“I’ll grab a shower and be right out,” she said, walked into the bathroom, and shut the door behind her.
Damian stretched and put his hands behind his head. Georgina Stevens, I do believe you’ve hooked me, he thought. It’s probably your dimple. It’s devastatingly effective when you smile. He laughed to himself and thought, Nah, it takes more than a dimple to get me like this.
The shower sounded from Gigi’s bathroom. He rose from the bed and headed toward his room. He stopped along the way and shook his right leg and swatted at his penis. He did have a bit of a morning stiffy down there.
He entered his bathroom, stood over the toilet, and let fly a stream. Life is strange, he thought. All our little decisions adding up over time and in the end, that’s our life. He leaned over and pushed the button on the toilet. Why wouldn’t you grab hold of Gigi with both hands and never let her go? he silently asked himself. What would you gain by not? More importantly, what would you lose?
He walked slowly back to Gigi’s room. Her shower was still running. He noticed his phone on the nightstand and went to check it. No messages. Thank God. Michelle, his secretary, had, for once, ensured he was not disturbed.
He placed the phone back on the nightstand and turned toward the bathroom door. He imagined Gigi beneath the hot spray of water and felt his erection returning. Fortune favors the bold, he thought.
He opened the bathroom door and walked into a warm mist. The bathroom mirror was completely fogged.
“Damian?” Gigi called from behind the shower glass. “Is everything all right?” She wiped the glass with her hand and peered through. Before it fogged over again Damian could make out a smile spreading across her face.
I can’t believe this is happening, she thought, and stepped away from the glass and back under the shower. Even more surprising to Gigi was that she could admit she wanted it to happen.
Water streaked the foggy shower glass. She could make out Damian’s body approaching. He dropped his boxers to the bathroom floor and stepped out of them. Oh, my God, she thought. This is it.
The glass shower door opened away from her.
Damian, she thought.
His nakedness thrilled her. If God had made a more physically perfect man, Gigi was glad she’d never seen him; her central nervous system most likely would’ve shut down completely.
The bathroom itself was palatial, but the shower was surprisingly small. Once Damian had entered and pulled the glass door shut behind him, it was impossible for their bodies not to touch. Her hands went instinctively to his chest and pressed flat against it. She rested her forehead there for a moment, then looked up at him.
She was astonished that a face so chiseled and masculine could affect a look of such tenderness. Her hands slid down his body to his hips, then around his narrow waist. She hugged him to her and kissed his chest.
Damian cradled her face in his hands and leaned in, kissing her firmly on the mouth. Shower mist rose and swirled and enveloped them. Gigi thought that the tiny nature of the shower itself perfectly represented what she wanted: just the two of them, alone, no room for anyone else, the outside world kept at bay.
She brought her hands around and let them slide below his waist. Do you know what you’re doing? she asked herself. How long has it been since you were even with a guy? Has there been anyone since college?
She fluttered her fingertips along the length of his shaft and noticed his stomach muscles tighten. She took his cock into her hands and gave a gentle squeeze. She was surprised by its size and the way it pulsed in her grip. She could hear Damian emit a soft moan and felt his body extend toward her at the waist.
“Damian—”
He stopped her words with a kiss.
Gigi felt swept up into something she could no longer control—if she had ever controlled it at all.
Damian reached behind him and opened the shower door. He nodded toward the shower head. Gigi cut the water. The hot spray ceased, but the mist remained and clung to their bodies. He took Gigi’s hand and led her from the shower. Water streamed down their flesh and puddled on the floor.
Damian lifted a plush white towel from a rack on the wall and draped it around Gigi’s shoulders. Then he pulled it gently halfway over her head, like a maiden’s hood, and slowly dried her long brown hair.
I have no will apart from his, she thought. In this moment, I want whatever he wants.
He carried her from the bathroom to the bedroom and playfully tossed her on the bed. She barely had time to laugh before he was on top of her, kissing her and caressing her face. Gigi had been worried about Damian’s opinion of her; it had been so long since she’d gone to bed with someone. But her fears were dissipating quickly. If there’s a man on this planet who can make this work, she thought, it’s Damian Black.
Damian’s mouth seemed to be everywhere at once.
He hovered above Gigi, planting kisses at will. His lips brushed her right cheek, now her forehead, now her left cheek. He kissed her neck and ran his tongue along the rim of her ear. This tickled slightly, and Gigi curled beneath Damian’s bulk and laughed softly.
“You’re…ticklish?” he asked, bringing his mouth close to her ear on the word ticklish. Gigi laughed as she rolled slightly on her side and curled even more. He lowered his head to hers, his lips hunting hers.
Gigi closed her eyes and curled into a ball on her side, her arms crossed, her knees brought to her chest. She grinned ear to ear, eyes squeezed shut. “I’m gonna make you work for it, music boy.”
“Oh my,” Damian said softly, his lips at her ear. “Challenge accepted.”
As he began his fusillade of kisses, Damian couldn’t help but think how her curled, protective position was somehow illustrative of Gigi as a woman. You’re desperate to let someone inside, he realized, but terrified just the same. So you’re gonna make me work for it.
Damian found it the sweetest, most inviting, most rewarding of challenges.
He gently but firmly took hold of her wrists and spread them up and out, pinning them to the mattress. Physically, she was opening, but along with the expectation in her eyes, he could still detect flashes of fear.
Most of her life, Damian realized, had been spent looking ahead, planning. She’d spent very little time enjoying the present. “What’s life for if not for living?” he said to her. His hands still on her wrists, he kissed her long and slowly on the mouth.
He began his exploration of her petite, young body, kissing her neck and moving lower to her collarbone, brushing the delicate flesh there with his lips. Lower, he let kisses play among the light freckles sprinkled across her chest. He wanted to kiss each and every one, unique and unrepeatable as snowflakes, in honor of her and to claim them as his.
Her breasts were small and perfect as fruit. He traced their contours with his tongue and kissed their pinkish peaks, already stiff beneath his lips. Between her breasts and down the soft skin of her belly.
Gigi had spread her legs, and now spread them even wider.
Damian continued his descent, swirling his tongue in her belly button. He could see the faintest line of downy hairs below her navel, a treasure map urging him onward.
Gigi closed her eyes and moaned as his lips found her inner thighs. His mouth moved ever closer to that hidden recess and Gigi experienced, as a nearly physical sensation, the loss of inhibition, fear, self-consciousness. She spread her legs as wide as possible and suddenly felt his palms on the bottoms of her thighs, helping her, gripping her, lifting her bottom slightly, exposing her slippery flesh to his mouth.
I want to see, she thought. I want to see the lengths to which you’ve made me abandon myself. She glanced down between her thighs, being spread and held aloft by Damian’s large hands. For a long second their gazes met and sparked. This is what a man looks like inflamed and hungry, Gigi thought, her heart pounding. Yes, that’s the word: hungry.
Their gazes broke as Damian lowered his head.
And he did feast.
; They took no notice of time, which for its part helpfully remained unmoved.
Their lovemaking seemed to occupy a quantum universe all its own, outside time, outside physics, outside the limitations usually imposed on the human body. It felt to Gigi like Damian was everywhere at once, entering her from above, from below, from behind; his hands gripping her hair, her thighs, her waist, her ankles; his mouth at her breasts and neck and lips. His body was a marvel to her: lithe and lean and muscled, always coiled, always charged, always thrusting. There was something animalian about him yet also godlike. To take the entirety of his length inside her was to lose her breath, to feel pierced in a way not entirely physical.
“Please,” she sighed. “Oh God, please…”
She had slipped the steely bonds of shame and inhibition and suddenly found herself exposed and open, a woman stripped of everything except the lust to which she now joyfully submitted. His muscled chest spanned above her, she thought, like the sky. His hands were hooked behind her knees, his fingertips pressed the tops of her thighs. He leaned full bore into his thrusting, gripping her legs and lifting her bottom off the bed. Gigi met him thrust for thrust, the metronomic unity of their coupling allowing him ever deeper inside her.
“Oh, fuck…” she half moaned, half sighed, and closed her eyes. Her hands moved down his back to his ass and squeezed, urging him on. His pace quickened and his breath grew hotter on her face and neck. The sheer power of the man and his obvious need for her moved her to the core. A kind of shiver ran electric through her nerve endings and she became aware, as if it were on the far periphery of her vision, of a warm light approaching. It spiraled upward between her legs and radiated outward from that point of union where Damian’s body entered hers so forcefully. She spasmed and cried out, gripping Damian’s body as if she were falling. She felt like finely spun glass bursting into a thousand crystalline pieces as the orgasm shuddered through her body and sent her toppling into a twilight space between this world and the next.
Damian could hold back no longer. Gigi felt him suddenly grip her like a treasured possession. From deep within him a moan emanated, a mysterious commingling of pleasure, pain, euphoria, gratitude, love. The ferocity of his thrusting continued for three more heartbeats, then Gigi felt his body spasm and begin emptying into hers.
“Gigi,” he gasped, and to her it sounded like both a beckoning and a confession. He collapsed into her, panting. Gigi held him tightly, his warmth filling her, and she closed her eyes and lost herself in the rhythm of his breathing.
Always a mystery, time had, in fact, continued its journey while Damian and Gigi remained outside the pull of its current.
The bedroom was cast in the gray light of dawn. Damian and Gigi lay naked and entangled in the bed. This silence between them was, Damian thought, a good and fruitful development. In the silence, something had sprouted: trust.
He turned to look at the window and the light that was now noticeably passing through it. He knew that Eugenio would be by to pick them up soon and they needed to get ready.
He kissed Gigi’s temple. Then he placed a finger under her chin and gently turned her face to his. “Gigi,” he said, then stopped. He seemed suddenly uncertain.
“What?” Gigi said, propping up on an elbow. “What is it – you look worried. Is something wrong?”
Damian rubbed his face. “I’ve just been wondering.”
“Yes?”
“I mean, I don’t really know how to ask this.”
Gigi pulled herself close to him and kissed his cheek. “Damian, you know you can ask me anything. You can tell me anything. I’m…I’m always here for your happiness.”
Damian nodded. He fixed her with a serious look and said, “I was just wondering…” He suddenly smiled and made a goofy face. “Is good, no?”
Gigi laughed out loud, then pulled the pillow from behind her head and swatted him with it. “Oh, don’t you worry your gorgeous little head, Damian Black—is very good. Is very, very good.”
Damian held her face is his hands and kissed her on the lips with a loud smack. “Okay, get dressed. Our buddy’s gonna be here shortly. There’s another set of clothes for you in the closet over there.” He bounced off the bed and gave Gigi’s naked ass a firm slap.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Don’t you threaten me with a good time…”
Damian leaned over the bed and gave her left butt cheek, now reddening with his handprint, a loud smooch. “Here’s to lots of good times to come.”
He disappeared out the door and Gigi rolled over on her back. She couldn’t believe how free she was in her nakedness now, how forgiving of her own physical imperfections. This is definitely new, she thought.
Sex with Damian somehow had been exactly as she had imagined it would be—yet far beyond anything she could have fantasized. The man’s body seemed to vibrate at a frequency exponentially higher than that of other men. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense to her that he would be the face and front man for a multi-billion-dollar company. Guys who looked like Damian Black, guys who vibrated like Damian Black—Well, they ain’t baggin’ groceries at the Piggly Wiggly, Gigi thought.
She brought her legs together and moved her thighs slowly against each other. She could swear she still felt his warmth inside her. He’s ruined you, Gigi. You’re his or no one’s now. Only Damian’s. She smiled and stretched languidly on the bed. If this is ruination, then by God, let me be toppled.
Her reverie was cut short by a loud buzzing. She turned in its direction and saw: Damian had left his phone on her nightstand. She reached over and grabbed her glasses from next to the phone, which was vibrating face down.
“Damian?” She raised her voice to a shout. “Your phone is ringing!” A pause. Nothing. She listened closely and could hear the shower running in his bathroom.
Gigi picked up his vibrating phone and immediately felt sick to her stomach when she saw the screen: it was the blonde model who had appeared in the tabloids with Damian. At the time, Gigi could recognize the face but couldn’t remember her name. Now, however, she could recognize the face and could see on the screen that the skinny blonde’s name was Karen.
Oh, Gigi, you’re such a fool, she thought. The son of a bitch played you.
She felt tears well in her eyes. She looked down again at the screen. Karen had hung up.
She sat for several long minutes, till she heard Damian’s shower cut off.
Nope, she thought. Not gonna happen.
She deleted Karen’s call from his phone and placed it back on the nightstand.
Chapter 16
The Flight Back
Gigi was suddenly not herself, Damian saw, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
Leaving the house, riding to Malpensa, boarding the plane—Gigi had been mostly silent, and her few utterances had been terse.
“You okay?” Damian had asked.
“Yes.”
“You hungry?”
“No.”
And so on. Damian had been with enough women to know that some of them had peculiar, mercurial post-coital reactions, a kaleidoscopic array of emotions that baffled most men. Having no other idea what the problem might be, Damian let it go at that. Was she regretting having slept with him? He honestly didn’t know.
They were over the Atlantic now, hours into the New York leg of their journey. Gigi had mostly slept—or at least had given the impression of sleeping. Damian wasn’t sure. Her eyes had been shut and she hadn’t talked.
But now she was awake and sitting up.
And staring at Damian.
“Sure you don’t want something to eat?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Gigi—” He stopped himself.
She raised her eyebrows, indicating she was awaiting a statement of some kind.
“Gigi,” he continued, “are you regretting last night?”
“No.”
“Because personally I thought it beat the hell out of ‘Netf
lix and chill.’ Have I done something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then…then what’s the problem?”
Gigi looked out her window and her gaze seemed to search the grey seas below. “You haven’t really discussed your partners,” she said finally.
“My…partners?”
She turned from the window to Damian. “Not the women you’ve slept with. I’m talking about your three partners, your three co-founders. You’ve never really talked about them.”
“You’re upset I haven’t talked about my business partners?”
“I’m not upset.”
“Well, you’re not exactly dancing a jig, either. Gigi—”
“Tell me about them.”
Damian took a long, deep breath. Let’s play this out, he thought. Let’s see where this goes. It’s a negotiation, and there’s nobody better than you at negotiation.
“Well, there’s the brothers, Hayden and J.D. They’re twins, though not identical. They’re…I forget the term.”
“Fraternal,” said Gigi.
“Fraternal. Yes. Fraternal.” God, the way she’s looking at me. What the fuck did I do? “So…yeah. Fraternal twins. Anyway, they’re very different in terms of personality. Hayden’s kind of cool and cerebral, while J.D.’s much more like me. Of course, no one’s quite like, well, me.” Damian offered a grin, but Gigi’s flat demeanour swatted it down. Holy shit, he thought, exasperated.
He continued: “It was like the Internet had been created just for them, to take advantage of all their talents and creativity. When their social media idea got snatched out from underneath them, they looked around and noticed all the peer-to-peer music file sharing. Napster and whatnot. And although they liked it—and did their fair share of it—they could see immediately that it wasn’t sustainable. There was no quality control. Shit got uploaded at wack bit-rates, sounded like a record was playing two doors down the hall. Plus, they knew the record companies weren’t gonna just bend over, grab their ankles, and take it in the ass for some pimply-faced teenager who didn’t want to pay for music.”
Hard Drive: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (Tech Titans Book 1) Page 6