I manage a smirk. "Actually, I think it was your fault."
He chuckles again. "Maybe so."
I start to bring my legs together.
"Oh, no, Ms. Fairchild. That"s how you sit for the rest of the ride. It"s your punishment-and my reward," he adds, tapping the rearview mirror.
"In that case," I say, and strip off my sweater, shirt, and bra.
"Jesus, Nikki," Damien says, as I sit naked on the backseat, feeling suddenly very smug.
"I thought you needed to be well rewarded. After all, you earned it. I mean, you"ve been sitting in an empty limo all afternoon while I was inside drinking and watching hot guys."
"Best not to remind me of your infractions," he warns. "And the truth is, I wasn"t just sitting in the limo."
"Oh?" I lick the tip of my finger and slowly circle my nipple. I"m pretty sure I hear a low growl come from the driver"s seat. "What were you doing?"
"You were with the girls," he says, his voice unnaturally tight. "I was with the guys."
"Were you?" I let my finger trace down, down, down. Slowly, I stroke my s.e.x, thrusting my finger deep inside, then withdrawing it to tease my c.l.i.t.
I started this little show to torment Damien, but I"m also tormenting myself. "So, um, who were you with?" Honestly, it"s getting hard to think.
"Alaine, Charles, Preston. Jesus, Nikki, do you have any idea how hard I am?"
I allow myself the pleasure of a satisfied smile. "Anyone else?"
"Ryan, Evan, Blaine. A few others."
"Mmm." I force myself not to drift, not to let myself come. I want him hard and hot. I want to turn the punishment around on him.
I want to keep control.
"So, um, tell me about Evan. Jamie was certainly checking him out."
"Tell her to stay away," Damien says sharply, and my hand pauses.
"Why?"
"Actually, I take it back. Don"t tell her anything. Knowing Jamie, telling her to stay away would just make her more determined."
"All right," I agree. "But why? What"s wrong with him?"
"Not a d.a.m.n thing. I like him, a lot. But he has an edge."
"An edge? What kind of edge?"
"The dangerous kind."
"Oh." I want to ask more; however, I know better than to try to get information out of Damien that he doesn"t want to give. "To be honest, I think Jamie"s appreciation is more aesthetic than active. I"m pretty sure she"s got her eye on another guy."
"Who?" Damien asks.
I shrug. I don"t answer, but I"m thinking of Ryan.
For a moment I think Damien will press the point, but all he says is, "We"re here."
I glance out the window and see that we"ve entered a drive-in movie lot. I laugh out loud. "Where are we?" I ask, tugging my skirt and shirt back on. I don"t bother with the bra or underwear. At the moment, they seem superfluous.
"The Vineland Drive-In. City of Industry."
"Don"t you have to pay?"
"I called ahead and made arrangements."
"You planned this all along," I say, which is pretty much stating the obvious. "Why?"
He opens his door, gets out, then joins me in the back.
"Why?" I repeat.
"So we could make out in a car at the drive-in," he says simply.
I laugh, because as corny as it sounds, the idea is also exciting. "Interesting. I think I"d like that."
"Would you?" He reaches over and begins to unb.u.t.ton the shirt that I just put back on. I lean toward the console so that I can raise the privacy screen.
"No," he says as he peels the shirt off.
"Damien!"
His fingers unb.u.t.ton my skirt, then tug down the zipper. "Do you really think that someone is going to lean on the hood, press their face to the gla.s.s, and peer all the way back here?"
"They might," I say, though I agree it"s doubtful.
"They won"t. But doesn"t the possibility make you wet?" He slides his hand up my skirt. "Yeah," he says. "I think it does."
I lick my lips, refusing to admit the excitement that"s building inside me. "I was already wet," I say.
"Mmm-hmm."
I feel my cheeks heat. "I thought you didn"t do public s.e.x."
"I don"t. And I"m not going to. We"re in a limo. No one"s looking in. But I like the fantasy," he admits. He leans forward and kisses me, even as he slides two fingers deep inside me. "And so do you."
"I do," I admit, both because it"s true and because I don"t want to have secrets from Damien. "You are my fantasy, Damien. You know that, right?"
"And you are mine," he says, after kissing me softly. "We"re lucky, you and I. There were so many places where our lives made wrong turns. And yet all those turns, all those horrors, all those days that we want to forget-they all add up to this moment. To you in my arms." He strokes my hair, his expression tender. "I have no regrets for the past, Nikki. And when I"m with you, the only thing I can see is the future."
"Damien," I say, the word soft like a prayer.
"Yes?"
"Kiss me."
"Whatever you want, sweetheart," he says before his mouth closes over mine and I slide down into the bliss of his arms.
Chapter Seven.
I sit in the silence of the Malibu house, sipping a sparkling water as I work at a small desk in the library. The library is my favorite room in this house, and it"s not really a room at all. Instead, it"s a level-a mezzanine-broken into a variety of sections. The comfy chairs and coffee tables are by the wall of windows overlooking the ocean. The bookshelves line the area that is visible from the ma.s.sive staircase leading up from the entrance hall. The work areas are farther back, hidden from view, and it is in one of those quiet corners that I now sit.
It is late-barely three in the morning-and Damien is asleep in our bed.
I couldn"t sleep, and though I stayed in bed for hours, warm in Damien"s arms as I drifted in and out of a hazy dream state, I never managed to fall into slumber. I"m not sure if it was nerves or too much bourbon or the persistent thoughts of my mother, but in the end I gave up and came down here. Now I am sitting in the light of my laptop monitor putting the finishing touches on the gift I intend to give Damien on our wedding day-a sc.r.a.pbook of our time together.
I"ve been working on it for months, even before we were engaged, and have managed to gather and edit photos ranging all the way from our very first meeting at a Dallas pageant to the present. I had originally intended it to be entirely electronic, but once he proposed and I realized that this was the perfect wedding-night gift for the man who owns everything, I decided that it needed to be tangible. I bought a leather-bound sc.r.a.pbook with thick, archival paper, and have been carefully pasting in the images and writing captions and notes to him with my very best effort at penmanship.
Right now I am searching the computer for a picture of the Vineland Drive-In, because that is a memory I want him to keep, though I don"t think either one of us had any idea what movie was playing. Instead, we made out like teenagers in the backseat, kissing and exploring, touching and groping. And when Damien finally thrust hard inside me-when I came in sudden release and exultation-I am certain that my cry was at least as loud as the movie soundtrack.
The hairs on the back of my neck p.r.i.c.kle, and I know without turning around that Damien is here. His walk, his scent, his presence-I don"t know what it is, but there is something in him that calls so profoundly to me that I am never unaware of him. If he is in the same room, my body knows-and wants.
I gently close the sc.r.a.pbook, then tuck it into a drawer before turning to him.
"I don"t like waking up without you," he says.
I smile. "Now you know how I feel." Usually it is me who wakes up to find the other side of the bed cold and empty.
"What are you doing?"
"Just working on something." I lift a shoulder. "I couldn"t sleep."
"Oh, really?" He lifts a brow and eyes the desk.
"Don"t even think about it, mister. You"ll see it on Sat.u.r.day."
"Sat.u.r.day," he murmurs, the hint of a smile playing around his mouth. "Seems like there"s something I"m supposed to be doing on Sat.u.r.day."
I laugh, and fly out of the chair to smack him playfully on the chest. He pulls me into his arms and kisses me, gently at first and then with increasing fervency. "I reached for you," he says. "You weren"t there."
The words are matter-of-fact, but to me they seem thick with meaning. I lean back so that I can see his face more clearly. "What"s wrong?"
"I could ask you the same thing," he says, deflecting my words but not my worry. There is something on Damien"s mind. He tucks my hair behind my ear. "Tell me what"s keeping you awake."
"Bourbon," I say. "Bridal jitters."
"Not your mother?"
"That, too," I admit.
"Whatever you want to do, you know that I support it. All I ask is that you remember this is your wedding, and it"s the only wedding you"re going to have." He strokes my cheek, the touch melting me as much as the words. "Consider that when you decide how to handle your mother."
I nod. "You"re right." I take his hand. "And you? Is it wedding jitters that are bothering you? Is something going on at work?"
He turns, looking out toward the rows of polished bookshelves now standing like sentries in the dark. He doesn"t answer right away, and I"m starting to suspect he isn"t going to answer me at all. Then he says, "It"s Sofia."
I try not to react, but I have no control over the quickening pace of my heart, and I"m certain that my eyes have gone unnaturally wide. "What about her?" I ask carefully. Sofia is so far off my list of favorite people, it isn"t even funny. Still, she was important to Damien when he was growing up, and despite a lot of recent s.h.i.t, I know that she"s still important to him.
"I got an email from her. I saw it right after we got home. She wants to come to the wedding. She thinks that it could be arranged."
The words hang in the air, like one of those cartoon anvils that is defying the laws of gravity and simply hovering, waiting for the moment when it will drop and crush the hapless coyote.
I open my mouth, close it, then try again. "Oh," is all I can manage.
"That pretty much sums it up," he says. He"s wearing pajama bottoms tied loosely around his waist, and he slides one hand into a pocket. With the other, then ma.s.sages his forehead with his thumb and finger.
"Do you want her to come?" I finally ask.
He lifts his head, looking at me as if I"ve gone insane. "No."
A moment pa.s.ses, and then he lets out a soft curse. "No," he repeats, "and the not wanting makes me sad." He meets my eyes. "But I meant what I said in the limo, about our choices and the people in our lives leading us to this point. To each other." He steps closer to me. "It saddens me-h.e.l.l, it angers me-but I have no regrets."
"I don"t, either," I say, thinking of my mother. Of who she is, what she"s done, and what I want. It"s all a turmoil inside me. A storm. I know what I should do, what I want to do. But I"m not certain it"s what I can do.
And though he hides it better than I do, I know that a similar storm is raging within Damien. How can it not be? He thrives on control. It is his lifeblood, his sustenance, and yet just the mention of Sofia"s name conjures the specter of everything that spun out of control, cutting a path of destruction through his life as effectively as a spinning propeller breaking loose from its axle.
"Damien," I say, and I hear both longing and helplessness in my voice.
I see the heat flare in his eyes as he moves even closer to me. I take an automatic step backward, but am foiled by the desk. I stop, breathing hard, as he cages me in. I am wearing the b.u.t.ton-down shirt that he abandoned on the floor when we went to bed. The tail hits me mid-thigh, and he uses his finger to trace the line of the hem, slowly easing it up, higher and higher.
My pulse quickens, and I feel the effects of his touch shimmering through me, hot and electric and alive.
Without thinking, I shift my stance, widening my legs. I want his hands upon me. I want his c.o.c.k inside me. I want everything he has to give, and I want him to take everything he wants.
His hand slides between my legs and cups my s.e.x, finding me desperately wet. "Tell me you want me," he says, sliding his fingers inside me. I almost melt with pleasure.
"Always," I say truthfully, and I know with absolute certainty that there will not ever be a time when I don"t respond to Damien"s presence. To his proximity, his heat. When I won"t open like a flower to him. When my body won"t crave his touch.
He thrusts another finger inside me and I grind down, shamelessly wanting more. But he denies me, and I hear myself whimper as he pulls his hand away. And then my whimper changes to a gasp when he grabs either side of the shirt and tugs it open, baring my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and sending b.u.t.tons flying.
"Beautiful," he murmurs, and I close my eyes in expectation of his mouth on my nipple. But the touch doesn"t come. Instead, he turns me around, then pulls the shirt the rest of the way off so that I am naked in front of him. I am facing the desk, my a.s.s pressed against his erection, now hard steel beneath the thin pajama bottoms.