Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
DOTTIE
I ’m relieved Arrie loves the mural, but as I focus on the space Damon just occupied, I can’t help feeling guilty that I’m keeping things from her. One of those things has just left the damn room.
A filthy, dirty secret.
Did he watch me?
The thought causes me to shiver.
“Are you cold?” Arrie asks, her arms still wrapped around me.
“Someone walked over my grave.” I lie, forcing a laugh and moving out of her hold.
“Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yeah, just tired. I was up trying to get this done, and then your dad came home.”
“I’m so happy to have him home. Alright, I’m heading to check on the restaurant this morning, and seeing dad is home for a bit, I’ll catch you this evening.”
“Shit. I forgot to tell you. Harry asked me to come out for some drinks. ”
“And you agreed?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I said if I finish the sketch then I would.”
“You know he has it bad for you?”
“I set him straight.”
“Right.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you busy tonight?” I ask, changing the subject.
“I’ll be with Adam. Connor might pop in for a few drinks,” she says, blushing. “But we could come out with you if you want a buffer?”
“That would be amazing.”
“It’s settled. I’ll send a group chat to the boys.”
“Group chat?” I answer, smirking.
“Shut it, wench. This is not the time.”
I throw my hands up in mock surrender.
“I hate you.” she says, sounding exasperated.
“No, you don’t.”
“Not even a little bit.”
I spend the next ten minutes trying to psych myself up to head downstairs. When I arrive, Damon is nowhere to be seen, thankfully. I send a silent thank you up to whoever is listening and take my seat behind the desk. As soon as my ass hits the cushion, the phone starts ringing.
And so it begins.
By the second half of the day, I still haven’t seen Damon and a little part of me is disappointed by the fact. Heaving out a sigh, I put down my list of things I need to buy for the mural before reaching for my phone.
Unlocking it, I open the Tin Man’s message from last night.
It was vague. Almost disinterested. Deciding not to read too much into it and figuring I could be the one to reach out for once, I type him a quick message.
I tempted and taunted the devil, and all I get was a vague reply? Was it that bad?
The dots appear immediately.
You have no idea, Blossom. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, and it’s clouding my judgement. I just have a lot going on right now.
I close my eyes, feeling the sting of rejection. My phone vibrates again.
I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is you’re all I’ve been thinking about.
I’m about to reply when a throat clears, and my head snaps up to meet a pair of dark blue eyes.
“Uncle Damon,” I stammer, locking my phone.
“Stop calling me uncle. It makes me feel old,” he jokes, but I can see the twitch in his jaw.
“You are old.”
He smirks at that.
“Don’t you start that bullshit too.”
I’m about to be smartass again but Harry walks in, shattering whatever this was.
“Mr Woods.” He nods his head at Damon. “Dottie, you still coming out tonight?”
My eyes volley from him to Damon, noticing the twitch in his jaw.
What…
“It’s Damon or boss, Harry,” he demands, looking to me. “Where are you guys off to tonight? ”
I shrug my shoulders.
“To Infinity.”
“The club?”
“Yep.”
I’m about to say something, when he turns his dark eyes on me, pinning me in place, killing the words lingering on my tongue with the way his eyes say what he never will: he saw me, and he liked it.
A filthy, dirty secret that we share.
It makes me hot, and I can’t say I don’t like it, but then I remember who he is, and the fact that I have Harry standing here, and messages on my phone from a man I could have something with.
I could never have Damon.
The thought sours my mood, so I turn away from him to face Harry. He seems oblivious to the encounter, and that’s the way I want and need it to stay.
“Arrie, her fiancé, and friend are meeting us there.”
Harry’s shoulders drop, and I don’t miss the small smirk on Damon’s lips.
What is he playing at?
“Harry, back to work. I’m not paying you to chat up my niece.”
Niece.
Way to throw cold water on the inferno blistering inside of me, Damon.
Straightening his spine, he issues a quick nod at him and turns around to head back to the workshop.
“See you tonight, Dottie!”
I allow my eyes to close, my head falling to the back of the seat.
“Why are you going, if you don’t like him?” Damon asks, reminding me he’s still here .
Opening my eyes, I let my head loll to the side to look at him. His tattooed muscles bulge in his arms, and I can’t help but trace the tattoos down to where I know they are on his stomach.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He grunts, and it comes out sounding like crunching gravel.
“Like what?”
“Don’t play coy.”
I grin at him.
“Because I can.”
“Can what?”
“Go out with him, even if I don’t like him.”
“And you think that’s fair?”
“Is what you’re doing right now fair, Uncle Damon?”
“Dottie,” he chokes out. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Starting something, we can never finish.”
Pushing out of the seat, I close the distance between us.
The air crepitates between us, the tension so thick I can barely swallow. I lick my lips, and he follows the motion, his teeth grinding at the action. My body feels like a livewire, thrashing all over the damn road, loose from its structure.
We stare at each other, lost in whatever is happening right here for us. Then I lean forward, unable to stop myself even though I know what I’m doing is reckless.
But he started it, so one of us has to finish it.
With my eyes on him, I look him up and down one last time, cataloguing his dark eyes, the salt-and-pepper three-day growth, his defined muscles, the ink on his skin.
After this, things change between us.
We both have a role to play in Arrie’s life, and she would be devastated if she knew what I thought about her dad. If she knew what he was thinking right now. If she knew he watched me masturbate on his couch, imagining a faceless man and her father in the same instance.
The thought has me feeling hotter.
Damon and the Tin Man. Now that is any girls wet dream if there ever was one.
His index finger lifts my chin up, and I hadn’t even realised I’d looked away. He opens his mouth to say something, but I speak before he has the chance.
“We both know I can finish on my own just fine.”
His jaw slackens, his eyes darken, and that’s my cue. I hightail it the fuck out of there, but we both know I’ll be back.