Twenty-One

Dahlia

 

I tiptoed across the bedroom to the door. Damien was sleeping soundly in the bed, and I didn’t want to be the reason he woke up, but thirty minutes of lying in bed in silence was enough for me.

I took a deep breath and crept through the doorway into the hall. I had to grab my boobs with my hand given the fact I was naked except for my panties. I held on tight as I made my way downstairs and into the utility room. Grabbing a bra and long shirt, I dressed, walking into the kitchen.

It wasn’t early by any means. Ten-thirty blinked the clock on the oven. It glared at me as I started the coffee machine with a yawn. I’d had eight hours of sleep, but it felt like I’d had about two. My head was so damn foggy I was going to need at least three cups of coffee just to get through to the afternoon.

I yawned again.

I had to figure out what to do today since the whole day-off thing was my idea. Unfortunately, I was regretting it. What kind of thing was I meant to do? Should we go swimming? Bake cakes? Swan around doing whatever?

Ugh.

I hadn’t thought this through, clearly.

What the hell was I doing?

The coffee machine sputtered into silence, pulling my attention to my now full mug. I grabbed it with a clink and reached to the fridge for the milk.

I had no idea what I was doing.

When the milk was back in the fridge, I reached for my phone and texted Mia. I knew all about the tempestuous beginning to her relationship with West—in fact, she’d all but admitted he was as much of a pain for her then as Damien was for me now.

 

Me: What do you do with a workaholic who’s taking his first day off in forever?

 

I’d barely put my phone down when it buzzed with her reply.

 

Mia: Have sex with him.

Me: I don’t know why I asked you.

Mia: Are you with Damien??????????

Me: I plead the Fifth.

Mia: Girl Code says that’s a yes.

Me: Eh, Girl Code is ridiculous.

Mia: Are you having sex with Damien?

 

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

 

Me: Yes. Right now, in fact. I’m on my knees with the phone under my pillow.

Mia: Smartass.

 

I laughed, putting my phone down again. That conversation wasn’t going to give me any serious answers. Some people—cough, Mia, cough—could have sex over and over. Abby was another one of those people.

I wasn’t.

At least, I didn’t think I was. I guessed I’d never really had time to find out. Besides, what was better? Lots of quick, sub-par sex, or less of long, earth-shattering sex?

Definitely the earth-shattering sex.

If I wanted quick and unexciting sex, I’d use my fingers.

I sighed heavily and sat down. I felt deflated, like the slip of the moment conversation had been a giant mistake.

Right then, sitting in the middle of my kitchen in total silence, the weight of my emotions was crushing. It lasted only a second, a sick mixture of grief and confusion and frustration before it disappeared again. But the second was long enough. Too long. Too strong.

My laptop was sitting closed just a couple of feet away from me. I reached over and slid it toward me to start it up. While I wasn’t aiming to work, I knew I was falling into the rabbit hole by just turning the thing on.

Sure enough, the moment I logged in and opened the browser, my email loaded up.

Three hundred unread emails. All right—they weren’t all work. I had a terrible habit of subscribing to websites using my work email, not my personal one because who had time for more than one email?

Not me, evidently.

I scrolled to the last read email, deciding that working forward was my best bet. I moved the website emails into another folder to check, deleted some spam, and then…moved into the folder where I’d just put the sales emails.

Was shopping for new shoes for work, working?

I tapped my nails against the laptop for a moment, lips pursed.

No.

Not this morning, at least.

I didn’t need more shoes, but I wanted them. Or rather, I wanted something to do, and if there was one thing I knew, it was that buying shoes was always a good idea.

I sipped my coffee as the website loaded. I’d been awake now for an hour. Damien said he always woke up early, but here I was, waiting for him to wake up.

Was he that exhausted?

Was he maybe naked in my shower?

Damn it, no. I didn’t need to think about him naked in my shower, but if I followed my shoe analogy…No, no. I wasn’t going to do that. The jury was still out on how freaking crazy I was. I didn’t need to add fuel to the mental fire I had for that.

What I wanted to do was wake him up and ask him a ton of questions. I had so many I probably needed a notebook to write them all down so I wouldn’t forget. I had so many that I was afraid to ask.

Why don’t you talk about your sisters? What about your mom? What happened to make your family so awkward and complicated? What did life do to you to make you so closed-off?

Where did the scar by your eye come from?

That was one was the most terrifying. Would he tell me? Did I have a right to know? To ask? Was it really any of my business?

The answer, of course, was no. I didn’t have any rights and it was none of my business. If it were me, I’d be telling him where to stick it.

I guess what I hated more than anything was that he knew so much about me, yet in the grand scheme of everything, I knew so little about him.

Sure. I knew that he was handsome and cocky and, sometimes, he made me laugh. He was tempting and sexy and a walking sin. Firm and strong, his body was a walking wet dream, and his mouth was so dirty, he could probably make a woman come with just words.

I knew that he had a pain buried somewhere. That sometimes, his eyes belied his words and gave me a peek at that pain. That it was one he carried heavily, tucking it away behind a poker face.

I also knew that somewhere, deep down inside, he was capable of emotion so strong it could bring a person to their knees. There was no doubt about it—I’d barely scratched the surface of the man, and that was both exhilarating and terrifying.

Maybe I’d never really make a dent. Maybe this was all convenient, still part of the grand plan to take what was mine. Maybe he was so good at hiding emotion that he could pretend it, too.

I was either reading too deep or not deep enough. I was either a fool or, well, a fool. Either one was dangerous.

Fools rushed in.

Fools fell in love.

Fools kept the scars.

I didn’t want to be a fool. Not for him.

Anyone but him.

Yet, there I was. Shopping, wearing little clothing, waiting for him to wake up. Waiting to see him walk through the door into the kitchen and smile at me.

Like a fool.

Like I wasn’t vulnerable and a little lost. Like my heart still wasn’t shattered irreparably.

Like he could fucking fix the ache that followed me around constantly. The same ache I now recognized for what it was—loneliness.

I was lonely.

My house was huge and empty, filled with ghosts around every corner. The pictures that had hung in the entryway for years did nothing but remind me of the time in my life when my mom was killed, of when everything changed and I learned that a skinned knee was the least painful thing that would ever happen to me.

The only person I’d ever trusted and loved in my life who hadn’t left me was Abby.

The idea that I was learning to trust and feel for Damien Fox was the most frightening thing I could think of.

But I was.

The stairs creaked, slicing through my self-pity. The uncontrollable thoughts disappeared, locking back away in the back of my mind. Where they belonged.

I minimized the Internet screen when he walked in, filling the doorway with his presence. His hair, wet and sticking up, almost touched the frame, while his shoulders filled out a good portion of the rest of it. A water droplet trickled down the side of his abs and melted into the waistband of his sweatpants.

I stared there a little too long. It wasn’t my fault—another bit of water slipped down his tanned skin into the low-slung band that hugged exactly the part of him that I wanted to touch.

“Are you working?”

I snapped out of my trance. I wasn’t going to acknowledge the way my heart beat a little faster, either. Nope. Not for a second.

“No,” I said when he rounded and came behind me. “I’m shopping.”

“What are you buying?”

“Shoes.” The word was a mumble. I had pairs upon pairs.

“Why is the browser closed?”

“Habit. My dad used to tell me I had enough shoes, so I used to hide it when I was supposed to be working.”

He leaned in, laughing quietly. “Sweetheart, you do have enough shoes. I just counted ninety-nine pairs in your closet. You may as well make it a round hundred.”

“I don’t have ninety-nine pairs of shoes!” I turned my face to him.

That was ridiculous. Wasn’t it?

“You sure do.” His lips tugged up on one side, and the rightness in his usually stern gaze made a tickle tease down the back of my neck. “Like I said, what’s one more pair?”

“I…Well…I…Um. Never mind.” I knew a futile attempt as denial when I tried it.

He laughed again, gripped the edge of the counter, and opened the Internet browser for me. His body was still a little damp, but it was hot, and his chest pressed against my shoulder blades as he leaned right in and scrolled down the website.

“You’re pretty into shoe shopping,” I said when he hummed.

“I’m pretty into you wearing these shoes while I fuck you.”

Fair enough.

“These.” He stopped and clicked on a lace-up pair of scarlet red heels. They had a pretty price tag but at the same time… They were oh-so-pretty.

“I can’t possibly imagine where I’ll wear them. I was looking for a pair for work.”

Damien tapped a finger to the screen. “Scarlet heels. Scarlet Letter. Problem solved.” He hit ‘Add to Cart’ and slid my laptop over in front of the next stool. “And I have plenty of imagination for where you can wear them.”

“What are you doing?” I blinked at him as he perched on the seat.

“I’m buying you shoes.”

More blinking. “I can buy my own shoes.”

“No, really?” His tone was flat. “I thought you were dirt poor and living in this palace by accident.”

“I can buy my own shoes.”

“You’re mistaking me for someone who cares.”

I reached for the laptop, but he knocked my hand away. His finger flew over the number pad on the right. I stared, slightly horrified, as he entered his card numbers and his address, then hit ‘Process.’

Oh my God.

The confirmation page flashed up.

“There. Problem solved.” He closed my laptop and gave it back to me. Then, without looking at me, got up and walked over to my coffee machine.

He’d just spent a little under fifteen-hundred dollars on a pair of shoes for me and not blinked at it.

“I mean. Sure. If you say so.” Great. Now I felt like I owed him.

Also, why was he buying me shoes?

“Why did you buy the shoes?”

“Because you weren’t going to. Like one more pair would matter.” He laughed and made his coffee. When it was done pouring and he’d turned around to me, I raised my eyebrows.

He promptly ignored my annoyed look.

“What are we doing today?”

“Ummm.” Great question.

“You have no idea, do you?” He smiled behind his mug.

Again, denial would be futile. “Not a damn clue.”

“Let’s go for a run.”

I eeked out a strangled noise that was a little too alike a choir of alleycats at midnight. “Running? It’s hot as Hades out there.”

He shrugged. “I’ll buy you chocolate after.”

“Chocolate? Really? Am I five?”

“No. You’re a very beautiful twenty-five, but if you don’t want the chocolate…”

“I can buy my own.”

“I know. But I’ll probably run shirtless.”

I hit him with a firm stare that completely expressed my displeasure at the idea, but damn if he didn’t talk me into it. I could deal with him shirtless and running.

Maybe.