Austin’s statement hadn’t been yelled, or whispered; instead it was spoken in a voice that sounded like he had been defeated. I was shocked by his words. In a way, he was right. I had used him, and I had known what I was doing, but Damien had nothing to do with any of that.
I sighed heavily as I clicked the door locked and walked back up the stairs to Damien’s room. I wasn’t prepared for having to explain the scene that just happened to him.
“Why is he so upset?” Damien questioned as he pulled me into his lap.
“He’s mad that I chose you over him.”
“Did he think he had a shot against this?” he asked as he pointed to his sculpted bare chest, trying to get me to smile with his narcissistic humor.
“We used to have a thing,” I said awkwardly as I realized how much I didn’t want to talk to Damien about my fling with another guy. Just like how I didn’t want to hear what he had done with other girls before me.
“Is it over?” he asked tentatively, keeping a steady gaze.
“Yeah, it was over the moment,” I paused, realizing what I had been about to say before I changed my mind. “I realized that lying to Brooke was just too much for me. So I broke it off and it hasn’t happened again in a few months,” I answered awkwardly, trying to avoid the number of months or he would have figured out that it stopped when I met him.
“Why did it end?”
“He wanted a relationship and I didn’t. He was clingy and he clearly wanted me in a way that I didn’t want him. I just didn’t have feelings for him,” I mumbled hesitantly. I hated how much I had used Austin, but he knew it from the start. He knew I didn’t want a relationship, and I was only in it for the pure need of the special attention. So why did I feel so bad about it?
“So how do you feel about me?” Damien asked without looking into my eyes. For a moment I could see a normal guy, concerned about how he was felt for, and insecure about asking. I smiled and leaned in to give him his answer; my lips pressed against his and our tongues started their erotic dance anew.
Chapter 24
The sound of a car on the street caused me to turn and push my face deeper into my pillow. It was late, probably past two by now, but I didn’t know for sure because I hadn’t set my alarm clock up yet. It was in one of the boxes that now filled my new room. You never truly realize how much stuff you have until you have to box it all up and move to a different house.
My phone was charging on the floor by my bed, and if I wasn’t so lazy, I would reach down and check the time, but I didn’t care. I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep. I was so lost in my thoughts that there was no time to sleep.
My dad and the senator had gotten me a new bed; a queen size to fit my new room, since my old room and bed were half the size of this one. I knew that they were giving it to me as a bribe; a means of consolation between the three of us. The senator had even spewed some bullshit apology about how she felt bad that I had to move from the only house I had ever lived in, and how it must be hard to see my dad with someone new.
She had come into my room yesterday while I was packing up boxes and had awkwardly patted my shoulder and offered to help me pack. Despite her attempt at being nice, I could tell that she didn’t like me, but it wasn’t a big deal to me. The feeling of dislike was mutual. I was just hoping that this wasn’t going to end up like some fairy tale where my dad passed away after the marriage and I got stuck with my evil stepmother.
I shuddered at the thought of that, snuggling further under the covers as other thoughts swirled around in my brain. A majority of them involved Austin and Brooke, while others were about Damien and me. It was the first night sleeping in my new room—my new house—and yet I hadn’t even closed my eyes for more than a minute.
I sighed heavily as I allowed thoughts of Austin to take over. I felt so bad for hurting him. I knew how he had to feel because I had been there before, and even though I hadn’t done anything wrong by ending our relationship and moving on, I still felt terrible. I didn’t have to lie to him before when he asked about Damien. I couldn't help but wonder if I had told him the truth if he would be as upset as he is right now. He wouldn’t have been thrown into the situation and he would have had time to accept that I had moved on. Despite our rocky past and complicated relationship, Austin truly had become one of my closest friends, and now I may have ruined that.
And what if he tells Brooke?
I closed my eyes tightly at that. Of course it was time that Brooke knew about Austin and me, but I wanted to be the one to tell her. Austin can’t just tell her in an attempt to make her hate me, like he does. I was just afraid of how she would react knowing that I had been sleeping with her brother behind her back. What kind of friend does that?
I sighed again as a small tear leaked from my eye before I hurriedly wiped it away. I hate crying. Especially when it’s because I can’t figure out what to do. It made me feel vulnerable. What will I do if Austin makes good on his threat and tells Brooke? What’s going to happen when Matt and I end our “relationship” and it comes out that he’s gay and I blackmailed him into dating me? What the hell is going to happen when the senator and my dad find out about Damien and my relationship, and that I’ve been sleeping with my future stepbrother?
Were they going to send me away, or Damien? Hell, who’s to stop them from sending us both away, and leaving them with their perfect daughter Alyssa?
I covered my face with my hands. When all of my secrets come out, shit is going to hit the fan. It’s inevitable. There’s nothing I can do about it either, and that’s probably the worst part. I’ll just have to figure it out when it all happens.
The sound of my door opening caused my eyes to snap all the way open in fear. The first thought that flashed through my mind was, Oh shit. Just my luck, the first day I sleep here, the place gets robbed.
That idea vanished instantly when Damien peeked his head into the room, his shaggy hair falling into his eyes a bit. “I knew you’d be awake,” he whispered into the room, the only sound coming from his voice and my thumping heart from my initial robber theory. I nodded back, not whispering because I was always so bad at that. My whispers were loud enough for the deaf to hear. “You’ve been thinking about the last few days, haven’t you?” He was referring to today’s unpacking and Saturday’s Austin debacle.
I nodded again.
“Worried about school tomorrow, and what Brooke is going to say?”
I nodded my head once more, thankful that all of his questions could be answered with a nod or a head shake.
Damien entered the room, pushing the door shut quietly behind him before he came over to the bed. To my surprise, instead of getting in the bed with me, he just pulled the covers back, revealing me in my black sports bra and boy shorts. “I was curious as to what you wore to bed,” he smirked, answering my unspoken question. “And, I’m taking you out on the town.” He grabbed my hand, pulling me up into a sitting position and then out of the bed.
“What are you talking about?” I questioned, finally trusting my voice since the door was shut.
Damien’s lips curved into a smirk again. “As much as I hate to say this, you should get dressed,” he responded, ignoring my question. He led me over to one of the open boxes on my floor that had clothes spilling out of it and reached inside to pull out a pair of jeans. He handed them over to me, going back in the box to grab a shirt as I slipped the skinny jeans on. My expression was still clouded with confusion as Damien gave me a long sleeved black shirt and some mismatched socks.
I pulled the shirt on then slipped the socks onto my feet. Damien reached into another open box and handed me over my combat boots, waiting for me to sit on my bed and put them on. “All ready?” he asked.
“For what?”
“You’ll see,” he answered cryptically. He held a finger up to his lips, motioning for me to be quiet as he headed to the door. He slowly pulled it open, beckoning me forward so that he could close the door behind him. He placed his hands on
my shoulders, leading me into his room, and then closed his door as well. I wondered for a second if this was his way of getting me into bed with him, but then realized that all he had to do was ask, and that he wouldn’t have made me get dressed if that was the case. Damien let go of me, walked to his bedroom window, and pulled it open. “Ever snuck out before?”
I raised my eyebrow at him. “Do you really need an answer to that question?”
He smiled, flashing his dimples. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.” He turned away from me, leaning out the window a bit before coming back in. “It’s pretty far down, but it’s easy because I put hand and foot holds down there a few years ago.”
“How’d you manage to do that?”
Damien shrugged. “Our gardener helped me. He’s nice and he has some family in construction. You’ll meet him sometime.” Damien swung his leg out the window, gripping the window ledge with his hands as he pulled his other leg out. “See you at the bottom.” He winked at me before he began to climb down.
I watched as his head descended until it was out of view before I went to the window and looked down. Damien was halfway to the ground and I waited for him to reach the bottom before following.
I was good with heights, so it didn’t take long for me to make my way down the side of the house. When I reached the bottom, Damien made me move out of the way as he placed a large, but thin, hedge that was lying on the ground against the side of the house. With the hedge there, you couldn’t see the hand and foot holds unless you looked up past it.
“He gave me this too. Cut it right out of the front yard,” Damien said proudly, obviously prideful about his secret escape route.
“Cool,” I said, making him smile at the compliment.
“Thanks.” He grinned harder, staring up at his masterpiece.
“So,” I began. “Did we do all of that so you could show me your escape route, or is there a method to your madness?”
Damien turned his head to me, regarding me carefully with his dark eyes. “Oh, yeah.” He reached his hand out to mine, lacing our fingers together before he began to walk to the front of the house. “We’re about to have our first date.”
I furrowed my eyebrows, staring at the side of his head. “At,” I raked my brain for the time, “whatever time it is?”
He nodded. “Well, if we go out any other time, people might think you’re cheating on your football star boyfriend.”
“And our parents would shit a brick.”
Damien chuckled, pulling me closer to him. He placed a swift kiss on my temple before we continued walking out to the street. As we neared, I saw that a black Lincoln town car was waiting for us at the end of the Jacobs’ family driveway.
His hand squeezed mine as we approached. Damien let my hand go and pulled the car door open for me, holding it as I slid into the back seat. The door closed as I buckled up, and once I was finished, Damien came around and joined me inside the car.
A middle aged man sat in the driver’s seat, his eyes on Damien in the rear-view mirror. “Kind of late to be out here, huh?” the man questioned. My eyes flicked to the center of the car, right above the radio, to read the digital clock that was shining there: 2:23 a.m.
“Yeah, we’re just going for a late night walk,” Damien replied.
The man looked me over for a moment before returning to Damien. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your mom.”
Damien smiled and I saw him relax slightly. “Thanks.”
The man murmured in response. “Where to?”
“The usual,” Damien answered, his eyes on mine. He clearly didn’t want me to know where we were going.
“Really?” questioned the driver.
Damien answered with a simple ‘yes’ before the car began to move, pulling away from the curb.
“You must be very special,” the driver called back to me.
My eyes shifted from Damien to the rear-view mirror where the driver was glancing at me. “Why is that?”
Smiling, he answered, “He never takes girls to the usual place.”
A comfortable silence enveloped us as I thought about the driver’s words. Maybe I was special if Damien was taking me to a place that he never took anyone else. I knew that he had feelings for me, but neither of us would actually ever openly admit it to the other no matter how strong the feelings were. And I knew for a fact that they were stronger than I had ever felt before.
Damien intertwined our hands again, playing with the tips of my fingers with the hand that wasn’t holding mine. He smiled at me lightly, then brought my hand up to his mouth to kiss the back of it gently. “You are special,” he mumbled, just loud enough for me to hear.
“Oh, am I?” I joked. It was as if he was reading my mind and knew that I had been thinking about what the driver had said.
He nodded, his gaze burning into mine. “Very.” We sat for the rest of the drive in silence, me holding Damien’s hand, and his warmth spreading up my arm. When the car finally stopped, Damien said, “Thanks, Charles. We won’t be long. Probably about a half an hour or so.”
Charles nodded before Damien got out of the car to come around and open the door for me. He grabbed my hand and helped me out of the car easily before pushing the door shut behind me. “Ready to be wooed?” he questioned, raising an eyebrow so high that it disappeared under his fringe.
I smiled. “Of course I am.”
“Okay, then close your eyes.”
Sighing dramatically, I closed my eyes. “What now?” I asked, before letting out a little yelp as Damien placed one arm near my thighs and the other at my back and scooped me up into the air.
“Now you wait to be wooed.” Damien walked a bit, and it was hard for me to keep my eyes shut tightly. I was so curious and I never was good with surprises. I tried to peek once, but all I saw was darkness surrounding us, and when I tried to peek again, Damien caught me and made me close my eyes. I could hear the crunch of dried leaves beneath his feet and there were a few twig snaps as Damien carefully led me through what I assumed was woods.
Finally, we came to a stop and Damien set me down on my feet.
“Hold on. Don’t open your eyes until I say you can.”
Damien pushed my body forward some, then pulled me into a sitting position. My butt pressed against the ground and I didn’t have to wait long before Damien told me I could open my eyes. We were sitting on the ground, but not far in front of us was a sloping drop to the water. I recognized where we were instantly, but I had never been to this part of the lake before. The lake was large, and despite the many times I had been here, I had never been all the way around it.
“What part of the lake is this?” I asked, as I looked at the dark water below us. Then I raised my eyes upwards to see the lights of the city in the distance and the starry sky that twinkled above the water.
“The peak. Alyssa and I found it a few years ago when we were on a walk. Most people don’t come here because you have to walk through the woods to get to it. It’s nice, huh?”
I nodded. “It’s beautiful.”
He sat down next to me, placing his arm around my shoulders and allowing me to lean into him. “Like you,” he replied.
“That was so cheesy.” I laughed lightly.
Damien shook his head. “No, it was smooth. I wanted to make you laugh, and I did.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, but I only laughed because your compliment was so cheesy.”
Damien smiled at me, looking down at me where I rested my head on his chest. “You are beautiful though.”
“Thanks.” I sighed, snuggling deeper into his side.
We sat staring at the water and the stars for a bit. Every so often, Damien would smooth my hair down or kiss my forehead. My heart beat quickly at his proximity. All thoughts from earlier had cleared my mind and all I could think about was the present. Not what would happen tomorrow or the day after that, but what was happening right now. All I could think about was Damien and how happy he made me. Everything else shouldn’t matt
er, right? So long as I was happy.
“What are you thinking about?” Damien questioned, breaking my mental reverie.
I sighed into his shirt that smelled like rain kissed leaves. You know, that refreshing smell that hangs in the air after it’s rained for days, and suddenly, everything seems new. As if the rain washed away all of the bad in the world.
“You,” I answered slowly.
He placed a kiss into my hair. “Now it’s your turn to be cheesy?”
I smiled. “No, I’m not being cheesy, I’m telling the truth. I was thinking about how happy you make me.”
“Oh were you now? I didn’t know that I made you happy,” he said, obvious sarcasm in his voice.
I elbowed him gently. “Yeah, because the smiling and laughter wasn’t a big enough hint.”
“Whoa, no need for the elbow of fury. You don’t have to go all Helga from Hey Arnold! on me as a weird sign of affection.” Laughing again, I rolled my eyes this time as I cuddled into his side and held onto him lightly. “Wow, you really do like me. This should be easy then.”
“What should be easy?” I questioned, leaning away from his body and turning sideways to face him.
Damien smirked. Shoving his hand into his pocket, he pulled it out slowly to reveal a fist. “I got you something. It’s not a lot, but I wanted to ask you something, so I hoped a gift would bribe you into saying yes.”
I bit my lip as he leaned toward me, his eyes staring into mine. “Bribe me to say yes to what?”
He sat up straighter and smiled hard. It was the hardest I had ever seen him smile. “Will you do me the honor of being my girlfriend?” He opened his hand to reveal a thin, silver bracelet.
My cheeks burned from smiling so hard. I could barely get my lips and voice to work together to say yes, so instead I nodded my head furiously.
Crush: A YA Romance Collection Page 17