One minute I’m doing my job, trying hard to hide in the recesses of my mind, to not be an active participant in what I’m doing. Stripping.

The next minute I’m gasping as I’m ripped from the stage in nothing but my panties. If they can even be called that.

My eyes go wide in terror. I don’t know who has me or what they’re doing, but all I do is search desperately for the security guard somewhere in the darkness of the room.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” a voice growls against my ear.

I suck in a sharp breath as my body goes limp, every bit of strength leaving me as I slump against the hard chest I’m trapped against.

No. It can’t be him. But even though it’s been three years since I’ve seen him, I’d know that voice anywhere. It haunts my dreams every night.

“Dominic?” I don’t even recognize my voice, the breathy, needy sound that rips from my chest as he pulls me backstage and whirls me around, pushing my back up against a wall in the dark shadows behind the curtains.

“I said what the fuck are you doing?” His voice is hard. Nearly as hard as the icy expression in his blue eyes. I could get lost in those eyes. I nearly do.

Until they drop from my face to take in my body, my tits that are inches from his chest.

“Oh god,” I whisper, my hands coming up instinctively to cover them.

That gorgeous face twists in a sneer. “Now you’re going to cover yourself? Jesus, Poppy, how long have you been taking your clothes off for money.”

So much anger.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

So much shame. So much hurt. He still has the ability to draw up those emotions in me.

“Come on. I’m getting you out of here.” Dominic grabs my arm and pulls me toward the dressing room. His voice is strained when he says, “Put your clothes on.”

I know he expects me to do what he says. Just like I always did. But I’m not that girl he used to know. Not anymore.

I shake my head. “This is my job, Dom. I can’t just leave. I need the money.” Desperately.

He smiles, but it’s full of rage and violence. “Why didn’t you tell me? You know I’d give you money if you needed it. Instead, you’re doing this? You’re fucking—” He rakes a hand through his dark hair, breaking off as if he can’t even say it.

I tilt my chin up, staring at him in defiance. “Stripping? Yes. Obviously.”

He practically growls, pushing me into the dressing room and slamming the door shut behind him. “Get. Dressed.”

And despite thinking I’m not that girl anymore, the one who always gave into him, I realize I still am. I grab my clothes from a hanger and fumble to put them on, my hands shaking the whole time. I’m intensely aware of his eyes on me as I slip on my jeans and simple white t-shirt. No bra thanks to him yanking me off the stage so quickly.

I slide my feet into my Converse sneakers, and then he’s back at my side, yanking me back out of the dressing room and out the backstage door into an alley.

I don’t say anything as he pulls me along, his fury radiating off him in waves. I want to say something, but I can barely think past the fact that I haven’t seen him in three years. And now he’s right here. So close. The heat from his strong body warming me up in the chill of the late night air.

I stay silent all the way until we reach the stairwell leading to the 6 Train platform. “Where are we going?”

He looks at me for the first time since we left the club. His eyes are clouded, conflicted. Still blazing with anger, but now hot with something else. Something I haven’t seen there but once before. Not since the night he left the home we shared with my mother and his father.

He looks away and pulls me through the turnstile, dragging me onto the train and sitting me in the seat beside him as the doors to the train slide closed.

The train lurches forward, and I ask him again. “Where are we going?”

“Home.”

One word. But it fills me with a sense of ease that I haven’t felt in three years. I know he means his home. The one place where I know I’ll feel safe.