Chapter 19
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Ready, set.
Damion
Thirty more seconds.
Pain gnaws at my muscles as I keep form, frequency, and repetitions steady.
Thirty more seconds of discipline.
Thirty…more.
Breaths saw through my lungs, and I stutter when a skirt dances past the door to my gym, catching in the corner of my eye.
The machine I’m using automatically registers the fault and releases the weight, making me groan, squeeze my eyes shut, and toss the bar back into place. Stupid smart home gym. Five thousand dollars of robbed consequences. Like, primarily, being crushed to death.
Breathing heavy, I sit up, grab my water bottle and my towel, and head toward the doorway.
The pretty skirt continues dancing down the hall, a duster following the line of my baseboards as it goes.
It has been three quiet days since Halloween when I took advantage of my mask to steal what I had expected to be an underwhelming kiss.
It wasn’t, though.
Heck.
That kiss hasn’t left my head for longer than twenty seconds at a time. That entire evening hasn’t left me alone for three entire days. Mirabelle’s voice replays in my skull, constantly, tormenting, teasing, begging.
Damion, please.
I douse the back of my throat with water, lean against the doorjamb, and watch while I can.
Because ever since my lips met hers through the fabric of my Spider-man mask, Mirabelle has run from me.
I’m not talking cute squeak followed by a panicked little flee, either.
I’m talking…
Mirabelle turns, sees me, and gasps. Red floods her whole face, then she collapses her duster, tucks it to take proper form, and bolts as though she is an olympic medalist.
I blink, and a rush of wind hits me as she sprints past, vanishing up the other end of the hall before I can so much as tilt myself to look at her go.
She has not been cooking here. She has been cooking in her house, bringing the food to my kitchen table, and disappearing before I come out for it.
I’d commend both the skill and dedication she’s committed to avoiding me—if they weren’t ruining my life right now.
Hefting a massive sigh, I pour more water into my mouth then do the only thing a sane man can at a time like this. Short of setting traps, anyway.
Putting my water bottle down, I stretch, then I bolt after the woman I love.
As I begin to close the distance, she throws a look back at me and screams, which I’m sure bodes well for all things, probably.
“Hey,” I say once I’ve caught up to her.
“Leave me alone!”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” I inform her, in case she isn’t aware. “Can we talk about it?”
She reaches the front door, throws it open, and plunges into the November day.
I, naturally, plunge right along after her.
“Why are your legs so long?” she yells, beginning to perish as her stamina runs thin.
I look down at my legs and shrug. “My father is tall.”
Heaving breaths fill her as she begins to slow. Somewhere in the middle of the wide walled-in yard, her energy depletes and she drops forward, hands against her knees.
I come to a stop beside her. “So.”
Struggling, she finds the strength to lift her head and glare at me, until her eyes hit my mouth. Red blisters her cheeks as her lips part to tremble.
Seeing as she’s a touch preoccupied with breathing, I decide I’ll start this intervention. “I’m sorry if I went too far on Halloween.”
Her mouth closes, and her jaw locks, and her eyes pry themselves off my lips to slide across my neck, to my shoulders, down my arms, tracing my tattoos.
I continue, “I lost control of myself and took advantage of a situation I very much orchestrated. It is never my intention to make you feel unsafe around me. Is there any way I can make it up to you?”
Her gaze slashes back up to my eyes, and she swallows as she straightens. Finally having caught her breath, she says, “No,” turns on her heel, and marches back toward the house.
Ignoring the sinking feeling in my chest, I follow her. “There has to be something. Some code we can come up with. Some way you can communicate to me that I need to stop.”
“Sorry. Was get away from me unclear?” She keeps steadily marching.
“You didn’t say that, that night,” I murmur.
Her hands ball into fists at her sides.
“Mirabelle, please.”
She halts.
“Mira—”
“You left me there.”
My brows rise.
Eyes pricking with tears, she turns, and her voice cracks.
“You did what you did, and then you just stomped off. Now you want to talk about it? Now? Days after the fact? Days after the fact, you come up to me and ask about a code for when you need to stop? You already did stop. All on your own.” She wipes her eyes, sniffs.
“I’ve never been kissed, Damion. No one has ever touched me in the ways you have, in the ways you so casually do.
And you do it all like it means nothing.
You abandoned me. I felt used. I feel used.
But I also feel stupid. Because I’ve let you.
I… I don’t know why I let you. I don’t feel unsafe around you.
I know how to make you stop. I know that you would if I told you to.
I want more than physical attraction, but I’ve never been treated the way you treat me before.
I’ve never felt wanted like this. Even though I know it’s cheap, it’s…
” Breath leaves her as she lowers her face.
“It’s addicting. I keep looking at the stupid photo of me pressed to my car, and you look drugged.
You didn’t have a single sip of alcohol that night, but I’ve never seen that kind of intensity or want on a man before.
I can’t help myself. Knowing I caused it is…
It’s more than I can bear.” Her head shakes, restarting, and she lifts her attention to glare again.
“You mess up my brain, and I hate it, so I do not want to be around you anymore. Good day, sir.”
I catch her arm before she can take another step away.
“Let g—”
“Have you read the stupid article that goes with the picture?” I ask.
She swallows.
“You have,” I mutter.
She shrinks. “It said horrible things.”
“I know.” I know. That’s why I didn’t want her anywhere near it.
“Those people think you’re making me dress like this, because you like it.
” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I don’t want to feel like an object anymore.
I don’t care how nice it seems to feel wanted beyond sense.
It’s not nice to be touched and left. And if I’m just a body to you, that’s all this will ever be. ”
I lace our fingers, rein her back to me. “You’re just a body to them, Mirabelle. They don’t have a clue who you are, and they’re making up stories that sell. To me…you’re so much more than their stupidity.”
“You don’t know me, either.”
“I’m getting to. Which is why I’m being so—” I swear, “—careful about how far I let myself go. I want to know you. I want to learn you. But I also…really, really want you. I’m obsessed with the way you dress, the way you carry yourself.
I cussed when I read that idiotic line about my making you be you.
They weren’t even accurate. Because I don’t like it, Mirabelle; I love it.
When I look at you, I am drugged. I left after I did what I did because I was within an inch of ripping the mask off.
I wanted to taste your tongue. I wanted to bite.
” And if I’m being honest… I have to be honest. Blowing out a taut breath, I lift my free hand to her face.
“I still want to. Almost as badly as I want to help you in the kitchen and spend all my free time after you go home looking up the lyrics I remember you singing to learn the songs you like. Almost as badly as I want to tease you until you’re an absolute mess of incoherent whimpers.
Almost as badly as I want to hear every thought in your head play on repeat until I can’t separate your voice from my own… ”
Cautious, Mirabelle says, “I…feel like you said something concerning in there.”
Because, possibly, I did. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?”
Eyes narrowed, she says, “You want to tease me until I’m incoherent.”
I swipe my thumb along the blush on her cheek and murmur, “I want to know exactly how to turn you into a puddle for me. I want to know you so well that I can do it with a gesture, or a look. I want to look in your eyes and read your thoughts. That is how well I want to know you, Mirabelle. And that is perhaps a touch concerning…but I don’t really care. I long to be that close to you.”
Her guarded eyes linger on mine. “So what you’re saying is this isn’t just a physical crush.”
“It isn’t.”
Her attention cuts off me. “That explains why you were so adamant about me being myself.” She stares at our joined hands. “Are you not over me already? It’s been over a week.”
Over a week and over twenty pages of entries. Over a week and thousands of words of enamored awe. Over a week and not a single irritating character trait found.
“I’m not over you. At all. I think I’m falling harder every minute of every day.”
“That’s really inconvenient for me, actually.”
“Why?”
Filling her lungs, she says, “Because. What am I going to do if I start liking you?”
Marry me, maybe? Letting my thoughts wander, I murmur, “I can think of a grand many things.”
Her head shakes, and she tugs on her hand. “Please don’t.”
“How do you picture your relationship with someone?”
“I do not picture any relationship with you.” She begins a futile effort of using her other hand to leverage my fingers off her; somehow I wind up with both her hands stuck in mine.
I proceed, “It’s important for us to learn whether our natural inclinations are compatible.”
“I have no natural inclinations. I am as innocent as a newborn babe.” She leans back, putting all her weight into her freedom efforts.
I let go, watch the terror of falling ripple through her eyes, then catch her by the wrists and string her arms up over her head. Hooking a finger beneath her chin, I murmur. “How does this make you feel?”
Her weight goes from present to full, and I look down to learn that she no longer has functioning knees.
Which checks out with what she’s just said about her innocence.
Newborns also lack functioning knees.
“Pro or con?” I ask.
Her throat bobs. “I cannot walk.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“You think being unable to walk is a good thing?”
“You’re very adamantly dodging an answer.” Bending, I sweep her up into my arms, freeing hers in the process. Rocking her against my chest, I repeat, “Pro or con?”
Her lip trembles. “I…remain unable to walk.”
I smile.
Her fingers latch in my workout shirt as her eyes flick between mine and my mouth. Soft and quiet, she says, “P…pro.”
I kiss her cheek.
Her nails nip me through the fabric of my clothes.
I murmur, “Pro.”
Shaking breath leaves her. “You may actually be unbearable.”
I hum as I start toward the front door. “I think, honestly, I like the soft-core insults. Pro.”
She whimpers.
“Oh, that’s definitely a pro.”
For reasons unknown but not unwelcome, she buries her face against my chest.
Threads of delight course through me. “Come on, precious,” I whisper as I nudge the front door open. “I need information. So I can treat you better. Did you hate everything about Halloween night, or just that I left too soon when you wanted more?”
She flinches.
Maybe something easier. “What about my tattoos?”
“What about them?” she whispers, breath featherlight against my skin.
“Pro…or con?”
“What do you do if I say con?”
“It’d take a while, probably quite a few rounds, but laser removal is a thing.”
Her giant blue eyes hit me as she lifts her head, looks at my fully painted arms, turns her horror-struck gaze back on me.
“I can book an appointment immediately.”
Her head whips side to side, nearly loosening her hair scarf. “N-no. Don’t.”
I arch a brow. “So…you don’t hate them?”
A distressed little sound starts in her chest as she mumbles, “What if you’re all veiny under them?”
I blink. “Well, I try to stay hydrated.” I flex and look at my arm. “But I am pretty sure everyone has veins?”
“A travesty,” she whispers.
“You don’t like veins?”
“Veins are weird.”
I hum and lean back against the door, savoring these moments when I get to cradle her. Her weight is just…perfect. So, so perfect in my arms. “I am sorry. I can’t laser remove my veins.”
The true and thorough sadness in her as her head dips with disappointment makes me laugh.
“Pro,” she murmurs.
“What is, precious?”
Staring, she untangles her fingers from my shirt and smoothes the fabric. “When you laugh.”
A breath catches in my lungs. “You like when I laugh?”
She nods once. “You’re hard to read. When you smile or laugh, I can make a better educated assumption, and when people are happy, they probably don’t hate me.”
Slipping her down to her feet, I trap her in the corner, against the wall. “I don’t think it’s possible for me to hate you.”
Palms pressed to the wainscotting, she says, “It’s only been a week and a half.”
“A beautiful week and a half.”
“I have hit you. A lot.”
I lean closer. “Pro.” Breath escapes me. “Anything that results in you touching me of your own free will is a pro.”
At her side, her hand closes, then opens, then lifts.
Landing soft against my shirt first, her fingers tickle against my chest with the promise of more, and my back curves as I hunch closer. When the full force of her touch flattens against me, I can no longer keep my eyes open. She runs her palm over my body, and I hiss a curse, dropping my forehead.
“Damion,” she says.
I swear again, force my eyes to open, to look at her. Perfectly pink and wonderstruck, she watches me. Like I’m something she wants to figure out. Like I’m someone she’s seeing in a completely new light.
My mouth goes dry. I swear again. Breathing hard, I whisper a coarse, “Yes, precious?”
She stares at me. The moments last ages and seconds. An eternity passes between us within the span of a single breath. Then her fingers pull away, and she ducks under my arm. Pace swift but not bolting, she says, “Good day,” and abandons me there, crumbling, against the wall.