Chapter 13
LILA
My lips are dry. My chest is tight. I can’t move.
I know I should say something, but nothing comes to mind. So, um… What is there to say?
Damon must be way more familiar with my father’s history than I initially believed.
Perhaps my father’s new bride had kept in touch with her ex. Maybe they were still lusting after each other.
Why not?
And then an even worse feeling claws at my chest. It’s uncertainty mixed with genuine distaste for this story.
Did Damon fall in love with her again after she’d married another man? Is their marriage a way of keeping her close to him once and for all?
If that’s true, why isn’t he enjoying being with her? Why are they talking about me? Is he punishing her for what she did to him?
I don’t understand.
Luckily, it’s dark inside the car so he can’t see that I’m livid.
Had Damon waited for her to leave my father so he could marry her and be with her again?
The thought makes me want to puke.
Then, why is he after me? Or what is he after, after all?
Is this a way of avenging the time he spent away from her while she was married to someone else?
The more I think about it, the less I like the answers.
But that would explain their not sharing a bed, and him acting like he has no romantic feelings for her, wouldn’t it?
Is he that good of an actor?
And is he so much under this woman’s spell, struggling with a bruised ego, that he has no problem using me––anyone, to be fair––to make her feel the pain, so in the end, he can have her the way he wants her.
Humble and addicted to him again.
Ugh.
I never trusted his intentions much, but now I trust them even less.
“Who knows?” I say in a mellow voice. “It’s possible that she traveled up north. Thank you for the ride,” I say quickly, eager to wrap it up, say goodbye to him, and go swim the entire night.
“Would you like to come to my place tomorrow night?” he asks directly, sliding a hand to my thigh.
I like that he’s direct and makes no secret about what he’d like to do to me tomorrow night.
“Uh… Yeah. Why not? I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon and let you know for sure.”
“At around seven?” he says, unperturbed.
“Seven sounds good.”
“I’ll pick you up?”
“It’s better if you text me the address.”
“Sure. We’ll do that.”
He leans to me to give me a goodbye kiss, and I also lean to him, and before our lips can touch, a thick shaft of light floods his car.
“What the fuck?” he says, straightening in his seat and turning on the engine. “Who the fuck is that?” he mutters, peering in the rearview mirror while steering his car away.
Normally I’d say it’s the police.
But since I’ve had this kind of experience, it can only be him.
Damon West.
We roll past the gate, and the lights come on, giving us a better idea of who’s driving behind us.
A black sports car pulls up in front of the gate, and we’re waiting to see it vanish through when the door on the driver’s side slides open.
“You know what?” I say, having little patience to wait and see what might happen next. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I mean tonight.”
I give Frankie a clipped smile as I touch his forearm and exit his car before he lowers his head and looks through the open window.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Never been better,” I say, noticing that the gate is open, yet Damon is still not rolling his car through.
I give Frankie a small wave.
“I’ll see you tonight.”
He nods and flashes a charming smile, and I begin to like him just before he slowly veers away, and soon after, vanishes around the corner.
By that time, I expect to see the black car move in. Fat chance. My grin completely fades as I turn around and make a beeline for the open gate, ignoring Damon’s car.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the window on the driver’s side slide down.
Is his on-and-off wife with him? Is he alone?
Without looking at him, I move past his car.
His voice thunders behind me.
“Lila?”
I can’t imagine his wife is in the car.
I pick up the pace, enter his property, and deftly remove my shoes.
The car engine roars behind me, and that’s my clue. Holding my shoes and bag against my chest, I sprint toward the house. It doesn’t matter that he floors the pedal and his sports car lurches forward.
I cut my way through shrubs and trees, taking the shortest route to the house.
The driveway gravel crunches under the tires as he pulls up in front of the house.
He misses me by a hair as I sprint past him, avoid his grip, and push through the main door.
Quick steps take me upstairs, where I make a beeline for my room. I open the door and walk in before tossing my things onto the chair.
My first impulse is to go into the walk-in closet and try to think this through.
I need to talk to a lawyer on Monday and see if that stupid clause in my father’s will can be annulled.
It’s fundamentally unfair to be subjected to this.
Plus these two people, Damon and Henrietta, might actually be con artists.
Before I have the chance to think this through, the door flies open, and he barges in.
“Get out,” I bark as he pins me with his glare.
“What did I tell you?” he counters, ignoring my reaction.
Fuming, I move closer to him.
“Who are you, Damon West?”
He slams the door behind him.
“What?”
I put my hands on my hips.
“I know about you and Henrietta.”
He shoots me a puzzled look.
“What are you talking about?”
Emboldened, I move closer.
“She’s your long-time flame. Were the two of you together in her marrying and exploiting my father?”
He shakes his head slightly.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he mutters. “Didn’t I tell you not to go out, especially with that dick?”
“That dick?”
I laugh in his face, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
“Let’s not start a conversation about dicks.
You’re in no position to tell me who I can and can’t see.
Are you some kind of con artist? Is she?
Were you so in love with her that you waited for her to grab a third of my father’s wealth, and then couldn’t wait, not even a year, before you married her, so you can live your happy ending after with her? ”
“Shut up, Lila,” he says, suddenly distracted.
“No, I won’t shut––”
His hand goes over my mouth while his other arm snakes around my waist, and I find myself with my back pressed into his chest while the noise of a car engine rings outside.
I kick my legs and try to scream, even more annoyed now than I was before. Having to keep my mouth shut because she’s coming home is probably one of the worst things that could happen to me right now.
His arms squeeze around me as he drags me out of the room and away from my bedroom. Away from his bedroom as well.
I still oppose him with all I’ve got, but little good does it do to me as I can’t fight his force.
He takes the secondary stairwell, and we reach the first floor before he kicks a door open and pulls me inside a cold, dark place.
A heavy metal door locks behind me, and his hand moves away from my face, his arm still around me, guiding me toward the middle of the room.
“You can scream all you want. It’s a soundproof room. But just so you keep your mouth shut, what about we do this?”
Some drawer slides open in the dark before he gags me and locks a pair of cuffs around my wrists, my hands behind me.
Next, he drops me on a bed. The sheets are smooth yet cold against my knees and smell like fresh pine. I struggle to push up, but all I can do is press my face into the mattress and push my rear up.
That’s precisely what he wants me to do.
The LED light pinned on the wall spreads enough light around to cast a cold green hue over the sheets.
I can’t see him.
I can only glimpse his silhouette in an old mirror propped against the wall. Everything about this room screams torture. And not in the delicious, sexy kind of way.
This room must never have been used for anything other than punishing people. Something tells me no one in the house knows about it or is allowed to enter it.
Not even Henrietta.
He pushes my head against the mattress, and I almost fall over before he slides his hand under my skirt and rips my panties off.
“Never ignore one of my warnings, Lila Skye,” he says in a gruff voice, unbuckling his belt and tearing it away from his pants.
He rolls my skirt up over my ass and slaps my bare ass hard.
I cry out and cuss under the duct tape.
He smacks me again, not so hard this time.
It doesn’t matter. My skin is sensitive, and with every smack across my ass it burns more and more.
Strangely, with every hit, I feel more confident that he’s losing his head over me.
That his so-called punishment is only a way of stopping himself from doing worse things than this to me.
Things I can’t even imagine now, because I don’t know him well enough. He’s using less and less force, but it doesn’t matter. I won’t be able to sit for a week, let alone date or sleep with a man.
I try to see him in the mirror, and all I get to marvel at is the sexy curvature of his hard ass, his muscular torso, and his crisp shirt.
He moves his belt lower and lower, touching my pussy from behind, making me throb every time he hits me.
The symbolism of what he’s doing is overpowering, and knowing what I know about him so far makes me understand the meaning of all this.
Does he want to control me?
Is he annoyed that I’ve learned about Henrietta and him from a stranger and he can no longer play games with me?
Is he a vulnerable man?
Is he a harsh man?
Is he a powerful man having a hard time controlling his power?
Does he feel challenged by me?
Has he always been like this?
These are the questions that will remain unanswered.
Is he jealous of Frankie?
He probably is.
But I’m not ready yet to be claimed by him.
He folds his belt and strikes the flesh between my legs openly. And then he begins to alternate the strikes to something else. He uses two fingers to penetrate me, and I almost lose it. Unable to breathe properly, I feel like I’m about to pass out.
He reaches just in time to my mouth and peels off the tape from my face before he unlocks the cuffs and tosses them on the floor. The noise is loud. He doesn’t care, which only proves he told me the truth.
No one can hear us.
On all fours, I arch my back and enjoy the feeling of his fingers inside me. He uses his belt again. I don’t mind it.
Then he spreads the moisture from my pussy around my opening, and over my clit.
He strokes my clit and fingers me, and I moan and rock my hips.
“My little plaything,” he says, his voice mellow, lustful. “I could watch this forever.”
Another strike, another deep move of his fingers inside me. His fingers slide with ease through a pool of wetness as he truly masters the art of fingering a woman.
My center pulses as I begin to scale up.
He rolls my skirt even higher until it bunches up around my waist.
“Perfect woman,” he says seriously, finger fucking me slowly yet firmly as if he knows exactly the rhythm that I like.
When the rocking of my hips becomes uncontrollable and erratic, he moves his fingers away from me, and the next thing I feel is his mouth on me.
His lips, his tongue, the gentle bite of his teeth.
He eats me out without letting me scale down and shifting from being turned on to questioning my judgment.
I roll my hips against his mouth, wanting his kisses, his licking, his sucking on me, his tongue fucking.
And swiftly I move up and up and sense that impossible-to-stop pleasure surging through me, and I’m in awe at how good it feels. How liberating. How much it makes me want him despite everything I’ve learned about him tonight.
“Damon,” I call softly, gripping the sheet.
He pushes to his feet, slides his zipper down, and thrusts his hard, chiseled, throbbing cock in.
A victorious crying moan crawls up my throat.
He catches me just as I’m about to come, and without much pampering, he starts pounding into me ferociously.
I go up high, experience the most intense orgasm of my life, and the throbbing that comes after.
He keeps hammering into me, his fingers digging deep into my hips, his groin slamming into my ass, the sound of skin on skin drifting through the air.
His rhythm increases as I begin to sail calmer waters, and then he moves like a savage until he shoots his load, grunting and flooding my center.
His warm release trickles down my legs before staining the sheets.
Later, he stops, slips out his semi-hard cock and tucks it into his pants, while I fall to the side and get to see him in his full glory despite the dim light.
Tall, stern, muscular, hard to fuck with.
“You know nothing about me, Lila Skye. Stay away from Frankie. That’s all I’m saying. And stop listening to all the crazy stories swirling around in this town.”
He runs one tense hand through his hair before smoothing down his shirt, and flies, ensuring that his pants look flawless.
“I need to know one thing, though, before you put your cock into me again,” I say, propped on an elbow.
He slides his hand into his pockets and looks at me, his eyes glinting like two freshly sharpened swords.
“Are you in love with Henrietta?”
His eyes dip for a second as if he ponders the best answer.
“I’ve never been in love with anyone. So the answer is no,” he says, looking at me this time.
Holding his gaze, I fall back.
He studies me for a few moments.
“Is that a satisfying answer to you?” he asks bluntly.
“Yes, it is. For now.”
He nods in response and pivots toward the door.
“There’s a bathroom behind you. Clean yourself up and let yourself out, preferably when no one is outside,” he says dryly.
He reaches the door and punches in a number before the electronic lock beeps.
“Maybe you care to tell me the access code,” I say, still floating on a giant bed of endorphins.
“Sure. It’s your birthdate.”
A giant adrenaline hand grabs at my awareness.
I push upright at once, but he’s already gone, the door sliding locked again with cold indifference.
I fall back, hoping that he’s not fucking with me and lets me rot in this dark room for the rest of my life.