I giggle when the kiss comes to an end. “That wasn’t the reaction I expected.”
“It’s perfect,” he snarls.
“What?” I gasp. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” he snaps. “It means you’re even more destined to be mine than I thought.”
My mouth falls open as the shock of his words crash into me.
“I don’t understand. You think we’re meant to be together.”
He smirks, his eyes gleaming with something like boyishness, as though he can’t quite believe it either.
“I know how insane it sounds. But the first time I saw you, I knew, Dreamer. I fucking knew it with more certainty than I’ve ever known anything. You’re the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. You’re going to give me a family. You belong to me. So yeah, it’s perfect that you’re a virgin because it means no bastard has ever touched what’s mine. You belong to me. Everything you are – everything you’ll become – it’s mine. You’re mine.”
My heart thuds frantically in my chest as I try to make sense of his words, as they tangle and twist through me.
“Is this a joke?” I whisper.
He frowns, dark eyes blazing. “I’d never joke about something this serious.”
A whimpering noise comes from somewhere deep inside of me, as though it starts at my center and then cascades through me, shivering up my body and making me tingle in all the right places until it finally comes out of my mouth.
I try to swallow down the words threatening to burst out of my mouth, the streetwise part of me warning this could be a joke, a trick, despite what he’s said.
But the crazy thing is I believe him.
The certainty moves through me like hot fire, singeing every part of me, making me want to scream with the magnitude of the moment.
“What are you thinking, my little Dreamer?” he asks. “And don’t tell me nothing, because I can read you. I’ve told you before and I’ll never stop telling you… you belong to me, so you might as well get used to the idea of never being able to hide anything from me.”
I let out a shaky sigh, nodding, biting my lip as I stare up at him. “It’s crazy. But I feel the same. I’ve felt the same since the second I saw you. I know it makes no sense, but I’ve been having these crazy fantasies too, of having children together, of having a family. I thought they were just silly dreams, you know, just these little passing moments… but you feel the same?”
He leans down, bringing his face closer to mine, holding us in place so his warm breath whispers over me.
“I feel exactly the fucking same,” he growls. “This proves it. We’re supposed to be together.”
“Do you really believe in fate?” I ask.
He laughs gruffly, more of his warm breath shivering over me. “I never thought I did, or would… or could. But you’ve opened up things inside of me, Daniella, things I didn’t even know existed. Goddamn, I sound like a sappy bastard right now. But it’s the truth. I…”
I love you, I imagine him saying, even if it’s impossible and crazy.
But this whole thing is impossible and crazy.
What’s one more item added to the list?
“You what?” I whisper, gripping firmly onto his shoulders as though that can tether me to reality.
He stares hard at me for a long moment, and then Lucky comes sprinting over, leaping up so one paw touches my leg and the other touches Dom. Our eyes meet and we laugh together, and then keep laughing at the perfect moment interrupted.
The moment when he was going to finish his sentence passes as Lucky leaps up over and over, and all Dom and I can do is turn to make a fuss over him.
I lean down and stroke him behind the ear as Dom kneels and runs his hand down his coat.
“I had another crazy thought, you know,” Dom says, smirking at me with a smile I almost melt as I drink in the sight of him.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head with that same compelling look. “It’s crazy.”
I reach over Lucky’s body and grab onto his shoulder again. I dig my fingernails in as if confirming that he’s real, that this is real, and I’m not going to wake up in my rundown apartment with my neighbors screaming through the walls.
“I think we’re past crazy, Dom,” I say.
He nods, chuckling. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I was thinking that Lucky wants us to be together. It’s just so suspicious how he took to you right away when the little rascal never takes to people like that. He’s normally so reserved. But then again, you are a dog person, so it could be that—”
“No,” I say, even as a voice warns me to hold something back just in case.