Chapter 14
Damian
Wood paneling lines the walls of the small bedroom that Brielle and I will be sharing for the weekend.
The knots in the wood grain start to swirl like one of those stereogram images from when I was a kid the longer I stare at it.
The rustling sounds behind me stop, but I don’t dare take my eyes off the wall.
Brielle’s upturned face, her hand on my chest, the heat of her body seeping through my shirt. The moment before her lips touched mine, when I could still pretend they weren’t the sole focus of all my thoughts.
“You can turn around now. I’m good,” Brielle says flatly.
She’s been like that all afternoon, at least with me.
With the Vitales, she’s been an absolute delight.
Fun and personable, outgoing but engaging.
She’s listened to their stories with her full attention and made a new friend in Maggie.
And Courtney and Stephen. And Leon and Pam.
I couldn’t have picked a better fake girlfriend to impress a client.
I’m not even needed here, if I’m being honest with myself.
And it’s clear Brielle wishes that I were somewhere else, too.
Possibly off the side of a mountain.
I can still feel her soft lips on mine. Taste the salty sweetness left behind from her sweat. I wanted to lick it off her, explore her mouth with my tongue, claim her lips as mine, but I couldn’t. I know she’s pissed at me. But if I kissed her back, I’m not sure I would have been able to stop.
I turn around to see Brielle wearing pink silk pajama pants with little red hearts. Her matching tank top has a big red heart in the middle, and she is very clearly not wearing a bra under it.
As distracting as that is, my focus is on what’s she’s doing, not what she’s wearing. She pulls the bedcovers off the mattress, finding another thermal blanket underneath, and throws it onto the floor. It lands next to the pillow she’s already tossed from the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting your bed made up.”
My brows pinch, and I can feel a headache blooming behind my eyes. “I’m not sleeping on the floor, Brielle.” My tone brooks no argument.
Brielle glances up at me, surprise and frustration painted across her delicate features. “You’re really going to make me sleep on the floor?” A scoff, sharp and unamused, comes out of her in a puff, and she shakes her head. “Whatever.”
“No one is sleeping on the floor.”
“Then I hope the couch is comfy,” she counters.
This woman. No one has ever talked back at me the way she does. What I say goes unquestioned and unchallenged. Especially by one of my employees. But Brielle isn’t afraid to speak up, to oppose me, and I’m not sure if I like it or hate it.
“We are in a loving relationship, remember? I can’t be caught sleeping on the floor, and certainly not on the couch,” I tell her. I grab the pillow and blanket from the floor and toss them back onto the bed. She opens her mouth, but I cut her off before she can speak. “And neither can you.”
“No one will know what we do in this room,” she says.
I know she’s still talking about the sleeping arrangements, but that’s not where my mind goes. Dirty images of things we could get up to in this room fill my head.
“What did you think when you agreed to this trip? That they were going to give us bunk beds?”
She glares at me, her hand wrapped around the blanket again. She doesn’t break eye contact as she slowly lifts it up and tosses it to the floor again.
“Are you guys making a blanket fort?” Maggie bursts into the room, full of energy and excitement. “I love blanket forts!” she exclaims.
Panic flashes across Brielle’s face before she affixes a bright smile for Maggie’s benefit. “Oh, no. That would be fun, but Damian and I were just getting the bed made up the way we like it. I like one blanket, and he likes two,” she says.
“Maggie. You can’t just burst into someone else’s room without knocking. It’s not polite. Leave them be. It’s time for bed,” Courtney says, hustling into the room to collect her daughter. “Sorry about that.”
“Not a problem. She’s a great kid,” I tell her. It’s the truth. I’m not big on kids in general, but Maggie’s not too bad, for a five-year-old.
Courtney closes the door behind her as she marches Maggie away. I look back at Brielle with a smug challenge. We both know that there’s a good chance we’ll be woken up in the morning by a rambunctious bundle of energy, and where we are sleeping will not go unnoticed.
“Fine,” she huffs. “I’ll stay on my side of the bed, and you can stay on yours.”
“Fine.”
Brielle fixes the bed that she destroyed while I get undressed.
I can’t recall a single instance when I slept in bed with a woman who I haven’t slept with, and more often than not, I don’t do that either.
Sleepovers aren’t really my thing. They tend to give the wrong impression, and I always want to ensure I’m clear in what I have to offer a partner, and a relationship isn’t on that list.
“Seriously?” Brielle looks me up and down as I stand at the side of the bed closest to the door in nothing but my briefs.
“This is how I sleep. I run hot at night.” I’m running hot right now with her looking at me like that. Even her bad attitude can’t mask the spark behind her eyes.
She rolls her eyes, turning her back to me to slip into bed.
I lie beside her, listening to her breathing for a long while.
Sleeping next to her is going to be a joke.
I can feel every shift, hear every breath.
The fabric of her cutesy little sleep set brushes against my arm, and she scoots further to the side of the bed.
I want to wrap my arm around her waist and haul her back to me, but that can’t happen. We can’t happen.
I toss and turn, but I can’t fall asleep, and it seems like Brielle can’t either. When she turns around, I find myself face-to-face with her. My gaze is drawn to her perfect bow-shaped lips that have been on my mind all damn day. Her eyes are closed, but she’s clearly still awake like me.
“I know you’re mad at me, but I didn’t mean to offend you… earlier.” My voice is low and quiet. The stillness of the night does nothing to dampen them.
Brielle pushes away from me so she’s lying on her back and lets out a huff. I can’t help but follow her, rising to prop myself up with my arm, hovering nearer to her.
“Can we not talk about it? I’m not mad, okay.”
Even the most gullible of people wouldn’t believe her. Not with her eyes screwed up tight and her pretty little nose flaring.
“You are mad.”
“I’m not mad. I’m embarrassed. You didn’t want me to kiss you, and I did. We hadn’t talked about it ahead of time and I had to decide in the moment. I made the wrong one. I get it.”
The hurt on her face is a punch to my gut. She doesn’t get it—not even a little bit—if she thinks that I didn’t want to kiss her.
I reach my hand out and stroke the side of her face. Brielle’s eyes fly open, flashing in surprise to find me so close. Her mouth parts on a quick inhale, the pulse in her neck climbing.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It wasn’t you,” I tell her, looking into her eyes.
“I was just surprised, and I didn’t want to take this, what we’re doing, too far.
” Her skin is soft under the swipe of my thumb.
I have no business touching her right now, but in the darkness of the night, the stillness in the air, everything feels different somehow.
“We should have talked about it first so I knew where you stood,” she whispers. Her gaze is locked on mine, and I couldn’t pull myself away if I tried.
“Maybe we should have practiced first.”
What am I doing? I push her hair away from her face, trailing my finger behind her ear.
Her head tilts up to me, her lips parted, her skin flushed, and then my mind goes blank.
I have no idea how it happens, but suddenly, my mouth is on hers—or hers is on mine.
Did I kiss her, or did she kiss me? I couldn’t say, and I don’t particularly care.
She tastes like the clean, fresh air from the mountain, like she bottled it up and only I get to lick it from her lips.
My tongue sweeps into her mouth, and fuck…
the soft, velvety touch of her tongue sets my nerves alight.
I angle my body to deepen the kiss, my hand closing lightly around the base of her neck.
Brielle whimpers into my mouth. She fucking whimpers, and I’m done for.
My cock strains the fabric of my briefs as my tongue continues to assault her mouth.
Brielle gives every ounce of it back to me, fighting for dominance.
I shift one knee between her legs, my hand trailing down her chest, cupping her breast over her shirt.
She moans into my mouth, nipping at my bottom lip.
This wasn’t my plan for this weekend. I should know better than to go there with her, but it feels so goddamn good.
She kisses me like she means it. Like she feels the same desire for me as I feel for her.
Her knees tip open, and I groan from deep within my chest. Settling myself between her legs, I let her feel the effect she has on me, my erection thick and heavy against her thigh.
Her fingers drag a path down my back, and I’ve never hated anything more than her cutesy little Valentine’s Day pajama set that’s covering my view of her.
I snake my hand up the front of her shirt, leaving the ecstasy of her mouth in favor of trailing kisses down the sweet column of her throat.
If I could taste every inch of her skin, I would.
My thumb finds the underswell of her breast, and I have to wrap my hand around her ribs to steady myself.
Brielle pulls in a lungful of air, her breathing fast and labored.
“This is a bad idea,” she says.
Instinctively, my hand tightens around her ribs, not wanting to let her go, and I still.
The staticky haze in my mind starts to clear, and actual thoughts begin forming.
She’s right. We shouldn’t be doing this.
I shouldn’t have taken it that far. My brain struggles to regain control of the situation from my hard-as-steel cock.
My heart is beating at a critical pace as I slowly move away from her.
I fall onto my back on the mattress, closing my eyes.
I know that stopping was the right call.
I know that we shouldn’t have started in the first place.
But that isn’t what my body is craving. The pull I feel toward her is all-consuming.
A few tense moments pass as I try to force blood to flow through my entire body again. “You good?” she asks, her eyes bouncing down to my throbbing cock.
“Yup,” I grit out.
“Good.” She says it so casually, so nonchalant. It instantly pisses me off. I don’t need her checking on me like I’m the only one who was into that. Like she isn’t reeling from the hottest make-out session of her life.
I look over at her, challenging her. “You’re just going to pretend to be unaffected by that?”
She takes my challenge for what it is, one-upping it. Without breaking eye contact, she smiles. “Did you want me to tell you how wet my panties are or something?”
Fuck. There goes my blood flow again.
Yes. I desperately want to know how wet she is for me. I want to find out for myself as I continue to explore her perfect body.
“Nope,” I say on a heavy breath.
Brielle rolls to her side, facing me. “Good night, Damian. Sleep well.”
Yeah. Like I’m getting any sleep in this keyed-up state with her tight little body by my side.
“Good night, Brielle.”