Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 311

Chapter 311

“Just a little longer.” His voice was muffled against my hair, and I could feel his breath warm against my scalp.” Just let me hold you for a little longer. This will keep me going until lunchtime.”

I pulled back just enough to look up at him. “Lunchtime? What do you mean, until lunchtime?”

He looked down at me with an expression of such genuine bewilderment that I almost laughed. “Did I not tell you? We are having lunch together. Today. Every day. For the rest of our lives.”

“You most certainly did not tell me. This is the first time I am hearing about it.”

“Then I am telling you now. From this moment forward, all of your afternoon lunch hours belong to me. Every single one of them. If there are exceptions, you may inform me in advance, and I will consider them on a case-by- case basis.”

“What about you? What if you have an important business meeting? What if some foreign investor flies in and the only time he can meet is during lunch?”

Dominic’s expression hardened into something that was clearly meant to be stern but came across as deeply, profoundly adorable. “Nothing in this world will ever be more important than you, Celeste. Nothing. If a business deal falls apart because I refuse to have lunch with the associates, then they can take their deal and go straight to hell for all I care.”

I looked up at him, at the fierce sincerity burning in his eyes, at the way his jaw had set itself into a hard line that suggested he was prepared to argue this point for the next several hours if necessary, and I felt something flutter in my chest, something light and warm and impossibly fragile, the kind of feeling that made you want to laugh and cry at the same time for no reason you could articulate.

“Your words,” I said, my voice coming out softer than I intended, “you know exactly how to make someone’s heart race. You know exactly how to give them butterflies in their stomach, how to make them weak in the knees. Every second I spend with you, Dominic Ford, I am falling more and more hopelessly in love with you, and I have no idea what I did to deserve it, but I am not going to question it. I am just going to be grateful.”

“Never stop falling.” He pressed his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Because I will always, always be there to catch you. No matter how far you fall. No matter how fast. I will be there. That is not a promise, Celeste. That is a guarantee.”

“If you keep saying things like that, I am going to cry, and then I will have to redo my makeup, and then I will be late for work, and it will be entirely your fault.”

“You say that as though it would be a bad thing.”

“Dominic.”

“I am not joking. You can take the day off. You can take every day off. I will support you. I will support Helix. I will support every single thing you ever want to do for the rest of your life, and I will do it without asking for anything in return except this, right here, you in my arms every morning before the world tries to take you away from me.”

I tilted my face up and he lowered his, his eyes dropping to my lips, and I watched the corner of his lips twitch as he made a deliberate decision.

Then he kissed my forehead instead. But before I could speak, he took me by surprise and kissed my lips as well.

“You have lip gloss on your mouth now,” I said, reaching up to wipe it away. “Hold still. Let me get it.”

He caught my wrist before my fingers could reach his lips, his grip gentle but unyielding. “No.”

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“Dominic, you cannot go to work with berry lip gloss smeared across your mouth. Your board of directors will think you have been attacked by a very aggressive makeup artist.”

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