Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“Damion,” I whisper urgently. “I did what I did to protect you. Because I wanted you to be king, not him. Because you will save people like Mary and her business, and he will destroy them all. Because you will sacrifice for others and me. Because you really are the best man I know. I knew you wouldn’t put yourself first. I knew you’d put me first and do something crazy, like kill him. You can’t kill him. You know that, right?”
He draws our hands between us and then brushes my hair from my eyes. “You’re beautiful. We were five the first time I realized that.”
As touched as I am by the tenderness in his voice, I am aware of his avoidance and the distraction of his compliment, no matter how sincere it rings.
“Damion,” I whisper, a plea in his name.
He kisses my hand and then pushes to his feet and starts undressing. “What are you doing?”
“You said please,” he replies. “I’m a little late, but I’m getting undressed.” In a matter of a minute, he’s naked and hard all over again, as if that should even be possible, and dragging me down on the couch with him. We’re side by side when his hand settles to my back under his jacket and he molds our naked bodies together, his thick erection pressed between my legs.
“How are you even hard again already?”
He laughs—one of his low, rough laughs—the kind that is oh so masculine and sexy and that I feel in every part of me. “It’s what you do to me. Still feel vulnerable?” he asks, the warmth of his body seeping into mine.
My hand presses to his face. “I’m always a little vulnerable with you, Damion, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Any time you dare to trust, you are vulnerable. And I dare to trust you.”
“Then we’ve come a long way.”
“So don’t throw it away and go to jail over your damn father.”
“I’m not going to jail, baby,” he promises, and he leans in and presses his lips to my ear. “I’d miss you naked and beneath me way too much to ever let that happen.” He scoops my backside and slides his cock along the wet, sensitive seam of my body. And then he’s inside me, and he’s created the ultimate distraction, but even as his mouth slants over mine, I silently vow to finish our conversation.
The moment I can actually speak again.
Chapter Nine
Alana
It’s a long time later when I lay with my head on Damion’s chest, and as much as I don’t want this time with him to end, we have to talk. We can’t hide here in this cottage, naked and pretending the outside world doesn’t exist. As if he’s thinking the exact opposite, Damion says, “I saw pizza in the freezer. I’m starving.”
I push off of him and sit up, reaching for the jacket that I’d long ago abandoned and pulling it around me before I stand to confront him. “You will not kill your father. And we need to just go home and face this. That’s all. That’s how it has to be. The end.”
He nonchalantly throws his legs off the couch and stands up, his hands settling on my arms, and he kisses me hard on the mouth. “Pizza it is.” He steps around me, grabs his pants, and steps into them.
“No to you ignoring what I’m saying to you, and no to pizza,” I say, though my stomach growls rather loudly in objection to that statement.
Damion laughs. “You’re clearly hungry. No good decision was made on an empty stomach.” He walks around the oversized gray cloth couch and then disappears inside a doorway that, considering Damion’s drive for pizza at present, I assume to be the kitchen.
I growl low in my throat, frustration burning in my belly. He’s going to have to listen to me; that’s all there is to it. For the first time since arriving, I see beyond Damion and scan what is a cute little cottage with wood-beamed ceilings and a fireplace that is as grand as the one in the main house. It’s not a bad place to be holed up with the man I love, but there is too much on the line for that action to be appropriate.
Determined to get us moving and back home, I hunt down my swimsuit and cover-up, pull them into place, and then slide my feet into my sandals for extra measure. It’s not exactly what I would call dressed and in control, but it’s all I have right now. Put together the best I can be, I march into the kitchen to be greeted by an oversized island with fancy pans hanging from above, hanging low enough to obstruct my view.
I round the island and find Damion standing at a window on the other side of a table and chairs, his back to me, tension radiating off of him, almost as if he’s steeling himself for his next confrontation with me. Or perhaps just feeling as if he’s holding the world, and me, on his shoulders. And that feeling, that obligation I believe he feels in his mind, is where all the “end of us” feelings come from.