Chapter 25: Chapter 25

She grunts softly, applying another layer of powder under her eyes but it was still obvious how exhausted she was and how her dark circles were evident. She breathes out calmly, trying not to breakdown for the incalculable time that day. Tonight was a big night—it was her father’s forty fifth birthday and she needs to look presentable for the guests that were already out there at the backyard having fun.

She exhales again, smoothening her dress and taking a look at herself one last time before stepping out of her room.

It was time to plaster that fake smile.

She walks to the back door through the kitchen and stepped out. The backyard was more crowded than she expected it to be. She looks around, searching for her friends. She spotted them by the food stall, having a drink and laughing about something.

She squeezed through the crowd as she smiled and exchanged pleasantries. Several elegantly-dressed guests were already milling around, each with a cocktail in hand.

“Having a drink without me?” She says, drawing their attention to her. Miley gasped softly as she took in Alice’s dress. “Are you trying to steal the Alpha’s spotlight? Turn for me,” she said strikingly.

Alice chuckled as she twirled around for Miley to get a better look at her dress. “Damn, girl! You look amazing. Doesn’t she?”

Daniel shoulder shrugs, making Alice to punch his shoulder. “Ouch, that hurts,” he lamented. “Okay you look presentable… beautiful.”

“That’s better,” she said and pinched his cheeks.

“Your mom sure knows how to organize a party,” Miley commented, looking around the amazingly decorated backyard.

Alice nodded as she slowly releases air out of her mouth. She has been uneasy since the moment she woke up today. It wasn’t only because Aaron had just ghosted her, ruining her mental health but something else was bothering her—that something else was Dominic. She wondered if her father invited him. She wanted to ask if he was coming but didn’t want to seem like she cared about him now.

Her eyes wandered across the open place but there wasn’t any sign of him. Just her parent’s friends and some guests from a nearby pack. She breathes out, trying to suck out some of the tenseness she felt. As if it was her birthday.

“Do you think he’s coming? I think he’s coming. I know your father invited him. He’s positively coming,” Miley spoke continuously. Alice knew who she was talking about. She grunts as she rolled her eyes to Miley.

“Quit it, Miley. I don’t care whether he’s coming or not,” she claimed, throwing her arms in the air dramatically. “Then why do you keep looking around?” She smirked, giving Alice a pointed look. “You like him now, don’t you?” She shoots a brow up, waiting for Alice to finish panicking and answer her.

“I hate him less. They are two different things,” Alice stated, folding her arms over her chest and looking away. Daniel stepped forward, leaning toward Alice. “Who are we talking about?” He asked, disconcertedly. He had been standing there looking at them arguing about someone he doesn’t know about. At first, he thought of Ryan but when Alice mentioned she hated him less, he knew it wasn’t Ryan.

“Alpha Dominic, Alice and him are now a thing,” Miley announced, making the people near them glance at them.

“Shhh… Miley,” Alice hushed her, looking around. “Are you nuts? We are not a thing. I just… I feel sorry for him for what he had gone through but I do not like him. I am so sure of that. As a matter of fact, I still hate him. I just hate him less.” Alice knew she said too much and it was obvious that everything she said was a lie. She doesn’t hate him anymore. It was crazy how she just woke up one day and the hate she felt toward him was completely gone. Though she sometimes gets annoyed when he laughs at her lame jokes or smiles at her, and it seeps into her body and her stomach twists with crazy butterflies.

“Okay… maybe I don’t hate him that much. But I don’t think I’ll still give him a chance. Even if I would…” She halts as the air in her throat hitch. Her eyes met his own and he smiled at her. She could swear the moon was only glowing on him. He looks away from boring his eyes at her and focused on discussing with her dad.

“You’re seriously going to let this hot guy slip away?” Miley whispered to her.

Alice clenched her jaw and breathes out. Her knees went weak—they might fail her if she doesn’t compose herself soon. The way Dominic now is one of her weaknesses made her even more weak. Just by looking at him, it made her stomach flip. She tucked an unruly lock of hair behind her ear as she tried to remember how to breathe. “I need to use the bathroom,” she mumbled and made her way back into the house.

She enters her room and slammed the door close. She thought she wanted to see him—actually seeing him now made her go crazy. It made her feel as though she was going to lose it if she keeps staring at his dreamy eyes and drooling over his physique body. She had known Dominic for almost a year now, and to know him is to know how hot and handsome he is. To know his personality is to know what a gentle man is and how great of a man he is.

She hates how she was feeling towards him. She hates how she felt when he stares down at her and listen to her while he just smiled—intrigued by what she’s saying. He always admired her no matter what she says to him, even the times she was so brutal to him.

She cringed again—she does that when she gets a flash back of how unfair she treated him. She felt bad not because of that essentially, she felt bad because of his past though he always tried to act tough and nonchalant. She understands why he was sometimes bossy and arrogant—he’s pushing people away because he hates talking about his past. He still has the mentality that they died because of him. Or rather, he killed him.

She knew him before she met Aaron. If her father approached her with Dominic in a different way, they wouldn’t be in all this mess and chaos. She may or may not have accepted him. She may have accepted him. Because Miley was right—she’d never let this hot guy slip away.

The soft knock on her door jolts her out of her ocean of thoughts. She grunts, walking over to the door. “I swear Miley, if you don’t…” she gasped softly at the tall figure, looking down at her. “Oh,” she mumbled and gulped.

He had his right hand in his suit pocket. “Can I come in?” He asked her. He always feels on edge whenever he was around her. Dominic never gets nervous over anything. The last time he felt that way was when Sofia was pregnant with Alice and she loved swimming at the water fall. He always felt uneasy whenever she was in the water.

Alice nodded and opened the door wide enough for him to enter. He walks in, shoving his other hand into his pocket as he looked around. It looks the same just like the last time he was here.

“This is literally the first time you asked before coming into my room. Thought you were a fan of trespassing.” He looks back as her. She has her arms crossed over her chest with her head tilt to the side. She shoots her brow up, waiting to hear what he has to say about what she had just said.

He chuckled softly, making her to roll her eyes because her heart beat just skipped and it was because she loved that he just laughed at the same time, she hated that he just did that—she wanted to hear him laugh again.

“If I come knocking at your door, would you let me in?” He asked, slowly walking over to her. Her heart beat with every sound of his footstep towards her.

She cleared her throat, trying to stay composed. “Before, no. Now… you’re already in my room.”

“Yes, because I was given permission to.”

“Glad you learnt some manners about boundaries.”

He bits down on his lip, staring down at her. He could swear she wanted to scream but restrained herself from doing that. She looked away, unable to keep up with the penetrating stare.

She felt his hand on her hip, pulling her closer to him. He watches her face flush with coyness and jolt of what he just did. This might be the first time he was holding her this way—she wasn’t taking it easy. She looks up at him and she couldn’t help but catch her breath when she saw his eyes and the intense attraction emanating from them.

“This isn’t how I imagined things to go…” She whispered. She lowered her gaze as her heart tried to beat steadily but failed. Being against Dominic body was enough to torment her frail heart—in a good way. She hates how good he makes her feel. She doesn’t want Dominic to make her feel good, she doesn’t want to feel good when she’s with him.

She doesn’t want to feel anything when she’s with him. But she can’t help it. She can’t lie to herself.

“I’m sorry… for hurting you,” he says. His eyes holding remorse and conscience. “I never wanted you to feel bad or less of yourself, Alice. I am so in love with you that it hurts every damn second not having you to myself already. I wake up every day, pacifying my heart to have more patience until you’re ready to be with me.”

She loves how her name comes out of his mouth. His voice was deep and rich. It was domineering in a good way and hot in a sensual way. She feels warm between her thighs when he calls her name or tells her how hurt he feels that he doesn’t have her to his possession.

She inhales and breathes out through her mouth. “Look…” she began and placed her hand on his chest—it made him to fall in love with her all over again. “I honestly don’t know why you still love me after the shitty way I treated you.” She recalled the night she slapped him for questioning her whereabouts. She felt the cringe surging in but restrained it. She hopes he had forgotten about that incident.

He laughs, “My darling, you will never be unloved by me. You are too well tangled in my soul.”

In his soul.

Her heart just did a thousand leap by what he had just told her. She pressed her lips together in an attempt to suppress her smile but failed. She lets out a breath, surrendering to Dominic’s touch, as his hand caress her back. “You are a fighter, aren’t you?”

“I fight for what I love,” he remarked. “You are what I love. And I am not going to stop until there’s an Us.”

Her heart warms up in a way she never knew possible. “You believe there’s going to be an us?”

He takes her hand and gently pressed them to his chest. She could feel the rise and fall of each breathe he takes. “Can you feel that? That’s my heart… beating for you—only you.”

She looks at her hand over his chest and looked up at his brown eyes. His beautiful brown eyes that become golden when the sunlight washes over them. The kind of eyes that hold mystery and show pain. Brown eyes that capture her gaze and hold onto it. Brown eyes that can fall in love with the blink of his own he has brown eyes that she’d never see him the way he sees her. Beautiful brown eyes.

“Alice…”

She shakes her head as she wrenched free from his embrace, unable to stand being this close to him without having a thought of crushing her lips against his.

She took few steps back away from him, hugging herself as if he could now see her unclothed.

“Look, Dominic, you need to understand that… I’m a mess. I am not easy to love. I get triggered easily. I have struggled with things. There are nights when I'm curled up in a ball on the floor and I won't talk to anyone. I'll shut you out. I'm not going to be able to trust you for a while, because everyone I loved wholeheartedly has left, cheated, or chosen someone else. I will need reassurance. I will need you. I will need you to keep choosing me. I'll need you to care when I come to you saying I'm getting bad again. I'm a lot, I know this. So, before you think I'm always happy, that I'll always be positive, that I'll always be smiling—know the reality before you get involved. Don't enter my life if you can't handle it. Lastly, don't you dare touch my heart if you aren't ready for that.”

The fact that he knew he contributed to her painful past hurts him. She sees him as a monster, he knew. He adored her so much for having a kind heart and forgiving him. If she hadn’t forgiven him, he knew he wouldn’t be in her room right now. He wouldn’t have the chance to hold her so close for several minutes. He wouldn’t have the thought and intention of kissing her right now.

He kissed her. Without warning, without permission. Without even deciding to do it, but simply because he couldn’t have done anything else. He needed that breath she was holding. Her legs turn liquid as she opens her mouth to let him in.

He moves his hands down her body, skimming over her lower back to graze the curves of her ass. She hitched her legs higher, savouring the pressure of his body pulsing against hers.

She had never felt this way when being kissed. She had never felt this way when Aaron kisses her. She never felt this hot and craved to be with someone like she felt now with Dominic.

She loses herself in the moment as he nibbles at the corners of her mouth and down her jawline. He trailed kisses down the side of her neck as he carefully lifts her up, locking her legs around his waist.

He gently drops her on her bed—her breath catches, and he tilts his head back to meet her lips once more. The hair on the back of her neck raises when he bites her lower lip gently. She smiled into the kiss, running her fingers into his hair.

When they finally pull back, breathless, he brushes a lock of hair out of her face. His eyes met hers and they shared a smile.

“Alice, I’ll do whatever it takes to make you comfortable. I just want you in my arms every night as we fall asleep and every morning when we wake up. Just say yes to me. Let me be your mate. Let me be your forever.” His eyes were hungry for her. He’s staring at her with a lot of feeling, and the heaviness in his eyes was making her chest tight.

She didn’t know exactly what to say to him. She still loves Aaron, a lot and she doesn’t have the intention of giving up on their love just yet. But it only takes one bad memory to immediately remind her how horrible he made her feel for the past few weeks.

“Dominic…” her words wavers.  She was literally beneath him and he could kiss her again any moment—how was she going to reject him when their face was dangerously close?

Her heart was beating outrageously because she has no idea what to say to him. It was all so weird. Her chest was constricted and her stomach was flipping, and she couldn’t tell if it was the leftover nerves from kissing Dominic or the weight she felt of him hovering over her.