Chapter 5: On the Mend
The discordant hum of the piano strings faded into a thicker silence, one charged with the ghost of the song and the heat of their kiss. Bethany’s hands were still fisted in Damien’s shirt, the fine cotton strained between her knuckles. His breath was warm against her lips, his eyes searching hers in the dim light, looking for permission, for a sign this was real.
She gave it by sliding off his lap, her body uncoiling with a deliberate slowness that felt foreign, untethered. She took two steps back, her gaze never leaving his, and reached for the clasp of her cashmere wrap. It slipped from her shoulders, a whisper of fabric pooling on the intricate rug at her feet. Then her hands went to the button of her silk trousers.
“Beth,” he said, his voice rough.
“No,” she said, the single syllable cutting the air. “No talking. Not now.”
This was her decision. Her reclamation. He might have played the song, but she would set the terms of what came next. She pushed the trousers down her hips, stepping out of them, standing before him in just a simple silk camisole and lace underwear. The cool air of the suite raised goosebumps on her skin, but a furnace burned in her core.
He watched, utterly still, a king allowing a usurper to approach his throne. The hunger in his eyes was a tangible thing, a pressure in the room.
She closed the distance again, placed a knee on the piano bench beside his thigh, and kissed him. This time it was deeper, wetter, a slow exploration that was all tongue and teeth and ten years of pent-up fury. She tasted the Scotch on his tongue, the faint hint of mint, and underneath it, the familiar, devastating flavor of him. Her fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt, pushing it open, her palms skating over the hard planes of his chest, feeling the ripple of old scars she remembered tracing in the dark.
He broke the kiss with a sharp gasp, his hands coming up to grip her hips, his thumbs pressing into the delicate bones. “Fuck, Bethany,” he murmured against her throat, his lips finding the frantic pulse there. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
“I have some idea,” she said, arching into his mouth, her own hands moving lower, unbuckling his belt with a practiced efficiency that drew a low groan from him. She freed him, her fingers wrapping around his hard length, stroking him slowly, feeling the silken skin over the rigid heat. He was already slick at the tip. “You look at me like you want to devour me whole.”
“I do,” he growled, surging up from the bench, forcing her to stand. He backed her toward the vast bed, his mouth crashing back onto hers, his hands everywhere—tangling in her hair, cupping her ass through the lace, pulling her camisole up and over her head. The lace bra followed, discarded somewhere in the shadowed room. The cool air hit her bare breasts, followed immediately by the scorching heat of his mouth closing over one peaked nipple.
She cried out, a sharp, unfiltered sound, her head falling back. His tongue circled, flicked, then sucked deeply, sending a bolt of pure lightning straight to her core. She was wet, soaking through the thin lace of her panties, an ache building between her legs that was both foreign and intimately familiar. It was the same desperate need he’d always been able to ignite in her, a chemical reaction that bypassed every rational defense.
He pushed her back onto the mattress, the duvet cool and slippery beneath her. He stood at the foot of the bed, a dark silhouette against the city lights, and finished undressing, his eyes never leaving her body. Then he was on her, his weight a delicious anchor, his skin hot against hers. He kissed a burning trail down her stomach, hooking his fingers in the sides of her panties and dragging them down her legs. He tossed them aside.
“Look at you,” he said, his voice ragged as he settled between her thighs. “So fucking perfect. Still mine.”
The declaration should have ignited her anger. Instead, it fanned the flames of her need. She was past words, past thought. There was only this savage, physical truth. He parted her with his thumbs, and she felt his breath, hot and humid, against her exposed, aching flesh. Then his tongue was on her, a slow, torturous lick from bottom to top.
She bucked, a gasp tearing from her throat. He didn’t ease her into it. He ate her like a starving man, his tongue delving deep inside her, then swirling around her clit with relentless, focused pressure. One hand pinned her hip to the bed; the other stroked the inside of her thigh. He knew her body, remembered every rhythm that made her unravel. He used that knowledge mercilessly, alternating between broad, flat strokes and sharp, pinpoint flicks that had her chanting his name into the silence, her fingers clawing at the sheets.
The orgasm built swiftly, a terrifying wave gathering force in her belly. “Damien… I’m…”
He growled against her, the vibration pushing her over the edge. She came with a broken scream, her body bowing off the bed, white light flashing behind her eyelids as the contractions ripped through her. He didn’t stop, drinking from her, gentling his tongue as she shuddered through the aftershocks, then building the pressure again before she’d even come down.
“No, too much… please…” she begged, but her hips were lifting, seeking more.
He rose above her, his face glistening with her, his eyes black with want. He kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips. “You used to love ‘too much’,” he whispered, lining himself up at her entrance. The broad head of his cock pressed against her, a blunt, undeniable demand.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back. “Then stop talking and fuck me.”
He drove into her, a single, deep, conquering thrust that stole the air from her lungs. She was so wet, so open from her climax, yet he stretched her, filled her completely in a way that was almost too much. A familiar, breathtaking fullness. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, his forehead pressed to hers, both of them trembling.
“Christ,” he breathed, the word shuddering out of him. “Bethany.”
Then he began to move.
It wasn’t love-making. It was a brutal, beautiful claiming. Each thrust was hard and deep, pounding into her with a force that shifted her up the bed. The headboard tapped a steady, muffled rhythm against the wall. She met him thrust for thrust, her nails scoring down his back, her teeth sinking into the muscle of his shoulder to stifle her cries. The room filled with the sounds of them—skin slapping against skin, ragged breathing, guttural groans, the obscene, wet sound of him moving inside her.
“Is this what you wanted?” he gritted out, his pace relentless. “All those years alone in that pristine apartment? Was it worth it?”
“Fuck you,” she gasped, but she was clenching around him, another orgasm coiling tight.
“You are,” he snarled, slamming into her. “Tell me you feel it. Tell me no one else has ever fucked you like this.”
He was right. No one had. No one could. This was a language they’d invented together, all fury and need and a bone-deep recognition that felt like coming home to a burning house. She couldn’t lie.
“No one,” she choked out. “God, no one.”
Her admission shattered his control. His thrusts became wilder, desperate. “Come for me,” he demanded, his hand sliding between them, his thumb finding her clit and rubbing tight, hard circles. “Now. Come on my cock, Beth. Let me feel it.”
It was an order she couldn’t disobey. Her second climax tore through her, violent and all-consuming, a raw scream ripped from her throat as her body convulsed around his, milking him. With a broken shout, he followed her over, pumping into her, his own release hot and deep as he collapsed, his full weight pressing her into the mattress.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their labored breathing and the distant hum of the city. The smell of sex and sweat and spilled whiskey hung in the air. He was still inside her, softening, but he made no move to pull away. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, his breath hot on her damp skin.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The feel of the rumpled duvet beneath her. The cool air on her overheated skin. The weight of what they’d just done.
He finally shifted, rolling onto his side and pulling her with him, keeping her close, her back to his chest. One arm curled possessively around her waist. His lips pressed against her shoulder blade.
“The apartment on Central Park,” he said, his voice a rough murmur in the dark. “You kept it.”
It wasn’t a question. It was an offering. A vulnerability.
She stared at the sliver of neon light cutting between the heavy curtains. The truth felt too dangerous to speak. So she said nothing.
His arm tightened slightly. “Conti’s party is tomorrow night. I’m going with you.”
This time, it wasn’t a request or a suggestion. It was a statement from the man who had just been inside her, who knew her body’s secrets better than she did. The man who was, and had always been, dangerous.
She closed her eyes. The war wasn’t over. It had just moved to a new, more intimate battlefield. And she had just willingly walked into his camp.