Dark Protector

by Ana Calin

  “Give me some time, Damian, please,” I whispered. “To think about this. Let us talk again tomorrow, all right? Tonight I’m just –” I decided on the naked truth this time, “overwhelmed.”

  Damian’s stare kept intense on me as I opened the door and slid off his fingers and out of the car from the narrow, laden space between my seat and his body. He didn’t try to stop me, and I couldn’t look at him, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

  I could feel his predatory stare on my back as I staggered on those impossible shoes to the front door, both arms folded across my chest as if they could protect me from his intensity and the cold.

  A void sucked my heart away as Damian’s car shot off with squealing tires. I broke out in tears, hunkering down in the dark vestibule, scrunching my face in pain and opening my mouth wide in soundless screams. The sensation of loss in my chest was biting, taking away all will or strength of getting back on my feet.

  Minutes passed before I could drag myself through the living room towards the corridor and then to the bathroom, shoes in hand. It might have only been my mood but it seemed as though the wind was rising, like a mournful cry. It was low, at first. A lament, a soft keening that was barely audible. Mom would probably hear the water fill the tub but, if I lay in it long enough, she’d fall asleep again and we could skip the interrogation.

  So I bathed in the soft light of the bathroom, my fingers laced behind my head. I just listened to the wind as it played against the wooden shutters on the window.

  Only when the water turned cold did I bother to get out. Wrapping a towel around my body, I reminded myself over and over again that Damian Novac was a killer, a monster who’d taken lives without the slightest bite of remorse. That he’d slept with Svetlana Slavic, which should make me sick. That, if I was dumb enough to sleep with him, he’d soon get tired of me.

  The wind picked up, sweeping across storm windows and shutters with a greater fury, its pitch high, like someone screaming far away.

  All those sounds...

  I listened to them and identified them, certain my mother was sound asleep.

  Then I heard a new sound.

  This one was furtive. Slow. It was a creaking of a rocking chair, and it was coming from my room.

  I told myself it was nothing. It was probably the cat or maybe mom was up after all, but when I opened the doors to my room all resolve melted away, and my reason shut down. A dark shape sat in the chair by the window, his ankle resting on his knee. His eyes glowed the exact same way Giant’s had that night at Marvimex and, hadn’t I been somehow used to it – if you can ever really get used to something like that – I would’ve panicked. But right now my heart drummed in excitement. Damian Novac was here, in my room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “H-how did you get in here?” I asked, securing the towel and knotting the ends above my breasts.

  “I have my ways,” he replied, his voice smoky bass. I saw the shape of his big arm reach to the small table by his side. He pulled the string, and lit the lamp. It gave out cozy orange light through the shade, light that enveloped Damian’s face beautifully. My heart jumped out of rhythm.

  “The ways of a thief,” I muttered.

  “I’m only here to claim what’s mine.”

  Claim what’s his . . .

  “You should go Damian, Mom might pop in any second,” I managed, closing the double door quietly and struggling to keep my heartbeat in check. “She heard me about the house, and she hasn’t yet learned to knock.”

  “She’s not here. We’re alone.”

  I turned swiftly. “What do you mean?”

  “She got a call. With the wind outside and the water on, you must’ve missed the ring.”

  “Where did you get her to go, Damian?” I urged.

  “Don’t worry.” His velvety voice crawled under my skin. “Just your neighbor, Mrs. Teodorescu, having a panic attack. I know she always calls your mother when in distress. Tonight the house creaks and rustles, it whispers to her. She’s convinced her dead husband’s ghost came back to haunt her.”

  “And how did you get the man’s spirit into the house?” I attempted a jeer, but my voice trembled.

  “Experience.”

  “Which also helped get passed Officer Sorescu and his mates outside?”

  “I’m not here to discuss my methods, Alice.”

  I smiled. “I suppose not.”

  My heart drummed, pumping a flush to my cheeks. At least that would cover the freckles that had earned me my Lolita nickname.

  “You know what I want,” he whispered darkly, walking to me. I stood in place, hands tight on the top of the towel above my breasts. “And I think you want the same,” he said, now only inches away and huge.

  I breathed in his wooden scent as he removed the pins from my hair and dropped them on the floor, my tresses falling loose and tingling my back.

  “I need time,” I murmured, pulse loud in my ears.

  “Just tell me to stop if that’s what you truly wish,” he said, and pulled me into his arms, crushing his lips on mine. The realization of what was happening stunned me, making me unable to react in any way as Damian’s tongue broke into my mouth, his body a wall that pinned me against the door with my wrists above my head.

  He kept them hostage in a fist, the towel pooling around my feet and leaving me naked. He gave a groan of satisfaction as he cupped my breast a bit too hard. I inhaled sharply.

  “You’re so beautiful, Alice,” he said hoarsely, and took over my breasts like a starved man plundering a meal, his lips hard and bruising. A moan escaped my mouth as he let go of my wrists and lowered himself to his knees, his mouth latching greedy to that place between my legs.

  My eyes blasted wide as his full tongue stroked me down there for the first time, making me flinch in an impulse to pull away. But his big hand tightened on my buttocks, forcing me in place, the other kneading my breasts, as if he wanted to possess my whole body at once. Everything he did seemed so instinctual, as if he cut himself loose after years of restraint, which made me so horny that I overflowed.

  Unable to withhold rebel moaning, I pinned my head back against the door with a high pulse and an open mouth, eyes up to the ceiling. Desperate to control the sensations building up too fast and compelling my hips to rock into Damian’s mouth, I grabbed his stony shoulder to stop him.

  But the filthiest part of me wanted him to keep doing what he did so much, that I sank the other hand in the raven silk of his hair to keep him there. He gave muffled groans while he licked hungrily, making me come with hands knotting in his locks, stunned that Damian Novac actually pleasured me with that sculptured mouth I’d dreamt of for so long.

  Spent, I felt my knees give in and my body melt in his arms. He kept kissing me along the chest and neck as he rose back to his feet, his arms supporting me under my armpits. I felt so vulnerable, hanging naked and wet in a titan’s power.

  “You taste so good, Alice,” he whispered. I stretched my neck for a kiss that tasted of me and sent yearning racing through my veins, feeding me stamina.

  Nerve now unleashed, my hand went straight for the bulge in his jeans. I didn’t have enough strength left to squeeze, but his eyes flashed. Without a second’s thinking, he grabbed me beneath my thighs and laid me crosswise on the bed, my buttocks on the edge.

  His belt rattled as he undid his buttons with impatient fingers. He stood beside the bed and between my legs, beastly eyes fixed on the wet, folded flesh between them, drinking in every detail.

  A stab of shame went through me. I wasn’t ready for this kind of exposure. I managed to sit up and close the view, legs on each side of Damian’s, hands trembling their way under his t-shirt. He grumbled in protest at being parted from the sight, but didn’t try to stop me.

  I picked the waistband of his boxers and licked the skin beneath it, crazy to feel him on my tongue. He tasted as metallic as his kiss. His arms were idle to the sides, his fists balled in restraint, and his breathing
heavy. I felt it as my hand slid up concrete abs to his chest. And when he threw off his t-shirt, baring his honey-skinned torso, my jaw dropped.

  Naked, Damian Novac looked exactly like what I imagined a warrior barbarian would – badass muscles, sculpted and brutal. Raw and perfect.

  Fascinated, I traced his contours with my palm. I craved more and more of that metallic tinge of his skin as I rose to my knees on the bed and slithered up to his neck, my lips leaving worshipping trails in their wake, my hands wild all over his body, giving in to the hunger that had consumed me for so long. My taste buds traced the shape of his jaw, invisible stubble prickling and sending current to my womb.

  He cupped my head and pushed his tongue inside my mouth, while my hands slid down with his boxers and clasped his stony buttocks. He pressed me to him, and my heart jumped – his manhood, naked and hard, pushed against my pubic bone as we moaned in each other’s mouths. He laid me back on the bed, his gaze fiery as our lips parted.

  “Christ’s sakes, you’re the most beautiful creature,” I whispered, taking in the sight of him.

  I bit my lip and let my eyes drop to his manhood that protruded big and thick and gnarled from his pubic hair, a mighty piece. He’s actually naked between my legs . . .

  The butterflies went crazy as the man I’d been obsessed with for so long eased himself into me, grinding his way slowly into my moist flesh, a hand tightening on my hip with every move, the other sliding under my head, and keeping his weight on his elbow.

  I arched my back as he finally glided splitting deep, groaning like an animal, my nails scratching the skin on the sides of his back. His jeans still clinging low to his hips, the cold buckle of his belt swung and hit my backside, adding to the crudeness of his lust with each time he rocked into me.

  The build-up inside threatened to spill as I watched him tilt his head back, his strong neck glistening, jugular pulsing. I did that to him, I was the one who gave him sensations so intense that he struggled to restrain release. But when his words reached my ears I couldn’t hold mine any longer.

  “Your body is heaven, woman,” he growled, his godlike muscles flexing, his eyes flashing down on me as he peaked, as if the climax were not only extreme, but also completely new to him.

  I came in a flood around him, my toes curling with pleasure that broke out from that G-core I’d always believed nothing but fantasy. I fell exhausted on the ruffled sheets, my brain afloat after my very first deep orgasm, staring up at Damian and still unable to comprehend what had just happened between us.

  He came crashing down on his elbows and buried his face in my hair, breathing hard. Giving in to my impulses, I caressed his back and licked his neck, exhausted but ecstatic, unable to control myself. Everything in him seemed to smell of wood and taste of steel, as if he were made of those two materials. Or as if his flesh were mixed with them.

  He rolled on his back with me in his arms, his hands all over my body as if they couldn’t stop. I admired his profile in the faint light – the nose with the determined, slightly flared nostrils, the chiseled bone structure, the strong jaw. His eyes were now closed, hidden from the world. I wished I could read his feelings in them.

  Cuddling under his arm, I let my fingers slide through the dusting of hair on his pectorals. They felt impossibly hard. I pushed with my index to see how deep it’d go, but my finger bones seemed softer than his flesh. It didn’t budge even a millimeter, as if I’d literally touched granite.

  “How far did BioDhrome go, Damian?” I murmured. “Did they . . . armor you?”

  Damian’s hands wandered with more pressure on my skin, gluing me to him, as if he wanted me to probe the true density of his body without asking questions, as if he wanted me to understand some truth he couldn’t speak out.

  “You can talk to me,” I whispered. “I already know you’re not entirely human.”

  His arms locked around me, a cage of steel, his voice deep and dangerous. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Tell me then. I can take it.”

  “You can’t take it, Alice. No one can.”

  I propped myself on my elbow to get a better view of his face. “What are you?”

  “Right now I’m more concerned with what you’re becoming,” he said, opening his beastly eyes.

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  His arms slithered on me like a python. “I mean your core talents have been activated. And, if you fall into the wrong hands, they can be upgraded into weapons.”

  “Core talents? What core talents?” I whispered. But Damian Novac wouldn’t lose another word on it. He closed his eyes, and his jaw set.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  DARK SECRETS COMING ON THE 11th of March 2020

  About Ana Calin

  A translator for psychology institutes and pharma multinationals for over a decade, Ana Calin combines facts with imagination in paranormal and fantasy stories. The more hero and heroine want each other, the more obstacles they have to defeat in order to be together.

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