I shot upright when I heard a loud bang, followed by a string of curse words. I jumped out of my bed, thankfully my bed sheets didn’t wrap around me like a boa constrictor and bring me to my knees. I ran out of my room and came to a skidding stop in the hallway outside of the kitchen. I winced at the brightness of the light and lifted my hand to block it. With my eyes squinted, my vision cleared, and Damien came into view.
A half-naked Damien.
“Fuck.”
Damien jumped and spun to face me.
“You scared the shit out of me,” he said, placing a hand on his ridiculously toned chest in surprise.
My eyes roamed over his body, and my mind began to tick things off one by one.
Nice tan? Check.
Killer abs? Check.
Drool worthy V line? Check.
Treasure trail? Check.
Wearing nothing but black boxer briefs? Check.
“Alannah,” Damien said, his voice gruff.
I flicked my eyes up to him. “How do you maintain a tan? People get lighter ’ere, not darker.”
Damien looked down at his body, then back up at me.
“I’m lighter than I was a year ago.”
“Doesn’t look like it to me.”
When he didn’t reply, I looked up at him and froze when I saw how he was looking at me.
“Stop looking at me like you want to eat me,” he said, his jaw tensed. “I’m only a man, and I’m going to try to touch you if you don’t stop.”
I wasn’t sure if I could adhere to his request, so I lifted my hand and covered my eyes completely. “Done.”
When Damien’s low laughter filled the room, I felt the sudden sexual tension slip away so I smiled and dropped my hand back to my side.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, a slight frown on his face. “The cat was crying, so I came to check on her and I walked into the table when I came in here.”
I gasped. “Barbara!”
Before I could turn and run into the sitting room, Damien’s voice stopped me.
“She’s in her crate; she’s fine.”
Before we both went to bed—in separate rooms—we set up everything Alec had bought on my behalf for Barbara. There were toys, food, bowls for food and water, litter trays in different sizes for when she grows, a scratching post that took surprisingly forever to put together, a packet of catnip, and a little fur brush. I was confident I’d need to get more supplies for her, but for the moment, it seemed I had everything to sate her needs.
“Did she eat any food?”
Damien nodded. “There is a small dent in what we gave her.”
I gnawed on my lower lip, and worried.
“I hope she isn’t too young for the kitten food.”
“Alec told the woman in the store that you weren’t sure how old she was, but that she was small, so she gave us the food she had for kittens who have just weaned off their mother’s milk.”
I folded my arms across my chest.
“But what if she should still be drinkin’ ’er ma’s milk, and we’re givin’ ’er solid food?”
“You’re going to the vet tomorrow and you know you’ll ask then, okay? We’ve done all we can for now.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
When Damien smiled, I shifted my stance.
“What?”
“We’re standing in your kitchen in the middle of the night talking about a baby kitten, and we’re dating.” He shook his head. “This is just not how I was expecting the night to go when you said you wanted to talk to me.”
“How were you expectin’ it to go?”
“Honestly?”
I nodded.
“I thought you were going to say you just wanted to be friends.”
My lips parted. “Why?”
“I didn’t want to give myself any hope, so I always force myself to expect the worse when it came to you … just so it’d hurt less.”
My stomach churned.
“Dame.” I frowned as I dropped my arms to my side and crossed the room.
He opened his arms and accepted my hug wordlessly. He hugged my body to his and stroked his hand up and down my back. It amazed me how perfectly I fit against him and how soothing I found his touch to be.
“I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to do that.”
“No more apologising.” He kissed the crown of my head. “We aren’t focusing on the past anymore, right?”
I squeezed him. “Right.”
Barbara began to make a lot of noise then, and Damien sighed. “She is singing us the song of her people.”
I laughed, and together we went into the sitting room. I let Barbara out of her crate and encouraged her to eat more food and drink some water. It took a few minutes, but she did consume a little more of both and it relieved me greatly. I pushed her litter tray close to her so she could see and smell it. I tapped on the screen of my phone when a question entered my head.
“I think she has to go to the toilet, and Google says to put ’er on the litter tray after she eats and drinks to promote ’er goin’ to the toilet in it.”
Damien rubbed his eyes. “If Google says so, it must be right.”
I looked up at him.
“Are you bein’ sarcastic?” I blinked. “I’m so stressed out with the cat that I can’t even tell.”
He tiredly laughed, then reached out and hooked his arm around my shoulder, tugging me to his body.
“I love that I can touch you like this without worrying you’ll attack me.”
I slipped my arm around his bare waist, my palms becoming clammy almost instantly.
“When have I ever attacked you?”
“The day I knew you were the one for me,” he answered. “We were eighteen, and everything had just gone to shit between us. You kicked me in the balls and told me to go to hell, and never come back.”
My free hand flung to my mouth, and I laughed.
“I forgot about that!”
“Jesus, I didn’t.” He playfully winced. “I can still feel the blinding pain when I think about it.”
“You’re so full of it,” I cackled.
He looked down at me when I laughed and said, “You’re gorgeous.”
I stopped laughing almost instantly and ducked my head.
“Don’t say stuff like that; you’ll embarrass me.”
Damien groaned. “God, that’s sexy.”
I looked up at him with raised brows.
“What is?”
“The fact that you don’t know you’re gorgeous; it’s such a turn-on.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to ignore my burning cheeks.
“Stop it.”
Damien smiled with a devilish glint in his eyes.
“Make me.”
I froze. “Nico says that to Bronagh all the time, and nine times out of ten, I make some excuse to leave because I know they’re goin’ to have sex.”
“I think I have more control than my dumb twin brother has.”
I snorted. “You think so, huh?”
“I know so.”
With a grin, I turned back to Barbara to see what she was doing, and I gasped.
“Damien!” I gave his waist a squeeze. “Look.”
I pointed at Barbara’s litter tray, the one she was currently using.
“Good girl,” Damien said, and without looking up at him, I knew he was smiling.
“I think we just imparted wisdom.”
Damien snorted, then when Barbara was finished, he put her back into her crate. I felt bad about putting her in there, but Damien said that Alec said that kittens don’t like large spaces that are new to them, so putting her in her crate would relax her and help her adjust. I hoped to God he was right because it broke my heart to look at her through the little barred door like she was a prisoner.
“Could you not hear her in your room earlier?”
I shook my head at Damien’s question.
He huffed as he straightened to his full height of hu-fucking-mongous.
“I heard her in the spare room,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with her lungs, I can tell you that much.”
I reached for his hand. “Maybe you should come and sleep in me room with me then?”
His eyes snapped to mine, his surprise plain as day if his open-mouthed expression was anything to go by.
“We won’t get in trouble,” I assured him, seeing the question in his eyes. “We’ll just sleep.”
Damien looked pained, but when I tugged on his hand, he offered no resistance and walked out of the kitchen with me, flipping the light off as we went. I smiled to myself. I felt in control of something for the first time in a very long time, and it felt good. I wasn’t scared to sleep in the same bed as Damien. I was excited.
“Do you always wear so much to bed?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “I get cold easily.”
My room was pitch black when we entered, and I knew where my bed was, but Damien didn’t, and he walked directly into the base.
“Fuck a duck!”
I laughed as I climbed up onto the bed, pushing back the blanket.
“Think that’s funny, do you?”
I screeched when the bed dipped and an arm hooked itself around me, while another hand ran up and down my side, tickling me without mercy. I screamed, laughed, and begged Damien to stop, but he didn’t. He vibrated with laughter, and only stopped when I fell onto my back, and he found himself leaning over me with his hand now on my bare waist since my t-shirt rode up during the tickle assault. We both went quiet then. We couldn’t see each other because the room was coated in darkness, but I was hyper aware of him.
“You smell good.”
I licked my lips. “I do?”
“You do.”
I could hear my heart beating.
“Damien, we can’t get into trouble.”
“No trouble,” he murmured. “I just want to touch you. Can I touch you, please?”
The urge to beg him to do just that was overwhelming.
“But … but …”
“Yes, I want to touch your butt, too.”
I shoved him, and he lightly chuckled.
“Relax,” he whispered, lowering his face enough for me to feel his hot breath on my skin. “Let me make you feel good, baby.”
Baby.
I loved hearing him call me pet names, but that aside, I was apprehensive.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I murmured. “Remember what we said about buildin’ a better connection and a trust between us before we get intimate?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Heaven help me, but yeah, I do.”
“Then trust me not to overstep,” Damien said. “Trust me just to touch your body and give you pleasure.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “I wasn’t when we walked in ’ere, but I am now.”
“I know, freckles,” Damien almost purred. “But letting go of that fear for a little while will help you get used to me in this capacity. We’re partners now, and I have to work on getting your guard down, and this moment between us will help. I know it will.”
“O-okay.”
“Good girl.”
I jumped when his hand slid from my waist and came down to my stomach. I froze, wondering if he would say anything about feeling my stomach. I knew I wasn’t fat, but I didn’t look like my friends. I could afford to lose the twenty-five pounds I’d gained over the last couple of years, and I was very aware of that fact with Damien’s hand on me.
“Why are you so tense?”
I hesitated, then remembered our agreement to communicate with one another.
“I’m embarrassed.”
“Because I want to touch you?”
“Because I’m worried you won’t like what you feel.”
I practically felt Damien’s eyes drill a hole into my skull through the darkness.
“You think I won’t like your body?” he questioned incredulously. “You can’t be serious, Alannah.”
I wiggled next to him, but his hand remained firmly on my stomach.
“I’m a little chubby,” I mumbled. “I’ve gained a good bit of weight since we were last together. I’m self-conscious about me stomach, hips, and thighs. Me arse, too.”
“What the hell is wrong with your ass?” Damien demanded. “Or your hips, thighs, and stomach for that matter?”
“They aren’t toned,” I said with a mortified groan. “I have cellulite and little rolls.”
God, this is fucking embarrassing.
“Just to be clear, I love your body,” he said, his thumb slowly stroking my skin. “I’m extremely attracted to it.”
I didn’t mean to laugh, but I did.
“You don’t believe me?”
Before I could answer, Damien felt for my hand, grabbed it, then lifted it into the air before he moved it over something … hard. Something that was very hard and throbbed like there was no tomorrow.
“Oh,” I whispered when I realised what my hand was pressed against.
Damien grunted before moving our hands back to my stomach.
“I dare you to disagree with how much I like your body now,” he challenged. “My cock will disagree with you and so will my mind and heart.”
I was glad of the darkness when a smile broke out across my face, as it burned with heat.
“I can’t help how I feel about me body.”
“No,” he agreed. “But you’ll learn to love it, just as I do.”
“You love me body?”
“Yup,” he said, popping the P. “Head over heels, it’s a great body. Perfect, really.”
I giggled but stopped when the hand on my stomach slid lower and fitted itself under the band of my pyjamas trousers. My heart pounded as Damien gently nudged my thighs apart. A shiver danced its way up my spine when his large, rough hand slid over the inside of my thighs. He squeezed my flesh here and there, making my entire body come alive.
“Damien,” I whispered.
“Lana,” he murmured. “I’m going to make you feel so fucking good.”
My thighs suddenly clenched together and trapped Damien’s hand.
“Oh, you want me to touch you,” he hummed. “I can feel your muscles contracting.”
My body flushed with heat, and my legs slowly parted once again.
“There’s my girl.”
I sucked in a sharp breath when Damien’s thumb ran the length of my underwear. The friction of the fabric against my clit sent shivers up my spine.
“Damien,” I breathed.
He moved his body closer to me.
“Fuck,” he hissed. “I love how you say my name. I’ve been around Irish people a long time, but your accent is the only one that gets me hard when you speak. I love your voice.”
I remembered he had told me he loved my voice once before too, and it caused my body to shudder.
“You’re killin’ me, Dame.”
“I haven’t even warmed up yet, baby.”
The whole time he spoke, he was rubbing a lone finger up and down my slit. It felt good but not good enough. It was almost like he was teasing me by not pushing the fabric aside. With courage that I didn’t know I possessed, I reached down into my pyjama trousers, placed my hand on top of Damien’s, and manoeuvred his fingers to push the fabric of my underwear aside. When his fingers finally brushed my clit, my back arched.
“Yes!”
Damien put his mouth next to my ear and made a sound close to a snarl.
“Demanding little thing,” he said, “aren’t you?”
I moaned in response as he slid a lone finger down to my entrance. He dipped it in, once, twice, then groaned.
“You feel so hot, so wet. I can feel you wrap around my finger … I can’t wait for it to be my cock.”
Me either.
When his finger slid back up to my clit and began to swirl around it slowly but not touching it directly, I began to lose my mind. My body began to writhe from side to side, trying to force Damien’s finger onto my clit with each movement. He leaned his body against me, though, and used his weight to keep me in place as he continued his delicious torture.
“For years,” he murmured into my ear, “I’ve stroked myself and made myself come by just imagining being with you like this.”
My breathing became erratic.
“You have?”
“Hell yeah,” he growled. “I remembered what it was like to touch you, taste you, to feel you wrapped around me so tight. I came hard every single time.”
The thought of watching him touching himself sent another wave of heat through me.
“Is it true?” I suddenly asked. “What you said last week, about not touchin’ or kissin’ anyone since you last touched and kissed me?”
I haven’t touched another woman since I touched you. I haven’t kissed another woman since I kissed you.
“Every word,” Damien answered, his tongue flicking against my earlobe. “You’ve ruined me for any other woman. You’re the only one I ever want to touch again. I told you … you’re my freckles.”
I cried out when his finger finally rubbed my clit.
“Yes!” I screeched. “Yes!”
“Fuck, you’re so hot.”
Lips brushed against my cheek, then not a second later, they covered my own, and just like that, I was lost in Damien’s touch and taste. I loved kissing him. I once pretended that I never enjoyed the kisses I had once shared with him, just so I would never think about them, but kissing him now, I realised what an idiot I was to try to fool myself into thinking they weren’t enjoyable.
They were toe curling.
“Can I taste you?” he asked against my lips. “Please, say yes.”
“You already are.”
“No.” He chuckled, the sound low and rumbling. “Not your mouth, your pussy.”
He slipped his finger inside my pussy just as I clenched over his words, and he growled.
“You want me to,” he mused. “You want my tongue on you.”
“Yes,” I breathed. “Yes, please.”
He moved then, and before I could move, the blanket was pushed to the end of the bed, and my trousers and underwear were pulled down my body and flung God only knows where in the room. Hands pressed against my knees and parted my thighs wide. I jolted with surprised when lips pressed against the inside of my thighs and slowly worked their way upwards. My eyelids fluttered shut when Damien’s hands slid over my body, squeezing my flesh here and there. I moaned softly when he trailed kisses inside my thighs, his teeth nipping my skin every few seconds, making me clench with excitement.
My body bucked of its own accord when I suddenly felt his warm, wet tongue slide over my sensitive folds. I sucked in a sharp breath because I hadn’t felt that sensation since Damien last put his mouth on me all those years ago. When I had sex with Dante, it was just sex—no oral, no kissing. Those acts were too intimate, too special to me, and I realised then that I only wanted to share that kind of connection with Damien.
No one else, just him.
He hummed against me, then licked up and down. He didn’t directly touch my throbbing clit that ached so much I ground my teeth together. I fisted my hands at my side and focused on my breathing. My eyes crossed when he tongued around the hood of my clit, teasing me, drawing long moans from my lips. He moved his attention and skilled tongue to my labia and sucked on my lips before dipping his tongue inside me.
“Damien!”
He sucked on my pussy lips and even scraped his teeth over them, sending a shiver up my spine. He moved his tongue upwards, and finally, I felt hot air on my clit, followed by his talented tongue lapping at it like a man starved.
“Fu…ck … God!”
Damien hooked his arms around my thighs and flattened his hands on my stomach, applying pressure to keep my arse on the mattress. He inhaled a deep breath, then curled his tongue around my clit slowly. It felt so good that it almost hurt, but that didn’t deter me from begging him not to stop. I pulsed with need, and the urge to reach down and fist my hands into Damien’s thick hair became difficult to ignore. My fingers flexed against my bed sheets.
Breathe, I told myself. Just keep breathing.
My body twitched and jerked like a live wire with every swipe and flick of Damien’s tongue. My flesh was flushed with desire, and my skin burned with need. The passion I felt was as intense as it was intoxicating. This brief escape from reality was just what I needed, and Damien was just the man I wanted—no, the man I needed to give it to me.
“Damien,” I pleaded. “Don’t st-stop.”
His hands flexed against my stomach in response.
Jolts of pleasure became more constant then, and with an abundance of attention focused on my clit, my orgasm built at a rapid pace. My breathing suddenly became irregular, and I couldn’t focus on anything except how good I felt. I began to lose myself to Damien’s touch, and I didn’t resist; I threw myself over the edge.
My thighs began to quiver like jelly, so much so that Damien used his hands to grip the insides of my thighs to keep them from knocking against his head as he tongued me. With his hands’ new position, he pushed my legs farther apart, and it pushed my pussy harder against Damien’s mouth. At that moment, I lost my fight against the urge to bury my hands in his hair, and the second I did that, he sucked my clit into his mouth, and my body began to convulse.
I screamed God’s name before I drew in a sharp breath and held it.
For a moment, I felt a split second of numbness before an inexplicable wave of bliss started at my clit and, with each pulse, pushed the sensation outward. My eyes rolled back, my spine arched, and my lips parted in a silent scream. My lungs burned for air, so I exhaled the breath I had been holding before greedily gulping more down. My body continued to jerk uncontrollably, and Damien still sucked and lapped at my now oversensitive clit as if he was trying to pull another orgasm from me.
When I began to whimper, I think he knew that I couldn’t handle any more because he released my clit, placed a chaste kiss on it, then moved up my body. I felt his hands all over me; I felt his lips kissing my thighs, my hips, my stomach, and any other section of skin his lips could reach. By the time he reached my lips, I was halfway asleep, my body completely depleted of energy.
“Good night, freckles.” Damien chuckled, brushing his lips against mine. “Sweet dreams.”
The last thing I was aware of wasn’t Damien beside me or how satisfied I was, it was how content I felt. It seeped deep into my bones and wrapped around me like a warm blanket. I hadn’t felt that way in a very long time, and I prayed there was no end in sight for it.