Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Lucy
I've been walking for almost two hours, the morning sun climbing higher in the sky, when I realize I'm circling back toward Damon's building without conscious thought. Like a planet caught in a gravitational pull, I'm unable to escape his orbit. The questions still swirl in my head, but they're joined now by a new sensation—a hollow ache in my chest that grows with each step I take away from him. I miss him. Already. Pathetically. The realization makes me angry and relieved at the same time.
I turn the corner onto his street, still half a block from the gleaming tower where his penthouse sits. That's when I see it—his black limousine, parked haphazardly near the curb, half on the sidewalk like it stopped in a panic. My steps falter. The back door flies open before I can decide whether to approach or run.
Damon practically falls out of the car. Not the controlled, powerful CEO who commands boardrooms with a whisper. This man is disheveled, his normally perfect hair standing up like he's been running his hands through it repeatedly. His dress shirt is buttoned wrong, missing his usual tie. He's wearing suit pants with—I blink in disbelief—slippers.
He sees me and freezes, his body going rigid. "Oh, thank god," he says, his deep voice breaking on the last word.
The raw emotion in those three words hits me like a physical blow. I've never heard Damon Blackwell—who negotiates billion-dollar deals without flinching—sound so utterly wrecked.
"Damon, I?—"
He's on me before I can finish, crossing the distance between us in long, desperate strides. His hands cup my face, eyes scanning me frantically. "Are you hurt? Did something happen?" His thumbs brush my cheeks, my temples, my jaw, as if checking for injuries. "Tell me."
"I'm fine." I steady myself against the intensity of his gaze. "I just went for a walk."
"A walk." He repeats the words like they're in a foreign language. "You disappeared. I woke up and you were gone." Each sentence is clipped, fighting for control. "Your phone location showed you moving, but you wouldn't answer my calls."
I see it now—the naked fear beneath his anger. This powerful man is terrified.
"I needed to think." My voice sounds small, even to my own ears.
His hands tighten on my face. "Four security cameras caught you leaving the building at five-twenty-seven. You looked...upset." Something flashes across his features—vulnerability so raw it hurts to witness. "Because of me?"
The driver and a security guard hover near the limo, pretending not to watch us. A few pedestrians slow their pace, drawn to the drama unfolding on the sidewalk. I'm suddenly aware of how public this moment is.
"Can we go somewhere private to talk?" I ask.
Instead of answering, Damon pulls me against his chest, burying his face in my hair. His heart hammers against mine, racing at a pace that scares me. This isn't the controlled man I know. This is someone undone.
"I thought I'd lost you," he whispers against my temple. "I thought—" He can't finish the sentence.
His driver opens the limo door without being asked. Damon guides me inside with a hand that trembles slightly against my lower back. The door closes, sealing us in the quiet luxury of the back seat. Before I can speak, Damon presses the intercom.
"Drive around. Don't stop until I tell you to."
"Yes, sir."
The privacy partition slides up. The limo pulls smoothly into traffic. And then it's just us, facing each other in the dim interior.
"Two hours and seventeen minutes," he says, his voice low. "That's how long you were gone. Do you know what that did to me?"
I look at him properly now—the shadows under his eyes, the tension in his jaw, the barely restrained panic still visible in the tightness around his mouth. He looks like a man who's been through hell.
"I'm sorry I didn't leave a note." I twist my hands in my lap. "I didn't think I'd be gone long."
"You didn't think." There's no accusation in his tone, just a hollow emptiness that somehow hurts worse. "You were running from me."
The directness of his statement leaves no room for lies. "Yes."
He flinches as if I've struck him. For a powerful man who controls every situation, that small involuntary reaction speaks volumes. His eyes—those penetrating gray eyes that seem to see through every defense I've ever built—search mine.
"Tell me why." It's both command and plea.
I take a deep breath. "I woke up and I was thinking about...us. About how you are with me. The possessiveness. The control. How much I like it." My cheeks burn with the admission. "And I started to wonder if that makes me...weak. If there's something wrong with me for wanting to be owned the way you own me."
Understanding dawns on his face, followed by something darker, more intense. "You left because you enjoy belonging to me."
"Because I was scared of how much I enjoy it," I correct him. "Normal relationships aren't like this, Damon."
"Normal." He spits the word like it's poison. "I've never wanted normal. Not in business, not in life." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles whiten. "And I certainly don't want it with you."
The limo turns a corner, sending me sliding slightly across the leather seat. Damon reaches out instinctively to steady me, his hand warm on my knee. He doesn't remove it.
"When I woke up and found you gone—" His voice breaks, and he has to stop, collect himself. "I've acquired companies worth billions. I've destroyed competitors who thought they could challenge me. I've built an empire that will outlive me." His grip on my knee tightens. "None of it mattered. In that moment, I would have traded everything—every penny, every building with my name on it—just to have you back."
Something shifts in my chest—a loosening of the tight knot of doubt I've been carrying. His thumb traces small circles on my knee, almost absentmindedly.
"I can't live without you," he continues, sounding surprised by his own admission. "I thought I was a complete person before I met you. I was wrong." He looks up, his eyes fever-bright. "I'm going crazy without you, Lucy. Two hours was unbearable. The thought of a lifetime..." He shakes his head, unable to finish.
"Damon—"
"Let me finish." He draws a ragged breath. "I know I'm intense. I know I'm possessive. I know I probably scare you sometimes with how much I need you." His hand slides up to mine, our fingers brushing. The contact jolts through me like electricity. "But what you need to understand is that it goes both ways. You own me just as completely as I own you. Maybe more so, because I never chose this. It just happened."
The confession hangs between us, stunning in its vulnerability. Damon Blackwell, admitting he's not in control. That I have power over him.
"You left this morning because you're afraid of how much you like belonging to me," he says softly. "I spent the morning terrified because I belong to you completely, and I thought you were gone forever."
The limo continues its aimless journey through the city streets while I absorb his words. Outside, the world goes about its business—people walking to work, stopping for coffee, living normal lives. Inside this bubble, there's only us and this strange, intense connection that defies conventional understanding.
"I don't know if what we have is healthy," I admit, voicing my deepest fear. "The way you track my phone, the way you need to control everything about me, the way I...respond to that." My voice drops to a whisper. "What if it's toxic?"
Damon considers this, his thumb still stroking my hand. "You can leave anytime," he says finally. "I've never locked you in. I've never forced you to stay. I track your phone because the thought of something happening to you and not being able to find you destroys me." His eyes hold mine. "If you truly want to go—if this isn't what you want—I'll let you go. It would kill me, but I would do it."
The sincerity in his voice is unmistakable. Painful truth radiates from him.
"And if I stay?" I ask, my heart pounding.
"Then accept that this is who we are together. That we need each other in ways other people might not understand. That I will always be possessive of you because the alternative is unthinkable." His hand tightens on mine. "And trust that underneath everything—every command, every possessive moment—there's only love. Desperate, all-consuming love."
The word hangs between us. Love. He's never said it before. Neither have I. It seems simultaneously too small and too ordinary for what exists between us.
"I don't care if it's normal," I whisper, the realization crystallizing as I speak it. "I've spent my whole life trying to be what other people think I should be. Independent. Self-sufficient. Never needing anyone." I turn my hand over, lacing my fingers with his. "But with you, I can be myself. Even the parts of me that want to be possessed."
Something shifts in his expression—hope, breaking through the fear like sunlight through clouds. "You're not leaving?"
"No." The certainty settles into my bones. "I'm not leaving."
His exhale is shaky, his shoulders dropping as tension drains from his body. When he looks at me again, the vulnerability is still there, but so is that familiar intensity that makes my stomach flip.
"Come here," he says, his voice a low command that sends heat spiraling through me.
I slide across the seat into his arms. He crushes me against his chest, his face buried in my neck. I feel him inhaling deeply, like he's trying to breathe me in, to convince himself I'm really here.
"Don't ever disappear like that again," he murmurs against my skin. "I can handle anything but losing you."
His lips find mine, desperate and claiming. There's no gentleness in the kiss—only relief and need and something deeper that makes my heart race. His hands tangle in my hair, holding me in place as if afraid I might vanish if he loosens his grip.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, he presses his forehead to mine. "Tell me you're mine," he says, echoing his words from last night. But there's a new rawness to them now—less a demand, more a plea.
I cup his face in my hands, feeling the slight stubble against my palms. This powerful, terrifying man who commands empires is trembling beneath my touch.
"I'm yours," I tell him, the truth of it settling into my bones. "And you're mine."
Normal or not, this is what I want. This is who we are together. And I'm done questioning it.