3. Damien
THREE
Damien
“ D amien, if you can’t be nice, you have to go.”
Not a chance in hell. “She’s not made of glass.”
Sutton was forged in fire and steel.
“Son.” I caught my dad wiping an open palm over his sweat-stricken hairline. “Empathy will go a long way.”
Empathy? I snorted. Empathy for what, exactly? I blamed him almost as much as I blamed her. I brought the glass to my lips, tipping the dregs back. “You know who I am.”
He just didn’t like it. I wasn’t like him. Tender-hearted.
“I’m not going to let you ruin this for me.”
Chill the fuck out, Grant. She already said yes. “Ruin what for you, hm?”
Dad flustered behind me. Go on, old man. Fucking say it, I willed.
“I proposed to Poppy.”
’Bout time. Twenty-plus years of pining over the widow next door had finally paid off.
At my silence, he hedged, “So, I expect you to treat Sutton kindly.” I’d rather eat glass. “Like she’s family.”
My stomach soured. “She’s not my family.”
I’d wanted her to be mine .
Then she left.
“Fine,” Dad murmured, leaning back in the tired leather armchair. He was making that face. The one he donned when I was younger and still had a conscience. Now it just made him look kind of constipated and uncomfortable. “Then pretend you feel a little guilty about what you did to her face.”
Pretend? I didn’t have to pretend.
No one thought about what I’d done more than I did. It had been my first and last thought for seven miserable years. Sutton consumed me. I heard her sweet laughter almost as often as I heard her breathy moans when I pumped my cock with my fist.
But it was her pained screams and the hiss of burning skin haunting me the most.
“Do you feel bad for designing the branding iron?” The accusation snapped Dad’s head back.
Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought. Rotating my wrist, the melting ice cubes did a lap around the glass. “There’s nothing wrong with Sutton’s face.”
Not a goddamn thing. The puckered, white-and-pink flesh creating a waved Barry-nebuly bar pattern and silhouetted the thick, mottled eye shape branded into her skin wasn’t the deterrent for her beauty they all thought it was.
She was tougher than they gave her credit for.
I knew that better than anyone.
It was why I’d made the mistake of falling in love with her at all.
Dad’s elbows roosted on either side of the armchair, his fingers steepling. “Whatever…” he searched for the words, “bygones”—dear God, he was really trying to sell me on this woe is Sutton shit—“you two have, you need to be the bigger person and put it to bed.” He faltered. “Do I make myself clear?”
I raised the emptied glass up, tipping it in his direction. “Crystal.”
* * *
Sutton was the last one at the dining room table. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d ever sat in here, but my dad was going the whole nine yards to make this thing with Poppy stick.
I openly leered at Sutton, and she scratched at the column of her throat with her middle finger. She’d changed into a wraparound drawstring midi-length dress designed to torture me.
I thought it would look a whole lot better burning in the fireplace.
She didn’t deserve pity. Not with a chub-raising, heart-stopping, killer body like that. Soft curves poised for possession, a round ass meant to be worshipped, and the kind of tits you rutted your cock between.
Sutton had styled her hair to draw focus away from her face—the long ash-brown strands blown out and pulled over to one side—her makeup thickly layered to disguise the crude scar.
Dad lurched to his feet, stumbling over to the seat across from mine, untucking her chair, his eyes hopeful like the gesture, the olive branch, wouldn’t be lost on her.
I was right. He did feel guilty.
For taking the custom order.
For doing anything for that fucking family at all.
The round tip of Sutton’s nose wrinkled, processing the performance. “Thanks, Grant.”
Settling in the seat, she waved off his attempt at tucking her in, giving me the perfect sight lines of the tunnel between her tits when she leaned forward, hiking her chair in. The glow of the candles cast a warm highlight on the side of her face she favored, shadowing the side she didn’t.
I’d always thought she looked like a fair-haired version of a ‘90s Liv Tyler. She had deceiving features that made her look older than she was and got her the wrong kind of attention when we were younger.
Poppy placed an open palm on the table in offering. “You look pretty, Sutton.”
Finally, something I could agree with.
She stared at her aunt’s hand for what felt like an eternity, forcing her stiff limb to cooperate. “Thanks, Aunt Poppy.”
To her aunt’s disappointment, Sutton withdrew her hand the first opportunity she could, taking advantage of the appearance of Emma, the chef—if that’s what we were now calling the line cook at the diner in town that was one health infraction away from shuttering—balancing the first course on a serving tray.
This was the weirdest shit I’d ever seen in my life.
No, not just the leafy, mixed greens piled high on my ma’s good China—it would be a cold day in hell before we finished a bin of spinach before it wilted—but the length’s my dad was willing to go to in order to make a good impression on Sutton as though we hadn’t literally watched her grow up, like she hadn’t spent every summer swimming in our pool, or helping herself to all of my gummy bears when she was ten.
Picking the fork to my right up, I poked at the salad, the pungent scent of vinegar and Dijon hitting me.
Dijon …
Across from me, Sutton stabbed at the salad—she hadn’t noticed—did I want her to? Or did I want her throat to close on her, to force her to stay with me longer than she wanted? Her lush, naturally coral lips parted to accept the bite.
Thwack!
Poppy shrieked as my hand collided against Sutton’s, knocking the fork across the room, her sharp gasp drowning out her aunts, mainlining straight down my abdomen, settling in my heavy balls.
Fuck. Me.
“Damien!” Dad bellowed.
Sutton’s impassive expression betrayed the violence in her eyes and the heaving swells of her tits pumping up and down with each ragged breath she took.
“What in the ever-loving fuck,” she began calmly, “besides the obvious, is the matter with you?” She stared at where I remained balanced, stretched across the table. “Have you lost your goddamn mind? No, wait”—she held up a hand—“don’t answer that. Rhetorical question.”
The dry laugh slid through my nose, my upper lip curving back. “Is that any way to thank the person who just saved your life?” I seethed. Again . “There’s Dijon in that dressing.”
“I know ,” she deadpanned, earning my blanch.
What the fuck? She knew…? And she—I swallowed—was going to eat it anyway?
“Oh my God!” Poppy paled, but I suspected we were reacting to two different things. “Sutton, I am so sorry. I told Emma no shellfish or nuts, but I forgot…”
“It’s fine.” I wondered if she ever got tired of her own placation? She dusted her hands against her dress. “Doesn’t help I’m allergic to everything.”
Latex included.
I hadn’t spent enough time raw dogging between those thighs as I would have liked.
Teary-eyed, Poppy pushed back from the table, swiping quickly under her eyes. “Let me just…” She stood up. “Go check with Emma.”
This was what they got for trying to turn this into something it didn’t need to be.
They were getting hitched.
The end.
Poppy disappeared into the kitchen, and Dad swung his apprehensive stare my way. “I trust I can leave you here without you causing any more trouble…?”
“No promises.”
Dad sighed, torn between refereeing a guaranteed blowout between Sutton and me or going after Poppy. His heart won.
Sutton shifted in her seat, the gesture moving the lapel over her right breast, the lace fringing the cup of her white bra peeking out.
“Don’t you know better than to put things in your mouth you shouldn’t?”
She half-shrugged. “I haven’t died yet.”
“You almost sound disappointed by that.” Her arched brows tipped inward. “You seriously knew there was Dijon in that dressing?” I tested.
Sutton leveled me with a flinty look. “What do you think?”
“You can’t answer a question with a question.”
Exasperated, her lips pursed. “Do you have nothing better to do than to play hero? We both know you play villain so well.”
“Is that what you want? A villain?”
“No, Damien.” She leaned into the table, dropping her voice. “I want to get this dinner, this conversation, this fucking trip, over with. Then, I want to leave.”
And not come back, I concluded.
“I’ll count you in for the wedding, then?”
She gritted her teeth. “Send me a postcard.”
“Will you be alive to receive it?”
“If we’re both lucky, the answer to that is ‘no’.”
“What is with you?—”
“You had one fucking job that night. One ,” she hissed. “I told you what to choose, and you chose this.” She pointed at her face. “Ask ‘what’s with me’ again, I dare you.”
“You are so goddamn vain.” Her beauty. Using it like a weapon. Her obsession with how people perceived her. Why should I be surprised she hadn’t changed at all in seven years, that she was just as narcissistic as she’d always been?
“And you are a monster who has forced me to endure this for the rest of my life until something puts me out of my goddamn misery, or I grow a spine and do it myself.”
She blinked twice, hard, playing with the remaining cutlery set against the tablecloth to calm herself.
“I chose you, Sutton.”
“You chose yourself.” Her stare burned. “Because you were too cowardly to do the hard thing. The right thing. Your life goes on, unaffected, and I despise you for it.”
Unaffected ? My nostrils flared. “You think that shit doesn’t keep me up at night?”
She laughed. “Am I supposed to feel bad for you or something?” Her head canted a little to the right, masking the scar. “Like we’re kindred spirits now?”
“I didn’t?—”
“You did . You did, Damien, because you are a selfish son of a bitch. You are as sick as your friends ”—her teeth gnashed together, my skin turning tight—“I begged you. I begged you to end it. I don’t give a shit if you can’t sleep at night. Take a fucking number. You. Did. This. To. Me.” Her hand rattled. “And I will never forgive you.”
“Good. Don’t.” Her head reared back like I’d slapped her. “I don’t need your absolution. I warned you to stay the fuck away from him, and you didn’t listen. You played with fire. You got burned. You chose wrong. But I never did.”
Shitty choice of words? Sure. But I’d chosen her every single fucking time.
She chose him.
We both lived with that mistake.
Her jaw bounced, chewing on the statement.
“Sorry about that, honey,” Poppy cooed, entering the dining room. “She’s remaking it now…” her voice petered off, her worried stare bouncing between us. “Everything okay?”
Run. Go ahead. Run just like you always do, I dared her.
Sutton exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “Everything’s just fine.”