I open my eyes again to Damien’s chest heaving, expanding and collapsing rapidly. I feel like he might have a heart attack. My knees get weak and I quiver.
Damien pulls my body into his, and the warmth of our flesh-on-flesh torso contact takes me by surprise. Tears well up in my eyes and I sniffle and start to cry.
“Damien—”
“It’s okay,” he hushes into my ear. “It’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t care?”
“My honest answer is—so what? Everybody does dumb shit at some point.”
Sniffling into his shoulder, I feel dizzy and horrible and amazing all at once. I have a flashback to the last time Nick tried to blackmail me in the grocery store, and I love the fact that he’s finally losing his power over me.
“So what?”
“Yeah, so what. I’ve done fucked-up shit too. You know this. I’m not going to sit here and throw rocks at you from my glass house. Like I said, we’re a couple of misfits.”
I pull back a little bit, still in his arms. “Wow. That makes me feel a lot better. Still, there’s one thing you need to know.”
He raises an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“We took the video and we put it on a sugar baby website to advertise my services. Remember how I said Nick had a habit? Well I started going on dates with a few guys every now and then just to make some extra money. I’d make one-thousand just for a date! It was crazy. I’d date these guys with a lot of money…”
“Hold up. You went on dates with guys for money?!” His tone is calm, but somehow searing at the same time.
This is something he didn’t expect.
“Yes,” I admit. “A few. But it wasn’t anything...sexual, or anything like that. They just wanted to talk. They were lonely. They…”
Damien grabs hold of my hip and pushes me into a nearby tree. He runs his fingertips along my jawline, his mouth hovering near mine. His dark eyes sear into me, and he’s so close I can almost taste his lips.
“Stop,” Damien growls. “I don’t want to hear anymore about you and these other guys and what you did. You did some crazy shit. I get it. So did I, and I’m not going to judge you.”
Damien rubs the side of my neck with his hand, and I’m reminded of his strength. I grip his wrist, feeling the veins of his forearm muscles. He squints off into the distance and I can tell his mind is going a mile a minute.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath and refocuses his eyes on me, drops them to my body, and brings them back up.
“I’m thinking about you. And all the things I would do for you. And how on one hand it makes no fucking sense how much I care about you after so short of a time. But it’s true. You’re a sweet girl, Krista. And the world hasn’t been nice to you. But now that I’m here, that’s fucking over. I care about you. And you know shit about me that you’ve accepted. I feel like I can finally be my own damn self with you. And you don’t give a shit.”
“It’s not that I don’t give a shit,” I chime in. “It’s that I know if you didn’t have all those crazy experiences, I wouldn’t have met you. We wouldn’t have connected like we have. Ohh,” I mutter as Damien wraps his hand around my neck. He doesn’t squeeze at all, but I know what he can do with that hand.
He presses his lips to mine, pulling my head to his. I grind my hips against the front of his body. Fuck he’s hard. In all the ways.
He’s hard to figure out.
His abs, which I run my hands along, are rock hard.
His cock, which presses into my stomach through his shorts, is so damn hard, too.
He rips his lips away from mine for a moment, and we’re both breathing hard.
“I want you to know what I’d do for you, Krista. What I will do for you.” He threads his hand through my hair as he growls the words in a low voice.
“What’s that?” I chirp, almost afraid of where he’s going with this.
“If I see that fucker Nick come close to you again, I’m going to kill him. That’s not a fucking threat, or a brag. That’s just a fact. He’s toxic, he’s using you as a prop for his own insecurity, and if he calls you. If he comes to your house again? I will fucking kill him with my bare hands.”
I swallow hard. “You shouldn’t talk like that,” I whisper. “You’ll get in trouble…”
“Ask me if I give a shit.” He arches his eyebrow, daring me to ask him.
As I feel his rough hand fall to my hip and rest just above my ass, I don’t want to know the answer. He’s a savage, and a civilized voice in my head says I should hate the fact that he’s saying he’d kill for me.
But the truth is it’s the hottest fucking thing anyone has ever said to me.
“Fuck, Damien,” are the only words I manage to mutter as I grab hold of the back of my head and pull him back into me. He sprinkles kisses on my neck, gently at first. Then he bites in and sucks hard on my skin for a moment, almost like a vampire would.
It’s a little painful.
I respond by digging my fingers farther into his hair, and this spurs him on. He lets out a loud growl like a feral animal, and brings his face back level with mine.
“How many dates has it been?” He demands.
“This is date number seven.”
“Lucky number seven...what happens on date seven?”
“Damien,” I mutter. “We agreed we needed time to get to know each other a little more. And we put the ten dates out there as a benchmark. But I think we know each other pretty well.”
He narrows his eyes and slides his hand down my stomach and into my shorts. I lean back against the tree for footing.
I pant a little as he dips his fingertips lower until they’re at my opening. I purr as he fingers my clit.
“Wow,” he smirks. “Someone is already pretty damn wet.”
I breathe hard as he hooks the finger further into me, his smirk positively devilish. Running his other hand down my back, he grips my waist and steadies me as I shake.
The first waves of pleasure run through me, and I float away. I’m in paradise. The air is fresh around me, and Damien is making sure only good things happen to me.
I twist my head down and bite gently into his neck, letting out a soft purr.
“Fuck it,” Damien says in a gravelly voice. “I’m tasting you.”
He pulls my shorts and swimsuit down in one motion. With his fingers still inside me, he trails kisses down my breasts, stomach, and kisses my pussy ever so gently.
“You have a beautiful cunt, you know that?”
My skin tingles with shock at Damien using that word.
Or maybe it’s tingling from the endorphins of the strongest man I’ve ever met kneeling before me, treating me like a queen. The same hands he could use to kill a man, he’s using to take me to the next level of…
“Oh, God,” I mutter as I let out a loud moan in the middle of the woods. It feels so fucking good to scream, to let it all out in the middle of nowhere here. His tongue slides across my pussy as he works his hands as deftly as he does his mouth.
He grunts, a low pitched, animalistic noise, and uses his free hand to steady my body as I quake and quiver.
“I’m coming, Damien,” I mewl.
My legs tremble and I’m so damn light-headed as I come, quivering in Damien’s steady grip.
“Krista!” I hear him yell through the haze of my orgasm.
Wait...yell? How could Damien yell when he’s…
I look down, and Damien’s mouth is still all over me.
Uh oh. What the hell?
“Krista! Are you alright!”
I come back to reality and realize it’s not Damien’s voice at all. It’s Amelia. And she’s really damn close to us.
Damien glances up at me from his knees, a silly smirk on his face. He wipes his mouth of my juices and stands back up.
I pull my shorts up and spin around, and just then Axel and Amelia appear around a thicket of trees.
“Krista! There you are!” Axel says loudly.
“We were getting fucking worried about you. What were you do—? Oh.”
Damien and I stand there holding hands, our faces flushed.
“I mean, shit. We’re all friends here,” Damien shrugs. “What the hell did you think we were doing?”
Amelia shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “I don’t...I don’t want to say. Something weird flashed through my mind. Probably just a bad memory. Never mind.”
Damien squints at Amelia, looks at me, then glances back at Amelia. “Say it. What did you think it was?”
Axel shrugs, but doesn’t say much. Damien doesn’t stop staring at Amelia for an answer.
“Just tell us,” I chime in. “It’s okay.”
“It’s stupid, though. It’s totally ridiculous. I don’t even know why a thing like that would cross my mind.”
“Now you really have to tell me,” I say as we cross out of the area with trees and back into the clearing.
She looks at Axel, who gives her a ‘go ahead’ nod.
Amelia takes a deep breath. “I...had this weird feeling Nick came out of nowhere and was after you.”
I clam up, clenching Damien’s hand hard at the mention of Nick.
“Why would you think that?” I react.
Amelia shakes her head. “I’m not sure.”
We walk in silence for a few beats. Amelia’s always had a good intuition, so it is a little disconcerting to me that she’d think that. Still, it’s probably just her mind getting crazy since we’re in a weird place.
Damien, who hasn’t said much in a few minutes, speaks.
“Amelia, don’t worry about Nick. He’s not going to hurt Krista or come near her again.”
“How do you know?” Amelia chirps back.
Damien chuckles a little, unfazed. “Because if he does, I’ll fucking kill him.”
24
Damien
For dinner we go to a local restaurant on the edge of the water with a patio. The sun set hours ago, but we’re not tired in the least. I never get tired in good company, and these three are the best company I could imagine right now. My best friend Axel, his girl, and of course, Krista.
The soothing swish of the surf nearby crashes into the rocks, and the smell of salty-sea water fills our nostrils. The sound of distant music hums through the air from some dance club along the beach. People murmur around us, engrossed in their own conversations. Personally, there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be than right here, right now.
Krista looks so damn hot. Since the entire resort is quite casual in spite of the niceness of this restaurant, she’s got on a loose-fitting, semi-transparent summer gown over her bikini and that’s it. I’ve got a half-chub going on below the table and we haven’t even gotten our drinks yet. She says something to Amelia, and I hear her voice but I don’t understand the words, just hear her lighthearted tone and laughter. Flipping her hair behind her ear, she lets out a laugh, and I smile.
I could stare at every one of her minute actions all day. Maybe that makes me obsessive, but I don’t care. I know what it feels like to lose someone close to me. On the hiking trail back to our cabin, as we talked nonchalantly about the weather and other innocuous things, I couldn’t help the vision I had. It was of that fucker Nick reappearing back in Chicago, and me wrapping my hands around his neck until…
I shouldn’t have been thinking about this. I shouldn’t have thought it then, and I shouldn’t be thinking it now. It’s not right to kill another man.
I slide my hand over Krista’s right leg and squeeze her flesh. She purrs so softly I’m the only one who can hear it, and she darts an almost-secret glance at me. As I stare into her beautiful blue eyes, for some reason, my sister pops into my mind.
After she died, I’d been in a haze for months. Maybe years. Hell, maybe I hadn’t been zapped out of that foggy depression until Krista stepped into my life. My heart had been filled with hatred, and the worst part was I couldn’t even direct the hate at anyone specifically.
So it got directed at God in general. Or the fates. Whoever or whatever I’d believed in before she died.
I couldn’t understand it. My mind shot back to a question I’d asked my priest in sixth grade, and one Father Roger never gave me a serious answer to.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
If the Lord is so damn all powerful, why do innocent people die on his watch?
I swallow uncomfortably and run my hand over the rose tattoo on my elbow.
They all looked at me like I was crazy when I said I’d kill Nick if he came close to Krista again. I was dead serious. I’d kill him, and I wouldn’t regret it.
“You’re quiet,” Krista says in a kind voice, running her hand on top of mine. “You okay?”
I nod, then run my hands through my hair. “I’m fine.”
Luckily the server interrupts our moment when he opens a bottle of wine for our table. We erupt into an exaggerated golf clap, started by Amelia and Ax.
He shoots the four of us a weird look. “Most tables don’t clap for wine.”
“Well this table does,” Ax says.
The server nods as if now this makes sense, but he clearly doesn’t get the goofy mood we’re all in.
He pours the wine into my glass, and I taste it and nod like I’m a sommelier who knows anything about wine at all. “Mmm. Notes of red rubies and dark cherries. We’ll take it.”
Krista rolls her eyes a little, a smile underneath her veiled sass. The server fills Axel and Amelia’s glasses before he leaves.
We raise our glasses together, and a genuine smile fills me and warms me in a way I once never felt was possible.
“What are we cheersing to this time?” Amelia asks.
“It’s your party,” Ax winks, turning to me. “You pick.”
“It’s our party All of us.”
“Yeah, but we aren’t the ones keeping track of the number of dates. What is this, number nine for you two? I heard you saying how the trip to the natural hot springs was date number eight. Which would mean this is number nine.”
I nod thoughtfully, twirling my glass just a bit in my hand. “Nice to know you’ve finally learned how to do math. Miss Jacobsen would be proud,” I add, a dig at our high school math teacher.
“Hey, don’t change the subject. What happens at ten dates?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, darting a glance at Krista. Her blue eyes and wavy brown hair are killing me, absolutely killing me. I’m so done with our third-base antics, not that I haven’t enjoyed them. Quite the contrary, in fact. I loved the way she screamed while I knelt before her and licked her clit outdoors in the damn woods. But I want her whole body. I need to make her mine just like I did that first night.
Krista butts in, raising her smooth and sexy voice. “How about this for a toast. Tonight dates everywhere—may they morph into something wonderful and hot.”
Ax shrugs. “I was thinking more along the lines of an irish toast but that works for me!”
We clink glasses and crack up as we all take sips of the delicious malbec. Eventually we sift through the menu and order a plethora of plates to share.
We start with a course of mouth-watering calamari, a ceasar salad, and then move onto filet mignon, roasted pork shank, and ribs. We eat ravenously, all starved from our long hike back from the hot springs.
I ease back in my chair and run my hand along Krista’s inner thigh.
Normally, I’m not one for public displays of affection. But with Krista it’s different. I can’t keep my hands off her at any time. It’s like she’s got this magnetic pull drawing me in.
She leans over, putting her hand on my shoulder, and whispers in my ear.
“Damien. If this is date number nine, we only have one more to go for date ten.”
I nod. “True. So what are you saying?”
Her eyes dance, and she lightly raps her fingers across my arm. “You really don’t get it?”
I shake my head. “Maybe it’s the wine. I’m slow right now. Enlighten me, baby.”
She wiggles her eyebrows, and nods her head in the direction of the music. “I’m saying if we go to the club on the beach…that’s date number ten.”
“Oh. Ohhh…”
She throws her head back in laughter. I look over at Amelia and Axel’s side of the table, and they’re making out. I nod in approval.
“You really are kind of a ditz sometimes,” she adds.
I chuckle. I don’t want to tell her how my brain has been in a fog today since I can’t stop my thoughts about her and Nick. I shrug.
“Really? Nothing to say for yourself?” She lowers her voice to a whisper, then glances left and right to see if anyone’s watching her. The restaurant is mostly empty since we’re eating so late. She plasters a devliish look across her face.
“What are you do—?”
I have my answer as she slides her hand down my shirt, feeling my abs.
But she doesn’t stop at my ab muscles. She keeps going, her blue eyes sparkling as her hand lands on the outline of my cock through my board shorts.
“Well, well,” she grins. “Looks like someone is definitely ready for date number ten.”
The corners of my mouth turn up in a smirk. I groan as she rubs my dick over the thin layer of clothing.
Taking hold of the back of her neck, I bring her mouth to mine for an aggressive kiss.
It’s not sweet and soft.
This is a territory marking, ‘I own you and I told you I’ll kill your ex if he comes around again’ type of kiss. When I release her, Krista’s eyes are wide.
She’s got intuition.
She knows I was marking her. I take it one step further. Drawing her toward me, I growl right in her ear. “After we fuck again, I’m going to own your pussy. I’m going to fuck you so deep, and so hard, you’ll never be satisfied with anyone’s cock but mine. Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I lean back, and a broad grin spreads across my face as I watch Krista’s jaw drop.
Her fingers still on the outline of my cock, she glances below my waist and then at my face again to gauge my reaction.
Ten Night Stand Page 15