Growling, Nick made a sudden move like he was going to lunge off the porch, but I grabbed his shirt and held it. Tightly.
"No, Nick! No. He's not worth it. He's not worth another fight and you possibly breaking open your stitches again. We just went through this, remember? And you said you weren't going to fall for any more of his baiting."
With his strong jaw clenched, Nick glared out at Damien, but he didn't seem as if he were going to make any other attempts to charge him.
And so, I now turned my attention to Damien. "And you...you grow up! How many more times are you going to try to draw Nick into another fight? You'd think at a certain point, you'd get sick of it. Not to mention, trying to engage Nick into another fight isn't exactly the definition of the whole 'waiting with patience' thing you described to me tonight."
Nick whipped his face toward me. "What do you mean? What did he say? What is he 'waiting with patience' for?"
Because the answer was me, of course, I didn't know quite how to respond.
And before I even could, Damien began strolling over to the porch, hands in the pockets of his jeans, which hung low on his slim hips. "I'm waiting with patience for her. Obviously. I'm waiting for her to finally realize that I'm the man she's meant to be with. And she will realize that, Nick. It's just a matter of time. You can only keep her with your 'poor, pitiful, injured me' act for so long."
Nick made a motion to charge at him again, but I was still clutching his shirt tightly and yanked him back. Tried to, anyway. He may have still been injured, but despite that, he still had incredible shifter strength even while in human form.
"No! Don't, Nick. I'm not going to ask you again." Suddenly profoundly tired, yet angry at the same time, I released his shirt. "No, actually, never mind that. Go right ahead. Charge at Damien. Take another swing at him. I hope you both knock each other out."
Nick frowned at me. "I'm sorry. I-"
"No, enough apologies for tonight. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of both of you. I'm sick of feeling like a referee in a kindergarten. You both go right ahead and kill each other if that's what you both want. Never mind that the both of you fighting stresses me out and hurts me. But the two of you just go right ahead. Even though you're both brothers and it should make you both feel terrible how you're at each other's throats all the time. But, no...the two of you just go right ahead."
Still frowning, Nick didn't say anything. Neither did Damien, who was now standing mere feet away with one black-booted foot perched on the bottom porch step. But I wasn't placated. I was truly sick and tired of their fighting, and baiting, and lunging.
"You'd think the two of you cared more about 'winning' me than my actual feelings and my heart. And since that's the case, the two of you can just go right ahead and kill each other. But leave me out of it.
“I want to be left alone for the next couple of days. I'm trying to prepare for the opening of the museum in a few weeks while all the while having to worry about the wolves, who want to kidnap me. And I don't need this additional stress. So, if the two of you will excuse me, I'm going inside now, alone. And even if I hear a shifter fight happening out here, I'm not coming back out."
I intended to head inside immediately, probably slamming the cabin door behind me, but just then, I caught sight of two shadowy figures coming up the lane.
One of them raised a hand and waved. "Hey, guys!"
It was Katie and Sam. I raised my own hand in a halfhearted wave and said hi, though without enthusiasm. They soon reached the porch, thankfully, because the awkward silence beforehand, while Nick, Damien, and I all just stood silently, was nearly unbearable.
While holding Sam's hand, Katie rested her free hand on the light oak stair railing. "Some Halloween, huh? Everyone doing all right here?"
Nick and Damien, who both had their similar-looking jaws clenched, didn't seem like they were going to answer, and I dipped my head in a fraction of a nod.
"Mm-hm."
With her long red curls glinting in the soft glow of the porch light, Katie studied me for a moment, then glanced at Nick and Damien in turn, before addressing the group as a whole again. "So...anyone up for a nightcap? Sam and I are heading home to have one ourselves. Think our nerves need it. And any or all of you are more than welcome to join us if you'd like."
Silently thanking her for trying to rescue me from an uncomfortable situation, if that had been her intent. I was pretty sure it had been. I shook my head. "No thanks for me. I was actually just going inside to go to bed. By myself. But if Nick or Damien would like to join you, that's fine with me, because they were actually both just leaving my porch."
With his chocolate brown eyes glimmering with just a touch of amusement, Sam gave Damien a clap on the back. "I'm sure Damien would love to join us. Or, at the very least, I'm sure he'll allow us to walk him home right now."
Damien scoffed. "Well, thanks so much, Sam, but I don't need to be walked home. Like a child."
I grabbed the door handle, staring Damien down. "No, please do walk him home, Sam. He is a child. Certainly acts like one, anyway."
And with that, I stepped inside the cabin and kind of slammed the door. After resting with my back against it for a few moments, just breathing, while my anger subsided, I crept across the darkened living room to a window and peered out between a crack in the curtains.
Katie was dragging Damien away by the hand, smiling and talking, seeming to be trying to joke with him, possibly to lessen the indignity of being dragged off. I silently thanked her for the second time that evening, grateful to have a friend who was such a skilled and helpful peacemaker.
Once she and Sam had disappeared down the moonlit lane with Damien, Nick took a brief, longing look at my front door before heading down the lane himself, but in the opposite direction.
Despite having a troubled mind, I fell asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow that night. Having a troubled mind was apparently very exhausting.
For the next several days, I didn't talk to either Nick or Damien. I didn't even see either of them. I busied myself on museum projects, and I also worked many hours in Katie's boutique.
I knew I'd have to talk to Nick and Damien again eventually. And I felt a bit guilty for not checking in with Nick to see how his re-stitched stitches were healing up. Katie and Sam joined him and a few other council members for dinner one night, and Katie reported after that he was healing up just fine.
"He actually shifted several times with zero problems and no more ripping of stitches," she'd said.
But still, I couldn't help feeling a little bit guilty. I felt as if I'd abandoned him while he was still technically recovering from being tortured for me. It didn't matter that he was almost completely better.
I was also starting to feel strangely guilty about something else. Although I was still angry about the way Nick and Damien had both behaved on Halloween, it wasn't lost on me that they likely wouldn't have been at each other's throats in the first place, at least not to the degree that they had been, if it hadn't been for me. Me, and my seeming complete inability to make up my mind about which brother I wanted to commit to in the long run.
I knew I had to figure things out soon. But the truth was that I loved them both. I could see a future with them both. And barring someone dropping a crystal ball in my lap, so that I could see just exactly how happy each of those futures would be, I wasn't sure how I was ever going to sort out my feelings and make up my mind. At least, not before Nick and Damien actually killed each other.
I couldn't help but wish that I'd get some sort of cosmic sign, like Damien had said I might be subconsciously waiting for. And Friday evening, I thought I might have finally gotten it.
After having a girls' dinner with Katie, Claire, and a few other women at one of the restaurants in town, I'd overheard another female diner remark to her female companion how lucky I was to have Nick and Damien fighting over me, which had made me snort, because I felt more stressed than lucky.
I was
back at my cabin, by myself, enjoying a glass of wine before bed. Curled up on the couch with a blanket, actually almost dozing, I startled when a knock sounded on the front door.
Now wide awake, I threw off my blanket, crossed the rustic style living room, and peeped out the window. The porch light revealed Katie standing outside, and I opened the door, wondering what could have possibly brought her over so late. However, her wary expression gave me a pretty good clue, and after I'd invited her inside and shut the door behind her, her words confirmed my suspicions.
She frowned, furrowing her gingery brows. "It's Nick and Damien. They're both fine, but I just thought you might like to know what just happened a little bit ago, and who the instigator was. Though...well, you probably already know who the instigator was."
I spoke through gritted teeth. "What happened?"
Katie sighed, blowing her wavy, side-swept bangs out of her face. "Well, here's the short version I heard from Sam.
“Sam, Eric, and Nick were having a drink in one of the bars when Damien and his buddies showed up. Sam went over and politely suggested that it might be a good idea for them to hit the other bar, but Damien assured him that he wasn't there to start any fights with Nick; he just wanted a certain kind of liquor that they don't have at the other place.
“So...whatever. Being that Damien is technically second-in-command next to Nick, and being that means he’s actually technically Sam's superior, it wasn't like Sam could just force him to leave. So, he didn't. And for a while, everything was fine. But then...."
"'Then' what?"
Grimacing, Katie sighed again. "To make a long story short, a bar patron made a toast to Nick's health and recovery, and everyone joined in and toasted him, saying things like 'To Chief Nick's health!' and so on. And then, when everyone had quieted down, Damien decided it was a great time to chime right in with a 'To Chief Nick!' of his own.
“But the Chief part was a little...well, clearly bitter and sarcastic-sounding. This got Nick all riled, but he held his cool. Or, at least he did until he had to walk by Damien's table on his way to the restroom. That was when Damien said, something to the effect of 'Chief of milking a few stitches to hold onto his girl,' which made Nick...well, as hair-trigger as Nick's temper has been lately, you can probably imagine what it made him do.
“But one of Damien's buddies got in between them before things got too wild, and then Sam jumped in, and then a few other people jumped in, and...well, everything got calmed down in the end, and everyone left the bar. And I debated even coming back here and telling you all this, but you said several times this week how you wanted to be told if Damien even dared tried to bait Nick again, so...."
Balling my fists, I took a deep, steadying breath before responding. "How do you kill a shifter again? By stabbing them through the heart and then through the eye while they're in shifter form? And, do you think Damien will shift for me if I ask him nicely? But while I'm holding a knife?"
Katie bit back a chuckle. "Not sure about that, but I understand how you feel. I want to wring his neck, and I'm not even his...his whatever you are to him."
"Soon-to-be-murderer."
An antique grandfather clock in the hallway began chiming eleven o' clock, and I suddenly stalked over to the couch, grabbed my coat from where I'd left it draped over the arm earlier, and then stalked back over to Katie by the front door.
"I've been wanting some sort of a sign about which brother I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with...Damien himself even suggested that maybe I subconsciously have been waiting for one...and I think I just got it. I know I can never spend the rest of my life with someone so immature that he just can't resist baiting his big brother every chance he gets. Despite the fact that he knows how much this upsets me. And so, I'm going over to his cabin right now. And I'm going to tell him that I've made up my mind. I can't be with him. I'm going to spend the rest of my life with Nick."
CHAPTER 17
The moment Damien opened his cabin door, I knew I'd made a mistake by coming to see him alone. And that was because he answered the door clad only in battered jeans, and shirtless. And the sight of his bare, chiseled chest made me instantly weak in the knees. And not just a little bit.
However, I realized that just because I'd likely made a little mistake by coming over by myself, and late at night, that didn't mean that I couldn't resist temptation and say what I had to say, as planned, then leave. I was still riled, and I still intended to tell him that it was over between us. Whatever it had been.
He propped one well-muscled arm against the door frame and gave me a devastatingly sexy half-grin. "Well, well. You must have decided to come over for some late-night love."
I sputtered while trying to keep my gaze on his face and not his hard chest. "That's not at all why I-"
"Understandable. I've been told that certain parts of my anatomy are downright addicting."
Shocked and angered, I stammered while thinking about that certain part of his anatomy while trying not to. And the thought of it, just the thought of his manhood, long, thick, and rock-hard, was enough to bring heat to my cheeks. Which only added a strange level of embarrassment to the rest of the jumbled, mixed-up emotions I was feeling. I didn't even know what to say at first.
But after a few moments, I just came right out with what I was thinking. Or, at least what I was thinking that wasn't X-rated.
"You can be quite a bit cocky, and arrogant, and conceited at times, can't you?"
"Yes."
Outraged by his smug response, I sputtered and stammered briefly again before being able to form actual, intelligible words. "And you don't even have the tiny shred of humility required to deny it!"
"No."
A second or two ticked by before I slammed my fist against the door frame before I even realized what I was doing. "How dare you!"
His tempting full mouth twitched with amusement.
"How dare I what?"
"Be so cocky!"
"Say that word again, but without the y at the end. And with the words I want your before it, too."
After a quick moment spent processing, I gasped. "How...how dare-"
"You can add my name at the end of my suggested sentence if you'd like, too."
I banged my fist against the door frame again, this time, fully aware of what I was doing.
"Never! I'll never say that sentence, because...."
His dark gray eyes twinkled in the dim light.
"Because why?"
I'd never been a great liar, but I decided to just go for it. "Because it's just not true. I don't want your...your manhood."
With a little grin creeping across his face, he snorted. "Now, Daisy...is that really true?"
I thought of his manhood, a little more heat rising to my face. And I found I couldn't respond. And then, to my horror, I found I couldn't resist when he pulled me into his arms and spoke in a low voice near my ear.
"I know that what you said isn't true. And that's because you're a passionate woman, and I know what you like. I know you like being held close by a man strong enough to never let you go. I know you like being touched and teased by that man.
“I know you like that man to give you a good hard spanking every now and again, which you should actually get right now for banging your little fist on the door frame, which some might consider a temper tantrum."
He paused and lowered his voice even further, his delectable mouth tickling my ear. "I also know that you like to feel that same man inside of you, working himself in and out of your sweet slickness, pleasuring you and loving you." He paused again and spoke in a husky whisper. "Am I wrong?"
I exhaled a fluttery breath. "You smell like whiskey."
With a chuckle rumbling low in his warm, hard chest, he tightened his arms around me. "You can help me brush my teeth. Because, after all, I am just a child, remember?"
Suddenly, he picked me up and lifted me across the threshold. "Get in here. You naughty little thing."
Our
mouths met not even a second after he'd closed the door. He kissed me passionately, hungrily, as if he'd been starving for me. I pushed him away just long enough to run my hands over the chiseled ridges of his bare chest before pressing my body into his and bringing my lips to his once more.
With Damien's strong, long-fingered hands going from my face to my breasts to my rear and then back to my face again, it didn't take very long at all before I was completely wet and aching for him to make love to me.
And so, with my arms wrapped around his muscular shoulders, I broke the kiss, nearly breathless. "I want you to make love to me, Damien. Right now. Please."
His voice came out in a husky growl.
"Well, those aren't exactly the words I suggested you say, but-"
"Don't push your luck."
He didn't, and in a flash we were both naked. The sight of his long, hard body in full nakedness, with his manhood long and hard in full erection, too, made me even a bit more breathless than I already was. And also a bit wetter as well. With the sensitive little bud between my slick feminine lips throbbing and tingling, I wrapped a hand around his thick shaft and gave it a few slow strokes, making him tip his head back, groaning. While I watched the motion of my hand on his member, I couldn't hold back a few noises of pleasure and desire myself.
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