Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 504

"Like what?"

"Happy." He said it simply, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world, and something in my chest turned over. "You have been smiling all evening. I want to bottle it and keep it."

"You cannot bottle a mood, Dominic."

"I am a billionaire. I can bottle anything." He pressed a kiss to my temple. "Your mother likes me."

"My mother loves you. You could have told her you were a tax auditor and she would have married you herself."

"Good to know my charm is hereditary." He ducked the elbow I threw at him and caught my wrist, laughing, and I turned in his arms to face him and kissed him before he could say another word.

He made a surprised sound against my mouth and then his hands tightened on my waist and he kissed me back, slow and deep, the way he always did, like he had all the time in the world and wanted to spend every second of it here. I had my fingers twisted in his shirt and my back against the counter when he pulled back just far enough to rest his forehead on mine.

"Bathroom," he said, his voice rough at the edges, "or bed?"

"Neither." I pushed him toward the shower. "You are going to help me wash my hair, and you are going to enjoy it. Consider it part of your husband training."

He laughed and reached past me to turn on the water, and it came out in a burst of cold that made me shriek and jump back. "What was that?"

"Character building."

"You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"You said you wanted to feel alive." He stepped under the spray and yelped, scrambling back out with his shirt plastered to his chest, and I laughed so hard I had to hold onto the counter. "It is freezing," he said, indignant, water dripping from his chin.

His hands found the wet silk at my shoulders and pushed it down my arms, and it fell to the floor around my ankles, and I stood there in nothing but my skin while the water ran over us and the steam rose and he looked at me like I was the answer to every question he had ever asked.

"You are so beautiful," he said, and his voice had gone quiet. "Every time I see you like this, I think it cannot be real, and then you are still here."

"I am not going anywhere, Dominic."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

He kissed me again, slower this time, his hands cupping my face, and the water ran over our joined mouths and I did not care. His hands slid down my body, over my breasts, down the curve of my waist, and I arched into him and felt him hard against my hip through his trousers, and I reached down and undid his belt with fingers that had suddenly forgotten how to be steady.