She gasped as she angled her neck to let the water hit her face, her eyelids dropping almost sensually. The glimpses of her naked breasts made his pulse skitter, and he tried fixing his gaze on the stainless steel knobs, his cock throbbing painfully against her bottom. A shiver rippled through him as he pushed the image of her nakedness aside and started rubbing her. His hands ran down her arms. Along her thighs. Her stomach. Her shoulders. He rubbed her little hands between both of his. Caressed her ears with his fingertips. Massaging her scalp. Getting the warm water to heat her up, the blood flow everywhere.
He stroked his palms across her buttocks. She moaned.
His hands halted, and he closed his eyes, counting to ten. To twenty. The pit of his stomach churned with hunger for her. With need.
He had to have her. Holy Mary Mother of God, he had to have her. No one, no one, would get her virginity other than Damien. He wanted it with an intensity that frightened him. He’d never had a virgin. He didn’t know what he’d do, he only knew that she was standing utterly still, breathing very hard, and he wanted to take her all the way until tomorrow.
The memory of her moaning and bound overcame him so fast, he had to draw in a deep breath.
“What about you?” she suddenly gasped, turning.
He could barely speak. “I’m not cold.”
“How can you not—”
“I’m not co—” He fell quiet when her hands stroked up his pecs, up and down his muscled arms, pushing his libido into overdrive.
She took his hands and rolled his fingers between hers, imitating his actions. The touch set off a fire in his stomach. In his core. His heart. His eyes drifted shut, and he wanted to drop at her knees, put his arms around her, and beg her for it.
He wanted to feel her tongue on him, to sink inside her, to take something she had meant for another man and which was now the only thing, the only thing, Damien wanted.
He groaned when she rubbed his thighs over his soaked pants, and he was so dangerously close to snapping, he knew he had to stop her, he had to. He’d promised her he wouldn’t fuck her, and he’d been the one to approach her today. Now he needed for her, desperately, to want him to, so that she would let him. So that she would beg him.
He grabbed her wrist. “Stop—I can’t…” He trailed off, his throat tight, then he pulled her out, his slacks dripping on the marble floor as he grabbed a towel and started drying her.
He watched her face, cloudy blue eyes watching him as he knelt at her feet and dried her toes first, then up her legs, her pussy, her breasts, his heart a kettledrum in his ears. Poom, poom, poom.
“And you…” she then said, motioning in his direction.
“I’ll be right out, get comfortable, grab one of my shirts if you like.”
She wrapped the towel around herself and padded outside, the door closing behind her, and Damien yanked off his pants, slid back into the water, and grabbed his cock, knowing what he had to do. He couldn’t think. He could hurt her if he didn’t calm this down…he had to calm down…calm the fuck down…
Calm down, man, she’s yours. She’s going to be yours.
She would not give her virginity to Court, Damien wouldn’t allow it. And still, he groaned in pain as he fisted himself and moved, imagining her red hair, her mouth beneath his…He groaned and murmured her name, getting closer…
Sydney slid into a white dress shirt from Damien’s enormous closet and then she glanced around his bedroom, dragging her finger along the furniture wistfully. He’d only been here a week, from what she’d heard, and yet she could tell he’d sent his belongings beforehand, and that an expert had probably accommodated them.
She loved his apartment. His style.
This penthouse was far bigger than the one she’d visited when she’d been a stupid smitten fifteen year old, and he had enough space to fill it with souvenirs from each and every country he’d visited for years. She could tell that he was trying to make it home, and she wondered if he felt like he was succeeding.
When they’d entered, she’d spotted African masks hanging on the wall of the living room, next to wooden boomerangs from Australia. His bedroom boasted carvings from what she supposed were the Fiji Islands or perhaps Bali, and all around the furniture, she had spotted carved gemstones in half rocks glinting from every corner. Quartz on the tables, Amethysts on the bookshelves…And what bookshelves.
They’d run from side to side of one wall in his living room, and his bedroom boasted another enormous bookshelf that ran wall to wall; something that surprised her. She’d never expected a bad boy like him to read so much. And yet, she supposed when you travelled long hours, reading was the best way to escape the reality of traveling.
The lamps to both sides of the bed were made of gold onyx, each with a light bulb glowing warmly at the center, transferring through the onyx in an incredibly elegant way. The bed had a black comforter and several big black pillows adorned with silver buttons. Sitting at the edge of the bed, she lifted one pillow and smelled it, trying to determine which side he slept on. They both smelled faintly of him.
He came out with a towel around his waist, and she dropped the pillow, feeling caught like she’d been sniffing something even more private.
He looked at her sitting on his bed, and something passed across his face, a wistful kind of longing that made her own yearning slice her up in quarters. His lips curled slightly then, and he started for her. The sight of his piercings glinting in the lamplight, his slick, wet dark hair, that amazingly intricate black tattoo curling up his side, around one shoulder, to almost touch his nipple, sent her hormones in a turmoil. It angered her, confused her. She didn’t need to be lusting after him! Why was she lusting after him?
“Your clothes will dry in a couple minutes. I’d like to take you to dinner after,” he said, softly.
She scowled. “That’s all you want to do. Feed me.”
“That’s not all,” he said, his lips curving.
There was a sudden change in him. He seemed…calmer. He was almost flirting. Was he flirting?
“What else do you want from me, other than stuffing me with food?”
He sat down at her side, almost gentle. “I’m not stoking the fire inside you so someone else gets to put it out.”
Her breathing hitched at his nearness.
He turned her to face him and placed a hand on the side of her face. “I’m not caressing you, readying you for another man.”
A hot ache grew in her throat and it spread to her midsection.
His thumb caressed her cheek so tenderly, her eyes blurred. “You’re a diamond in the rough, Sydney, and if I cut you up and polish you, it will be because you belong to me.” He lowered his hands and started to unbutton his shirt, the one she now wore, and she watched helplessly as button by button, he eased the parting open, until he brushed the shirt over her shoulders. “Only me,” he repeated warningly.
A bead of remaining water from her loose hair slid down her cleavage and he slowly brushed it away with his tongue, sliding in a sensual twirling motion up to the source at her nape. The heat fired up in the room and in her system.
She clutched his damp head to hers, her fingers tightening when he moved his mouth down to her nipple. He captured it in the heat of his mouth, and her entire body went up in flames. He feasted from her, and he did it for longer than she could bear.
At some point, as he continued suckling her breast until it felt swollen and raw, and he went to the next, she fell down on the bed, her lungs barely processing air, her thoughts drifting into nothing, until he had become the center of her existence. Of her galaxy. Of her life.
Him. The heat of his mouth, the velvet swipes of his tongue, now coming to stroke across her lips. She was dazed, had never been licked the way he was licking her up, every inch of her skin knew his tongue. Tremors seized her as he let the towel drop from his hips, and he stretched his naked length along her body.
Sparks of lightning shot across her nerves as she felt
his long, hard penis press into her abdomen. She wanted to see it, touch it, taste it, had never seen a man, had never wanted a man like this…
“It” ground into her stomach as he continued his assault with his tongue, dragging that hot, damp tongue to her ear, where his breaths burst into her hearing, hot and steady but a little fast, his hands costing her curves, coming to her nipples to remind her of their sensitized, swollen state with little pinches.
She could feel “it” pulsing against her. Throbbing. She could feel the blood rushing to him, there, just as it rushed into the apex between her legs. Which hurt and ached like nothing ever had.
He reached to stroke his fingers across her entry, and the sound that tore from his chest was one of surprise that somehow seemed to pain him. He murmured, very softly, as though to himself, Jesus.
He inserted his fingers leisurely into her pussy. His breathing was ragged, his body humming with restraint. She didn’t know if he wanted him to lose it, she didn’t know what she was doing, except she throbbed to feel him inside her. Feel “it” deep, deep inside her. Not “it”—him.
His fingers scraped into her sheath, hitting a spot that made her pelvis tilt as a rush of pleasure shot through her. His mouth covered hers again, more demanding, more hungry. “I want it,” he rasped, against her cheek. “I want your virginity. I want to make you a woman. I want to take it from you, right here, right now.”
She shuddered as need surged through her system, her fingers curling around his bulging biceps. She could barely get words past her through, could barely get her mind to work. “You had your chance.”
“I want another, and I want it now.”
The desire to feel him was too powerful. She couldn’t remember why she had to protect herself from him, why she shouldn’t, couldn’t remember Court’s face right now. Court. Oh, Court, what would happen if she couldn’t resist Damien…?
“You're soaked,” his hot, heady whisper spilled into her ear, pulling her deeper into the shadows where nothing existed but this. “You’re incredibly, impossibly soaked. Already lubricated for mating, and I have barely even touched you. Kissed you. You’re ready to receive me. You're so ready for me, Sydney, for me to be inside you. To penetrate you.”
He kissed her again, killing her restraint, breaking through her barriers, taking over every memory of Court until there was only darkness and the dark child of her dreams. Whispering erotically that he wanted her.
“Release me from my promise. I want to be the man who pleasures you while you're bound and helpless. I want to be the man who takes you, anytime, anywhere, from behind without asking if you want him. I’ll know you want me. I’ll know it. I can scent you right now. Your eyes are so dark it’s like I’m looking into mine.” He ground at the outside of her slit, and she whimpered and tossed her head at the exquisite feel of his broad cock, the smooth feel of his flesh and that piercing at the tip, rubbing against her. His face contorted in desire, and his hands clenched almost in desperation on her breasts, and to see him so overcome with desire secretly thrilled her. “Sydney…I can’t stop…I need to…”
His hips swiveled, and she felt him part her with something broad. Broader than his fingers. “Yes,” she moaned in fevered desperation.
“Yes?” His eyes widened, and he pushed against her. There was still a little spark left in her brain, and at the first warning bell, the feel of being penetrated—as he said—and it jumped to action. “Stop, stop!” she cried, twisting underneath him.
He stopped, his eyes dark, confused, his breaths jerking out of him. “Don’t do this to me.”
She scrambled back to get him out of her. “Don’t… Please …I can’t, I can’t, I can’t give this to you. You promised to me. You promised.”
She rolled to the side, and he put his face in his hands, his shoulders trembling, his entire body trembling with need. “You…said yes!” he panted, raising his head, his words strained through his teeth, “You…offered it to me first, goddamn it, it already belongs to me!”
She scrambled up from the bed, searching frantically for her clothes, running across the apartment up to the washer and drier, shaking her head in shock of what she’d been about to do. Court had been next to her for years, years, and a couple of days with Damien had turned her into a wreck. A wreck. She shook her head, talking to herself as she pulled out her clothes. “I need to go, I can’t do this, I can’t.”
She heard him yell, “FUCK!”
Scared, she grabbed her phone from her pocket, and texted Court the building she was at.
Please pick me up, please please.
I need to get out of here.
ARE YOU HURT?
No! I just need you to please pick me up now!
I’m on my way
Damien came over, and her heart sped once more. He’d slipped on clothes, dark slacks, and a white button shirt he hadn’t bothered to button—then she realized it was the one she had just worn. The intimacy of that siphoned blood up to her cheeks, and she tore her eyes away from him, was trembling, he was trembling, too. She could sense it, feel it in a part of her that felt as elusive but as powerful as her soul.
“It’s mine,” he said, his voice rough, hard. “If you still have it, it’s mine. If you’ve been saving it for someone, you’ve been saving it for me.” He pulled her to him, and she didn’t know why she went, but she did, willingly, and she held him in her arms, and he held her, their bodies vibrating.
“This isn’t what I want,” she whispered painfully. Her body trembled in denial, because she wanted Damien more than anything. But she loved Court. Let go, let go, she told herself, of Damien’s arms. She couldn’t let go of Damien. Craved his touch so much.
She turned to look up at him. Her entire body responded at the sad frustration in his eyes. She wanted to melt in his arms.
Could her heart want something that the entire rest of her body didn’t?
She didn’t have to be a virgin to be with Court. Did she.
Did she?
A phone rang, and they were still holding each other, tense and wanting.
Damien let go with a sigh, then went and answered.
“So you asked him to come get you,” he said softly, when he returned. It must’ve been the downstairs concierge.
She swallowed. “He’s right for me. You…hurt me too much, Damien.”
He raked his hand restlessly through his hair and paced, not touching her again, and she watched him, a caged tiger with food inside the cage, convincing himself to let it go.
“Does he treat you well, Sydney?”
“Yes. He’s…he’d never hurt me.”
Even without locking gazes, the air between them leapt with need. She didn’t understand it. At fifteen, she had felt it, powerfully so. She had followed it, stupidly, thinking he felt the same. He hadn’t. She’d found him with a woman in bed, and he’d told her he didn’t want her and never would. But right now, she couldn’t convince herself that he didn’t. Right now, the whirlwind spinning all around her, inside of her, was inside him, too.
Disturbingly real. Dangerously real.
No. She just didn’t have the courage to let him break her apart again.
He should know how she felt. She was alone now, too, with no parents, like he was. She needed support. Safety. She needed Court.
There was a knock on the door, and Sydney reacted and finished slipping into her dry clothes and then went to the door. Growling, Damien slapped a hand over the parting before she could pull it open, his voice rough as she’d ever heard it as he clenched her back against him. “Stay with me.” He buried his nose in her hair, his hand fisting the fabric of her dress. “Sleep with me. I won’t take anything you don’t want to give me. I don’t want to hurt you—I swear to God I’ve never wanted to hurt you. Just stay the night with me.”
She closed her eyes, her throat tight with desire, her heart aching as she forced herself to remember the ocean of tears she’d already cried for him. “That’s the point, i
f I stay…I won’t be able to say no to you,” she croaked.
He captured her arm, clenching it urgently, his nose in her temple as he spoke in her ear, “Don’t say no. Don’t deny me. You want me, Sydney. It’s me you want.”
“But I love Court!”
She struggled to free herself from his deathly grip, and when he relented, he turned and set his arm folded on the wall, his head on it, as he breathed heavily. She went out with Court, saying nothing to him, closing the door, wincing when she heard something crash behind her.
eight
As Court drove her home, she thought of the way Damien had warmed her with his hands. Dried her. Of the way he’d held her, kissed her. Of the way he’d asked her to stay. And she wanted to cry.
Her throat closed, because it was a side of him that was dangerous to her. When he showed her tenderness, it disarmed her. She was used to his sarcasm or rejection, but his acceptance? Because I want you…
She swallowed several times and forced herself to speak, aware of Court eyeing her in worry. “I’m all right, I just made a mistake.”
“Sydney, a man like that has girls like you for lunch.”
She rubbed her temples, not knowing what to say, blurting out the truth.
“I wanted him to, Court. I went and bought him for a night so I could learn about sex from him.”
“What? Why?”
Her voice broke. “Because I’m twenty-five, Court! I’m tired of wondering about it. I want to see if…I want to have sex,” she said, eyeing him to see what he thought about it. “Are you a virgin, Court?”
“No,” he said softly. “You know I’m not, I lost that at prom, ages ago.”
“I didn’t go to prom, because I was in love with a man ten years older than me.”