and set them both free, because Lord knows, she won’t do it.” She sat down on a bench overlooking the gardens and sighed, patting the seat next to her. “Let me tell you a few things about Krane. Things he doesn’t think I know, but I’m not blind nor stupid.”