Chapter Eighteen
“Trigonometry,” says a voice in the darkness.
For one bittersweet moment I flash into the past, a little girl lost, afraid and alone. With only a wild boy to save me. He had seemed like not enough at first. And then he’d been all I wanted.
I sit up in bed, my gaze finding a silhouette in the corner.
There’s no wild boy left in him. Even in shadow he’s made of long planes and crisp corners. He reclines in a chair, his long leg kicked out, one hand dangling down holding a glass. His other hand holds a book open, a stark sliver of light across the white page.
You came back, I want to shout.
Except that might make him leave. Maybe he actually is still wild underneath all that expensive linen and wool. I have to tread carefully so I don’t spook him.
And so that I don’t make him pounce.
“That’s what you were doing at six years old. I guess it’s no surprise you’re doing—” He pauses, glancing back at the hard cover. “Financial Engineering. What the fuck is that?”
“I thought you were in business with Gabriel,” I say, surprised my voice is so even.
To find him in my room like this is a dream. I’m not sure whether it’s a good dream or a bad one, but I never expected it to happen. Not once. Definitely not twice in my life.
He gives a low laugh. “He’s the one who handles the investments. My side of the business is a little more… well, let’s just say hands-on.”
“Avery told me about your strip clubs.” I infuse the words with all the disdain I feel. And hide all of the horribly misplaced jealousy. There’s no reason to mind that he’s seen naked women.
No point in thinking a girl like me would ever have claim on a man like this.
“It’s mostly addition in strip clubs,” he says, sounding playful. “Very large numbers, though. I’m sure you can imagine.”
“I’m sure I can’t imagine.” Not only because it requires being naked in front of strange men. Because we’ve never had large numbers of money.
It’s only been small numbers. Only subtraction.
“Simple math,” he continues. “No trigonometry required. No calculus.”
“Calculus is simple,” I can’t resist saying, even though I know it’s a red flag.
And he’s the bull, charging forward with a charming smile and sharp teeth. “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s easy, baby genius.”
Something ignites inside me when he says that. It makes me argue against him, if only so he’ll argue back. “Calculus is just about continuity. About a line going on and on, never stopping. Never breaking.”
There was a beauty to that flow, to the infinite approach.
He runs a thick square-tipped finger down the page, as if soaking up the information. And maybe he is. Because when he speaks he seems to know what it says. “Except it isn’t real, is it? It’s an ideal. A pipe dream. A perfect vision of the world that pretends jagged edges and broken pieces don’t exist.”
“Maybe some of us need that perfect vision.” I can’t pretend we’re still talking about math.
“And maybe some of us know too much to be that naïve,” he says softly.
I think I hate him in that moment. “You think I don’t know about broken things? After what your father did? After he broke me?”
“You’re not broken,” Damon says sharply.
A startled laugh bursts from me. “I’m not the only one naïve, if you believe that.”
“You are,” he says, sounding fierce. “Still innocent. Still a baby.”
“I’m not a baby.”
There’s something brewing inside me. Maybe anger. Definitely excitement. I can’t really place the feeling, except that every time he calls me a baby I want to hit him. But I also want him to keep doing it.
He sounds almost regretful. “Fifteen years old. That’s a baby.”
There’s a wall between us, built out of fear and doubt and an age difference that will never really go away. I’m getting older, but so is he. That wall should have been enough to keep me from being interested. Instead it feels like I’ve been leaning against that wall for years.
And sometimes it feels like he’s right on the other side.
“Today’s my birthday,” I say, swallowing after the words are out.
It feels like a risk, sharing something like that. Even though it’s ordinary information. This time last year I had been at the burger place with Brennan. We started dating in middle school, even though it mostly consisted of holding hands in the hallways.
This year I’m in a modern-day castle, half guest of honor, half prisoner.
He snaps the book shut. “What?”
“My birthday,” I say, trying to sound old and unaffected like it doesn’t mean anything.
A curse word hovers in the darkness. “Did you have cake? Candles? Presents?”
A shrug. “I didn’t have those things at home. Why would I have them here?”
“Avery would have done something—”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“Why not?”
Because I didn’t want her to worry about me. And because I’m the one worried about her. She’s clearly going through something, but she’s hiding it from Gabriel. The only reason I know is because I’m mostly silent in her company. Mostly watching. “Does it matter?”
“You turned sixteen.”
I can’t help the pleased smile that crosses my face. He shouldn’t see something as vulnerable as that, but it comes out anyway. I am pleased to be sixteen. Despite what’s happened to me, despite what Daddy’s done. It’s a bright spot, being older. It feels like maybe I’m a woman.
Except when Damon stands up and crosses the room. Then I feel small and unsure again.
“You deserve a celebration,” he says, his voice biting. “A party with your friends.”
“What friends?” I say, unable to name a single person other than the one in this room.
“You have friends. From school. From the diner. And you have that boyfriend. What’s his name? Bennet?”
The air seems thick, making my chest rise and fall with each breath. “Brennan.”
“That’s right. Would he have given you a birthday kiss?”
And just like that the suggestion blooms between us, that Damon could kiss me. That he could do it right now. We’re only three feet away. So little space between us. So impossible to cross.
“Yes,” I say, more breath than sound.
Brennan would have kissed me on my birthday. It would have made me feel safe. I know without trying that Damon’s kiss wouldn’t make me feel that way.
Damon sits on the edge of the bed, in the same way Daddy did. When I would have a screaming nightmare after Mama left. When he would comfort me.
There’s nothing comforting about this.
And Damon, though they inhabit the same dark world, he’s nothing like Daddy. He has complete control over himself, over the people around him. In fact the only person he can’t control is Jonathan Scott. Maybe that’s why it’s his obsession to hunt him down.
He uses that control now, a subtle direction as he leans forward.
And I find myself canting forward.
He would never be as crass as to give orders. Never be as rough as to drag me by my hair. But it’s an order all the same, one my body responds to as surely as physical force.
“You’re really young,” he remarks, sounding casual.
Only his eyes show the truth of him, the lust and frustration that swirl in the black depths. There’s something else, too. A kind of desolation that can only be seen when he’s inches away.
How many other people get this close to him? Not many, I’m guessing.
It’s no coincidence he prefers his women dancing onstage, him in the shadows.
“If I’m so young, why are you here?” I ask, unable to tear my gaze away, hardly able to blink.
He laughs. “I don’t fucking know.”
And maybe he was right, before, when he called me a baby. That’s what I had been, with Brennan. Using him as a security blanket. Even when I thought I might have sex with Damon, when I imagined it, it was some theoretical construct. The curve on a graph, its every point carefully plotted and explained.
Real life could never be that pure. Who would want that?
For the first time, my body becomes aware of him as a man. Of myself as a woman. Birthdays have never felt like big occasions for me. Mathematically one day out of three hundred and sixty-five isn’t significant. Except I’ve never felt like this before. Whether it’s because I turned sixteen today or because Damon is looking at me with pure hunger, I feel ready for him.
“I know why,” I whisper.
“Of course you do.” The words are condescending, but the way he says them isn’t. There’s a quiet confidence in him, almost pride, as if he likes me being smart. As if it affects him the same away his crisp suits and beautiful smile affect me.
Everything about him in his moment invites my secrets.
Like this one: “I dream about you.”
His breath catches. “Don’t tell me that. What I’ll do to you—”
“Do you dream about me?”
“Never,” he says, his voice harsh.
In the heartbeat that follows my world crumbles. I’m standing in the rubble when he runs a hand through his hair. When he says, “I could never let myself. Not if I wanted to leave you alone.”
My hand reaches out, before I’ve really planned it. Before I’ve really thought through what it means. To touch him. To feel him, his heat and his heart. Two fingers pressing against the perfectly smooth fabric of his shirt. He’s so solid beneath those white dress clothes. As strong and as wide as I would have dreamed my wild boy would be, grown into a man.
“I’m afraid to be alone.”
His eyes burn. “You will never be alone. I swear that to you. I would never let that happen. But you deserve to have a normal life. That’s what I want for you.”
“Does what I want matter?”
He laughs. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
I don’t know where the boldness comes from, but there’s too much of it. I’m overflowing with the desire to ask for what I want, to demand what I need. Is this what sixteen feels like? “A kiss.”
A rough sound. “What?”
“I’m asking for a kiss.”
“Christ,” he mutters. “You’re so innocent.”
Challenge simmers around us, sparkling and hot. “Then do it. What will it hurt?”
“It will hurt,” he says, capturing my face with careful movements, his hand cupping my whole jaw. He tilts me only the slightest angle, but it changes everything. Thirty degrees to the right. That’s all it takes for me to open for his kiss. Made ready for him, my whole body brimming with anticipation.
He leans close, his gaze a dark promise.
One millimeter away from me, so close it hurts to be apart. Like our lips are magnets, trembling with an unseen force. His hand holds me away, that small amount. “Say no,” he murmurs. “Scream. Fight me. Cry for me to stop.”
“Is that how you like it?” I whisper, the words brushing my lips against his.
Only the smallest shake of his head. “I like you moaning and needy and begging me for more.”
I can’t imagine moaning. “How do you know?”
“Because I did dream of you, Penny. I dreamed of you and I watched you and I wanted you. Even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t stop. It isn’t about how old you are—it’s you. It’s only ever been you.”
That’s the last thing I hear before his lips press against mine. Then there’s only empty sky in my head, only starlight, only a vast and pulsing space. There are no walls here. Nothing that could possibly separate us. His mouth so hot against mine that I’m melting, turned liquid in his hard grip.
Square inch by square inch, my body relaxes. Only then do I realize how tense I was. How tense I’ve been my whole life, braced for something awful to happen.
As if he were waiting for that sign, Damon moves against me. A new configuration of his mouth against mine, a new kind of kiss, every curve completely distinct. Pleasure sparks across my lower lip, and I realize he tasted me. Oh God, his tongue. He touched me with his tongue.
My lips part on a gasp, whether from sensation or shock.
He takes the advantage, nudging my mouth open. Opening me like a petal grown wide and blooming. Then his tongue touches mine. My whole body changes then, becomes something flushed and alive, every cell breathing for the first time. There are feelings in new places, a heat between my legs, a terrible tension that I think only he can fix for me.
I’ve touched myself under the covers before, but it’s never hurt like this.
There’s something happening inside. A change.
A sound breaks through the silence, low and sensual. It’s me.
And just like that he sits back. In the space he had been there’s only empty space. My breathing comes fast, my whole body aching and hot. I feel like he took me apart and put me back together. A child before. A woman now. And every womanly part of me attuned to him, wanting more.
He breathes hard, staring at me with something like desperation. “Fuck,” he says.
“Please more,” I say, before I even know that I’m pleasing him. Before I see the flash of pure desire in his dark eyes. I like you moaning and needy and begging me for more.
How much more could he make me do?
He stands, abrupt and impersonal. “That’s enough.”
“That’s enough,” I repeat, my voice hollow. “That’s what you have to say to me?”
A cruel smile mars his beautiful face, and even before he speaks, I know it will cut me. “What do you want to hear? That kissing you was so magical that I never want to touch another woman, never want to look at one? That you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted this badly?”
I flinch at his tone, but it’s a mistake. It’s blood in the water. “Don’t be like that.”
“Oh, but that’s what I am. Remember? I’m a criminal. A cold-blooded killer. So callous that I took money from a sad old man who can’t fucking stop gambling the money that should feed his daughter.”
The reminder of my daddy makes my breath catch. There’s something that can pierce the haze of desire. Grief can do it. A grief so hard and tight it’s a fist in my chest. “You didn’t take it. You gave him money.”
“You’re right,” he says, his voice silky smooth. So like his father it slices me open. Like two hands on either side of a wound, pulling the skin apart. “I gave him money he could never repay. Because there’s something I want more than his debt. There’s you.”
I’m completely flat. Two dimensional. Made into an object without value.
“Stop it,” I whisper.
“That’s not what you were saying a few minutes ago.”
“And this isn’t what you were saying a few minutes ago,” I say, tears hot against my eyelids.
“True. There’s something painfully sweet about your little jailbait mouth. But I can’t let you distract me. Not with Jonathan Scott still roaming the streets.”
That’s what this is about. His father. His hunt.
And that look in his eyes—I recognize it too well. The one Mama would get before she found a new boyfriend with new needles. The one Daddy gets before the rent money disappears. There’s always an addiction. And God, the books on the nightstand prove no one’s really immune.
“Then stay,” I say, more afraid for him than myself. There’s a reckless aura around him. A violence that seems almost directed at himself—or the man who made him that way. “Stay here with me.”
He gives me a crooked smile, eerie because of how sweet it looks. “No, baby genius. You know the answer is no. I have something else to do first.”
“You’re not a killer. You said you were, but you’re not.”
I don’t know if I’m trying to convince him or me. How could I love a murderer?
“I’m not?” he says, almost idly. What he shows me next takes my breath away. It’s hard to hold his gaze, to stare into the terrible soul he shows me. “I’ve never killed before now. But I think I’m going to enjoy this. I’ll draw it out, make it last. And when I come back this will finally be over.”
He leaves the room with that threat in the air.
With that imagery in my mind. Torture. The kind of torture that Jonathan Scott did to me. The kind he must have done to his own son for years. It’s a form of justice, a balance to the equation. But it will turn Damon into the same monster he’s hunting. It will break this man as surely as his father broke me.