Chapter 13 - Damian #2
Harper’s arms are crossed, gaze fixed on Inessa. I know she sees the same small, nearly imperceptible curl at the corner of Inessa’s mouth when another council member mutters something about my “falling judgment.”
Her eyes are full of indignation and disgust, and I imagine mine are too.
Inessa has the audacity to slither up to me, looking at me with wide, wounded eyes, all concern and innocence.
“This is a mishap, I’m sure, Mr. Ignatov. We’ll work it out like we always do. Our team is more than capable of it, especially with Harper at our side.” Her eyes flick to Harper, who is trying to kill Inessa with her eyes alone.
My jaw stays locked, expression unchanged. If I let a single muscle unclench, I fear I might just choke this woman to death with my bare hands.
“We need just a bit of time,” Mikhail argues with the others, but my ears barely hear it through the static. Just a bit of time, when time is what we don’t have.
By the time the council breaks for the night, my head feels like it’s been split open. My office is dark when I enter, but the city’s lights pour in through the windows like molten gold. I brace a hand on the desk, letting the silence settle.
The door clicks softly behind me. I don’t have to turn to see who it is.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“And you shouldn’t be doing this alone,” Harper says behind me, exhausted.
Her blatant exhaustion hits harder than everything else today. I straighten but don’t face her. If I do, I’ll say something I can’t take back. Or worse—I’ll say nothing, and she’ll think that means something too.
She steps inside, closing the door.
“We need to talk,” she says.
“No,” I reply. “We need to regroup.”
“That’s not what this is about and you know it.” Her words are sharp. “Damian, they humiliated you in there. And you let them. That’s not like you.”
She moves closer. I feel her presence like a second pulse under my skin.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she says.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
The admission leaves me in a snarl before I can stop it. The truth hangs between us, vulnerable and ugly.
Harper stills and so does the air around us.
“Look at me.”
I do, slowly. Her eyes are full of hurt, desperate to understand.
“I’m not them,” she says quietly. “And I’m not her.”
There it is.
“You keep shutting me out. And I keep letting you. But today, Damian, today they tried to bury you. And I don’t think that if it happens a second time, I can stand there and watch.”
She steps close to me, her scent perfuming my lungs, ruining my already befuddled thoughts.
“You don’t have to trust me with everything. Just… don’t push me away.”
Her hand brushes mine. She doesn’t hold on to my palm, just lets it exist there like an offering.
Something in me snaps.
“Harper,” I say, low, rough, a clear warning, but she steps closer anyway, until her body is a line of heat against mine.
Her hand slides to my chest, fingers resting just above my heartbeat. She looks up at me with those defiant and worried brown eyes, and I’m gone. The push-pull tension between us ignites, dark and magnetic, pulling everything else out of orbit.
My hand slides up her jaw, cupping the soft skin of her cheek. Her breath comes as choppily as mine. I don’t know who gives in first, but our lips collide.
Her hands grip my shirt as my mouth finds hers. The world narrows to heat and urgency and months of restraint collapsing all at once. Her back meets the edge of the desk, papers scattering like startled birds.
Her fingers slide into my hair as her thick and shapely body arches into mine, yielding, claiming, choosing.
As we have our fill of each other, the flame between us burns, yet there’s passion bleeding in through every single move.
She leans back, her heavy tits heaving with each breath she takes. A few of the buttons on her shirt have disappeared with how I manhandled her, no doubt lying somewhere in my office.
The lace of her pink bra peeks through, and I rub my thumb over the material appreciatively.
“This one new?”
“You catalog every pair I wear?” She snorts, but the mirth on her face dies when she realizes how deadpan my resulting “yes,” is.
“Who do you think I am?” I reply sardonically, thumbing her nipple through the material. Her thick thighs part along with her lips as her heels press into my ass to erase the little distance between our bodies.
“In a rush, Mrs. Ignatov?” I murmur into her ear as I lean down, and the gasp that leaves her throat has my erection coming full mast. “I want to taste you today.”
I make quick work of her remaining clothes, leaving her lingerie in place. Where I would have torn her lacy undies to shreds before, I tug it to the side as I kneel down, kissing down her thighs.
She squirms, trying to block off needy sounds that leave her frequently.
“You stop letting me hear you,” I breathe against her wet folds, “and I stop too.”
Her ample hips kick desperately, her breath coming in choppy spurts. My tongue drives a flat path against her core, and her back arches, a loud groan echoing around me.
The symphony of her sounds has always driven me crazy. She gets so loud when lost in pleasure, and it’s something I love to get out of her. As I flick her clit, her nails dig into my scalp, her thighs squeezing around my face.
I hold her legs open at the junction of her thighs, letting her sexy body twitch under my delicious assault.
“Oh, Damian, Damian!” she cries out.
“Good girl,” I rumble against her cunt, swirling my tongue in circles. It doesn’t take her long to tremble from head to toe, and when I put my fingers in her, she clenches around them.
Her moans get louder and louder as I push her towards her peak. Her back arches as her climax rips through her, tremors shaking her frame.
As she lies there recovering, I quickly unzip my fly, taking off my pants after I’ve thrown off my shirt. When I look back at her, the look in her eyes is pure, carved hunger.
Her hands inch towards me, exploring with deliberate slowness as she maps every shiver, every broken breath. Her hands grip my length as she pumps her hand around my erection, nearly stealing all my breath from my lungs.
I curve over her, claiming her mouth in a kiss. She responds back with renewed vigor, which makes me smile. I break the kiss just long enough to study her flushed cheeks, swollen lips, frantic breathing.
It feels like my heart is a slab of meat being tenderized when I look at her. Those wide brown eyes worship every inch of me, those plush lips swollen with how hard I’ve bitten them. Her hair pools behind her like a lake of fire, hickies decorating her sternum, neck and thighs.
She looks like mine, ready to be devoured.
Possession doesn’t cut it, though; Harper has been mine since the first time I touched her. There is something far deeper, far more convoluted in my chest concerning her.
This woman has been making my head spin since that night she came to visit Sera, and it’s all coming to a crescendo now.
With a softness I didn’t know I possessed, I press my lips to her forehead, gasping softly as she rubs the engorged tip of my cock against her opening.
I slide in, syrupy thick, molasses slow so she feels every single inch.
I’m not the only one that felt the change in the air, right? She has to feel it too.
She has to.
I tug at her nipples, pinching them gingerly between my fingers. She moans loudly as she crosses her legs behind me, locking me in place.
“Damian—I can’t, please—” she stutters through a moan.
My hips move gently and slowly as I press my lips against hers, my tongue laving over her lower lip. She parts her mouth, and my tongue darts inside, exploring the hot cavern.
The rhythm is slow and deep. She doesn’t tell me to go faster, and I don’t either. My hands skim over every inch of her skin, feeling the buttery smoothness of it. I only get to touch her, smell her, drink my fill of her like this.
When she’s below me, lost in the throes of pleasure, I can hold her however I want to, look at her for as long as my heart desires.
My loins light up with pleasure, molten hot as it pours through my veins. Her walls are velvet-tight around me, and her eyes are semi-open as she whines against my lips.
“Shh, I got you,” I murmur roughly, sneaking a thumb between our bodies to rub circles against her clit. She sucks her lower lip into her mouth, her eyes rolling back.
Her body grows taut, back arching as she climaxes. The sight of her, sweaty and lost in pleasure, is enough for me to reach my peak too. I groan a curse under my breath, letting my head fall in the junction of her neck and shoulder.
Right here, the scent of her is the strongest. It’s a scent I’ve begun to seek in days when shit doesn’t go right. As her arms wrap around me, playing with my hair as she comes down, I realize that things might be changing in a way I don’t want them to.
This was nothing like the sex Harper and I usually have, and I loved it the same.