Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Robyn
“ Y ou’re looking very murderous right now, Mrs. Remington.” Steel eyes sparkled at me.
We were barely out of Belmont’s sight before Damon swept me tight to the source of his heat and buried us in the cornucopia of dancing couples in the middle of the room.
“I’m feeling very murderous right now, Mr. Remington,” I said back, landing my heel purposely on his foot, enjoying not only his wince but the notion that I’d irreparably scratched his expensive Italian leather.
“Why? We’ve accomplished exactly what we came here to do,” he said with a cheeky smile and spun me.
The Christmas lights became a kaleidoscope as the room whirled around me, and when it stopped, we were even deeper in the mass of moving bodies, and Damon held me even closer. Then, it was only my insides that continued to twist.
Our formal wear was intended to be a deft disguise, blending us into the elegance of enemy territory. But when it came to the war waged between myself and my husband, the silk of my dress, the fine weave of his shirt, and even the added layer of his jacket were as protective as a layer of tissue paper positioned to stop a torpedo.
It might as well have been nothing separating us, and I was sure that was why he’d maneuvered us onto the dance floor.
Every sweep of his legs tangled with mine. The splay of his hand bracketed my bare lower back. With every turn, every step, my front pressed to his. My breasts to his chest. My waist to his. He felt the peak of my nipples as surely as I felt the thickness of his length.
How many times did I think I could walk through his fire and not come away burned?
I lifted my chin above the flames. “So, did you come here to strike a deal with Belmont or just to introduce me to the world as your wife?”
His hold on me cinched tighter, his stare pinning mine.
“To make a deal, of course,” he said, his lie spilling from the easy tip of his smile.
We turned again, the sudden spin stealing my breath but not all of the bite from my words.
“I didn’t realize you needed a wife to do that.”
The hand framing me to him slid to my upper back, practically lifting me from the floor as we made another whirl that positioned us in the center of the room.
And then with the same violent abruptness, Damon stopped and dropped his head close to mine until all I could see was him. All I could feel was him.
“I didn’t need a wife to do that, Robber, because I already have one.”
His beautiful mouth twisted into something both sensual and cruel, the way it provoked memories of what it could do and the way it could undo me. I closed my eyes but failed to suppress the shiver that roamed like a wild beast over my skin, desire desecrating all of my senses.
The music…the people…they wove into a fabric that suspended us in the moment. My heart toppled against the front of my chest, frantic, wanton beats flooding my veins unchecked. Somewhere in the midst of it all, he’d released my hand because his fingers skated along my cheek, spreading want wherever they went.
But this was his trick.
Everything Damon offered was always too good to be true. Too good to not have an ulterior motive. And it was the trap he laid, the one he knew my body’s weakness for him would lead me straight to. Right where I’d never be able to be free of him.
“I’m not your wife,” I said as his fingers traveled to my chin and then to the column of my throat.
There, they closed, but it was his steel-tipped eyes, sharpened like blades, that cut my breaths short.
“Yes, you fucking are,” he growled, the first needles of emotion piercing his tone. “My wife, Robber. Mine.”
My lashes fluttered. I had the unsettling suspicion that he was more in tune to the responses of my body than I was. More aware of the change in my pulse and the heat of my skin, everything down to the twitch of my muscles that wanted to be closer to him and the oxygenation of my blood that eagerly decreased every moment I breathed him in.
“I’m not yours anymore, Damon.”
Even as I said it, I imagined those perfectly curved lips coming for mine. I imagined the way he’d swirl me across the floor and find a dark alcove where his hands and mouth could fully stake his claim.
His hand slid down my throat, surprising me as he spread his palm and flattened it just at the base of my neck.
“You’re not?” he murmured, gently tracing his finger on the side of my neck.
No, not tracing ? —
“No!” I gasped, but I wasn’t fast enough to stop him from pulling my necklace forward with a flick of his wrist, freeing the heavy weight of the metal ring out from beneath the depths of my neckline.
“Not my wife?” he drawled, his eyes glittering with victory as he held the band between us. “And yet you still wear my ring.”
Rage popped and crackled right alongside the ache in my blood.
“Yes, I still wear it,” I spat with a low voice, reaching up and locking my hand over his. “Like an albatross around my neck.”
A ring of guilt and shame suspended like a noose, forever reminding me of the fool I’d been for letting him get too close.
He blinked, his lashes dipping to his cheeks, unshaken by my words. “You know the albatross is also an omen of good luck.”
“Not for me,” I seethed.
“Stop fighting this, Robber, because I will fight to the death to have you again.” He released my necklace, the ring landing like a wrecking ball straight to my hollow chest. “I will fight to fix this. To heal this. To be with you.” He cupped my cheek, preventing me from turning away as he drew me closer.
No. I had to get away from him. I had to stop this before he went too far. Before I couldn’t hide how a heart so broken still craved the man who’d obliterated it.
“You can’t,” I warned, feeling his breath on my lips.
“I will break every rule to touch you again.” Expert fingers drew along the seam of my mouth, parting my lips as they went. “To kiss you again.”
“You can’t, Damon. ”
I felt the rumble of his chest. “I have to.”
Had to?
His fingers pinched my chin, and I stiffened, thinking he was going to force my mouth to his. Instead, he tipped my head back too far for that, and his face moved next to my ear.
Air plummeted into my chest as his tongue dragged over my stampeding pulse. Damn him. I struggled to breathe steadily as desire scorched my skin. He’d never win me back by bombastic assault, but by these treacherous shows of tenderness…and he knew it.
“Smile, Robber, we’re on the mistletoe cam.” The rumble of his voice filtered through the fog.
What…
I blinked, hearing the whirring above me as the drone came into focus, its camera aimed at us. And then I saw it. The piece of holly suspended from its body that was meant to be a moving mistletoe. The drone, a kiss camera.
Damon’s hold evaporated, and like there was an anchor attached to my chin, my face dropped squarely in front of his and into the target of his lips.
I stared at him, once again seeing the trick too late.
Damon said he would fight to have me again, and what did I expect from a world-class criminal? That he would fight fair?
The dance. The way he moved us through the crowd. It wasn’t to hold me. Or to pull me closer. Or even to talk to me. It was for this. To bring us into the path of the mistletoe that might as well have been a machine gun for all the damage it was about to do.
And what alternative did I have? Storm off the floor? Give the camera and Belmont something to use against Damon? Against me? Jeopardize everything I’d worked for?
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t risk it. And goddamn me, I didn’t want to .
“Fuck you, Remington,” I murmured as his mouth descended, and I braced myself.
I felt the stillness in the air, the tension in my body, and the complete surety of my destruction as though his lips were a bomb about to land.
“I wish you would, Robber. God, how I wish you would.”
It was too late to wish I’d never met Damon Remington.
Too late to wish I’d never wanted him. Never believed him. Never married him. And never loved him.
And as I stood in the middle of my enemy’s home, in the arms of my hated husband, it was too late to do anything to stop his mouth from taking mine.
I swore I heard my name slip from his tongue a second before his chiseled lips pressed to mine like a knife to the softest parts of me. Yet, I felt no pain, only pleasure. A sweet slide into every ache and want and warmth that had disappeared with him.
With a groan, he angled his head, his hand cupping the back of mine and imprisoning me to the slide of his tongue. The warm velvet tip traced the closed seam of my lips, teasing but not trespassing through their barrier.
Desire ignited my skin. The heat of him scorched my sensitive nipples through our clothes, and tiny spasms rippled from my core. It was an onslaught—the irony of a simple kiss being the straw that broke my stoic defenses. But I wasn’t prepared. Fifteen years of hurt and hating him made me wholly unprepared for just how much I would want to feel his embrace once more .
And so, my lips parted on a quickened sigh, an opening of the gate to let his Trojan tongue inside.
Deep and possessive, his tongue hunted mine and plundered every inch of my mouth. Slow, assertive strokes dug the burning madness deeper under my skin. For so long, I’d been alone. Even with my family and my friends and my purpose, I’d still felt alone. And it was the bitterest pain to live with the knowledge that the only time I hadn’t felt that loneliness was the months I’d been in love with the man who’d broken my heart. A man I still ached for without any rational qualm. A man I now clutched to me like my only source of oxygen.
His arm snaked around my back, stoking the fever spreading through my blood, coiling the desire harder between my thighs. Damon’s kiss was human quicksand. A rip current of desire. There was no fighting it. Fighting it would only make it worse. Fighting it would only kill me. No, the only way to escape was to succumb. To not struggle. To let it carry me into its powerful depths until it was safe enough to float free.
Yes, I still ached for the memory of him. Undeniably. Unequivocally. Memory was a powerful thing, the way it was tied to things like the whiskey scent of him and the champagne taste of his tongue. But it was more than memory. With Damon, it wasn’t the scent of him I remembered, but the ability to fully breathe. It wasn’t the taste of him I recalled, but the sensation of not starving. And his touch…the way it quickened my heart and warmed my skin, for this moment, I knew again what it was like to be completely alive.
And for a few moments, I wanted to live in his embrace again.
My arms found their way around his neck, coiling into the soft shadow of his hair. Flushing myself to his front, I savored every hard dip and swell of his body, especially the heavy part of him swollen into the soft of my stomach .
My core tightened, and I distantly registered the slickness coating my thighs. God, how I wanted him. How foolishly and desperately I wanted him.
“God, how I’ve missed you, Robber.” This time, I let the textured words soak in—let them steep into the desiccated corners of my heart.
He kissed me like a suit-clad conqueror, branding and bruising my mouth as though it would stop me from swearing later that I didn’t want him. But I would swear it; I had to to survive.
His hips jerked against me, and the feral grind drew a moan from my throat. Desire laid waste to me as he devoured my mouth like a man who’d been starved, too. And I could almost believe what he’d said. Almost believed what I’d heard about him had been nothing but politically crafted rumors.
Almost.
“Mr. Remington.” A gravelly voice interrupted us, and Damon broke the kiss.
I should move away, but for reasons I didn’t want to acknowledge, I didn’t.
My eyes first found the shards of his, sharpened with so much rage at the interruption, I swore he was about to turn and kill the messenger. Literally.
“Yes,” he clipped low, still holding me to him as we both looked at the man, the rest of our surroundings quickly invading the bubble we’d been absorbed in.
In the distance, I caught the drone at the opposite end of the room. I wondered when it had moved away…and how long we’d remained locked in that kiss like a ship sinking into dark, treacherous waters.
“Mr. Belmont would like to invite you to speak with him at his offices on Monday.” I recognized the man who spoke as one of the security guards who’d jumped at the first sign that Damon might be a threat.
“I knew he’d see the benefit,” Damon replied, his voice suddenly as smooth as a river winding through a canyon. No trace left in it of the destruction it wrought on me…or any effect that lingered in him. Well, except for one. There was no disguising the thick ridge pressed to my stomach. “Now, if you don’t mind, my wife and I have some things we need to finish.”
The guard’s block-like features shifted to me for a second before grunting and walking away.
“Let me go,” I hissed as soon as he was out of earshot. I wasn’t just talking about physically. I wanted him to let all of me go—the desire for my body, the claim to my name, and his quest for my heart.
“Careful, Robber,” he murmured, hauling me to him once more, his face notched at the crook of my neck. “They’re watching.”
My lashes dipped to my cheeks, the press of his face forcing my head to tip back, and that was when I saw it. Mired amid the crystals on the chandelier was a small blinking red light. The mistletoe drone wasn’t the only camera in the room.
“Let me get our coats.”
I nodded, mutely following him to the exit.
Looking over my shoulder, I caught one last glimpse of Belmont enjoying the attention of his guests. I’d never been closer to bringing him down than I was in this moment.
But when I turned back to Damon, I could only wonder not how much it had cost me, but how much more my heart would still have to pay…