5. Damien
FIVE
Damien
F alling in love with Sutton had been easy.
Telling her, though? Not so much.
I still remembered the day she’d moved in next door. You would have never suspected such a sprightly six-year-old had already experienced that much loss with how she carried herself, how freely she played, how deeply she lived.
Sutton was a magnet who drew everyone in without even trying. Some part of me hated it because I didn’t want to share her with anyone. I wanted to keep her for myself, cocoon her in a place where no one could reach her. Where I was quiet, Sutton was loud, almost obnoxious, and uncomfortable with long stretches of silence. Vibrant and strong-willed, competitive and sharp. She climbed trees, played in the river, and danced freely through the fields of lavender dotting her family’s property, picking sprigs and weaving crowns for her hair.
I found pleasure in living vicariously through her joie de vivre that set her apart from every other rotten asshole in this shithole of a town. Being in her presence calmed the noise in my head. It made my thoughts less loud. Bearable. We talked about everything and nothing, and without me realizing it, I was a goner for the girl next door.
But she was a butterfly—too pretty to keep contained but too delicate to be set free. I knew what it meant when those sweet cherub-like features morphed into something equally soft yet womanly, for those lush lips and gorgeous curves to take shape, for that wicked smile to hold a double meaning, and what wars men would start with a mere fanning of those dark lashes framing her otherworldly eyes.
Every day, the confession hung heavy in my mouth, desperate to spring free, but the words never surfaced. What if she didn’t feel the same? What if I lost her forever?
And then it happened. The one thing I’d feared most.
“Pete asked me out,” she’d said one summer night ten years ago, her feet in my swimming pool, gliding back and forth.
I took a swig out of the beer we were sharing. “I didn’t know you and Pete hung out.” Or had anything fucking in common, for that matter.
“We don’t.” She shrugged, adjusting the claw clip in her hair, the gesture forcing her tits in her bikini top together, the moonlight hitting her just right that it was hard not to lean in and kiss her, claim her first.
I stared at the shifting surface of the pool. “You sure you want to get mixed up with him?”
“Why?” she asked with a loud laugh, risking my dad catching us out here. I didn’t think he deluded himself into believing either of us didn’t take full advantage of the vices Rockchapel had to offer, but I didn’t want him to know we were pilfering his beer, either. The risk of getting caught was half the fun. Sutton’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “ You’re mixed up with Pete.” Yeah, not because I wanted to be. “Your friends, aren’t you?”
Peter didn’t have friends. He had the right last name and bloodline. His family was one of the five original Founding Families in Rockchapel, and while that meant less today than it did two hundred years ago, it still held weight. He was still the mayor’s only son, had access to a lot of shit I never would, and got away with things he shouldn’t.
It was hard not to find that kind of power appealing at eighteen.
But I’d always known our friendship had an expiration date. “I guess.”
“‘You guess’?” she parroted, grinning. “Jeez, Damien. What does that mean for us?” Her knee nudged mine, static dancing against my skin. “Are we friends?”
My heart kicked in my chest, rejection a heavy brick in my gut. “Of course.”
Sutton’s head hit my shoulder, her breathy sigh sliding out of her. “Promise we always will be?”
I swallowed. She’d friend-zoned me. “Think I should be asking you that, Sut.”
“What do you mean?” she murmured.
“Pete’s not gonna let us hang.” That much I knew. He was possessive.
“Sure, he will.” She was so na?ve. “You’re my best friend.” The warmth of her kiss danced across my cheek, the hops on her breath tickling my nose. “ I loved you first.”
But I’d been right. Sutton avoided me. She never looked my way when our paths crossed, and I lost the one person I loved most on this miserable earth.
That all changed four years later. Long after Pete had tossed me aside, the way I’d always known he would. Sutton let herself into my house, soaked head to toe from the heavy October downpour, teeth chattering in her mouth, a bruise decorating her cheek.
We said nothing for what felt like forever.
I broke the silence first, turning the kitchen faucet on to wash my hands, “What happened to your cheek?”
She laughed, the sound snide and crooning. Not my Sutton. “Not what, but who.”
The dry skin around my knuckles stung under the soap and hot water. “You hit him back?”
I caught her throat weaving in the reflection of the window, arms folding over her chest, “Duh.”
I flexed my fingers under the hot stream, staring at a steak knife at the bottom of the sink, the temptation to use it on him too great. But I knew how that would end, didn’t I? “Good.” I dried my hands on the dish towel, turning around. “Now go home.”
Sutton’s brows snapped together. “What?”
“You heard me.” I kicked my chin in the direction of her house. “ Go home.” When she didn’t move, I headed to the kitchen’s rear door, opening it wide, the scent of petrichor and dead earth hitting my nose.
The link of her arms broke. “Damien…”
I’d told her not to get mixed up with him. She didn’t listen. She never fucking listened. “Was there something else?”
Her gaze tipped to the floor, studying the redbrick pattern, her sneakers squelching when she shifted. “Why didn’t you kiss me that night?” She exhaled. “The night I told you about Pete. Why didn’t you kiss me…?”
Had I missed something? “Why would I?”
“I just…” she waffled. “I knew you liked me, and you never…”
I rolled my neck, heat spanning my chest. She knew I liked her, and she still went out with Pete? “Or at least I thought you did.”
“I did.” Past tense. “ Now I hate you.” She flinched. “So go.”
Her bottom lip wobbled. “You hate me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I released the doorknob. “You made me promise we’d always be friends. I kept up my end of the deal, Sutton. Did you?”
“I wanted to ? —”
“But you didn’t.” I scraped a hand over my lower jaw. “I got fucked over. And now you want what from me, exactly?”
“I would have never dated him if you’d just told me how you felt.”
“You know what your problem is, Sutton?” I edged her way, practically blowing fire as I glared down at her. “You’re so attention starved you’ll put yourself in danger just to scratch an itch. I used to think you had everything under control, but it was all an act, wasn’t it? From the jump, you performed for everyone, and now the consequences have bitten you on the ass. Grow up. We’re not in high school anymore.”
“I would have chosen you,” she said faintly, rolling her lips together. “If you had chosen me, I would have chosen you.” Her misty eyes lifted. “Over and over again.”
“You need to go.”
Plucking her courage, she stepped into me, placing a hand on my abdomen, and I couldn’t compel myself to tear back. She flexed on the toes of her shoes, her lips meeting mine, and where I stood stock-still, she drove the kiss until she was done. “I understand.”
But how could she? How could she ever grasp how long I’d wanted her for? How desperate I’d been to know how warm and soft her lips were? That kiss cracked something inside of me that I couldn’t seal back up. I followed her out into the rain, into the lavender field she cut across, the rain drowning my pursuit, and just as she moved to clear the floral haven, I pulled her into me and sealed my mouth to hers, dragging her to the wet, soaked earth beneath us. I worshipped her with my hands, my mouth, my tongue. I warmed her with my body, my cum, and offered her cries like prayers to a higher power in hopes they’d take mercy on us both because Peter would find out, and when he did…
He repaid us both with a decision I had to live with forever. He’d lured us out into the woods, the branding iron my dad had made in his hands before it was in mine. Sutton bound on the ground, mascara smeared, her eyes alive with fear.
He gave me a choice:
Kill the woman I love.
Or kill the one thing she valued most about herself.
She’d begged me to end it, and maybe I should have. I would have followed her into the next life. But the fear I wouldn’t find her, that I’d be trapped in a purgatory while she roamed the afterlife without me, kept me from making the choice she had wanted me to make.
I didn’t blame Sutton for leaving. But I blamed her for leaving me behind.
Her voice lulled me back to the present, a sneer warping her pretty mouth. “ You don’t get a say in what I do.”
“Again. Semantics.”
She didn’t bite. Her pulse surged in her throat, the stretch of skin punching under the warm glow of the end table lamp.
“You’re as crazy as he is.” She re-secured the towel around her upper body.
“ Was ,” I corrected.
That got her attention. “What?”
“I’m as crazy as he was.”
She frowned, the implication escaping her. “He’s missing.” Sutton sucked back a loud breath. “Has been for awhile.”
“I’m sure he’s on a bender somewhere. He’ll turn up.”
I smiled. I wouldn’t count on that.
“Can you go now?” Sutton tipped her head in the stairwell’s direction. “I’m tired.”
“So, let’s go to bed.”
“Cut it the fuck out!” she burst. “You won, okay?”
“What did I win, huh?” A near-lifetime obsession with a woman who wouldn’t let me have her? Nightmares of her pain?
“Do you date?” Was this some kind of trick question? “Because I don’t. I hardly leave my house. People stare at me in public when I do. They think I can’t hear them, but I can. I have to live the rest of my life with his mark on me. He made sure I never forget him.”
“Sut—”
“No, shut up.” She held up a hand at me. “I’m so tired of you dominating a conversation, of your fucking mind games, of the emotional whiplash because you still can’t decide whether you want me or want to destroy me, but at this point, I don’t care.”
I zipped it up.
“Your scars are in here.” She tapped her temple. “But this?” She gestured to her face. “There’s no erasing this. Men get scars and they get recognized for their bravery. But women? Well, the only reason people look our way is to stare.” Her sodden voice wobbled. “Your life changed, Damien. I’m not denying that. But it also continued. Mine ended that night. So please spare me from your self-righteous, holier-than-thou shit.”
“I picked that choice because a world where you don’t exist isn’t worth living in.” Her jaw snapped close, her blinking turning furious. I stepped in closer. “That’s the real version of hell.” She didn’t pull away when I lifted a hand, testing the length of her jaw with the back of my knuckles, drifting higher and higher despite the flaring of her nostrils and the fear glinting her too-blue irises.
“I would have done anything for you, Sutton. I would have followed you anywhere.” She stiffened. “I still would.”
“Why?”
“Because I—” My mouth snapped shut. I, what? I told her I loved her and then had to deal with the aftermath of hearing how she still wanted nothing to do with me?
At my prolonged silence, she stepped away, silently dismissing me. Sutton dropped the towel, giving me her naked back.
My chest blanketed her spine, my forehead landing on the curve of her exposed shoulder.
I couldn’t leave.
Stay away.
Let her go.
She turned her cheek a little my way. “What’s wrong, Damien?” she whispered, taunting me. “The guilt eating at you? Want to pity fuck me?”
Was that an invitation? I leaned in close to her marred cheek, skimming the scar, trailing over to her ear. “I want to eat you.” I nudged her lobe. “ Then I want to fuck you.”
Her heart drummed against my chest, the shift in her breathing audible like a fracture in her resolve had dared to show itself to me. The hand I had settled on the expanse of her belly rose and fell with each inhale and exhale she let out, proof of life, my gaze shifting to the smooth mound between her legs.
I was deluded enough to believe she’d done that just for me. My hand inched downward at a dizzying pace, every inch surging each blood vessel in my veins. Sutton backed into me, her tight gasp sharp when she collided directly with my erection.
There was no mistaking how I physically felt about her.
My opposite hand collared her neck while my fingers parted her slick flesh, her body’s honey adorning my fingers. “Fuck,” I groaned into her neck, and whether she wanted to or not, she lifted her left arm to hook around my neck, holding me in place as my index finger dipped inside of her, and she squeezed around my digits while precum gathered at the tip of my cock.
I rutted against her, finding a rhythm with my fingers, regret and frustration winding through me over all the time I’d lost with her, the time I’d deprived myself of because I’d spent it resenting her for leaving me. Sutton rolled her hips, matching the tempo of my fingers, grinding down on my cock, the slick squelch of my ministrations filling the room with an erotic soundtrack that was every bit as fucking filthy as I’d always imagined it would.
“Get on all fours.” I gave her a careful nudge toward the bed, and she stumbled forward in a daze, blue eyes a little guarded, her teeth worrying her bottom lip.
When she didn’t move, I hooked a hand behind my back, peeling my T-shirt over my head. I shucked off my sweats and boxers next, kicking them to the side, letting her get a better look at me.
Her horrified gaze flared. “What did you do?” Sutton’s hands shot for my chest, her trembling fingers abrading ragged, healed over angry scars marking me as hers. “Damien.”
My hands swathed hers. “Believe me yet?”
She licked her lips, and I guided her delicate fingers over each letter, tracing out her name where I branded myself.
I prodded my nose against hers. “You’re my first to last love.”
Sutton didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to.
The lattice of my abdomen contracted under the perusal of her attention, my cock preening, tall and proud, bobbed against my pelvis. Her gaze shifted to the stretch of lavender inking my forearms, another ode to us, to our love.
Anticipation had me shifting my weight from foot to foot, my toes curling in my socks.
With both knees and hands propped on the mattress and body arced forward, Sutton’s unsteady voice filtered through. “Like this?”
She jolted under the feel of my knuckles skimming her thighs. “Spread your legs wider, baby.” I reached for the claw clip holding her hair back, releasing her long locks.
Her bottom lip shook. “Don’t want to see my face?”
Narrowing my eyes, I snatched a fist full of her hair at the base of her neck, twisting tight enough to guide her but not hurt her. “I intend to see your face every day for the rest of my fucking life, pretty girl.”
I feathered my lips down each vertebra in her back, over each full globe of her ass, one hand snaking up to grab her ample breast, the other still seized in a fist at the base of her neck.
Sliding my nose crudely between her ass cheeks, her breathing hitching, until I was exactly where I wanted—and swiped my tongue along her hot slit, her moan drilling against her clenched teeth.
I stole the fight from her with my tongue, plowing forward, driving the muscle inside of her heat with a hungered fervor. Sutton’s arousal leaked on my face, her body giving into its instincts, thrusting back on me like the good girl she was.
Her cry of protest when I laved at her clit had my fist circling my throbbing cock with one hand, the other tugging her hair back. I wanted to see her gorgeous face and how pleasure highlighted her profile, how she looked when she was on that brink because seeing it in the bath wasn’t enough. I wanted a lifetime more of it.
I studied her body’s tells, listening for the shift in her breathing, taking my foot off the gas when I thought she was close, edging her until she was a whimpering, despondent, needy, wet mess.
“Let me come,” she pleaded.
“You wanna come?”
She nodded as much as my grip in her hair would permit. “Then tell me you love me.”
Her eyes distended, glossy with need, wild with fear.
“Tell me you love me, Sutton.” I sucked her clit between my teeth, groaning, the vibration rioting through her. She clapped a hand over her mouth, trapping the mewl. “Tell me you love me, and I’ll give you a good reason to scream.”
Anxiety seized her, and she shook her head.
I had her on her back in seconds, caging her body with mine. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t love you.”
I hit her with a wistful smile. “Is that what you’ve had to tell yourself for seven years, pretty girl? That you don’t love me so you can hate me instead?” I brushed my nose against hers. “How about I go first?” My cock bumped her clit, her lips quivering at the pressure. “I love you.”
Sutton whimpered, resisting. Tears gathered in her eyes, and she lolled her head right. “Now that won’t do, Sut.” I rolled my pelvis against her, her teeth gnashing in her mouth. “You gotta look at me. Go on.”
Please. Please look at me.
Liquid blue eyes peered up at me, tears adorning her lashes. “I-I…”
“Practice, baby.” Notching myself at her entrance, I leaned forward, slanting my lips over hers. “‘I love you,’” I coached, kissing her like my life depended on it, like she was the very air I needed to breathe.
My hips plunged forward, my body fucking singing as her tight cunt welcomed me back in a homecoming, fluttering all around me as I found a dizzying piston with my hips, not waiting for either one of us to acclimate because the need was too great, the hunger too distracting to think of much else.
Her fingers curled into the bed comforter, and I forced her right leg up, angling my hips just right until her breathy moan filled the air, her hips canting upward, chasing the surge of my strokes. I stared down at where we were conjoined, savoring the lewd image of her swollen, pink flesh pulling me in, squeezing relentlessly around me, begging for my load.
Covering my body with hers, careful not to crush her, I peppered her cheek with kisses, her chest quaking with a quiet sob, my lips working over hers, begging for access into her mouth. Her tongue contended for dominance with my own, meeting each lap. When the breakthrough finally came, when she released the comforter from her punishing grip and wound her legs around my waist, pulling me closer, and her arms wreathed around my shoulders, I knew what she was telling me without so much as uttering a word.
I might have been her villain once, but I wasn’t anymore.
Without slipping out of her, I flipped us over, setting her legs astride. “Ride my cock, pretty girl,” I urged, staring up at the mystified glow ornamenting her expression as she looked down at where we were connected, lips parted, face flushed, chest dewy with sweat. “That’s it,” I encouraged as she rolled her hips forward, rose up on her knees, and bounced until I thought I was going to come first.
I slid a hand between us, my thumb finding the sensitive bundle of nerves, reveling in the harsh shift in her breathing as she teetered on the precipice, edging herself as she slowed, rocking her hips back and forth, swiveling into a slow grind before she was chasing her release. Sutton squeezed around me when her orgasm broke, her body folding forward, her mouth colliding with mine, her electric cry drilling into my open mouth.
I pursued after her, spilling inside of her, emptying every last drop I had, my groan breaking out into a chuckle because what the fuck, had that just happened?
She shuddered atop of me, her face burying into the crook of my neck, her warm breaths fanning my skin, heart charging against mine. I slid my fingers into her hair, turning my face into the crown of her head.
“Damien?”
“Hm?” I pressed my lips to the crown of her head.
“I love you, too.”