CHAPTER 12
DAMON
I stayed propped up on one elbow. The shadow I cast over the bed looked like a shroud covering a corpse, which was pretty fucking ironic considering how hard she’d fought to keep me from becoming one.
I’d been watching her for hours. Counting the seconds between her breaths.
Analyzing the way the pale moonlight bled through the narrow slit-window and hit the sharp line of her jaw.
The dark circles under her eyes made her look like she hadn't slept in a decade, but right now she was under deep. Dead to the world. I traced the jagged burn scars covering my own ribs with my free hand, feeling the ruined, melted skin under my fingertips, and then looked at the flawless pale curve of her shoulder. I wanted to wreck it. I wanted to ruin her so thoroughly she’d never remember what it felt like to be whole without me.
The impulse to destroy the peace I’d found with her gnawed at the back of my skull.
It would be so fucking easy to wrap my hands around that fragile neck and squeeze just enough to watch her eyes pop open in sheer panic.
To make sure she knew exactly who owned her breath.
"Even in your sleep, you’re looking for a way out," I muttered, watching a faint crease form between her eyebrows. "You don't even know how close I am to breaking you. Beautiful little surgeon."
She murmured something incoherent, a soft, pathetic little noise, her fingers twitching against the silk pillowcase like she was trying to stitch up a ghost. That did it.
I was done just watching. The transition from observation to violation wasn't a choice; it was a biological fucking necessity.
I couldn't stand the idea of her having a reality inside her head that didn't include me.
I needed to see her body respond without that stubborn, analytical brain of hers getting in the way.
I took the heavy, matte-black Glock off my chest and set it on the nightstand.
The silent, deliberate click of metal on wood cleared my hands for the real work.
"Let's see what you're dreaming about," I whispered. "Shh. Stay right there. Mine. Every inch."
I reached out, letting my large, calloused hand hover right over her throat.
I could feel the heat radiating off her skin.
I brought my fingers down, settling them with feather-light precision on her collarbone.
I stared at her face, my pupils blown wide in the pitch dark, waiting for the flinch.
Waiting for the scream. But she just hitched a breath and settled deeper into the mattress.
My thumb found her pulse. It fluttered under the rough pad of my finger, a frantic little bird trapped in a cage of flesh and bone.
Every time her chest rose, I froze, caught right in the middle of the thrill of the hunt and the sick need to keep her under so I could take what I wanted in absolute silence.
"Your heart is already lying for me," I murmured, leaning in close enough to smell the clinical lavender and hibiclens soap on her skin. "Don't wake up yet. So soft. Too soft for this place."
I slid my hand down, slipping it beneath the black silk sheet.
The heat under the covers hit my palm and made my skin itch with anticipation.
I let my fingers trail up her inner thigh.
Slow. Agonizingly fucking slow. Testing the absolute depth of her sleep.
I used the back of my hand to nudge her legs slightly apart.
The movement was clinical but entirely predatory.
She yielded to the pressure without waking, her muscles completely relaxed for the first time since I dragged her into this concrete fortress.
"You're so warm," I breathed against her ear. "Still dreaming?"
My hand moved higher. My fingers found her center and the reality of what I touched sent a jagged spike of adrenaline straight through my cock.
She was already damp. Slick and wet from some dream she probably wouldn't even remember.
A dark, ragged breath tore out of my throat.
My thumb found her clit and I pressed down, applying a steady, circular pressure while her mind was entirely somewhere else.
Her toes instantly curled under the covers.
A purely reflexive biological response that made my jaw tighten so hard my teeth ground together.
I loved that her body was a traitor to her mind.
She hated me, she feared me, but her flesh was already surrendering.
"Body's already awake, isn't it?" I said, increasing the pressure slightly. "Good girl."
I added a second finger, sliding deep inside her and stretching her tight core.
The friction of it, the slick heat of her pussy wrapping around my knuckles, made my entire body lock up.
I watched her face. Her brow furrows deepened.
Her lips parted, seeking air in the gray space between sleep and raw arousal.
She was hovering right on the edge of waking up, and I was holding her there.
I leaned down and buried my face in her messy dark hair, inhaling the scent of her, my own muscles trembling with the sheer fucking effort of not ripping her legs apart and taking her completely.
"Think of me while you're under," I growled softly, dragging my fingers in and out of her with a relentless, wet rhythm. "You feel that?"
She let out a soft, unconscious moan. Her breathing hitched, the sound catching in her throat.
I didn't give her a second to recover. I started to edge her.
Hard, fast strokes that dragged her right to the precipice of a climax, and then I abruptly stopped.
Yanked my hand back just enough to deny her.
Her hips instinctively bucked upward off the mattress in a desperate, sleeping plea for the rhythm to come back.
I gripped her hip with my other hand, my thumb pressing in hard enough to leave a fresh bruise on her pale skin.
"Not yet," I told her, my voice rough as gravel. "You have to ask for it, Margarita."
She shifted restlessly, the faux-fur throw rustling loudly in the quiet room.
The control was a high I couldn't get from cocaine or gunpowder.
I was the conductor of this shit. I owned her pleasure and her pain.
I resumed the touch, my thumb grinding against her swollen clit while my fingers penetrated deep and fast. The haze of sleep was thinning out.
Her eyelids started to flutter. The physical sensation was getting too intense for her to ignore, pushing her out of the dark and into my hands.
A bead of sweat rolled down my temple as I maintained the punishing rhythm, refusing to let up.
"Come back to me," I ordered, leaning over her so I’d be the only fucking thing she saw. "Wake up, little bird."
Her eyes snapped open. They landed directly on my dark, unyielding stare in the moonlight.
For a split second, there was only exhaustion and confusion.
Then she felt my hand moving between her legs.
She felt the wet friction. The realization of what I was doing to her hit her face like a physical blow.
The absolute shock and horror in her eyes was the final ingredient I needed. It pushed me completely over the edge.
She tried to slam her legs shut, but I shoved my knee between them, locking her wide open and exposing her to the cold air of the room.
"Don't look away," I barked, keeping her pinned with my knee. "Look at what I'm doing to you."
"Damon—" She gasped my name, a broken mix of protest and total physical surrender.
She brought her hands up, trying to shove my arm away from her crotch.
I didn't even flinch. I caught both of her fragile wrists in one massive hand and slammed them down against the mattress above her head.
The metal of my watchband bit hard into her skin, but I didn't care.
I didn't slow down. I increased the pressure, pounding two fingers into her while my thumb went completely relentless.
"You can't stop it now," I told her, my voice vibrating in my chest. "Tell me you want it. Tell me!"
I used my free hand to guide her head back by the hair, exposing the long, pale line of her throat.
I bit down hard on her shoulder, my teeth sinking in enough to break the skin and leave a mark that would last for weeks.
The copper taste of her blood hit my tongue, mixing with the scent of our sweat.
I was branding her. Claiming every square inch of the territory.
"You're mine, Margarita," I growled against her skin. "Every part of you belongs to me."
The tension in her body reached an absolute breaking point.
She began to thrash, her head tossing from side to side on the silk pillowcase.
The orgasm was starting to ripple through her, tearing her apart from the inside.
I watched every single second of it. I crushed my heavy chest against her breasts, holding her wrists in a death grip so she couldn't hide her face from me.
"Watch me," I commanded, staring directly into her tear-filled eyes. "Don't you dare close your eyes."
The climax hit her with a violence that made her arch entirely off the bed.
A broken, keening scream ripped out of her throat, shattering the silence of the fortress.
I held her down through the entire violent wave, my hand a constant, demanding machine between her legs until the very last of the tremors faded out of her muscles.
The ringing in my ears was loud, blocking out everything else in the room.
I finally released her wrists, but only so I could wrap my arms around her and crush her in a suffocating embrace.
"There it is," I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs. "You’re perfect like this."
I kept my full weight on her. My chest heaved.
I stared down at her face, watching the tears leak from the corners of her eyes and slide down her flushed cheeks.
I refused to move. I stayed buried in the space I had just violently conquered.
I leaned down and licked a salt-trail right off her cheek, marking her distress as my own personal victory.
I roughly tucked a dark strand of sweat-soaked hair behind her ear.
"Your body knows who its master is," I told her, my voice stripped of anything resembling mercy. "Cry for me. It won't change what you felt. You’re never going back to that clinic, Margarita. You're part of the concrete now."
She didn't fight back. The fight was completely fucked out of her.
I rolled off her just enough to pull her against my side, trapping her in the crook of my arm.
I forced her head onto my bare chest, right over my heart, which was still drumming with absolute violent satisfaction.
Her hand laid limp on the bed, her fingers curling weakly into the black fur throw like she was searching for a weapon she couldn't find.
"Close your eyes," I ordered, staring at the ceiling. "You're safe here. Only with me. Sleep. I'll be watching."
The silence in the room lasted exactly ten seconds.
It was broken by a low-frequency vibration.
It started in the floorboards and traveled straight up the walls.
I felt it in my spine before I heard it.
On the dresser across the room, the scotch in the glass rippled, the amber liquid splashing against the crystal.
My head snapped up. Tactical instincts instantly overrode the post-coital haze in my brain.
That wasn't a mechanical failure in the ventilation system.
I knew that sound. It was a seismic charge.
My hand shot out, grabbing the Glock off the nightstand. My thumb flicked the safety off before the weapon even cleared the wood.
"Did you hear that?" I demanded, my eyes scanning the dark room. "Don't move. Stay down. Something’s wrong."
The vibration rapidly mutated into a deafening roar.
The floor violently tilted as the structural integrity of the wing started giving way beneath us.
The sound of distant glass shattering somewhere deep in the fortress echoed through the halls, and the sharp, metallic smell of ozone suddenly flooded the air.
Margarita sat up, ripping the silk sheet to her chest, her eyes wide with a totally different kind of terror.
"Damon, what is happening?" she yelled over the rising mechanical scream of bending steel.
A heavy framed portrait on the wall suddenly ripped loose, crashing to the floor. The glass exploded across the room, raining shards near the bed.
"Get to the floor! Now!" I roared, throwing the fur blanket off us. "They're here."
Cole. That treacherous piece of shit had actually given up the fortress's weak points. I didn't give a fuck about the money in the vault or the men stationed in the lobby. My only thought was that someone was coming through those walls to take her from me.
Before either of us could move off the mattress, the exterior wall of the master suite detonated.
A blinding flash of orange light annihilated the darkness.
The concussive shockwave blew the reinforced windows completely out of their frames, sending a lethal shower of concrete chunks, pulverized drywall, and jagged rebar rocketing into the room.
The ceiling cracked open with a sound like a spine snapping.
I grabbed Margarita by the waist, threw her face-down onto the mattress, and hurled my entire massive body over hers to shield her.
The blast hit us a fraction of a second later.
I felt the brutal impact of concrete fragments slamming into my bare back, tearing skin and bruising bone.
The vacuum of air sucked the oxygen straight out of my lungs, followed instantly by the suffocating stench of cordite and burning insulation.
"I’ve got you!" I yelled over the deafening roar of the explosion. "Hold your breath!"
I kept my grip tight on her as the floor collapsed. If we were going down, we were going down together.