by J. Kenner
I do, and he nods to the floor mat. “Elbows and knees,” he orders. “I want you at my mercy, baby. Your pleasure in my hands.”
I don’t answer, but my body fires even more as I comply and he kneels behind me. I’m desperately ready, but even so I’m not ready for him to enter me with one hard thrust. It fills me completely, especially when he pulls my hips back so that he’s buried inside me, and I’m about to lose my mind it feels so amazing.
Then unbelievably more amazing when he reaches around and teases my clit as he thrusts into me, whispering that he loves me, that he owns me, that he will always protect me.
And when he orders me to, “Come now, baby, now,” it’s as if I have no will of my own, and I explode, my whole body shuddering as Damien explodes inside me, and I’m pretty sure my soul has escaped. I feel full of light, full of love. And, yes, full of hope in the knowledge that together Damien and I can face anything. We may not be able to manipulate the world as we want it, but together we can damn well survive it.
We’re both limp, collapsed in a heap on the workout mats.
His breath tickles my neck as we spoon together. “God, I love you,” he says as I snuggle closer.
“Me, too, Mr. Stark.” I sigh, then roll over to face him, the touch of humor I see on his face centering me even more.
“Better?” he asks.
I meet his smile. “I was about to ask you that very same thing.”
“I hate that our life is tarnished with that filth, but you make it tolerable.” He brushes a soft kiss over my lips. “You’re the best part of me, Nikki.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I know the feeling.”
We share a grin, then he reaches over to pass me the towel that had been laying by the bag he’d been pummeling.
“You were joking,” I tell him, using the towel to clean up before putting my shorts and tee back on. “But technically the house is full of people.”
“Not a risk I was concerned about. Of course, God only knows what they could hear…”
I roll my eyes, knowing full well he’s teasing me. “Yeah, well good thing they have a lot of dishes to make. I doubt any of the caterers will leave the kitchen until it’s almost time for the reception.” As part of the arrangement with my dad and Evelyn, their reception is going to have a smorgasbord of samples so that Damien and I can taste and decide what we want for our own menu.
I expect him to make a joke about how sound carries, but instead, he twines his fingers with mine, then says, “Thank God you came to me. But, baby, I didn’t want you to see that video. Hell, I didn’t want me to see that. The picture I carry in my mind is bad enough.”
“I know,” I say, my fingers tightening in his. “The truth? I didn’t want to see it either. I don’t like thinking about what happened to you. Knowing that you had no one protecting you. But this isn’t exactly breaking news. You told me what happened with Richter. What he did to you. And what he made you and Sofia do together.”
“I didn’t tell you all of it,” he says, his voice flat. His eyes not quite meeting mine.
“You don’t have to. I know enough to understand how he hurt you. Hell, how he broke you both. But, Damien, please don’t forget that you healed. You fought back, and your wounds only made you stronger. I believe that. And it’s because of your strength that Sofia did as well as she did. She really was getting better.”
“And now she’s dead.”
“That’s not your fault,” I say. “You wouldn’t blame me, would you?”
His answer comes hard and fast. “God, no.”
“Even though I was the one she took a bullet for?”
“Don’t even—”
“That’s my point. It wasn’t your fault, either. If anything, it was Richter’s. But I don’t want to give the bastard that much credit for anything.”
The corner of his mouth curves. Not so much in a smile, but maybe in agreement.
“Thank you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For understanding that I might not want to tell you all of it. And honestly, I’m not sure I do. I spend enough time looking into those dark spaces, and I hate the thought of dragging you down, too.”
I watch his throat move as he swallows. “But the truth is, I can stand the dark when I’m with you. Without you, it eats away at my soul. You came into my life, and I felt real for the first time.”
“I know what you mean,” I tell him, because hadn’t I been little more than my mother’s living Barbie doll until I’d met Damien? “And I will go wherever you need.” I offer a small smile. “Whatever you need, Damien,” I say, repeating the words he has so often told me. “Whenever you need it.”
“How?” he asks. “How can you see the darkest part of me and still love me?”
I look down at our joined hands and then back up at him. “Because the darkness isn’t all of you. I don’t see you with rose-colored glasses, Damien Stark. I know exactly who you are. Dark and complicated and brilliant and loving and self-sacrificing and tender. I know you, Damien. Just like you know me.”
For a moment, he simply looks at me, an enigmatic combination of love and wonder in those dual-colored eyes. He holds my gaze, as if I’m the strength he needs to get the words out. And the miracle is that I know it’s true. We really do need each other that way.
“He forced us together,” Damien says, his voice low and raw. “Forced us to touch when we were too young to understand, forced us together in a way that sealed our fates and burned deep scars into both of us. He’d watch—you know that. He’d make me—touch—her in ways—Christ, Nikki, you know. You know what he did.”
“I do. And I hate him for it.”
He closes his eyes, draws in a breath. “One night he told us that he was going to sell her. She’d gotten her first period about a month before, and she was still a virgin. He never forced us to—well, I told you that as well.”
I nod, dreading what’s coming next, but say only, “You told me she was your first.”
“But I didn’t tell you how. Or why.” He clears his throat, and his hand tightens painfully around my fingers, crushing my knuckles together. I force myself not to wince. To simply be an anchor for him. “He came in giddy. Said he’d landed a big payday. He’d been going to clubs. Selling pictures of Sofia. Of me. Nothing identifiable. Nothing like what came to light in Germany. Those were only for him, the sick fuck.”
“He sold close-ups,” I whisper. “Nothing that could identify you—you were too well known then. A tennis prodigy.”
“And as my coach, he was known, too. So was his daughter. But these pictures, well, he found people who wanted them. He didn’t say who they were, or at least I don’t think he did—hell, I have to believe he didn’t—but people bought them from him. And the nights that they did were the best, because he would stay away. He’d go gamble or get drunk and those were the nights that Sofia and Alaine and I could just hang out. Could just be kids.”
“Alaine never knew?”
“God, no. As far as I know, no one else knew a thing about it until after.”
I nod in understanding. Alaine’s father was a doctor, and he toured with Damien and Richter. But if he knew, surely he would have done something. So I hope that he never suspected.
“None of that matters though. I’m just setting the stage for that night. That night he came to find us. He was drunk, and I think that’s the only reason he told me. But he did. Told us he’d hit the jackpot. That there was a guy who’d pay out the nose for a virgin. And wasn’t it lucky that he could offer his own little girl. That she’d be able to earn her keep.”
Bile rises in my throat, and I lift my free hand to my mouth, unable to even comprehend the horror of what he was saying.
“She was only thirteen,” Damien whispered. “Hell, I wasn’t much older. And I told my dad. I told my father what the coach made us do. Told him that he had to pull me off the circuit. Find a new coach. Get Sofia out of there.”
I pull my k
nees up, hugging myself against the chill that has settled in my bones. “He didn’t do anything.”
“Not a goddamn thing. Told me that Coach was going to make us rich, and was I really that ungrateful that I’d take all that away from him? He said that I was being too sensitive, like I’d misinterpreted the situation. That Richter was teaching me to be a man, and if I started saying things like that it would get misinterpreted, and then everything I’d worked for on the circuit would come crashing down, and I’d lose everything. He’d lose everything.”
“He knew exactly what Richter was doing to you,” I whisper. “The bastard.” Damien had told me that his father knew, but he’d never been specific. Now I understood even better the type of monster that was Jeremiah Stark.
“I begged for him to intervene for Sofia’s sake, and my father just kept saying that I had to be mistaken. It was one thing to keep it all in the family, but I must have misunderstood. I was just a kid, after all.”
He drags his fingers through his hair. “Maybe he really believed that. Maybe he somehow convinced himself that what happened with Richter and Sofia was fair payment for my success. Maybe he never let himself believe that Richter could expand beyond that horrible secret circle.”
“He knew,” I snap. “Of course the bastard knew.”
Damien just nods. I shift, then take both of his hands in mine. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to,” he says. “But only if you can handle hearing it.”
I nod, grateful he’s not looking in my eyes as I say, “Of course. I’m right here. Let me carry some of it with you.” I mean every word, and yet I don’t want to hear. All I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry for these two kids and the wounds those two selfish pricks inflicted on them.
“I told Sofia I’d do it. That her father couldn’t sell her to some abusive prick if she wasn’t a virgin anymore—and the bastard was actually paying extra to return her bruised. She agreed—she already had a crush on me, and though I never saw her as anything but a sister, I knew I had to. And that night—it was—”
He shakes his head. “It was awkward and horrible, but at the same time it was great because for the first time ever we were the ones in control. We were turning the tables, messing up his plans. And I felt like the king of the fucking world knowing that we’d beaten him.”
“But he found out,” I whisper. “He came into the room. Told you he’d beat you if you stopped. That you’d cheated him and he was going to film it.”
“I—couldn’t anymore. Not with him there. But he—”
He cuts himself off with a shudder, his hand tightening painfully around mine, and I remember the ring in that damn photo and feel sick.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wanting to cry for the boy he was but so proud of the man he became. “I’m so sorry.”
“I should have been stronger.”
“Damien, no.”
“Fought back more. Fought my father. Fought Richter. Fuck.”
He scrubs his hands over his face, then looks up at me. “He sold it,” he says, and my stomach twists. “Somehow blurred out our faces, but he sold that goddamn video. I thought the original was gone. I never believed he’d keep one that could identify us, but I guess like some of the pictures, he wanted them for himself, the sick fuck.”
I say nothing. What is there to say? But I hold his hand, hoping he understands that whatever he needs, I will give him.
He’s lost in the past, though, his expression haunted. “That wasn’t the only time. Sofia and me, I mean,” he whispers. “Twice more that her father never knew about. It was our rebellion, and it was comfort, too.”
“I’m not surprised,” I say. “And Damien, I’m glad you had each other.” Despite the hell Sofia put me through, I mean that with all my heart. “Why only twice? Was that when—I mean, it stopped after Richter died?”
He nods, but says nothing, and I don’t press to know more.
When he does speak, he’s looking down at our hands. “That first time—when we touched—damn me, Nikki, I was only a kid, but I wanted it. We both did. Richter fucked us both up so badly.”
He pulls away from me and stands, still naked, his body lean and firm, and he looks like an angry god. He paces, his fingers combing through his hair, mussing it so that it matches the wild look in his eye. “I wanted to escape so badly. If only I had. If only I’d gotten us both away and we’d just run. Instead, we ended up giving him exactly what he wanted. His perverted fantasy to sell to the highest fucking bidder.”
“No.” I stand, too. “No,” I repeat as I move to him, then pull him to a stop.
“If I’d been smarter. Stronger. If I’d just—”
“Dammit, Damien, stop. You were a kid. Brilliant and talented, but still a kid. You were both young. You were both suffering at the hands of a vile and horrible abuser. You needed each other. I know it as well as you do.”
He stops, then reaches for me. Then very, very gently he traces the pad of his thumb along the curve of my jaw. “I never needed her the way I need you. Not even in those darkest days.”
Despite everything, I glow with pleasure from his words. “I know that, too.”
“I wish…” he begins, then trails off.
“What?”
“I wish she’d been as strong as you. I think she might still be alive if she had been.”
“I wish she was still alive, too,” I say, then see a hint of humor coupled with doubt in his eyes. “I do,” I say, because I mean it. Sofia tormented me over the years, but there were moments when I genuinely liked her, and I do think she was getting better. “I don’t blame Sofia for anything,” I say. “You know I don’t. I blame Richter. I blame your father. But I have never blamed you or Sofia. I pity her. And I pity the child you were, but not the man you grew into. You know that right?”
“I do,” he says. “And I’m done wallowing. We’ll get past this, and I will find the son of a bitch who’s threatening to release that video.”
“Even if it gets out,” I tell him, “we’ll survive. We can endure this.”
“But we shouldn’t have to. And once it’s out, it won’t go away. It’s bad enough the other Richter photos are out there somewhere. One day, the kids will see.” He shudders. “God, Nikki. The kids are going to learn all of this.”
“They will,” I say, because anything else would be a lie. “And one day we’ll explain it all to them, and they’ll understand, too, because they love you just as I do.”
He slides to the floor again and pulls me into his lap, his back against a concrete pillar. “I hope so.”
“They will,” I say, and my certainty rings in my voice. There’s love and trust in our house. Not like it was for either Damien or me when we were growing up.
I frown as a vision of Jeremiah Stark appears in my mind.
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you think it was your dad?”
His forehead creases. “As far as I know, he never had access. And God knows I can’t see what his end game might be. But,” he adds before I can interrupt, “I don’t trust Jeremiah any farther than I can throw him. I’ll poke around a bit.”
He wraps his arms around me and shifts my body so that I’m sitting between his legs. “You’ll figure it out.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I love you,” I say simply. “And that answer is always the right one.”
By the time I finish my hair and makeup and step out of our bathroom in my robe, Damien is fresh from a second shower and sitting on the foot of the bed in his towel, looking for all the world like a man with nothing more on his mind than the NASCAR racers going around and around the televised track. And that thought makes me very, very happy.
“You look comfortable,” I say, veering off my original path to the closet so I can head over and kiss him.
“I was flipping channels just to make sure the tape hadn’t leaked. Then I stumbled on this.”
By “this,” I ass
ume he means the race, but I’m not sure why it drew his interest. Damien might love a fast car as much as the next billionaire, but he’s not much for watching sports; he’d rather be the one playing. Damien, after all, is a man of action.
“We only have about an hour before the guests arrive,” I remind him. “Jackson and Syl and the kids will probably come early, so don’t spend too much time searching channels. Charles is on it, right? He’ll let you know if something leaks.”
“I know,” Damien says, but he continues to flip channels as I move to our huge closet/dressing room to change. By the time I come out, now in a pale pink dress and matching flats, he’s tuned back to the race again.
“Since when did you become a NASCAR fan? Stark International doesn’t sponsor a team, does it?” I don’t think so, but my husband’s enterprises are wide and varied, and maybe it’s not been on my radar.
“No, but I was approached by Ashton Stone a few years ago about that very thing.”
“Stone,” I repeat, trying to place the name. It’s only when I hear the announcer say something about Stone that I remember. “Oh, right. He’s a driver. He won the Daytona 500 a while back.”
Damien shoots me an amused glance. “Have you secretly been a NASCAR fan all these years, and I never knew?”
“Jamie mentioned it to me, actually.” My bestie isn’t into racing, but she is into the world of entertainment and gossip. “She pointed him out not that long ago for some reason. Youngest guy to win, and he was still in college at the time. Abby was with us for that conversation. She said he looked like you. Dark and gorgeous.”
A publicity photo pops up on the corner of the screen. “That’s him, right?” The man in the photo has a wide mouth and chiseled features with a strong jawline and hair the color of Damien’s. His eyes are similar, too, wide set and deep, with long lashes and a magnetic quality that definitely plays to the camera. But Ashton Stone’s eyes are a deep blue, like the Caribbean, whereas Damien’s are amber. Well, one is. The other is entirely black, the result of a fight when his famous temper flared while he was still playing tennis professionally.