To Be Loved Out Loud (Book 2)

Warning: Mature 18+ content.

POV: Iris

The melody in my head has maybe four minutes before it disappears forever, which is the only reason I’m opening a door I’ve never opened at the end of Dom’s hallway on a Monday morning while he’s in the shower.

I’m looking for a pen. The notebook and pen I keep at his place has gone missing from the kitchen drawer where it usually lives, so I’m walking down the hallway checking rooms I don’t normally check.

There’s a door at the end of the upstairs hall that’s been closed for two weeks, something about a project that he’s working on.

Dom always has a project. Last month, it was shelving and drawer space for more tools in the garage. The month before that, it was something to do with the laundry room. I’ve learned not to ask too many questions about Dom’s projects because the answers are always hours long and involve some sort of math that he loses me with in the first fifteen minutes.

The room has to be the perfect place to find a pen or a pencil. He’s always got a pen and a notebook around when he does stuff like this.

I try the handle and step inside.

There aren’t random pieces of wood scattered around, no paint smell. Instead, there’s a desk under the window, small and simple. An off-white chair is pulled up to it. Shelves line the side wall, low enough that I could reach every one of them without stretching, already holding a stack of blank notebooks, a light pink tin of pens, and a little dish with guitar picks.

There’s a rose colored throw blanket folded over the back of the chair that I recognize because it’s almost the exact shade of the one in my apartment, the one I’ve mentioned loving more than once. A rug lays under the desk and extends into the middle of the room.

Tucked beneath the edge of the desk is a cardboard box, empty except for a few pieces of packing paper still inside. My eye follows a strip of black marker written across the box.

IRIS - GUITAR HOLDERS - MUSIC ROOM

I stare at the words for a second.

The shipping label is still attached to the side, the logo from a music store printed across the top.

In the corner, propped against the wall on a hanging stand, is my guitar, the one with the string that broke a week ago. I laughed it off and left it here because I figured I’d deal with it eventually, no rush. The string is fixed. I run my hand over it, and it’s perfectly in tune. Three other guitar holders are mounted against the wall next to it, empty.

I turn around in a slow circle, taking all of it in. About a dozen times, I’ve told him the quiet here feels different than at my apartment, easier to write here.

I never once asked him to do anything about that, because it wasn’t a problem. It was just an observation.

The shower shuts off down the hall. I don’t move. I just stand there in the middle of the room he apparently built me without telling me, holding nothing, the melody I came in here chasing completely gone from my head and not even close to mattering anymore.

A few minutes pass. I hear him toweling off, getting dressed, and then I hear him walking around in the hallway.

“Iris, baby?”

“In here,” I call.

His footsteps get louder as he comes down the hall. He stops in the doorway.

His smile drops when he sees me standing in the middle of the room. He looks almost shy, which is not a word I ever expected to use about Dom, and yet, here we are.

“I was looking for a pen.”

“I was going to show you,” he says. “I was waiting on one more thing. There’s a desk lamp coming. That’s the last thing. I wanted it to be—”

“You built me a room,” I say.

“I—” He looks around it like he’s seeing it through my eyes for the first time. “You said the quiet here was different. You said it a few times, actually, and I just—” He shrugs, small and a little helpless. “I wanted you to have somewhere here that’s actually yours.”

I don’t say anything for a second because I don’t trust my voice yet.

“I didn’t really have much in here, anyway. The shelves are a little uneven,” he adds, which is the most Dom thing I’ve ever heard. “I measured twice, and I still got the left one off by—”

“Dom.”

“What?”

“Come here.”

He takes a few steps toward me.

“This is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” I press closer into him. “Oh, I love you so much.”

He smiles at that.

“I love you, too.”

I wrap my hands around his neck and give him a peck. That turns into a longer kiss, and before I know it, we can’t stop.

He dives into me, pushes me back against the wall while his lips crash into mine. I’m so wrapped up in him that I don’t even notice we’ve been kissing for forever, his hands erratically moving across my hips and waist.

“Iris, we were supposed to leave the house today. That’s why I took the day off.” His breathing is heavy, and a little tint of red is behind his face now.

“Not anymore.”

He groans, grabbing my ass and squeezing. He falls into my neck, his breath warm and quick. “Okay, nevermind.”

“The bedroom,” I remind him.

“I know where it is,” he says, not moving. He just glances at me for a second.

That look. I have never in my life gotten used to that look, and I don’t think I’m going to.

He picks me up and pushes my back against the wall again, gently. I wrap my legs around his waist. He goes in for another kiss now, lowering his head into my collarbone. Then, he steps back from the wall and lays me down on the floor.

My hair fans out behind me. One strand falls into my face, and he tucks it behind my ear.

He comes closer, his thumbs moving along my jaw. I feel his breath pick up in pace when I pull him closer by the front of his shirt.

After a moment, he pulls back to look at me, then he reaches for my shirt. I lift my arms and he pulls it over my head.

His eyes move over me in the way they always do, and I’ve gotten better at receiving that. I used to be aware of every place his hands stopped, every place they moved and what it all might mean. I’m not anymore. He helped with that without trying to, just by being consistent and never once looking at me like anything other than exactly what he wanted. It took a while. Now, it’s easy.

I tug at his shirt. He helps me with it, pulling it off and dropping it in the same direction as mine. I press my hand against his chest. His heart is going faster than his face is giving away, which is one of my favorite things about him, the way his body always tells the truth.

His hands move further down, thumbs at my hips. I reach for his belt because we’re past the point of patience on my end, and he makes a sound against my skin that tells me he agrees.

“We need to go to the bedroom. This room is brand new,” I say, looking up at him.

“Let’s christen it.”

That makes my jaw drop. He laughs, quiet, just barely, and drops his forehead to mine for a second before he finds my lips again. I chuckle at how outrageous he is. His hand moves between us, and I forget what I was going to say anyway.

He takes his time with me in the specific way he does, paying attention and adjusting based on what my body tells him before I have to say anything. This was something I didn’t know to want until I had it. Someone who listens with their hands and notices everything.

By the time he slides into me, I have lost track of every single thought.

“Okay?” he says, stilling.

“Yes.” I grab his head and pull him down closer to me, running my hands through his hair. “Go. Don’t stop.”

It starts slow and deliberate, and then, he flips a switch. He pushes his hips closer, and the angle changes. I whimper, and he reacts to that sound immediately.

His hand finds my hip again. The other braces against the wall above me. He presses his lips into the place just below my ear that, he knows by now, does real damage to me. He thrusts deeper inside of me, more intense.

I so desperately need to grab onto something. We’re still on the floor, and there’s nothing to grab onto except his back. I dig my nails into his back, and he lets out a deep groan at that. He always loved the feeling of my nails against his back. That makes him go even harder. My legs start shaking, and a tingling sensation starts to move through me slowly, not piquing yet.

He thrusts so quickly that my whole body moves with each motion. One of my boobs falls out of my bra because of it. He loses his mind, dipping down and finding the curve of my breast. I close my eyes.

“Dom.”

“Yeah?” He can barely get it out.

“Right there.”

I no longer have control over my body, and I curl into it without thinking. His breathing has gone unsteady against my neck.

He follows shortly after, his whole body freezing for a moment and then releasing. A deep moan, that I don’t think he’s fully in control of, leaves him. That’s my favorite version of Dom, the one that’s beyond managing himself. He drops his weight partially onto me, careful even now, and brings his forehead against my shoulder.

The only sound filling the room is that of our breaths, slowing down and regaining composure. It’s just us in the room, still on the floor and throwing goofy little smiles at each other.

After a while, he rolls to his back and pulls me on top of him. I give him a peck on the lips. His hands rest on each side of my waist.

He eventually talks. “So, we’re going to have to mop in here. That is… insane. I can’t believe we just did that.”

We both burst into laughter.

He eyes the shelving in the corner. “Also, the shelf on the left is off by about two centimeters,” he says, pointing to it, his arm dropping heavier than normal out of exhaustion. “Just so you know.”

I laugh into his chest even harder now.

“What?” He smiles. “I’m going to fix it.”

“I know you are.”

“I just want you to know it’s going to be fixed, and the lamp’s coming Thursday.”

“I know. I love the room.”

“Good,” he says, quietly satisfied, pulling me a little closer.

I close my eyes again.

Two centimeters. He built me a music room, and he’s lying here bothered by two centimeters on a shelf that I never would’ve noticed otherwise.

A few minutes later, we finally convince ourselves to leave the floor.

Dom pulls on a pair of sweatpants, checks the time on his phone, and nods once to himself.

“I’m ordering breakfast.”

I blink at him.

“No plans to make me pancakes?”

He talked all weekend about how, on his day off, he’s making me pancakes.

“After this morning?” he says. “I’m not operating a stove. I’ll accidentally burn this place down thinking about you. I have limits, Iris.”

He smirks at me after he hears my giggle at that.

“Alright, well, I’m going to take a shower while you decide. You can choose for me.”

He leans down to steal one last kiss before heading downstairs.

By the time I come back down, dressed with my hair still damp, the smell of coffee fills the house.

Dom is stretched out on the couch, one arm draped across the back cushion while he flips through something on TV.

He looks over as soon as he hears me.

“There you are,” he holds his arm out to me, “just called and ordered you some sort of peaches and cream french toast, figured you’d like it.”

I smile and slide in beside him, tucking myself against his side. His arm settles around my shoulders. Within seconds, my phone buzzes.

I glance at the screen.

“Tim Lee,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

Dom nods. “Tell him I said hi.”

I laugh.

“I don’t think he knows who you are.”

“Seems like a missed opportunity.”

Still smiling, I slip through the sliding glass door onto the patio and answer. Tim gets right to it.

“Hey, Iris. Tim Lee from Avonia Records, how are you?”

I was just folded into a pretzel, and now, I’m about to eat french toast. I’m fantastic, Tim.

“I’m good. How are you?”

“I know we have a meeting Friday,” he doesn't answer the question, “but I just wanted to call you because our A&R director has a question.”

“Sure,” I say.

“The man in your viral video,” Tim says. “The one at the piano. Who is he?”

I glance back through the glass. Dom is laughing at something on the television and reaching for his water.

“His name’s Dom. He’s my boyfriend.”

“Huh.” He pauses on his end and doesn’t add anything more.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because,” Tim Lee says, “I think the two of you just changed what we want to do next.”