Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
DAMIEN
M y injuries were fucking throbbing by the time I made it to the top of the stairs, but the pain was nowhere near as bad as it had been those first few days. If I could avoid infection a little longer, I might actually be okay.
Until they find you. Then, you’ll wish you’d died of infection.
Blowing out a breath, I dragged a hand over a week’s worth of beard and glanced around the room, hoping for a distraction from the terrifying future that was breathing down my neck.
The ceiling had a steep pitch—like an attic—so the only useable space was directly in the center, where an old brass bed sat, facing the stairs. The surface was lumpy and sagged in the middle, and it probably groaned even louder than the floorboards when you sat on it, but to a lad who hadn’t slept in a bed on dry land in over a week, it looked like fucking heaven.
The shorter walls, where the roof sloped down, were lined with boxes and other assorted bullshit, but on the far wall, across from me, there was nothing but a single door. Golden light and the sound of running water streamed out through the cracks.
Clover.
I wondered how she was doing. If she was still upset with me. Still stuck inside that nightmare.
Walking over to the bed, I pulled the gun out of my waistband and set it on the quilt next to the clothes and supplies Kate had laid out for us. As I stared down at them, I wanted to feel grateful, or happy, or relieved, but the sight did nothing more than stir that deep, dark, swirling void inside of me. I didn’t know why Kate’s act of kindness made me feel so angry, so hopeless. Maybe it was because she was trying to mother me, and it reminded me that I didn’t fucking have one. Or maybe it was because those clothes had belonged to a dead man, and soon, they were going to belong to another one.
No. I wasn’t that lucky. My father would rather torture me beyond the brink of insanity than kill the only heir to his Bratva reign. He wouldn’t relent until he broke me. Until he shattered me completely and glued the pieces back together in his likeness.
Either way, it was over.
By sunup, every Russian soldier and sailor on the island would be on the lookout for the Pride of Howth and me.
And her.
Steam was beginning to filter through the cracks of the bathroom door now, illuminated by the streaks of light that escaped along with them. I noticed how the golden light forged straight ahead, never wavering, never looking back, while the silvery vapor simply … disappeared into the darkness.
That was us. Clo and me.
We’d escaped together, but now …
Now, she had to keep going, and I had to disappear.
It was me they wanted, not her. They didn’t even know her name. Kate and Jack would take care of her—I knew they would—and they’d do a better fucking job than her arsehole drunk of a father ever had. This was what was best for her. If I wanted to protect her, to do what I hadn’t been able to with my ma, this was the only way.
“Fuck!”
My skin felt tight as the rage swelled beneath it, pushing against the surface, looking for an outlet. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill. But only because what I really wanted wasn’t a fucking option.
It never was.
My chest ached, and my eyes burned as I tore through the room, looking for my boots. I had to get out of there before Clo finished her shower. If I saw her, I didn’t know what I would do. I didn’t know if I’d have the strength to leave.
After I looked under the bed and in every corner of the room, my eyes landed on the glowing bathroom door again, and I shook my head with a bitter, humorless laugh.
Of fucking course.
Turning the knob as quietly as possible, I opened the door and squinted into the light and steam. The sink was directly across from the door, and next to it, on the closed lid of the toilet, sat my neatly folded, blood-soaked blazer.
And my boots were on the floor beside it.
My throat swelled as I pictured Clo on the boat—the way my sleeves covered her fingers and my socks swallowed her feet. The way the light clung to her hair and the sea made her eyes sparkle. I’d never seen her outside in the sun before.
And you never will again, arsehole . Accept the situation and armor the fuck up. Now.
My jaw clenched, and my nostrils flared as I fought back the emotion strangling me from the inside out.
My boots were right there. All I had to do was grab them and go. But as I reached in, my heart slamming itself against my ribs in protest, I heard something beyond the white noise of the shower and the blood thundering in my ears. It was a sound I’d heard every night in the cave—the soft, shuddering gasps of Clover crying.
I stared at my boots as her jagged breaths sliced through my resolve like the teeth of a saw. There was no conscious thought, no more rationalizing or weighing my options. There was the sound of Clover crying, and then there was Clover, looking over her shoulder at me as I opened the shower door.
“Damien? What are you—”
I stepped inside and wrapped my arms around her and felt her stunned body go tense, only for a second, before she completely fell apart in my embrace. Clover clung to me like she had the night before, like even gravity was trying to tear her away from me. But this time, I didn’t fight back. I didn’t try to hold her up. I sank to the floor with her and held her close while she buried her face in my neck and wept.
It was the same position we’d been in downstairs—Clo naked, straddling my lap—but this time, it was real . There was no more pretending to be okay, no more denial or survival mode. We were both terrified of the future and terrorized by the past, but when we were together, when we stayed present, not even time itself could touch us.
Sweeping a heavy curtain of wet hair over her shoulder, I dipped my head and kissed Clover’s bruised, tearstained cheek.
And her entire body went rigid with fear.
No. No, no, no.
“Shh … look at me,” I instructed, gathering her hair in my hand and pulling her head back gently until we were face-to-face.
My cock throbbed between her legs with every beat of my heart, which probably only fueled her panic, but Clover did as I’d asked. She gazed up at me with wide, worried eyes—wanting to trust me, wanting to please me, but mostly, I think she wanted the same thing that I did. She wanted to believe that this time could be different. There was a glimmer of hope in those emerald depths, a silent plea that I vowed to fulfill if it was the last fucking thing I ever did.
“I’m not gonna touch you,” I promised. “Not like that.”
Clover nodded and glanced at my mouth. It was just a second, but I could see the conflict on her face. I felt it too. We’d only kissed twice, and both times had ended with her in the fetal position. So, this time, I wasn’t going to kiss her at all.
At least not on the mouth.
“I want to start over,” I said, brushing a few wet strands of hair away from her face. “When I found you at the encampment, when I saw you splayed out on that counter, ya know what I wanted to do to you?”
Clover lowered her gaze as shame stained her cheeks pink.
Dropping my forehead to hers, I had to concentrate on keeping my hands from balling into fists as I smoothed them down the length of her arms. “I wanted to kiss every bruise, every scratch and cut on your beautiful body”—I pressed my lips to her cheekbone again—“while you told me how you got each and every one.” I kissed her nose as clean, warm water cascaded down my face. After being covered in dried blood, salt water, and whiskey for a week, the sensation of having it all washed away felt amazing. It felt like a fresh start, which was exactly what I wanted with Clover.
“And then I wanted to kill every man in that room with my bare fucking hands.”
Clover glanced back up at me, full lips parting in surprise.
Taking her hand in mine, I brought it to my mouth and kissed the thin red line encircling her wrist. There were finger-shaped bruises just below it that I hadn’t noticed before. My blood fucking boiled, but I forced myself to breathe through it until I was able to speak again.
“Angel, I need you to tell me what happened. Please. Let me make it better.”
And she did.
Clover started at the beginning as I helped her to her feet, trying to ignore both my painfully hard cock and her achingly perfect tits as I kissed every bruise and cut on both arms before moving down the center of her chest. I felt her heart pound beneath my lips as she told me what had happened in the field. Felt her shudder as my hands traced the curves of her battered ribs, followed by my mouth as I kissed every black-and-blue reminder of what they’d done.
I wanted to heal everything that hurt. Worship every place they’d wounded. It wasn’t sexual. It was … sacrificial—my heart in exchange for her happiness.
I worked my way down her stomach to her pelvis as she described what those men had done to her at the encampment. How they’d stripped her, restrained her, humiliated and violated her.
It took all the willpower I had not to grip her hips in anger, not to bury my face in her pussy and make her forget every motherfucker who’d dared to touch her before me. But I was trying to prove that I was different from them, both to her and to myself. So, I clenched my jaw until my teeth nearly cracked, and I kept fucking going.
Her long, toned legs—strong from years spent scaling the cliffs of Howth—trembled under my fingertips as I showered every scrape and gash on them with attention. I knew that she’d fallen off the path, running from a drone, and I knew her feet were fucked from going a week without shoes—a fact that I felt personally responsible for—so I turned her around to face the wall and carefully lifted each foot. I kissed the raw red pads of all ten toes, her punctured heels, her scabbed ankles. But when I dragged my tongue along the curve of her arch, her moan of pleasure was so fucking sexy that I had to unbutton the top of my trousers to make room for my swollen cock.
I couldn’t even call it torture. It was a privilege to be allowed to touch her again. I’d thought I needed to fuck her, but I didn’t. I’d needed to feel her. To hold her. To give her pleasure instead of pain.
As I worked my way up the backs of her thighs, I remembered exactly what it had felt like to be buried between them—like coming home, like a warm, soft, welcoming heaven after a lifetime spent burning in hell. I remembered what Clover’s firm, round arse had felt like in my hands as she pushed back against me, begging me to make her feel good, to save her from a hell of her own.
My mouth watered as I scented her need, as I imagined dragging my tongue along the seam of her pussy, tasting what I’d felt earlier. My palms slid over the handprint-shaped bruises on her arse, followed by my lips as I lavished her with open-mouthed kisses that were meant for somewhere else.
Fuck.
Making my way up her back, I gathered her hair in one hand and slid it over her shoulder, exposing the last of the places I needed to touch. By the time I was standing again, my lips were on the top of her head, my hands had just finished working the knots out of her neck, and my hips were far enough away to avoid accidentally grazing her with my cock.
“ That’s what I wanted to do,” I finally said, running my palms down her arms and pressing a kiss to her freckled shoulder.
“Thank you,” Clover whispered, turning her face toward mine.
I nodded, my lips still on her shoulder and a lump in my fucking throat.
“Damien …” Clo’s voice dripped with remorse as she tried to turn around, but I gripped her arms and steered her toward the shower door instead.
“Go on now. Off to bed.”
Clover stood at the door, but didn’t open it. She tried to turn around again, but I held her in place.
“Clo, please. Go.”
“I don’t want to,” she huffed, lifting her arms in an attempt to shrug me off.
And I let her do it. I couldn’t bear to restrain her after everything she’d just told me, but my heart sank the moment I let go. I knew the instant she turned around and saw another hard cock pointed in her direction, that would be it. She’d be triggered, and we’d be right back where we’d started.
Clover spun around before I had a chance to warn her, and the sight of her, dripping wet and flushed with need, stole the breath from my lungs. Fuck, she was perfect.
“Angel,” I said, cupping her jaw in an attempt to keep her eyes on my face, “I’m trying really hard to prove to you that I’m not like them, which is why I need you to—”
Clover’s gaze dropped to my waist, and her body froze as she took in what had to be the last thing she needed to see. I didn’t look down, but I could feel the spray of the shower on the entire exposed head of my cock, where it rose above the top of my unbuttoned trousers.
I held my breath and waited for the flashback, the tears, the terror, but instead, Clover simply swallowed, took a deliberate breath, and tore her gaze away from my massive erection, glancing at my soaked bandage wrapped around my waist instead. Gentle fingers untied the knot, using the strip of fabric to wash the dried blood away from my bullet wound. I stared at her lowered eyelids as she worked, trying to read her mind. Then, she leaned forward, slowly, and pressed her lips to a spot just above the scab.
Her touch was featherlight, but it felt like a branding iron—excruciating, scarring, burning itself through the deepest layers of me. I would never forget that feeling. Never escape it. It would haunt me for the rest of my life. When the Bratva finally got me back, I prayed that they’d torture me enough to give me even a momentary reprieve from the agony of knowing that this feeling existed, that this woman existed, and I couldn’t have her.
I gritted my teeth and breathed through the pain as Clover’s gaze traveled up to my opposite arm. Delicately, she untied the bloody strip of blue-and-white fabric and winced at the gash underneath. The water cascading over the wound should have hurt like a bitch, but I couldn’t feel a thing other than her lips on my bicep and her name being seared into my heart.
When her fingertips moved up to my jaw, turning my face so that she could lift up onto her toes and check the gash on my head, I was thankful to have an excuse to look away. Because the moment I felt her hands in my hair, the grief became unbearable. Tears burned behind my tightly closed lids as Clover washed the blood out of my hair. My chest throbbed. My throat closed, and when she sank back down onto her flat feet and pressed her tits to my chest and her lips to the side of my neck, I grabbed her biceps and jerked her away with far more force than I’d intended.
Clover’s startled eyes flew to mine as I struggled to control my emotions. I couldn’t speak through the lump in my throat, so I gritted my teeth and shook my head, begging her with my eyes not to push me any further. It was gut-wrenching enough that I had to leave her. I couldn’t fuck her and leave her. I wouldn’t.
Reaching past her, I opened the shower door and waited for her to go. I watched Clo’s eyebrows pull together in confusion as she searched my face for an explanation, but I didn’t have one to give. The truth was too painful. And if I told her, she’d try to make me stay.
Or maybe she wouldn’t.
And maybe that would be worse.
Pushing past her, I stormed out of the shower and into the bedroom, dripping all over the wooden floor as I tore off my soaking wet trousers.
“Damien!”
Tossing them through the open door and into the sink, I dug through the clothes Kate had left out, looking for a pair of boxers.
“Damien, wait!”
The water shut off.
No underwear. Just black trousers and a white shirt.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Just tell me what I did, and I won’t do it again. Please!”
The moment I heard that word, the invisible thread of control I’d been hanging on to snapped like a fucking trip wire.
Clover’s face paled as I stalked toward her and grabbed her jaw, walking her back into the bathroom until her arse hit the sink behind her.
“Don’t ever say that to me again. You have nothin’ to be sorry for, Clo. Nothin’!”
Her eyes instantly widened and filled with tears.
“Fuck!” I shoved away from her and thrust my hands into my hair.
Clo reached for me, but I took another step back.
“Damien, talk to me.” Her voice broke, along with my heart, as I turned and grabbed the shirt off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
I started unbuttoning it.
“You can’t leave.”
My hands were shaking.
“Damien, you’re scaring me. Just tell me what’s happening. Please!”
I had only gotten three buttons unfastened before I threw the shirt back on the bed and turned toward her with a fury she didn’t deserve.
“I’m trying to save your fucking life! Every second that I stay here, that your da’s boat sits in that harbor, is another second closer to them capturing you again! I can’t let that happen, Clo. I can’t—”
Strangled with emotion, I turned away from her and grabbed the shirt off the bed again. I couldn’t look at her. Not that it mattered. I didn’t need to see her face to know how devastated she looked. I didn’t need to hold her to feel the panicked pounding of her heart. Clover had become a part of me, and the act of leaving her behind was about as horrifying and excruciating as severing one of my own limbs.
“You’re leaving me here?”
Fuck. I was wrong. Cutting off an arm would hurt a hell of a lot less than hearing the sadness in Clover’s sweet voice.
“It’s the only way to keep you safe,” I choked out.
“No,” she said, walking toward me. “No, I’m coming with you.”
“Clo!” I huffed, tossing the shirt down and grabbing her by the shoulders. I held her at arm’s length even though it killed me, even though all I wanted to do was pull her close and never let go.
“Don’t you get it?” I said. “They won’t stop until they find me. And if you’re with me when they do”—I closed my eyes and tried to block out the images of what had happened the last time my father sent for me—“they’ll kill you to hurt me.” My voice broke. “That’s what they do. They kill everything I love and make me watch.”
Two small, damp hands clasped the sides of my face, instantly cooling the inferno of rage and grief that had been burning me alive.
“You … love me?” Clover whispered, the hope in her voice extinguishing the flames completely.
I leaned into her touch, but couldn’t bear to open my eyes. “Let me go, Clo,” I whispered back. “Please. Let me save you.”
“You already did.”
Tilting my face down, Clover lifted up onto her toes and pressed her lips to mine. I held my breath, hoping that this time, I could do it. That this time, I could stop the clock forever.
But all too soon, her lips were gone, and the pain flickered back to life—like the strike of a match, ready to ignite my petrol-soaked heart the moment I walked out that door.
“This is different.” I opened my eyes, hoping she would see the gravity of the situation on my face. “This is the Bratva.”
“Every day, it’s something different,” she said, running her thumbs lightly over my scruffy cheeks. “Today, you rescued me from the encampment. Last week, I saved you from drowning and infection and dehydration. Don’t you see, Damien? The only reason either of us is still alive … is because we have each other.”
Hope swelled, filling the cracks of my shattered heart, as I realized that I couldn’t argue with her. And I didn’t want to. I felt like I was back on the ship, watching her run toward the edge of a cliff rather than accept her fate. Her bravery, her refusal to surrender, had inspired me to take the leap as well. I hadn’t known whether or not we’d survive the jump, but I’d been willing to find out if it meant that I could experience two seconds of freedom with her on the way down.
Dropping my forehead to hers, I released her shoulders and slowly slid my hands down the sides of her back. “You jump, I jump?”
Clo nodded, clutching my face tighter as my palms came to rest under the swell of her arse.
“Then, jump.”
Lifting her off the floor, I swallowed Clover’s startled gasp as her thighs clamped around my hips and her arms wrapped around my neck.
“Your wound!” she mumbled against my lips as I carried her across the room, but the moment I pressed her back against the wall, the moment our bodies collided, Clover’s concern dissolved into something carnal and craving.
A moan rumbled in her throat as she clutched my head with both hands and kissed me with a hungry, breathy need, and I realized that I hadn’t just stopped time; I’d fucking reversed it. It felt like we were back in the cave, back before everything had turned to shite. It was just Clo and me and the indescribable relief of knowing that she wanted me too.
But when her hips tilted up and my cock slid along her slick, warm center, the cave disappeared, and I found myself back at the encampment, thrusting between her thighs while a platoon of eager rapists watched with their dicks in their hands.
Was she there, too, reliving that moment? Was she bent over a counter in her mind?
Squeezing my eyes shut, I broke our kiss and pressed my forehead to hers. “Stay with me,” I begged, clutching her tighter. “Please, angel. Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say?” she asked, and the soft amusement in her tone, the way her lips curved as she kissed me, put me at ease.
Slowly, the dimensions of the room returned to normal, the fluorescent lights of the fish market dimmed, and the shouting, grunting crowd of men that I was about to kill faded away until it was only us.
Us and something more. Something fucking indescribable.
“Anything,” I answered, my chest heaving in sync with hers. “Everything.”
“How about … I love you too?”
My eyes flew open and landed on Clo’s sweet, freckled face, her head tilted to one side as a reassuring smile tugged on the corners of her full lips.
Emotion coiled around my throat tighter than her thighs around my hips as she began to move against me, holding my stare with hooded eyes she slid up and down my aching shaft.
“I do. When I was captured, the only thing I could think of that was worth living for … was you. I don’t want to be here without you. I wouldn’t be here without you.”
I dropped my head to her shoulder and clutched her body to mine, overwhelmed by the sincerity I saw in her deep green gaze.
She was so wet, so ready to accept me, all of me—even after seeing the rage I lived with, the murderous tendencies I fought to suppress—but I didn’t know if I was ready to let her.
“They’ll kill you if you stay with me,” I murmured against her throat.
Lifting herself up until she was looking down at me, until her hair fell around me like a blanket and my swollen crown was pressed against her warm, welcoming slit, Clover whispered, “Damien, jump.”
And I did. With a single thrust of my hips, I was falling all over again, plunging headfirst into uncharted waters.
A blinding, all-consuming bliss washed over me as Clover sank the rest of the way down, biting her bottom lip as she adjusted to my size, taking all of me until we were fully joined. And when we were, when I was as deep inside of her as I could get, fucking drowning in the sea of pleasure and emotion I found there, Clover went still, as if she was just as desperate to hold on to that moment as I was.
“Fuck, Clo,” I rasped, dropping my forehead to hers.
“I know.” She sucked in a shaky breath, like the shuddering sobs I’d heard every night since we’d met, and my head snapped up. Giving me an embarrassed smile, Clo wiped her tear-streaked cheek on her shoulder.
“Sorry.” She laughed, and as much as I hated that word on her lips, I loved the way she looked, saying it. She looked the way I felt.
Happy.
“Good tears?” I asked, forcing the words past the lump in my throat.
Clo nodded with another self-conscious laugh, dropping her eyes as a blush so bright I could see it in the dark bloomed across her face.
Releasing her with one hand, I lifted her chin with a gentle knuckle, forcing her to look at me. “No hiding, remember?”
She nodded again, holding my gaze as another tear slid down her smiling face.
“I love you,” I said, feeling as though my heart might explode. It was pounding so hard I could feel it in my jugular, vibrating through in my chest, and throbbing inside my beautiful girl.
My hips pressed against her harder, then withdrew and surged forward again.
“Mmm, God. Damien,” Clo moaned, digging her nails into my shoulder blades as I filled her again. “I … mmm, fuck … I love you too.”
My parted lips pulled into a smirk. I’d never heard her curse before.
“Say that again,” I growled, capturing her earlobe between my teeth.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Clo’s words were a breathy, begging prayer for more that made me absolutely fucking feral. Squeezing her arse with both hands, I claimed her mouth and devoured her whimpering cries as I thrust into her harder, faster. I wanted to give her everything I had—my body, my life, my freedom, my future. It all belonged to her, and it had since the moment I had seen her on that cliff.
And she accepted it, hungrily. There was no more pushing me away. No more fear or mistrust. Clo wanted this just as badly as I did. With every thrust, she took me deeper, and with every withdrawal, she clung on to my cock as if she didn’t want to let me go. I’d never felt anything so powerful. So instantly addictive. I would be a slave to this feeling, to this woman, for the rest of my life.
“Damien,” Clo panted against my lips, breathing in time with the sound of our bodies colliding. “I’m … I’m on birth control—the shot.”
Her voice was a whimper, a desperate, needy plea for something only I could give her. The sound made my cock swell.
“You want my cum, angel?”
She nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she moaned.
Fuck , that sound.
Pulling her away from the wall, I carried her over to the bed, where I sat on the edge and leaned back on my elbows. Somehow, I filled her even deeper that way, and her swollen clit throbbed where it pressed against the base of my cock.
“It’s yours,” I rasped, staring at the sexiest fucking thing I’d ever seen. “No one else’s.”
“Never?” Clover asked, holding my stare as she rocked against me.
I shook my head, transfixed by the look on her face. “Never. Take it, angel. Take what’s yours.”
With hooded eyes and hardened nipples, Clover held my stare as she leaned forward, sliding her hand around the back of my neck and sealing her fat pink lips over mine. Her hair surrounded me like a fortress, blocking everything out, except for the only thing that mattered—her. Us. This.
Shifting my weight to my good arm, I used my right to hold her neck and jaw, squeezing slightly as she sucked my tongue. She kept me deep inside of her as she ground against me, rolling her hips and whispering my name, and as much as I wanted to stay that way forever, I wanted to give her what she wanted more.
Lifting my hips, I let go of her jaw and grabbed her arse, pressing her into me as I fucked her back.
“Oh God. Damien. Mmm. Please.”
It was the please that killed me. Laid me to waste as I sat up, wrapped her soft, warm body in my arms, and let it all go. A flood of indescribable pleasure and a lifetime of pain tore through me, and Clo drank it down hungrily, letting me fill her until she overflowed. Tears ran down her face as she whimpered through her release, but this time, she didn’t try to hide them. This time, she laughed as I dipped my head and caught one on my tongue.
“I love you, angel.”
“I love you more.”
Now, it was my turn to laugh.
Clo sniffled adorably as I ran my hands over her tits and kissed the throbbing pulse point just below her jaw.
“That was …” Another sweet laugh vibrated in her throat beneath my lips. “What was that?”
“Magic,” I hummed against her collarbone as I kissed my way over to her shoulder.
“Magic,” she repeated, and the wonder in her voice had my cock swelling inside of her all over again.
“You okay?” she asked, taking my left hand in both of hers and kissing my nearly healed knuckles. “I hope that didn’t hurt too bad.”
“Grand,” I said, grazing her shoulder with my teeth. And it was true. I’d never felt fucking better.
“Good,” Clo muttered, rubbing the knuckle of my ring finger with her thumb. Then, she licked her thumb and rubbed it harder. “Damien, are these … freckles?”
Lifting my head, I glanced at the three dots slashed across the base of my finger and shrugged.
“Guess so. Why?”
Clo’s face lit up in what had to be the most breathtaking smile I’d ever seen as she slapped her left hand on top of mine. There, on her ring finger, darker than all the other freckles on her hand, were three dots, just like mine.
“I read about this in one of Darby Donovan’s books.” She beamed. “It means we’re soulmates, bonded for eternity.”
She laughed, but I’d heard the sincerity in her voice. Clover believed it, and as I rolled her onto her back and clutched her body to mine and thrust into her again, I wanted to believe it too.
More than anything.
Because with the Bratva coming after us, this lifetime was going to be very, very short.