8. Cara
— ? —
Cara
Three days.
That’s how long Damien has been avoiding me.
Oh, he’s polite about it. Professional. He still answers when I call. Still shows up for our strategy sessions. Still helps me sort through documents and plan our next move.
But he doesn’t look at me the way he did that night in the truck. Doesn’t let his hand linger when we reach for the same file. Doesn’t make excuses to stand too close.
He’s keeping his distance.
And it’s driving me insane.
“You’re avoiding me,” I say on day three.
We’re in his office. It’s late - the crew went home hours ago.
The only light comes from the desk lamp, casting warm shadows across the piles of evidence we’ve accumulated.
The whiteboard is covered in our timeline.
The corkboard is pinned with photos and documents and scraps of paper covered in my handwriting.
This room has become my second home. And the man in it has become…
I don’t know what he’s become. That’s the problem.
Damien doesn’t look up from the file in his hands. “I’m not avoiding you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Cara-”
“You’ve barely looked at me in three days.” I push back from the desk. Stand. “You leave the room when I walk in. You sit as far away as possible when we’re working together. You practically run in the opposite direction whenever we’re alone-”
“I’m trying to do the right thing.” He finally looks at me, and there’s something tortured in his expression. “You asked me to wait. To give you space to figure out what you want. That’s what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t ask you to pretend I don’t exist.”
“I’m not pretending-”
“You are.” I move around the desk. Toward him. “You’re so busy being noble that you’ve completely shut me out.”
“Because looking at you is torture.” The words burst out of him, raw and ragged. “Because every time I’m in the same room with you, I want to touch you. And you asked me not to. So I’m keeping my distance because that’s the only way I can-”
“Damien.”
He stops. Breathes.
“I didn’t ask you to stop wanting me.” My voice is quieter now. “I asked you to wait until I figured things out.”
“And have you? Figured things out?”
I think about it. Really think.
Three days of silence. Three days of missing his presence, his warmth, the way he looks at me like I’m something precious. Three days of realizing that the distance hurts worse than the uncertainty.
“Yes.”
He goes very still. “Yes?”
“I want this.” I close the remaining space between us. “I want you. I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”
“Cara, you’re still married. You’re going through a divorce. If this is just-”
“It’s not.” I cup his face in my hands. Feel the stubble rough against my palms. “This isn’t rebound. This isn’t revenge. This is me, choosing you, because you’re the first person in years who’s made me feel like I’m worth something.”
“You were always worth something. He just made you forget.”
“Then remind me.”
Something breaks in his expression. The careful control he’s been maintaining for days - weeks - shatters.
His hands come up to grip my waist. He pulls me closer, and I can feel the tension in his body - coiled, desperate, barely restrained.
“Are you sure?” His voice is rough. “Because once I start, I don’t think I can stop.”
“I’m sure.”
“Cara-”
“Damien.” I rise on my toes, bringing my mouth inches from his. “Stop talking yourself out of this. Stop being noble. Just kiss me.”
He kisses me.
And oh God.
This is nothing like the almost-kiss in the truck.
That was careful. This is the dam breaking.
His mouth moves against mine like he’s been starving for it, one hand fisting in my hair, the other dragging me off the chair and into him until there’s no space left between us.
Papers scatter off the desk and neither of us cares.
I get my hands under his shirt and feel him go rigid, every muscle in his stomach pulling tight under my palms. He breaks the kiss long enough to yank the shirt over his head, and then his mouth is back on mine, and his hands are at the buttons of my blouse, working them open one by one even though I can feel how badly he wants to just tear it.
“Tell me to stop,” he says against my throat. “If you want me to stop, tell me now, because in about thirty seconds I’m not going to be able to.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Cara-”
“I mean it.” I grab his belt, pull him flush against me so he can feel exactly what he’s doing to me, so I can feel exactly what I’m doing to him. He’s already hard, straining against the denim, and the sound he makes when I press my hips into his is almost pained. “Don’t you dare stop.”
He lifts me onto the edge of the desk. My blouse falls open and his eyes drop, and he just - stops. Looks at me like I’m something he’s not sure he’s allowed to have.
“Damien.”
“Give me a second.” His voice is wrecked.
He drags his knuckles down between my breasts, slow, like he’s confirming I’m real.
“I’ve thought about this so many times. Pictured it.
Got it wrong every time, because I didn’t let myself imagine you’d look like this.
” His eyes come back up to mine. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? You walked into that parking garage and burned his whole world down and all I could think was that I’d never seen anyone braver.
Or more gorgeous. And I hated myself for thinking it. ”
“Damien-”
“I’m not done.” He pushes the blouse off my shoulders, drops it.
Reaches behind me and unhooks my bra, slides the straps down my arms, and just looks.
“There you are. Christ. Look at you.” His thumb brushes over one nipple and I shiver.
“You’re perfect. I want you to hear me say it because I think he made you forget. ”
My throat goes tight. “Stop talking and-”
“Make you forget you ever doubted it.” He bends his head. “Gladly.”
His mouth closes over my breast, tongue circling the nipple before he draws it between his lips and sucks, slow and deliberate, one big hand kneading the other, thumb rolling the peak until heat pulls low and tight in my belly.
He takes his time. Switches sides. Murmurs against my skin between kisses - so soft, so pretty, look how you arch for me - and I’m already squirming on the edge of the desk, fingers buried in his hair, hips searching for friction that isn’t there.
“More,” I manage.
He huffs a laugh against my sternum. “Greedy.”
“You have no idea.”
“I’m starting to get one.” He kisses lower.
The valley between my ribs. The flat of my stomach.
He pushes my skirt up to my waist and his hands skim up the insides of my thighs, unhurried, maddeningly slow, spreading me open for him an inch at a time.
By the time his fingers reach the soaked fabric of my underwear I’m shaking.
He presses the heel of his hand against me through the cotton and I gasp, hips jerking off the desk.
“Already?” His thumb circles, light, barely-there. “You’re soaked, Cara. Soaked through. That all for me?”
“Yes-”
“Say it again.”
“For you. God. All for you.”
His eyes go dark. “Good girl.” He hooks his fingers in my underwear and drags it down my legs, slow, dropping it somewhere on the office floor.
Then he’s kneeling between my thighs, pulling me to the very edge of the desk, and he just looks at me there, open and bare and wanting, for one unbearable second.
“You have no idea,” he says, low, “how long I’ve wanted my mouth here.”
His mouth closes over me and I cry out, too loud in the empty warehouse.
He doesn’t rush. He licks through me, slow and broad, savoring it, like he has all night and intends to use it.
Then he narrows to my clit and works it with the flat of his tongue while two fingers push inside me, curling, finding the spot that makes my whole body lock.
I’m gripping the edge of the desk so hard my knuckles ache. My thighs tremble around his head.
“Damien-I’m going to-”
He pulls back.
I could sob. “Why did you-”
“Not yet.” He kisses the inside of my thigh, his fingers still moving in me but slow now, lazy, keeping me suspended right at the edge without letting me tip.
“I’ve waited weeks for this. You think I’m going to let it be over in two minutes?
No.” He drags his tongue up my thigh. “I’m going to take my time.
I’m going to learn exactly what makes you fall apart, and then I’m going to do it again. And again.”
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t.” He lowers his head and sucks my clit back into his mouth and I lose the thread of every coherent thought I’ve ever had.
He brings me up again, slower this time, deliberate, two fingers working that spot, his free hand splayed flat across my lower belly to hold me down when I try to grind against his face.
He gets me to the brink - my whole body bowing, a high desperate sound climbing out of me-
And stops again.
“Damien-please-”
“There it is.” His voice is rough with satisfaction.
He presses an open-mouthed kiss just above where I’m aching for him.
“That’s the sound. You begging. I’m going to think about that sound every night for the rest of my life.
” His fingers start to move again, slow, building.
“Once more. Then I’ll let you. I promise. You’ve been so good, so patient-”
“I have not been patient-”
“You have. You’re being perfect.” He works me up a third time, and now there’s no teasing in it, just steady relentless pressure, his tongue and his fingers and the filthy gorgeous things he’s murmuring into me, and when he finally - finally - lets me go over, it tears through me so hard I see white.
I come apart against his mouth with his name breaking in half on my lips, and he stays with me through every wave, gentling only when I push at his shoulders because it’s too much.
He stands, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and the look on his face is pure male satisfaction.
“That’s one,” he says.
I’m still gasping. “One?”