by Anne Conley
Oh God, how embarrassing, Cynthia chided herself as she ran to her car. She’d just had an orgasm. In public.
As beautiful a man as he was, she couldn’t see Damien again. He’d undoubtedly just gotten the completely wrong idea about her. With all her talk about living for the moment, and then leaving the restaurant before they were finished eating so she could dry-hump him outside…
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She ran all the way to her car, a feat considering her weakened physical state with the radiation. Even though she was feeling better, she still wasn’t up to running four blocks.
Too winded to notice the two men loitering next to her car, she bent to unlock it, and was taken off guard when one of the men pushed her inside and over to the passenger side. The other got in the backseat and pressed something metal and cylindrical against the back of her neck. Fear raced through her. She was being robbed.
“Really? Is that necessary, Gabe?”
Cynthia looked to her right to see a golden-haired man sitting next to her with the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, outside of a magazine.
“Eyes front.” The metal prodded her in the neck again, and Cynthia complied, holding her hands up in front of her. It was a reflex, to hold her hands up, but didn’t know what else to do. The thought that she shouldn’t have run away from Damien crossed her mind. She could have taken the afternoon off and spent the time in bed with him, letting him fulfill some of these fantasies she’d been having. Of course, she hadn’t done that. Instead, she’d been accosted by these men.
“Please, don’t hurt me. There’s money in my purse.” Please let them be out for robbery. Although, as her pulse pounded and her hands broke out in a cold sweat, she realized it was broad daylight. What did they have in mind?
The man next to her spoke, his voice warm and friendly, despite the fact he was kidnapping her. “We don’t want your money.” As if noticing for the first time, he said appreciatively, “Mercedes…” He pushed the button to start the low, growly engine and shifted into drive. “We just want to talk.”
Oh God… They were taking her somewhere. Her mind jumped from one conclusion to the next, trying to figure out what they wanted.
“You haven’t been paying attention to your dreams.”
Her mind raced while she tried desperately to make sense of what these men were saying. “Okay…” Cynthia was trying to buy herself some time. She was prepared to die, just not like this. A brain tumor was supposed to kill her, not hunky men with a gun.
“He’s not who you think he is. This is all a trick for him. He gets off on fooling people.”
“Who? Damien?” She was so confused. These robbers or rapists or whatever, were warning her off of Damien? Why?
A snort sounded beside her while the gun pressed harder into her neck.
The man behind her spoke. “Yeah, Damien. At least he gave you a name we’re familiar with. Don’t trust him.”
That was all she remembered. That’s how her seizures worked, usually. She’d be there one minute, gone the next. Sometimes there was a warning odor, burnt almonds most of the time, but not always. This time, she was present one minute, listening to the men talk about Damien like he was Satan, and the next she was seizing. They probably freaked out and left when that started.
Which didn’t explain how she got in her own bed.
As Cynthia groggily swiped at her eyes, her limbs aching and her heart in her throat, she looked around. Had those men brought her home? Why would they do that? She inhaled the comforting scent of Damien, the one that reminded her of campfires and wood smoke. She still couldn’t explain that, but something in the pit of her stomach told her it meant everything would be okay.
Her purse was on the nightstand and she grabbed at it, finding all her money there along with her driver’s license and keys. So that’s how somebody knew where she lived.
Either that unlikely scenario, or else she had dreamed the entire thing.
Jeez, she would be glad when this tumor business was over. Then, one way or another, she would be finished with this weirdness that had become her life. Then Cynthia could be sure what was real and what wasn’t.
Cynthia was thankfully rested for her visit with Dr. Gray and her regular CT scans to measure the tumor. She’d discussed her vivid dreams with him, though not the content, and he reassured her it was normal to have either increased or decreased dreams with her tumor. She also told him about her seizure and the circumstances of it. He warned her to avoid walking alone when possible and sent her on her way. He could neither confirm nor deny whether she’d been the victim of an attempted robbery or an overactive pineal gland.
At least the radiation treatments had been working. The tumor had indeed shrunk, but still needed the risky surgery.
Evelyn met her at her apartment with Thai take-out and they sat at her kitchen table eating lettuce wraps while Evelyn talked. Cynthia told her about the mugging, or whatever it was, and her seizure which had obviously scared off the attackers. They agreed that at least the brain tumor was good for something, but when Evelyn started to get weepy, Cynthia changed the subject, asking her about her latest boyfriend.
“…So I told him I was done. There are not enough hours in the day to deal with my own shit, let alone his, too,” Evelyn said with finality.
Musing aloud, Cynthia broke into Evelyn’s tirade, “You remember that guy outside the radiation center?”
A lecherous look crossed her friend’s face. “Oh ye-ah…”
“Well, we went to lunch today.” She proceeded to tell Evelyn about the spontaneous orgasm, her behavior outside, and her rationale that it was some weird side-effect of the tumor.
“Jesus. I wish shit like that happened to me. Did I ever tell you about the time I got busted masturbating in the office bathroom?”
That’s why she could tell Evelyn anything. Because nothing ever fazed her; she took everything as a fact of life and ran with it.
“Wouldn’t you have been embarrassed, though, if that had happened to you? I mean, I came! Right there!”
Evelyn chewed thoughtfully. “How did he react?”
“Like I’d done him a favor. He said it was beautiful.” In fact, the look on his face said he’d wanted to drag her home and give her many more orgasms. Considering the events that happened afterward, she wished she’d taken him up on it.
“Then, no. I wouldn’t have been embarrassed.” She put her wrap down and looked squarely at Cynthia. “Are you going to go out with him again?”
Cynthia shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s really bad timing…”
“All good things come at really shitty times, Cyn. That’s why we miss so many of them. We’re too wrapped up in the shittiness to see the good stuff happening all around us.”
“But what if the surgery doesn’t go well? What then? He’ll be invested in something that’s ending.” She’d been pragmatic about the surgery from the get-go, trying to get her affairs in order and preparing herself to not make it, but Damien put a new wrinkle in her plans. Suddenly, she had someone she might want to come back for.
Wait. What the fuck? She hardly knew the guy, and what she did know was he was creepy and stalkerish, and smelled good, and made her feel wonderful.
Okay, so maybe she should go out with him again.
“I pray for you every night, you know.” Her friend’s voice was nearly a whisper.
Ignoring the irony of her friend saying that in the same conversation she talked about public masturbation, Cynthia shrugged. “Well, thanks. I guess it’s good someone does. I can probably use all the help I can get.”
“You don’t believe at all, do you?”
Cynthia scoffed. They’d had this conversation before. Thankfully, Evelyn wasn’t an in-your-face Christian, but she was an intensely spiritual person. Almost as spiritual as she was sexual.
“In some higher power sitting around, deciding my fate based on whether or not I pray to him every night before I go to sleep? No.”
> “Then I’ll believe for the both of us. You will get through this, Cyn. I believe that.” Evelyn’s eyes glassed over, and she looked for a second like she might cry. But she sniffed it all back, and with a bright expression continued as if she’d never gotten deep. “So, can he kiss?”
“God, yes. The man is gifted.” Cynthia remembered the bulge of his erection as she manically ground against it in her efforts to chase her release. In more ways than one…
A knock at her door interrupted them, and Cynthia rose to answer it, finding a delivery man hiding behind the biggest bunch of red roses she’d ever seen.
“Delivery for Ms. Peterson.”
“Oh, wow.” She took the flowers, unable to stop herself from inhaling the heady aroma. Evelyn shut the door and followed her into the kitchen, for once, speechless.
Cynthia read the card aloud, “I hope you feel better. Saw these and thought of you. Until we see each other again, Damien.”
“Fuck me,” Evelyn whispered. “Um, call him!”
Her phone dinged in her purse, and she got up to check the text message.
From an unknown number: Are you okay? I was wondering if I could call you later this evening?
It had to be Damien, reading her mind again, as she had just been thinking of him. Cynthia responded to him with a resounding ‘yes.’ She wanted to hear his voice again, even if the last time she’d seen him, she’d made an utter fool out of herself. And she wanted to find out how he got her number.
Cynthia returned to the table, and Evelyn’s eyes danced.
“Making a date?”
“No. He just asked if he could call me later.” She had to admit, she was excited at the prospect of talking to him again and started mentally preparing a list of things to talk about.
Her phone rang just then and Evelyn started laughing. “I’ll go.” She stood, shoving half a lettuce wrap in her mouth, and hugged Cynthia. “No phone sex on the second date,” she whispered before leaving.
Cynthia answered her phone, a little breathless, both at Evelyn’s shocking suggestion and her own nerves.
“I couldn’t wait until later. I apologize.” Damien’s low voice sent a shiver of excitement up Cynthia’s spine.
“It’s okay.” Evelyn left with a slam of her door, laughing to herself as she went. “Um, how did you get my number?”
A low, rumbling chuckle met her ears, doing funny things to her insides. “I was wondering when you would notice. I did it at lunch. You left your phone out on the table.”
At least it was innocent. She got a strange vibe from Damien at times but couldn’t bring herself to be afraid of him. Something told her she should be, but he hadn’t given her evidence, really, of being a bad person. He mostly just seemed… lost. “Have you had a good day? I got the flowers. They’re beautiful.”
“I’m glad you liked them. You deserve more, but that’s all the florist had.” His voice had lowered to an intimate tone, like a lover. She shivered with a thrill of heat. “Um, I wanted to see if you were okay since our lunch. After you left, I followed and found your car with you passed out inside.” His voice sounded funny, like he was having a hard time with the words.
“So, you brought me home?” Knowing that was a relief. She’d thought it was likely, but wasn’t completely satisfied with her own conclusions; she’d needed to hear it from him. She was certainly glad it wasn’t the other guys. The strangers. A shiver swept through her. Cynthia wasn’t even sure they were ever there. She sighed, resigned to not knowing, yet again, if it had been an actual occurrence or just another product of her tumor.
“I looked at your license. I hope it’s okay. I probably should have taken you to the hospital, but it seemed like something you needed to sleep off.” Damien’s voice was an intimate caress, and Cynthia settled herself on her chair, bringing her legs up underneath her.
“It was. I had a seizure. Symptom of the brain tumor. I probably shouldn’t even be driving.”
“But you weren’t. You were in the passenger seat,” he said carefully, the obvious question an undertone of his voice.
Well, that explained that. “I was afraid of that.” She went on to explain what had happened, or what she could remember, anyway. On the other end of the phone, his breathing got deeper and louder with each sentence she spilled. When she finished telling him, he was silent for a while, then a loud banging noise sounded through the phone.
“Can I come over?” His voice was careful and controlled, more than a little scary. Cynthia told herself it wasn’t anger aimed at her. That he was upset by the circumstances, and she was honestly flattered. The possessive nature of the anger was sort of cool. Nobody had ever really cared that much, except possibly Evelyn, who would have freaked.
“No, I’m fine, Damien. Really.”
“I know you are, I just need… I want to see you.”
“Take me out to dinner tomorrow night.”
A heavy sigh. “Okay, done. Can I pick you up?”
She smiled at his frustration. “Yes. I’ll dress fancy.”
His voice lowered and made her shiver again. “You do that.”
After hanging up, Cynthia drifted around her apartment in a pleasant fog as she got ready for bed—a pleasant, spicy smelling fog, her thoughts on one man only. She couldn’t wait for tomorrow night.
Knowing Cyn was on Uriel and Gabriel’s radar incensed Damien. He knew exactly what they were doing. He’d been kicked out of Cynthia’s dreams that night by Gabriel but hadn’t thought much of it when he’d seen that Cyn hadn’t. But for them to kidnap her was inexcusable. It shouldn’t matter how righteous they felt about their actions, The Boss had chosen her for Damien. She was his. And their heavy-handed actions had cause her weakened body stress, had caused her seizure. He’d kill them if they hurt her again. He’d like nothing more than to have them in his wall. An odd, protective swelling arose inside him, and Damien embraced its rightness.
So, he’d cloaked himself and stuck to her like a second skin, which wasn’t too much of a hardship. Everywhere she went, he was watching. Sure, she’d call him a creepy stalker, but it was for her protection. Knowing the other angels were warning her off, Damien felt the need to guard her, protect her. Short of branding her, he could only spend his waking hours watching her, and since he didn’t sleep, that was all the time.
He’d do it for the rest of his days and beyond, if necessary. She was his, and he was going to protect her.
Damien made a concerted effort not to play too heavy a hand with Cynthia when he picked her up for their date the next night. She wore a simple black sheath, chiffon over satin that stopped just above her knees and draped low in the back. Wearing it with a crystal choker and earrings, she exuded class and sex-appeal he couldn’t deny. His mouth watered when she opened her door to him, and he swallowed thickly.
“Stunning,” was all he could muster, before pulling a package from behind his back. “I brought you a present.”
Cynthia took the proffered gift bag and opened it, eyes curious. When she saw what was inside, she gasped, a sound Damien relished and vowed to make her do more of.
“Wow. This is… too much.” She pulled out the leather purse filled with goodies Damien had gotten for her.
“Nope. Not enough,” he said simply.
“But this is Hermes, and it looks expensive…” she mused as she dug around inside. “Lara Mercier bath stuff, is this Chanel No. 5?” Her eyes widened as she held up the bottle to him.
Nodding, he said, “Cyn, I have plenty of money, and I want to buy you nice things. You deserve it. Let me.” The edge in his voice brooked no argument. Even if he couldn’t compel her to accept the gifts, he would think the gifts themselves would be enough compulsion. Women the world over had killed for stuff like this. “I’m going to give you things like this, whether you like it or not, so just accept them graciously.”
Apparently, she thought better of her arguments, because she conceded. “Alright. Thank you. But next time, build a homel
ess shelter or something. I really don’t need this,” she said with a nervous giggle.
“Duly noted. Are you ready to go?” She nodded before taking his arm and allowing him to lead her to his rented car.
He sat in the back with her as the driver wound through the city streets to take them to dinner.
“Do you not drive?”
He shrugged. “Not really.” Reaching over, he clasped her hand in his, enjoying the crackle of energy pulsing between them.
“Why not?”
Another shrug. He didn’t think, based on her tone of voice, she approved of his answers but didn’t want to lie to her. She was different, and while the lie was tempting, he refrained. “No need to.”
Settling back in her seat, Cynthia’s face gleamed with mischief. “If you could drive anything, what would it be?”
Without hesitation, he answered, “A Porsche Carrera 911.” A beautiful machine, beyond a doubt.
She laughed. “That was a quick answer.”
“Just because I don’t drive, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to handle a car,” Damien lowered his voice seductively, trying not to overdo it but wanting to impart meaning nonetheless, “or appreciate something beautiful when I see it.” His finger reached out to stroke her shoulder, feeling the smooth expanse of skin.
She blushed at his double meaning, and he felt a tinge of a strange swelling in his chest. Was it pride that he was getting under her skin?
When the driver pulled up the restaurant, Cynthia gasped, again. A thrill of pleasure raced through Damien; he loved that sound. “I’ve always wanted to eat here. It’s supposed to be wonderful.”
“We have special seats for tonight.” He smiled at her eager eyes before getting out and holding his hand to help her out of the car.
Damien’s hand at her back, he steered Cynthia to the hostess stand, trying to ignore the warm skin under his fingertips—the skin on her back, exposed by the low cut of the dress she wore. It left so much to his active imagination, he barely restrained himself.
“Right this way, Mr. Goel.” The hostess turned to seat them with a smile.