Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
Lucy
The elevator doors slide open to reveal Damon's penthouse, and my breath catches. It's not just a home—it's a statement, a kingdom high above the city where normal rules don't apply. My single suitcase suddenly feels pathetic in my grip, a reminder of how quickly my life has changed since meeting him. Six weeks of intense pursuit, of Damon Blackwell refusing to take no for an answer, and now here I am, standing on the threshold of his world.
"Welcome home, Lucy." His voice slides across my skin like expensive silk. He takes my suitcase from my nerveless fingers, placing it aside as though my past life weighs nothing at all.
I step into a space of soaring ceilings and walls of glass. The city sprawls beneath us, a glittering carpet of lights that makes me dizzy with the height. Everything is sleek lines and tasteful minimalism—grays, blacks, and the occasional splash of deep blue that reminds me of the ocean at midnight.
"This is...excessive," I manage, my voice small in the vastness.
Damon's mouth quirks, not quite a smile but an acknowledgment. "I don't do things halfway." His hand settles at the small of my back, guiding me further in. "Neither business nor pleasure."
The heat of his palm burns through my thin blouse. I'd dressed carefully this morning—before the movers came, before the papers were signed releasing me from my housing contract. I wonder if someone else has already rented my tiny apartment. The thought creates a spike of panic that I swallow down.
"I can have a decorator come if you want to change anything." Damon watches me with those penetrating gray eyes that seem to catalog every reaction. "Make it feel more like yours."
I almost laugh. Nothing about this austere magnificence could ever feel like it belongs to a twenty-two-year-old grad student who, until three weeks ago, was surviving on ramen and hope.
"It's beautiful," I say instead, because it is—beautiful in the way dangerous things often are.
He guides me through the space. A kitchen with countertops that gleam like wet stone and appliances that look like they've never been touched. A living area with furniture too pristine to seem comfortable. A home office with a desk that faces the city, positioned like a throne.
"And this," he says, stopping before a set of double doors, "is our bedroom."
Our bedroom. The words send a shiver through me that's equal parts anticipation and fear. He opens the doors to reveal a space dominated by an enormous bed draped in charcoal gray linens that look softer than anything I've ever slept on.
"I had your clothes unpacked earlier," Damon says, nodding toward an open door that reveals a walk-in closet larger than my entire former apartment. "Though I've taken the liberty of adding a few things I thought you might need."
I walk toward the closet, drawn by curiosity. Inside, my meager wardrobe occupies maybe a tenth of the space, my well-worn jeans and cotton shirts looking like poor relations next to rows of dresses, blouses, and pants that still bear tags from designers whose names I recognize from magazines.
"You didn't have to—" I begin.
"I wanted to." He cuts me off with gentle finality. "What's mine is yours now, Lucy. Including my resources."
When I turn to face him, he's closer than I expected, his tall frame blocking the doorway. The air between us thickens, charged with the inevitability of what comes next.
"Are you nervous?" he asks, his voice dropping to that register that makes my stomach tighten.
"Yes," I admit, because lying to Damon seems pointless. He reads me too easily, sees too much.
His hand rises to cup my cheek, thumb brushing across my lower lip in a gesture that's both tender and possessive. "Don't be. I take care of what's mine."
The words should offend me. I've spent my life fighting to stand on my own, to need no one. But they melt something inside me instead, some hard kernel of resistance I've been clutching.
"I'm not yours," I whisper, a final, feeble protest.
His smile is slow and certain. "You will be."
When he kisses me, it's different from the measured, careful kisses we've shared before. This kiss claims, consumes. His hands frame my face, holding me still for the onslaught of sensation. I'm dizzy with it, my fingers clutching at the fine fabric of his shirt to steady myself.
He walks me backward until my legs hit the edge of the bed, and then we're falling together onto that cloud of expensive bedding. His weight presses me down, solid and real in a way that grounds me when everything else feels like a dream.
"Tell me to stop," he murmurs against my throat, "and I will."
But the words won't come. I don't want him to stop. I want this—want him—with an intensity that frightens me. My hands find the buttons of his shirt, fumbling in my eagerness.
He catches my wrists, pins them gently above my head. "Let me," he says, and it's both command and request.
I nod, surrendering to his lead.
His movements are deliberate as he undresses me, piece by piece, his eyes darkening with each new expanse of skin revealed. I fight the urge to cover myself, to hide from that consuming gaze.
"Beautiful," he breathes, running a reverent hand from my collarbone to my hip. "More perfect than I imagined."
My skin burns under his touch, goosebumps rising in its wake. "You imagined this? Us?"
"From the moment I saw you holding that serving tray." His smile has a sharpness that makes me shiver. "I knew then I would have you."
He stands to remove his own clothes, and I watch, mesmerized by the revelation of him. His body is all lean muscle and purpose, marked here and there with scars that speak of a history I know nothing about. Power contained in human form.
When he returns to me, skin against skin, I gasp at the shock of it. Nothing has prepared me for this—not romance novels, not late-night talks with girlfriends, not the clinical descriptions in health class.
"Lucy," he says my name like it's something precious. "I need to know. Have you done this before?"
The heat of embarrassment floods my face. At twenty-two, the answer should be obvious, and yet?—
"No," I whisper. "Never."
Something flashes in his eyes—surprise, then satisfaction so intense it's almost frightening.
"Look at me," he demands, and when I do, he continues, "I'm going to be your first. Your only. Do you understand what that means?"
I shake my head, not in denial but in overwhelm.
"It means," he says, tracing the curve of my breast with deliberate fingers, "that no one else will ever know how you sound when you come apart. How you taste." His head dips, mouth replacing fingers, drawing a moan from me that I don't recognize as my own voice. "It means you're mine in a way no one else will ever touch."
He takes his time with me, drawing reactions from my body I never knew were possible. Each touch builds on the last, constructing a tower of sensation that threatens to topple me. When his fingers slide between my legs, finding me wet and ready, the sound he makes is almost pained.
"So responsive," he murmurs. "So perfect for me."
The first intrusion of his finger is strange, uncomfortable but not painful. He watches my face, gauging each reaction, adding a second finger when my body relaxes around the first. I'm panting now, chasing a feeling I can name but have never experienced with anyone but myself.
"That's it," he encourages. "Let go for me."
When it happens, it's like nothing I've felt before—a wave that crashes through me, leaving me trembling and crying out his name. Before I can recover, he's positioning himself between my thighs, the blunt pressure of him seeking entrance.
"This will hurt," he warns, voice strained with the effort of control. "But only for a moment."
I nod, beyond words now, wanting only to feel him, to know this connection that's been building since the moment we met.
He pushes forward, and there's a sharp pain that makes me gasp, my nails digging into his shoulders. He stills immediately, muscles trembling with the effort.
"Breathe," he instructs, pressing kisses to my face, my neck, my shoulders. "Breathe through it."
I do, and gradually the pain recedes, replaced by a fullness that's strange but not unwelcome. When I shift beneath him experimentally, his eyes close briefly, a look of exquisite concentration crossing his features.
"So tight," he groans. "So fucking perfect."
He begins to move, slowly at first, then with increasing urgency as my body adjusts to accommodate him. Each thrust builds that tower again, higher than before, until I'm clinging to him, incoherent sounds spilling from my lips.
"Look at you," he growls, his rhythm becoming more erratic. "Taking me so well. Your pussy was made for me, Lucy. Made to take me and only me."
The crude words shock me, but they also send another wave of heat through me. No one has ever spoken to me this way, with this raw, possessive hunger.
"Say it," he demands, his hand sliding between us to press against where we're joined. "Say you're mine."
"I'm yours," I gasp, the words torn from me as his fingers work a magic that sends me spiraling again.
"Mine," he agrees, his voice rough with exertion. "Your first. Your only. No one else will ever have you like this. No one else will know how perfect you are when you come."
His words push me over the edge again, and this time he follows, his body tensing above me as he empties himself with a groan that sounds like surrender.
Afterward, he holds me close, his heartbeat gradually slowing beneath my ear. His hand strokes my hair with a gentleness that contrasts sharply with the intensity of moments before.
"I knew it would be like this," he murmurs, more to himself than to me.
"Like what?"
"Perfect." He tilts my face up to his, eyes serious now. "You're where you belong now, Lucy. With me. In my home. In my bed."
I should protest. Should assert my independence, remind him that a few weeks of dating and one night of sex—mind-blowing though it was—doesn't mean I belong to anyone. But lying here, wrapped in his warmth, surrounded by the luxury he's determined to shower on me, those arguments feel distant and hollow.
"Rest," he says, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "Tomorrow, we begin for real."
I don't ask what he means. Tomorrow feels very far away, and for now, I'm content to drift in this strange new reality where Damon Blackwell—billionaire, businessman, force of nature—has decided I'm his.