Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
OPHELIA
Damien’s hand captures my jaw. His fingers firm on the soft place behind my ear, crushing against my pulse.
He kisses me and the kiss feels like desperation. His teeth catch on my lower lip hard enough a salty metallic taste blooms across my tongue.
I push at his chest, and my hands are small and ineffective. “Stop,” I say against his lips, but the word is breathless, unconvincing.
“You don’t want me to stop.” The same damn confidence as always. His hand travels lower, closing around my throat, muttered words puffing into my mouth. “You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”
He spins me around, and my hipbones slam against the desk’s edge, the stacked desks behind rattling at the force, metal scraping on the plywood floor.
Dust rises, catching in my throat, and I twist away but his hand presses my cheek on the scarred wood surface. My glass frames dig into the tender skin beside my eye.
“Don’t…”
“Don’t what?” His hand skims up my thigh, bunching my kilt around my waist. “Don’t give you what your body’s craving? Don’t remind you that you’re mine?”
His hands are everywhere, overwhelming. Fingers hooking into my underwear, yanking them down, the elastic biting into my flesh until they sag at my ankles and I flinch at the cool air against my exposed skin.
“You can’t do this. Our arrangement’s over.”
“No, it’s not. Not unless I agree.” His forefinger runs along my seam, pressing into my wetness, muscles rippling with a surge of pleasure I can’t control. “And my by count, we still have one turn left.”
“Not after what you did.” My words are lost against the desk, and he sinks his first knuckle inside me, accompanied by his low growl of satisfaction.
The clink of his belt buckle. The rasp of his zipper.
I flatten my palms on the scarred wood, pushing myself upwards. Damien pushes me down again with one hand, kicking my legs apart. The blunt head of his cock pauses at my entrance, then he thrusts. Filling me completely.
A sound escapes my throat, half gasp, half moan, and his hand clamps over my mouth, fingers bruising my lips.
“Shh,” he whispers in my ear. “If you don’t keep quiet, someone might overhear. They might peek through the windows and see you like this.” His teeth graze against my nape and a shudder runs down my back. “See how wet you are for me.”
His words provoke another surge of arousal. My walls tighten around his invasion, and deep waves of pleasure spiral into my core.
He takes his hand away from my mouth, and I haul in a dizzying breath of air, whimpering as he withdraws, then slams into me again.
I clutch the desk edge, my knuckles stone, and Damien sets a demanding rhythm, each thrust driving my thighs harder against the chipped wood. That small pain grounds me in reality, aware of every movement. The hardness of his cock. The satisfying friction. The pleasure building low in my abdomen.
My mind tries latching onto something else. Anything. The faded periodic table on the wall; my incomplete assignment for history class.
But my body rebels, breath panting in and out of my lungs. An influx of sensation that won’t let me disappear into my head. Not when each pump of his hips hits a spot inside that has me biting my lips, stifling noises.
“That’s it,” he breathes, his fingers curling over my shoulder, pressing tight against the muscles as he steadies me for another brutal thrust, and another. “Those noises drive me fucking crazy. You’re made for me.”
I drive my elbow back into his abdomen, nostrils flaring with sudden rage.
He’s the one who spent weeks winning me over, being brazenly honest, convincing me he was trustworthy, that we were in partnership.
And Damien’s the one who betrayed us. Not giving a shit about anybody but himself.
“You selfish arsehole.”
But my shouted whisper isn’t enough.
There aren’t enough curses in the world to ease the savage sting of his betrayal.
I slap behind me and he chuckles, bending until his chest is hard against my back, his amusement blowing hot into my ear. And all the while, my body keeps climbing. The pleasure keeps building. Irrational, inevitable.
“Fight all you want. But you know this is what we both need. You feel so perfect wrapped around me.”
His ragged whisper takes me over the edge, my body convulsing around him. I’m shaking, muscles locking and releasing in waves, my eyes squeezed shut, the world nothing but his touch, his hard cock pounding into me, the animal sounds torn from my throat.
And Damien groans, swelling inside me, his rhythm stuttering. My shuddering aftershocks draw him deeper, and he clutches my hips, cock twitching with each pulse of his release. Then his arms wrap around me, holding tight, the press of his weight increasing as he stumbles, legs shaking.
I wait for him to withdraw but he stays in place, ruffing my hair with his sighs of contentment.
Finally, he pulls back, legs still between mine so I can’t close them, his palm stroking my lower back in a circular motion, his cum spilling down my inner thighs.
“Beautiful.” He steps back, a whisper of fabric and the clink of metal as he adjusts his clothes.
My kilt bunches at my waist, underwear tangled at my feet. I fix my clothing, close my legs, but stay bent over the desk, uncertain whether they’ll support my weight. My head floats, light and dizzy in the airless room.
“Nothing’s changed.” Damien’s breathlessness eases with each word, becoming eerily calm. “You’re still mine. I’m still yours.”
The afterglow recedes and I straighten, pushing away from the desk with trembling arms. The front of my blouse is stained with dust. My mouth feels gritty.
“Wishful thinking.” The words come out raw, scraping my throat.
Damien’s already composed, belt fastened, shirt tucked in like the last ten minutes never happened. Only the flush across his cheekbones shows his exertion.
“Luckily, what I wish tends to come true.”
His shoes scuff against the cheap floorboards, and he’s towering above me, adjusting my blouse collar, fingers combing my hair.
“And right now, what I wish is that you’ll take this ticket”—he pulls it from his pocket, along with a business card—“and visit this boutique for a dress.” He taps the embossed gold letters I’m in no state to read. “They know to charge everything back.”
He presses his forehead against mine, then straightens again, and my throat pulls tight with sorrow.
The truth is no one has ever made me feel how Damien does. He doesn’t flinch away from my broken parts, he leans in, admiring every crack, stroking those jagged edges.
I want him to put things right, but I won’t cheat myself by accepting half measures.
And my sadness is because I don’t think he can.
Heat pulses off Damien’s chest as he shifts closer. “You believe me about Chelsea’s plans.” A statement, not a question.
I nod. “Basil told me she’s arranged for a bucket of squid ink in my face when I step out of the car. Right before our official photos.”
Basil had confessed minutes after I accepted his invitation. Just a sweet guy whose rented family home is part of the Impaglia’s property portfolio and doesn’t really understand how he got tangled in this mess.
“There’ll probably be something worse waiting if I make it inside.”
I close my eyes, storing up solace from Damien’s embrace, knowing this will probably be the last time I feel this connected to anyone.
Then I step away.
“Why are you going along with it?”
Because I have my own plans. Because after a year of her torture, I deserve my revenge.
But what comes out of my mouth is a simpler truth. “Because I want to hurt you, and if hurting myself is the only way to do that, that’s what I’ll do.”
I lift my chin and Damien cups my neck, hooking me closer. “So, you do believe me. You know I care about you.”
He sounds so satisfied. So pleased with himself, my control frays along the edges. “You think you own me. It’s not the same.”
“We own each other.”
“No, we don’t. And you don’t get to control me. Not any longer.” My voice wavers and I stiffen my shoulders. “You don’t get to decide who I talk to or who takes me to the school dance.”
He laughs. “Sure, I do.”
“Fine.” My anger flares. I throw the ticket and card in his face and he doesn’t flinch, letting them fall.
“You’re right. We’re made for each other.
” My mouth twists into a vicious line. “Except my happy-ever-after comes to an end after the senior dance, and you just used your last turn on a quickie against a desk. Hope it was worth it.”
The change is immediate. Damien’s mask cracks, something raw and desperate breaking through his indifference. His jaw bunches so hard the muscles jump beneath his skin. “Don’t.”
The single word is strangled, nothing like his usual controlled tones.
“Don’t what? Remind you that your clifftop intervention didn’t fix me?” The power surges, intoxicating as his composure shreds.
His hands cup my face with a gentleness that contradicts the violence in his expression. In whatever broken way he’s capable of feeling, my words have wounded him. I can’t swallow past the lump in my throat.
“You’re not dying unless I let you. Or have you forgotten who’s got your pills?”
“They’re prescription.” My arms are folded now, hiding their continuing tremor as I lie. “The moment I left Bryan’s; I got a refill.”
“Then I’ll lock you up. I’ll watch you every second. I’ll—”
“Your father would love that, wouldn’t he?” I wrench away from his hands, fumbling in my pocket for my phone and cueing up the recording I hear on repeat in my head.
Fuck I love you.
Even the tinny speakers can’t undermine its power. “Do you think he’d appreciate this? Or should I play this to Chelsea?” My laugh cuts through the air, far too high-pitched. “Maybe an email to both?”
He glances at the phone, but where I expect anger, he’s puzzled.
His hand steadies mine and presses replay. The recording starts over from the beginning, triggering my memory with its obscene noises while his gaze stays glued to the screen.
Finally, he presses stop.
“You’ve had this since last Wednesday?” His thumb strokes my cheekbone, the gesture overwhelming in its tenderness. “You had it on Friday when Chelsea came to our music class? Why haven’t you used it?”
Under the intensity of his gaze, I can’t remember. “I was waiting for the right time.”
Damien gives a soft snort, resting his forehead briefly against mine before releasing his hold. “You’ve missed the boat there. I broke up with Chelsea on Sunday, just like I told you I would. My father already knows.”
I’m taken aback by his casual disclosure.
So many questions rise in my head, what he said, how she took it, what happened afterwards with his dad… but I leave them unspoken.
We’re done, aren’t we? I shouldn’t care.
“I’ll sort it out,” he says. “There’s a way forward for us, I know there is.
All I need to do is find it, okay? Just hold on a little longer, let me prove it to you.
” His face turns stern. “And stop threatening Cam’s scholarship.
He’s a decent guy who’s only looking out for you. Taking your anger out on him is mean.”
“I won’t be here after this weekend.”
“Yes, you will.” His self-assurance is back in full force. “You got me for a minute, but I know you’re bluffing. Enjoy yourself Saturday. Dance with Basil. Dance with whoever you like, nothing’s changed. You’re still mine.”
He kisses me again and this time it’s utterly dominating. His lips crush against mine, bruising them, his mouth tasting, then claiming me.
I don’t respond but I don’t resist either. I let him kiss me the way a drowning person lets the water close over their head. With resignation and a strange sense of peace.
When he finally pulls back, we’re both breathing hard.
Damien pulls my head against his chest. “Nothing’s changed.” Quieter this time.
Then he’s at the classroom door, yanking it open so the bright sunlight spills through the gap, drenching my vision with white as he disappears outside.