Chapter 2
Chapter Two
DAMIAN
The apartment smells like her. Sugar and vanilla, a trace of strawberries from her shampoo, and something soft and sweet that clings to every wall, every breath, every inch of me.
I hear the water running in the bathroom, the slosh of her shifting in the tub, and the low, steady voice of a narrator drifting through the cracked door.
She’s listening to one of those audiobooks again. The dirty kind. The narrator’s voice is deep, velvety, each word soaked in heat. It rolls through the apartment like smoke. "I want you to wrap your lips around it, sweetheart. Look up at me while you do. Show me how much you want it."
My jaw tenses. I grit my teeth, digging my fingers into the armrest of the couch to stop myself from bursting through the bathroom door and acting out the rest of the scene with her.
Instead, I shift in my seat, painfully aware of the hard throb behind my zipper.
She has no idea what she does to me. Or, hell, maybe she does.
Maybe she likes torturing me with the things in those books and her wet, naked body just a few feet away.
There’s no time to jump in that tub with her.
I glance at the front door. Bridger’s boots hit the stairs outside, each step louder than the last, a countdown ticking in my chest. He texted ten minutes ago and said he needed to talk.
Said it was serious shit. The kind of conversation that never ends well.
The kind Marlowe doesn’t need to hear. Not right now.
She’s barely holding it together as it is.
She’s working her perfect little ass off in that bakery, but she’s still hurting from what Vick and Taylor put her through.
I’ve seen the way she jumps at sudden sounds, how her breathing hitches when she thinks I’m not looking.
Her panic doesn’t come in a flash. It creeps in—slow, cold, and invisible—until it grips her by the throat.
I’m not scared of much, but that, that scares the hell out of me.
So no, I haven’t told her a damn thing. Not yet.
Not until I know what we’re dealing with.
She’s just stopped having nightmares about her father and Joel.
She smiles in the mornings now, humming while she bakes, slipping into my lap like this peace we built might actually last. I’m not taking that from her.
I want her happy. Carefree. Thinking about cake flavors and which shade of pink frosting makes her customers smile the most. Not shadows. Not blood.
A knock hits the door. Three short raps.
I cross the room in three strides, yanking it open before Bridger can knock again.
His face is tight, his jaw working like he’s already pissed at me.
“Clay made contact with one of Joel’s guys.
They met in the clubhouse this morning. Money changed hands.
This doesn’t sound good. Did you tell her yet? ” he mutters, stepping inside.
I shut the door behind him. “No.”
Bridger exhales, low and rough. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“She’s going to find out, D.”
I cross the room, tension building in my shoulders. “Not if I handle it first.”
Bridger doesn’t flinch. “You don’t even know what ‘it’ is yet.”
“Exactly,” I snap. “So why scare the hell out of her before we do?”
He exhales, drags a hand through his hair, and leans against the wall. His jaw flexes like he’s biting down on everything he wants to say. “You really think keeping her in the dark is better?”
“No,” I admit. “But watching her unravel sure as hell isn’t.
” She’s been on edge more and more lately, lost in her head.
Like her mind’s stuck in a conversation she isn’t ready to have out loud.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Vick or Taylor may have tried to contact her, but she hasn’t said anything to me about it yet.
I know something’s off. I can see it in the way she moves, the way she looks at me lately like she wants to say something but swallows it down instead.
I shift my weight, my hands curling into fists.
And now our father is back, fresh out of prison after all these years, looking for us, for what we took from him.
That’s going to light a fuse under her already-fraying nerves.
I can’t let that happen. But I do need to keep her safe, just in case he finds us.
“I want someone on her,” I say, my voice hard.
“Full-time. Not obvious. Just someone close. If he finds us, I need her protected. No matter what.”
Bridger nods without pause. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.”
I hesitate. “I was thinking about something else too,” I say, clearing my throat. “About asking Neve to come stay for a while.”
He looks up, slower this time. “Neve?”
“They’re close. After everything with Joel, they’ve been talking. I don’t know what they talk about, but it helps Lo. She laughs when Neve texts. I like hearing it.”
“Trauma bonding,” he mutters, almost absently.
I watch him too closely after that. He looks unaffected. Calm. Shrugs like it doesn’t matter. But Neve’s name always lands strange between us. Not loud. Not sharp. Just present. Like a question neither of us wants to ask.
“She’d be another pair of eyes,” I add.
“Sounds good to me,” he says, tone even.
In the background, the audiobook narrator’s voice dips low and urgent. “Bend over for me, just like that. Spread your ass cheeks so I can see you.”
Bridger glances toward the bathroom door, then at me, eyebrows raised.
“Ignore it,” I say.
Bridger drops onto the couch with a groan, his hands dragging down his face. “I’m not ignoring that, but we’ll circle back to it in a minute. You think Mom’s safe in Serenity Springs?” he asks, voice low.
“We did everything right,” I say, leaning against the windowsill. "The paperwork’s airtight. Only the four of us can visit. Nobody else.” It took us a few weeks to find a decent memory care facility in our budget, but we did, and Mom seems comfortable—happy even.
“Still,” Bridger mutters. “Maybe we should've used a different name. If Clay finds her…”
“He’s not going to find her, but we’ll get someone to watch the place too.” I glance toward the bathroom. The narrator’s voice dips even lower, and suddenly he’s growling out some filthy command: "Shut your mouth and make me come like a good little whore."
“Yes, yes, give me that cock,” a female narrator pants.
Bridger jerks upright, blinking. “Circling back now. What the fuck is that?”
I smirk despite myself. “One of Marlowe’s audiobooks.”
Bridger leans to the side, trying to hear better. The narrator’s now groaning and muttering something about tongues and tightness and how wet she is. “Jesus Christ,” Bridger says. “Is she in there watching porn?”
“No, it’s a book,” I say, grabbing my bottle of water from the coffee table.
“What the fuck kind of book is that? If I knew books were like that, I’d read a fuck of a lot more.”
The bathroom door creaks open and we both turn. Marlowe walks out, wrapped in nothing but a towel, water dripping from the ends of her hair and trailing down her long legs like a goddamn centerfold. She catches Bridger staring and arches a brow.
“What book is that?” he asks, nodding toward her phone. “Sounds like porn.”
Marlowe smiles slow, wicked. “It’s not porn, it’s cliterature.”
Bridger chokes, standing abruptly. “I think I need to leave before I try and fuck your girlfriend.”
I growl, stepping forward.
He raises his hands in mock surrender. “Chill, man. I said try. She’d probably kill me first.”
“Probably?” Marlowe says, walking past him. “Definitely.”
She disappears down the hall and comes back a moment later, tossing a paperback into Bridger’s chest. “Read this,” she says. “But don’t get my pages sticky.”
Bridger catches the book, stares at the cover, then back at us. “This place is unholy.” He heads for the door, muttering as he grabs the handle. “I’ll wait for you downstairs so we can finish this conversation.” He steps out and pulls the door closed behind him.
Marlowe turns to me, towel shifting dangerously low. “You’re leaving?” she asks, stepping closer, voice husky. “What kind of conversation can’t happen up here?”
I move before she can say another word.
My fingers hook into the edge of the towel, and I yank it loose in one smooth motion. It falls to the floor with a whisper, pooling at her feet like a surrender.
Her gasp stutters in the air between us, but I don’t give her time to protest. My hands find her waist. Her skin is still warm, soft, slick from steam.
I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in, letting the weight of what’s coming disappear under the need rising fast in my blood.
She smells like heat. Like comfort and sin.
And all I want is to lose myself in her until the rest of the world burns out around us.
“I’ve been thinking about you in that tub listening to that book,” I murmur against her throat, my voice rough, strained.
Her body arches toward mine, her fingers grabbing at my shirt. I can feel her pulse under my lips, wild and frantic.
“Damian…” she breathes.
I slide one hand down, over the curve of her ass, and lift her with ease. She wraps her legs around my waist, her bare chest brushing mine through the thin fabric of my shirt. “My cock has been hard since chapter three.”
The audiobook is still playing on her phone, the narrator’s voice low and filthy, describing something about a hallway, a man’s hands pinning the woman to the wall, telling her to shut up and take it.
I don’t even hear the words—just the tone.
It’s all heat and pressure, and it only feeds the tension roaring through me.
Bridger is going to have to wait. I can’t think straight when I need her like this.
She silences it as I carry her down the hallway and set her down on the edge of the bed, pushing her back gently with a hand on her chest.