That was an unsettling thought. Four of a kind. What were the probabilities of that? Surely, surely Damien Larson hadn’t cheated his way into her bed for the next month. A man of his cunning certainly could pull that off, but he wouldn’t, would he? Benjamin had thrown out the accusation himself, but he’d been pissed off, emotions had been high, and she’d paid it little mind. Now the smoke had cleared and the clock was ticking, and she wondered.
But even if Damien had cheated, how would she ever go about proving it? There was no way she could think of. Regardless, this was happening.
“If you want,” she said as nonchalantly as she could. “You know, I figured you’d be keeping me hostage at your place.”
“Soon,” he said mysteriously, then got out to open her car door for her.
This time Bentley will get him, she thought as she unlocked her front door, but her little traitor was docile as a kitten, even when Damien picked him up and petted him, Bentley’s black fur almost disappearing when placed against Damien’s similarly colored shirt. Emma crossed her arms in a huff.
“I do not get this.”
“Dogs generally like me,” he said, as if that should explain it.
“This dog doesn’t like anybody that isn’t me. I would think you douse yourself in pheromones or something. It’s crazy.”
“Well, I did just eat a steak.” Bentley was licking his fingers now.
“You hadn’t the first night you two met.”
“True.” He set Bentley back on the floor, then took a step toward her.
It was all she could do not to step back. This was it. Her heart beat a thick, sluggish rhythm, pumping life into places she wanted to remain dead right now. It wasn’t supposed to be good, she told herself. None of this was going to be good. She’d agreed, she thought as he closed the distance between them, but she didn’t have to enjoy it. You can’t enjoy it. You can’t.
The heat of his body invaded her personal space. She had to tilt her chin back to look up at him now, and his dark eyes devoured her. Her eyes. Her mouth. Then his hands were cupping her face, and his lips descended on hers.
Emma shuddered at the soft contact, a full-body reaction she hoped he wouldn’t feel, but knew he did. His mouth was strong but coaxing, irresistible, teasing, and she opened for him, but he didn’t come in. The full taste of him hovered just out of her reach, and if she wanted it, he was going to make her be the one to take it.
Damn him. Heat flooded her body, working a luxurious path from her feet to the top of her head, pooling in empty places along the way. He smelled like sin. The wild urge to rip his shirt open and see if his skin tasted as good as it smelled was nearly undeniable, but she managed to clench her hands into fists and subvert it. Her body, however, demanded to know what he tasted like. Tentatively, she flickered her tongue into his mouth, whimpering involuntarily as he met it with his own, a slow, delectable slide that gave her the full flavor of him, seductive and darkly sweet. That was when her hands crawled up his back, fingers clenching desperately at his shirt instead of digging half-moons into her own palms with her new nails.
If he smelled like sin, he tasted like heaven. If heaven was tempting and warm and as intoxicating as a shot of whiskey. Maybe that was hell, but she couldn’t sort it out right now. The muscles of his back were hard under her hands and he was laying waste to her senses, her body, her mind, with nothing but an exquisitely gentle kiss. She had to feel him, the silk of his hair, the smoothness of his skin, all of him, right now. Her knees quaked as her hands began to wander and his own slid down her body to grab her ass and pull her tighter against him. The intimate contact sent a violent shock through her, but it melted into utter bliss as his mouth trailed down from her lips to her throat. He made a gruff sound as he kissed her hungrily at the curve where throat met shoulder—she felt lips and teeth and tongue and could only tilt her head to give him better access, her breath coming hard and fast.
Something flitted through her fractured thoughts, something about how this wasn’t supposed to feel good, but she swatted the thought away and groaned out loud as she felt the unmistakable ridge of his erection against her lower belly. Yes. That. She needed that. Craved that. It had been so long—
When he pulled away and stepped back, the rush of cool air that filled the space between them felt almost obscene in its wrongness. Her flesh was overheated and needy, and she even chased after him a step, her lips tingling from the lost pressure of his, her body suspended in a state of arousal, demanding it be touched. But he was no longer touching her . . . except for the hand he raised to gently hold her chin. While nothing but his mouth returning would satisfy her, that touch somehow took the edge off her desperation. She blinked at him in confusion.
“I had a wonderful time tonight,” he said, his rough, smoky voice giving the casual words an edge that made her heart stutter.
But wasn’t he . . . ? Weren’t they . . . ? Why was he not . . . ?
What the fuck was going on?
Emma managed to clear her throat and regain some of her lost composure, but it wasn’t much. Her own voice came out shaky when she said, “Me, too.” Why aren’t you fucking me senseless against the wall right now? The mere thought made her clench her thighs together against the throbbing ache between them. “Um . . . tomorrow? Day two? I mean . . . what . . . what . . . ?”
“I’ll let you know.” This close, she could see his eyes weren’t just dark, they were soul-swallowing portals into another world. She didn’t know if she would survive a trip there or not. He dropped his hand from her chin, and she swayed as if that one touch was the only thing holding her upright. Her bones were liquid. When he turned for the door, she wanted to cry.
Because what he was doing was far more horrible than just taking what she owed him. He was making her want this. Maybe he thought he was doing her a favor, but he wasn’t. He was gone before she could even gather the shattered remnants of her mind together for a coherent reply.
Bentley, tail wagging, gazed up at her with his adoring doggy innocence. Emma let her knees give at last, sliding down her front door so he could climb in her lap. “Bentley, for the love of God, please bite him next time. Hard.”
* * *
As soon as she opened her eyes the next morning, Emma groped for her cell phone on the night stand, but no message was waiting for her except for Liz checking in.
Maybe it was as she’d suggested after all. What if she’d somehow turned him off? What if she was a bad kisser? She tossed the device down and shoved her fingers into her hair, wondering if she had finally gone off-her-rocker crazy. One minute she was wallowing in self-pity about her predicament, the next she was eagerly awaiting Damien’s next move. Now that there was no move, she felt lost.
Well, he’d probably gone back to the club and taken some other poor sucker to the cleaners. Maybe he was still asleep, those all-seeing eyes at rest.
That kiss . . .
It had been hard for her to get to sleep. She’d tossed and turned and fought against it, but in the end she’d pulled out her vibrator from the nightstand and given it a workout it had rarely seen. It had taken three orgasms to expel all the ricocheting energy Damien had set off inside her. And every time, she’d imagined it was his fingers, or his mouth, or his cock driving her over the edge. By the end, she was limp and exhausted and sleep had finally come. Just not as fast and hard as she had.
The memories of how hot she’d been and how easily she’d climaxed began a slow build of pressure once more, but she tried to ignore it as she checked her social media pages. Inane babble from family, drama from friends, kid pictures from people she hadn’t seen or spoken to since high school or before. As private as he was, Damien didn’t keep much of a presence online, or she would’ve been snooping his pages for sure. No sooner had she thought it than a text from “Satan” popped up.
I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too.
Her face split in a wide, stupid-ass grin. Some inexplicable notion made her
want to tell him that she’d come three times last night with his name on her lips. It was quite easy to resist, however.
Ha ha, she said. It was early. He couldn’t expect wit when she hadn’t even had her coffee yet.
Sleep well?
There was that urge again, stronger this time. If she could have stuffed it into a box and jumped up and down on it to lock it away, she would have. Mentally, she did. But it sprang back out like some evil jack-in-the-box. It was his influence, she thought. Because he was the devil. Once I got to sleep, she told him.
Something keeping you awake?
She chewed at her bottom lip indecisively. You.
I had the same problem.
Now there was an image to get her going again. While she was vibrating herself to ecstasy, had he been lying in bed, his hand tight around that demanding hardness she’d felt, stroking, thinking of her? Oh, fuck. She shifted around restlessly under the covers.
He was typing again. What did you do about it?
All bets were off now. He’d asked. I came three times. You?
Nothing, Emma. It’s all for you. And you’re all for me. Don’t touch yourself again.
Wait, what? She’d been settling in for her first ever sexting experience, and she wasn’t supposed to get herself off? What the hell? Her thumbs flew furiously over the onscreen keyboard. But you left me. In pretty bad shape, I might add.
I fully intended to.
Then I guess you should have left instructions. When I’m horny I typically masturbate. Not sorry. Most guys would get off hearing that.
Let’s get this straight from the start—I’m not most guys.
Wasn’t that the fucking truth. If you don’t want me to take care of business then don’t get me hot and leave me hanging. That’s cruel.
I disagree. The wanting, the need, makes the having that much more satisfying.
I’m sure it will be satisfying enough. Despite the confident words, her need had increased tenfold since he’d told her not to touch herself. God, could they get on with it already? Maybe she only needed to get this first encounter out of the way, dispel the unknown, so she could have an idea what to expect of the coming month. Maybe. Whatever. She didn’t even know anymore. But the thought that she’d disappointed him bothered her, and that annoyed the shit out of her.
I’ll come by and get you this afternoon, he said. Bring Bentley and anything else you need. But you won’t need much.
A moment of panic seized her as she realized the façade she’d presented to him recently was just that; she’d needed her best friend to recreate her: dress her, draw her face on, do her hair. Maybe she should have stipulated a personal stylist.
And she needed to see her parents. Not that they could ever, ever know what she was doing, but she would draw strength from theirs. Plus, she needed to make absolutely sure that Benjamin left them alone for the next month. And Damien needed to understand how important they were to her.
I’ll need to see my parents, she told him. You aren’t going to keep me from doing that for the next month, are you?
Absolutely not. I would never do that.
Well, that was a relief. She climbed from her bed, made coffee, got dressed, and drove to their little house in the suburbs. It was nice enough, but it was nothing near what they used to have before Benjamin ruined them. The two most giving people she’d ever known had let themselves give until it had damn near bankrupted them.
Her mother answered the door, her weary face brightening at the sight of Emma, and she pulled her in for a tight hug. “Where have you been lately?”
In her recent turmoil, she might not have visited as much as she should. But in the turmoil to come, she knew she would need them. “Oh, working too much,” she said, which wasn’t exactly true of late, but something her mother would understand and readily accept.
“Well, come in. I have coffee.”
Emma had already quaffed two cups at home, but she didn’t let that didn’t stop her. “Wonderful.”
She followed her mother into the kitchen, where everything was immaculately tidy despite the demanding hours both her parents worked. Emma and Benjamin both had been later-in-life children for Dave and Nancy Haskell, but no matter how tired they’d been chasing after two little ones, Emma could never remember their house being anything short of spotless.
“Not working today?” her mom asked as she pulled a couple of cups down from the cabinet. She was a CNA and still wore her scrubs from working the night shift, her long auburn hair pulled back in a bun. Emma knew it was almost completely gray now, probably thanks to her brother, but her mom kept it colored her natural shade.
“Thought I’d take some time off after I’ve been so busy,” Emma said cautiously as she perched on a barstool, hoping she wouldn’t pry too much.
“Is everything okay there?”
“Oh, sure. But I had some time coming up.”
“That’s great! One day we’ll have to go have lunch and catch up.”
Oh, Mom, you don’t want to catch up on this, trust me. Emma watched as her mother fixed her coffee just how she liked it and brought it over to her before tending to her own. “Have you seen Benjamin?” she asked, hoping to get the unpleasantness out of the way so they could have a nice visit.
“He’s been by a few times.” If there was one sore spot between them, her brother was it. And Emma knew that Benjamin visiting meant the cycle was starting over again. He would butter them up and then take them for anything they might have.
“He isn’t asking you for money, is he?”
“No.”
“Mom?”
“He isn’t. He’s doing well.”
Emma gritted her teeth until they ached, and when she thought she would shatter them, she lifted her mug and scalded her throat and the words crowding there for release. Once she got them under control, she ventured cautiously, “I don’t think he’s doing as well as he would have you believe.”
She watched as Nancy’s lips tightened. She brought her coffee over and sat with Emma, a sadness in her weathered face that made Emma want to find her brother right then and punch him in the throat. The problem was, she couldn’t tell her parents how she knew. They’d been a little dismayed that she had wanted to work at a nightclub to start with, but if they’d known about the illegal operation running on the top floor, her dad might have busted in, guns blazing, and tried to rescue her.
“Has he come to you?” Nancy asked solemnly.
If only she knew how he’d come to her. But she couldn’t. “In a way, yes. Mom, I need you to promise me that you won’t give him any money. No matter what he says, no matter how much trouble he’s in.”
Nancy paled. “Oh God, Emma, how bad is it?”
“I don’t want you to worry.”
“Of course I’m going to worry! I thought he was—”
“All I can tell you is that I’m taking care of it. Okay? It’s taken care of. Just don’t let him come here and manipulate you into thinking he needs anything. He doesn’t.”
“This shouldn’t fall to you, Emma, you do so much already.”
This story was so old, Nancy wasn’t pressing for more details. Emma knew she couldn’t take much more of this. “I will gladly take it to make sure you guys are okay. But don’t add to it. Don’t give him anything. I don’t care how he rants and raves and begs, I don’t care how many enforcers he tries to say are after him. Don’t give in.”
She could see the fear and turmoil in her mother’s eyes, the deep, shaky breath she took and exhaled. This woman didn’t have it in her to refuse either of her two children. She was strong, but she wasn’t strong enough for that. It broke Emma’s heart. And the worst part was, Emma had sold herself to Damien Larson for thirty days for nothing, and she knew it. She’d bailed Benjamin out of one jam. But he would only go out and get himself in another.
Damien knew that, too.
“What are we going to do with him? I just don’t know what to do.”
?
??Mom?” Emma said gently, reaching over to take her mother’s frail-looking hand. She no longer wore the wedding ring her husband had slid onto her finger almost forty years ago. She’d sold it. All she wore now was a cheap, thin gold band. “The only thing to do is stop enabling him. I’m enabling him, too, I get that. But this is it. It ends here. Let’s promise each other. Okay? Promise. If Dad were here I’d make him promise, too, but you can do that when he gets home from work. We can’t keep going on like this, you know we can’t. He’ll break us all.”
In the middle of her words, tears had begun falling freely from Nancy’s eyes, and Emma wanted to rip a hole in the world, gather up all the people who played with others’ lives, throw them all in it, and shovel dirt in their faces. They didn’t deserve the oxygen that was readily available to them.
“I’m so afraid for him,” her mother said, clinging to Emma’s hand. “You won’t understand until you have kids of your own what you’ll do for them.”
It was always the same line. And maybe her mother was right; Emma didn’t know what it was like to have kids. She didn’t know the love of a parent for their child. But if this was it, then maybe she would be better off never knowing, because it looked like it royally sucked.
She did, however, know her love for her parents. She would go to the ends of the earth for them.
As her luck would have it, Benjamin pulled into the driveway as Emma was heading out to her car. She and her mother had managed to dry their tears and even have a few laughs, and her mood was somewhat lightened even though she’d never quite gotten that promise she’d been seeking. Seeing her brother’s face washed any lightheartedness away in a hurry.
He obviously wanted to avoid her, sitting in his car until she made it glaringly apparent she wasn’t going anywhere until he faced her. Finally, he popped the door open, and she heard his heavy sigh as he climbed out.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she snapped as he approached, hands shoved into his jeans pockets, his careless stroll like sandpaper on her raw nerves.