Chapter 26

 The Knock and the Needle

Dominic

That piece of shit Scott was at the door. His fucking shadow bled beneath it like an oil spill.

The sedative should’ve knocked him out.

Maybe the beer was messing with the absorption rate. Alcohol and benzos—they could fight each other or double down depending on the stomach content.

Maybe he’d metabolized it differently—built a tolerance for drugs. I hadn’t accounted for the possibility that Scott was a functioning addict, the kind who lived on pills and uppers just to stay upright.

Or maybe his system was just wired wrong.

No. Something else is burning through the sedative. Some other drug. What is it?

“H-hel-l-loo?” Scott slurred on the other side of the door, sounding half-conscious.

Shut the fuck up. Don’t make her stop this.

Pissed, I captured Teyonah’s mouth before she could speak. Her lips shivered under mine, soft and unsure. She fit against me like she had always belonged there, the soft lush curves of her full breasts meeting the hard lines of my muscular chest.

My pulse hammered against my throat.

My cock throbbed inside Teyonah's slick heat, her pussy’s wet, delicate folds of flesh gripping me perfectly. Her perfume clinging to my skin as the scent of sex, musk, and sweat filled the air.

Every nerve ending screamed for completion, for the brutal, beautiful release that hovered just beyond reach.

It was unbearable—the duality of it.

The civilized part of me screamed stop.

The primal part sneered finish.

My body didn’t care about morality. It cared about my desires and finishing what had been stolen from me a thousand times by restraint, by law, by reason.

“Dominic. . .we have to stop.” Teyonah’s breath seared against my neck—fast, shallow, desperate.
And God help me, that was all I needed to lose the last sliver of control.

I couldn’t stop.

Wouldn’t stop.

Not with her pussy swallowing my cock in rhythmic defiance of the man outside that door.

Not when every thrust was a declaration: She’s mine now. This house answers to me.

Scott’s presence became the perfect erotic psychological kink—his shadow turning our sin into a manifesto.

“Fuck him.” I pulled my cock out a little and then drove back into her.

“Oh.” She shivered.

“If he opens that door, he’ll see who you belong to.”

“But—”

A bead of sweat traced down her temple, and I caught it with my tongue before it could fall.

Shock hit her eyes as she stared at me.

Yes, Teyonah. I’m so obsessed that I would lick your sweat and be satiated.

The next sounds was our bodies slapping together, our heaving breathing, and the creaking of the bedframe.

“Damn.” Lust rattled my head. “This is the pussy he threw away?”

She shuddered.

How many times had he fucked her and felt nothing?

How many years did he have this and treat it like an obligation instead of a gift?

I'd had her for this short time and already knew I would willingly ruin my life for another hour.

That was the difference between men who deserved things and men who inherited them without knowing their value.

I hate him.

Groaning, I fucked her with a ruthless rhythm that echoed my claim, each thrust driving deeper than the last, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips, pulling her back against me with a force that made the headboard crack hard against the wall.

She was mine.

The house was mine.

Scott, the coward that he was, could only knock while I claimed what he'd taken for granted.

Each thrust sent electric sparks coursing through my body, igniting fireworks of pleasure.

And I knew I would be addicted to only her pussy from now on. I could feel the surge of catecholamines—dopamine, norepinephrine, adrenaline— flooding my bloodstream.

My pulse climbed into the nineties, then higher as my breathing shortened.

This was textbook addiction physiology.

My hypothalamus was already firing out to the rest of the brain and telling it that she was now my new oxygen.

I knew the stages—tolerance, dependency, withdrawal. I’d attended enough lectures on them in pharmacology.

Now I could feel it happening in real time—my neurons wiring toward her, building a habit my body wouldn’t let me break. My cock, my pulse, my breath—all of it already craving her and asking, “when can we have this pussy again?”

It should have frightened me.

Instead it felt like purpose.

“H-hello?” Scott’s words were weak and shaky. The sedative was still very much in his system, even as he fought to get full consciousness. In fact, he might have lost consciousness for a few minutes as he leaned against the door, probably barely able to keep himself up.

If we wait long enough, he’ll pass out.

Driving into her with manic, desperate thrusts, I lapped at the sweat on her neck, savoring the salty-sweetness of her sweat and the chemical sting of her intoxicating perfume. I growled against her throat and licked again at the flushed skin where her collarbone met the swell of her breasts.

Soft whimpers left her.

Pumping into her, I still spotted Scott’s shadow by the door.

The danger amplified everything too.

I could almost taste the adrenaline, the cortisol, the dopamine all colliding and making my skin hum.

I sank deeper, inch by inch, until there was nowhere left to go. Each push met the soft resistance of her body, that perfect tension between wet surrender and tight refusal.

She hit my back. “N-no. . .Dominic. . .”

Yet those words rode her soft moans that she tried to quiet.

And my hips still moved.

My will still burned.

Scott’s existence didn’t frighten me.

It fueled me.

His knock was still echoing when I pressed forward, deeper. “I want him to hear.”

“Oh fuckkkk.” Her breath caught on a whimper. She began dragging her nails across my back and doing her best to silence her moans. While she was trying to end this, every inch of her pussy pulled my cock in, demanding more, until there was no line between want and need.

The air thickened.

Heat.

Pulse.

Movement.

I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t want to.

She was everywhere—around me, beneath me, inside me.

I moved.

She arched.

The air changed—hotter, thicker.

“Oh.” Her breath hitched. “W-wait. . .s-top.”

“Can’t.” The word came out rough. “This pussy is too good.”

Scott’s knock came again, dull and distant, and we both froze for a few seconds, and then I thrust into her harder, faster.

Her thigh trembled against my hip.

Everything slowed to just breath, heat, and heartbeats.

Then, a sound cut through the dark—metal brushing metal.

What the fuck is he doing now?

I looked up.

The knob.

It moved.

Just a fraction.

I froze.

Is he trying to come inside? Does he still have a key to this door?

The air went thin.

Weightless.

Her breath stopped against my throat, and in that pause I heard everything—the quick tick of my kitchen clock, the faint hum of heating system in the walls, my pulse stuttering like a broken metronome.

Another click.

The handle trembled again, testing the latch.

“No.” Her body trembled and she moved her hands to my chest. “Get up.”

My cock was lodged inside of her pussy and my head held no more logic. “Do you really want me to stop?”

She widened her eyes. “Yes. . .”

“You don’t. You love how this feels.”

“He’s outside.”

“Fuck him.”

“Get up.”

Scott knocked again.

Flat.

Insistent.

Too real.

The damn man was not going anywhere. It was clear he would stay there until someone said something.

Scott knocked over and over. “H-hello? I. . .h-hear someone. . .in there. . .I-I need help. . .p-please. . .”

Then, the knob rattled like a loose tooth ready to come out in someone else’s hand.

Goddamn it!

Pissed, I tried to stay inside her, tried to keep us locked together, bodies and breath unwilling to accept the interruption pounding through the wood.

But, she shoved at me hard. “We have to stop.”

“No.”

“Dominic, get off me.” Her eyes cut to the door, then back to me. “Now.”

GODDAMN IT!!

Sneering, I pulled out of her and rolled off.

She quickly rose from the bed—a vision of debauched elegance. Her natural hair was wild, kinked strands escaping whatever style she'd had earlier.

Her brown skin gleamed with a sheen of sweat, and even disheveled, even frightened, she looked like something men would start wars over. The dress clung to curves that should be illegal—full breasts, rounded hips, the kind of body that made Renaissance painters weep.

Scott walked away from this? This man is clinically insane.

As if he heard my thoughts, the piece of shit knocked again. “Hello. . .I-is my wife. . .down here? Teyonah?”

Her inhale stuttered.

Then she lifted her chin and dropped her voice into something light and domestic that didn’t belong to our moment. “I’m here, Scott. Give me a minute. I’m. . .just helping our tenant with his. . .toilet.”

The lie had to climb over heat and catch on dignity on its way out.

I heard the scuff in it.

Scott probably did too. “What’s. . .wrong with it?”

“Never mind that.” Rolling her eyes, she straightened her dress. “What do you want, Scott?”

 “Teyonah. . .my head. . .my heart. . .I need Tylenol.”

“It’s in the damn bathroom. Go get it.”

“I didn’t. . .see any Tylenol in. . there.”

She found her panties, quickly put them on, and grabbed her shoes. “I am not a pharmacist, Scott. And I am not your nurse. Figure it out.”

Her voice was steady, but I saw her hand shake as she straightened her dress. I'd seen that shake before—in patients trying to stay calm while their abuser was coming in the room.

Silence pooled on the other side.

I could picture his face—confused by her pushback, offended by all her boundaries, and definitely angling for pity. Then, it arrived on schedule.

“I. . .need h-help, Teyonah. P-please. . .I think. . .I’m dying. . .over here.”

Rage roared through me.

The knock came again.

Short.

Sharp.

A mallet on bone.

I should have fucking killed him.

That was my biggest regret for tonight. I could have upped the dosage and then buried him somewhere, but I was trying to be safe.

If he went missing after delivering that court order, she would be the police’s first suspect. And although my legal team—the same firm that represented three Fortune 500 CEOs and a governor—could easily get her out of a murder case within forty-eight hours. I could not let Teyonah deal with hours of interrogation, short jail cell time, separation from her kids, and mind-numbing anxiety all because of my actions.

Scott sounded like he was about to cry. “T-teyonah?”

“Give me a fucking minute, Scott!” She had her dress in order now, or as close as it would get. She tugged the top part a little like she could pull the past erotic minutes out of the fabric and leave it on the floor.

Still sneering, I shoved my cock in my boxer briefs, yanked up my pants, and buttoned the top.

The room smelled like heat, adrenaline, and sex.

“Teyonah? Teyonah?” Scott whimpered and then slumped against the door. “I’m serious. . .I. . .need your h-help. . .I feel like. . .I’m dying.”

Good. Then, let me help you get to death faster.

Too pissed and deliriously horny, I headed to the desk.

The hypodermic needle lay exactly where I had left it, and it was still full.

I’ll just put him to sleep for a few more hours. He can even lay by the damn door, while I fuck her. I don’t care.

Once at the desk, my fingers closed around the needle.

On the other side of the door, keys jingled.

He really is a narcissist.

The piece of shit bastard was just going to burst in here whether we wanted him in my place or not.

Come on then, Scott. Get your medicine.

When I turned, Teyonah was watching me in fear and shaking her head. “No. No. Put that down.”

I raised the needle between us. “He just needs a little more. I’m sorry. I should have upped the dosage.”

“I said no. Put it down. You might kill him.”

I arched a brow. “Would it really be that bad if he died?”

“Yes.” She looked terrified now—like she saw me not just as her cure, but as her disease. “Killing him is not the answer.”

“I think it is.”

“Then, think about J and Oliver. I don’t want them to learn about death just yet. It’s not time for them to grieve for their father.”

That hit me deep in the chest, sharp and echoing like a scalpel striking bone. The memory of my parents’ deaths wasn’t just a scar—it was an open fracture, a wound that had never fully set.

Their absence had splintered me, left jagged edges where comfort should have been, and carved out a silence no medicine could fill.

I had learned how grief doesn’t fade; it mutates.

It becomes the weight in your ribs when you try to breathe too deeply.

It becomes the dark reminder in every celebration, whispering, someone is missing.

Although I would always step in to support J and Oliver—wrap myself around them as a shield, patch them up with whatever strength I could muster—the thought of them ever having to carry that kind of grief hollowed me out.

Shit.

I hated Scott, but I didn’t want J and Oliver standing in my shoes, blinking through the same lonely haze, forced to find a way forward when the ground itself had caved in.

The burden of grief was too heavy.

Too merciless.

It stripped a person down to bone, left them walking but never truly alive again. And I would bear it a thousand times alone before I let Oliver or J touch it once this year.

The keys scraped against the lock.

The metal jangled and twisted.

Her chest heaved. “Please, Dominic. Don’t.”

The click of tumblers falling came next.

Then, the door swung inward.

Scott filled the frame, pale and slick with sweat, eyes glassy, body swaying like he might vomit right there.

Something was off.

Way off.

Scott shouldn’t have been standing, not after that dose I’d given him. His pupils were blown, his skin clammy. His chest rose too fast, breaths shallow and uneven.

The sedative should’ve slowed everything down, not sped it up.

My jaw clenched as I took him in, my mind automatically cataloging symptoms.

Tremors.

Tachycardia—his heart was sprinting when it should’ve been crawling.

Overstimulation mixed with sedation.

His nervous system was caught in a tug-of-war.

Too much adrenaline in his bloodstream.

What the hell did you take before I sedated you?

But his eyes—even glassy and unfocused—tracked me with too much precision when I moved. Like a drunk pretending to be drunker than he is. Like someone gathering ammunition.

No. I don’t think he’s that far gone. . .there’s some manipulation too. . .but I can help him get there.

I stepped forward with the needle.

Teyonah rushed forward, shoving him out of the apartment and making sure I couldn’t get to him. “Come on, Scott. I’ll show you where the Tylenol is. And by the way, you can’t just enter the tenant’s residence! That’s against the law. You should know that.”

“Hold on. I’ll help.” I rushed forward.

“No! I’ve got it!” She slammed the door shut between us.

I stopped and gripped the needle hard.

Damn it.

I could have shoved through the door, moved Teyonah out the way, driven that needle in Scott’s arm, and made the problem disappear. Instead I felt her—Teyonah’s voice, the way it cracked on that one syllable—like a order I’d learned to obey without thinking.

But, I didn’t want her to see the man I could be when nothing held me back. I didn’t want her to watch me become the kind of monster that would make her regret trusting me.

I’m not your husband. I’m better. I listen. I obey.

So I gripped the syringe until my knuckles hurt and let the heat of it remind me of restraint. I was slowly learning that obedience was another kind of devotion, less loud than violence, but truer.

I could hear her terrified voice, firm and fast outside the door, quickly forcing Scott up the stairs while he wheezed and coughed.

My fingers still tingled with the phantom heat of her skin.

Plus, I could feel the exact shape of her hip bone where my hand had dug in, the specific texture of that spot on her neck where sweat pooled in the hollow of her collarbone.

My tongue still carried the salt-sweet taste of her.

Even now, standing alone and furious, my body mapped her like a topography it had memorized in minutes and would crave for years.

The needle burned in my palm.

My pulse pounded through the barrel.

I’ll listen to you now, but you didn’t save him, Teyonah. You just delayed his demise.