Chapter twelve Damon
Chapter twelve
Damon
In the quiet elevator ride up to her apartment, I thank God once again that I chose the navy button-down over the sky blue or salmon options. Anything lighter would’ve shown the nervous sweat that showed up the moment she stepped out of the car.
How did she do that? Set my body to buzzing with just a flutter of her eyelashes or a dab of her napkin to her lips? She kept me captivated from the moment she arrived, each giggle or sigh ramping up my interest further.
I tug my collar at the memory.
None of that changes anything, though. I showed up with hearts in my eyes, but she only wants “friends with benefits”, and I would do well to remember that.
As bad as Cory and Noah’s razzing was before I made my move, it would become unbearable if they knew I had any misgivings at all about being Kendra’s dick for hire.
It’s a dream scenario, and I need to get out of my head and just enjoy it.
“Nice place you have here,” I murmur when we walk through the door of her elegant corner apartment. She responds with thanks, and my eyes track her as she drops her keys onto a tray by the entryway and moves further into the living room.
Calling her place nice is like calling the Mona Lisa pretty—a grave understatement and one Henry (the family’s resident art buff) would probably gasp at.
Two walls of windows give the illusion of being down on the street, the skyline twinkling in the background.
Bathed in the warm glow from gold sconces and hanging pendant lights, with a cushy taupe sectional arranged in an L-shape around a leather ottoman and a fireplace accented with elaborate African masks, the space feels like a cozy retreat.
A dark wood table is littered with fashion magazines—evidence of her craft.
Kendra glides gracefully to the kitchen, which holds more pendant lights over a marble island and spotless black appliances. I gulp just thinking about what all this must cost.
“More wine?” she offers, and I nod silently, still taking everything in.
One thing is for sure; I’m way out of my league.
I’m commuting to Brooklyn on the subway, where I teach snotty kids how to dribble, while she comes home from photo shoots on tropical islands to what’s basically a five-star hotel.
No wonder she only wants a booty call. For someone like her, this date is essentially charity.
She comes around the counter carrying two glasses of red wine, pressing one into my hand.
We drink in silence, letting the city sounds fill the pregnant pause between us.
The skin of her neck moves subtly with each swallow, and my own throat goes dry, despite the wine. The air in here feels electric.
“So…” She sets her empty glass down. “Should we do this on the couch or in the bedroom?”
I stop mid-sip and turn to her. Right. Down the business. My glass clinks when I place it on the island next to hers.
“I think the bedroom is best,” I answer with a grin. “I’m not sure I could perform in front of all those windows.”
I expect her to crack a smile, or reassure me the windows are one-way. Maybe even lean in to kiss me. But she simply takes my hand and leads us away from our wine and the amazing view without a word. She hurries us down the hall, not bothering to point out the rooms we pass or even look at me.
This doesn’t feel like excitement, or getting swept away in lust. She seems almost…frantic. I would swear her hands were a little clammy, but that can’t be because I’m me and she’s Kendra Fucking Gray.
She pushes open the door to another stylishly appointed room, waving her hand towards the king-size bed in the center like a host presenting prizes in a game show.
“After you,” she says, and this time, I’m certain I hear her voice waver. Her eyes are bright—too bright—and her easy smile from earlier now seems forced.
As I struggle to adjust to the drastic shift in her mood, she launches herself at me, pressing her body against mine in stilted movements. Alarm bells sound in my head. Something’s off, and we can’t move forward until I know what it is.
“Hold up. Wait a sec, Kendra,” I urge, grasping her by the shoulders as I step away. Her eyes dart around the room uneasily, and her chest rises in quick pants.
“Talk to me,” I prompt when she stays silent, staring at me. After another tense moment, her face crumbles and she slumps onto the edge of the bed.
“I’m sorry,” she nearly wails. The self-assured woman from the restaurant is gone, replaced by someone mortified her weakness is on display. I come to sit next to her, hesitating before putting my arm around her shoulders. “I really thought I could do this.”
Her small sniffle guts me. Did I somehow pressure her into this?
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Kendra,” I say in my most soothing tone. I mean it; if she sent me home right now, this would still be one of the best nights of my life.
She pats the hand resting on her shoulder and leans into me.
“This isn’t on you. Somehow, I know you would never force me. This is my bullshit.”
I do my best not to tense, drawing the hand not on her shoulder into a tight fist at my side. I’m no expert, but from her posture, from the tone of her voice and the bitterness behind her eyes, her certainty that I wouldn’t take advantage of her comes from experience with someone who did.
I don’t know her. Not really. For whatever reason, seeing her smiling down at me every morning and every night, a world away from anyone who really cared about me, made me feel close to her.
Her comforting presence was my constant companion for close to a year, the only thing that kept me from succumbing to loneliness as the life I knew drew to a close.
I might not know her, but that someone would even think about touching her in a way she didn’t consent to fills me with rage.
I lose my war with composure and pull her tighter to my side.
“I’m so sorry. It’s not bullshit at all.” My words are hardly enough, but they’re all I have. “If you want to talk—”
“No!” she interrupts, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye before it can fall down her cheek. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice,” she says in a calmer tone. “It’s just…I don’t want to talk. OK?”
I nod. I’m quickly realizing I’ll do whatever she wants, even if it’s for me to leave and never come back.
“Could we…?” She swallows. “I mean, would you…stay? Stay like this?”
I squeeze her in response, and she wraps her arms around my torso in a deep embrace. I feel her heart beating against my chest, slowing to a more relaxed cadence the longer I hold her. Lemon verbena and vanilla waft up to my nostrils, and I take a long drag in.
I try my best not to notice the feel of her breasts against my chest, how her full, soft hips yield to my hard flesh. Her body is divine. Literal heaven on earth wrapped in supple curves and tempting valleys, and some asshole out there tried to defile it!
I start unconsciously rocking her—all the while imagining ways to find and dismember that piece of shit—when I feel it. She’s rocking with me, pushing further each time, guiding us to lie on the bed.
“Kendra, I—”
“Shhh,” she interjects, putting a finger over my lips. “I don’t want to talk.” Her finger leaves my lips and trails down my chin, skating along my collarbone.
When her nimble hands disappear inside my shirt, swirling back and forth in intricate patterns that heat my blood, I realize she’s tracing my tattoo.
It’s a red-crowned crane, a symbol of luck and longevity in my father’s culture.
I inked it onto my skin in the first of many small rebellions, when the NBA hadn’t called, but I still didn’t have an agent.
Over the years, I’ve turned my body into a canvas, collecting a new tattoo for every major life event.
It strikes me that Kendra is drawn to my crane when I feel like the luckiest bastard alive whenever I’m around her.
She leans forward, planting a tentative kiss on my Adam’s apple that makes me curse under my breath. Okay. She really doesn’t want to talk.
“If you’re sure,” I offer, giving her the chance to back out if this is too much.
My dick is not immune to all this touching and rubbing, and there’s no way she doesn’t feel the evidence of my arousal digging into her stomach, but unlike whoever hurt her, I’ll stop whenever she asks.
She doesn’t answer, choosing instead to open the top button of my shirt to drag her lips further down my neck.
If I were standing, there’s no way I wouldn’t be woozy from all the blood rushing to my dick. Can a person pass out from a hard-on? It sure feels like it right now.
Her lips follow each button she opens, down my sternum, across my stomach, until she’s grazing the fine hairs of my happy trail. Oh fuck. I hiss out a breath.
“You’re incredible,” I mutter.
I can feel the mischievous smile that spreads across her face like a sunrise. She knows I’m hers to command, and after what I suspect happened to her, she needs to take the lead.
I allow myself to relax into the bed, widening my legs so she can position her knees between them.
She hunches over my body, teasing me with maddening licks to the skin just above my pants.
My cock is so hard, one wrong move could take her eye out, and it’s almost impossible to keep still as she tortures me.
“God, Kendra!” I keen when she surprises me with a bite to my pelvic bone. “You’re killing me.”
She hums her approval before finally unbuttoning my pants to relieve my painfully hard shaft.
I brace for the feel of her hands on me as she takes me out of my boxer briefs, but the touch doesn’t come.
Instead, she nuzzles my dick with her nose, her chin, and her cheek, coaxing enough precum from the tip that she surely feels it through the fabric.