Chapter 23
Damien
When I get home, my feet carry me straight to the bedroom where Stefan said he left Roxanne.
It's evening, past dinner time—a dinner I couldn't make because of problems at the club. My jaw clenches. I need my daily dose of happiness, and she's that dose.
Roxanne's sprawled across the bed with her laptop, absorbed in whatever she's reading.
Her first night under my roof and I couldn't even show up for dinner. How the hell do you expect to make her happy when you can't even manage that? I shove the thought away. She's here. In my house, in my bed. And that's where she's staying.
"I'm sorry I missed dinner." The regret thickens my voice, but she doesn't look up from her screen.
"It's fine," she murmurs, eyes still glued to the glow. "I'm used to eating alone anyway."
My fists clench automatically, and in two strides I'm at the foot of the bed. I should've gotten here faster.
"I heard you ran into your ex today."
Her eyes snap up from the screen involuntarily, and I watch as she weighs what to tell me.
"Yeah. Apparently millions in the bank doesn't buy you better company."
A grin spreads across my face at her comeback, but I need to know she feels nothing for that idiot.
Just so I don't feel guilty when I sharpen my blades on his body.
Actually, I won't feel guilty either way.
If she tells me she still has feelings for him, I'll just make sure to start with the dullest ones.
"Do you still care about him?"
I can't use the word love. If she says yes, I know the organ in my chest will disintegrate. Since I saw her in that factory one year ago, when she was abducted by Luna’s ex and ended up biting the Irish mafia leader’s dick, I can't conceive of her soul belonging to anyone else.
I know she's scared to let me in, but no matter how hard she fights it, she's mine. From the first day to the last.
Her eyes study me, and with a sigh she says, "No. Honestly, I don't know if I ever really did. Maybe that's why my relationships only last a few months."
No, baby. Your relationships only last a few months because your heart knows they're not the right one.
"Was he an asshole? Sure. But I also preferred staying late finishing details at the office instead of going home to him. I tried to be a sweeter version of myself for him, more docile. I have too much fire in me, and apparently I burn every relationship to the ground."
My hands go to her calves, and before she can protest, I pull her toward me.
"Damien, what are you doing?" she asks, but her pupils are dilated and I know my woman.
If I'd crossed a line, I'd already be nailed to the nearest wall.
"I realize that even though I missed dinner, dessert is still on the table." My mouth curves into a wicked grin as my hands lift her nightgown, half-expecting a slap across the face. But honestly, if she ended me now, I would die smiling, grateful to the gods for it.
"What?" Her voice is slightly strangled, but I don't think she notices that her legs have opened wider for me.
Without taking my eyes off her, I slowly pull down her panties. I doubt she realizes how weakly she's resisting right now.
My leather jacket hits the carpet, followed by my shirt, and in the next second, her legs are over my shoulders while my lips make contact with her skin.
"Oh, God."
Oh, God, indeed, because this is what Heaven must taste like.
That's all she manages before her hips undulate toward me, seeking more, demanding more. So I give her everything I have.
My hands go to her ass, palms sliding over the soft curves, massaging gently as I pull her as close as possible.
I want her to suffocate me, want to drown in her, want to hear her scream my name and have it tattooed on her skin.
Because no man will ever worship her the way I do.
No one else will ever know the exact spots that make her gasp, the precise pressure that makes her thighs quiver.
"Damien, I need—"
I know exactly what she needs. My tongue penetrates her slowly, deliberately, drawing out the torture because I want her to feel every second of this. I want her to remember this moment, this sensation, for the rest of her life.
The taste of her floods my senses, sweet and intoxicating and entirely mine. I moan against her, the vibration making her buck against my mouth.
I alternate between thrusting my tongue inside her and lapping at her folds, collecting every drop of her arousal.
Her taste is addictive, something I could spend hours savoring.
When I flatten my tongue and drag it slowly from her entrance to her clit, she cries out, her fingers tightening in my hair almost painfully.
My erection strains painfully against my zipper, screaming for release, preferably buried deep inside the woman trembling and writhing beneath me.
The pressure is becoming unbearable, each pulse of my cock a reminder of how desperately I need her.
Without thinking, my hand reaches down to free myself from the confines of my pants, popping the button and dragging down the zipper with shaking fingers.
The relief is immediate but nowhere near enough. I'm so hard it hurts, precum already leaking from the tip, and the cool air against my heated flesh makes me groan into her core.
For the first time in my life, I contemplate grinding against the sheets just to ease this maddening pressure.
Because her taste on my tongue, her fingers tangled desperately in my hair, those broken cries she makes as I devour her, the way she says my name like a prayer, all of it is going to be my undoing.
I'm torn between stroking myself or denying myself completely while she comes apart on my lips.
The temptation to wrap my hand around my cock and find release is overwhelming, but the idea of restraint wins quickly.
I want to feel every bit of this need, let it consume me entirely, because delayed gratification will make the eventual release that much more intense.
And the simple thought of taking one of my hands off her is not acceptable.
I need both hands on her, holding her, fucking worshipping her.
I focus all my attention on her pleasure, sealing my lips around her clit and sucking firmly. Her hips jerk off the bed, trying to escape the intensity, but I hold her in place.
"Oh God, oh God, Damien—" Her words dissolve into incoherent moans.
When her thighs tighten around my head like a vise, trembling with the effort of holding on, I smile against her slick heat and bite her clit gently, just enough to give her that edge of pain I know she craves.
Then I turn my head to sink my teeth into the tender flesh of her inner thigh, marking her, claiming her as mine.
The bruise will bloom purple and beautiful, a reminder every time she looks at it of who made her fall apart.
That's all it takes. Her entire body locks up, every muscle tensing, back arching off the bed in a beautiful bow.
A desperate moan with my name spills from those lips that will haunt every thought for the rest of my existence.
I feel her pulse against my tongue, her walls clenching rhythmically as her orgasm crashes through her.
I work her through it, gentling my touch, lapping at her softly as the tremors slowly subside. Each aftershock makes her twitch, oversensitive now, but I can't help myself. I want to wring every last shred of pleasure from her body.
I don't lift my head from between her legs until I've made sure every drop of her release is on my lips, until she's whimpering and trying to push my head away from overstimulation.
When my gaze rises to see her face, I want to memorize her like this.
Hair scattered across my pillow like a dark halo, breasts rising and falling rapidly with each breath, and that flush covering her neck and chest, spreading down to her stomach.
She's never looked more beautiful. Completely wrecked, thoroughly satisfied, and absolutely mine.
I pull back slightly, sitting up on my knees between her spread thighs. My hand wraps around my aching cock, and the contact sends electricity through my spine, making my toes curl. I've been hard for so long that even this simple touch feels like too much.
"If you keep looking at me like that, baby," I rasp, my voice barely recognizable, guttural and raw with need, "this is going to end in seconds."
My lips still feel swollen and sensitive from tasting her, so I run my tongue over them deliberately, savoring the remnants of her that still coat my mouth. I want her to see what she does to me, how thoroughly she's ruined me.
Her eyes track the movement, darkening with renewed hunger despite having just come, and I see the exact moment my little sun decides to bathe me in all her light. The shift in her gaze, from shy and satisfied to absolutely feral, nearly undoes me right there.
Her hands go to the hem of her satin nightgown.
She pulls it off in one fluid motion, leaving her completely naked before me.
A knot forms in my throat and my lungs forget how to work when the woman in front of me, my future wife, mine, mine, mine, moves her hands to cup her breasts, squeezing gently, testing the weight of them in her palms.
The moan that escapes her lips is all I hear and all I want to hear for the rest of my goddamn life.
"Do you have any idea what you do to me?
" The question comes out strangled as I stroke my painful erection with increasing desperation, my cock pulsing and demanding to be buried in her heat.
Precum leaks steadily now, easing the glide of my hand, but it's not enough.
Nothing will be enough except being inside her.