Harlequin E New Adult Romance Box Set Volume 1: Burning Moon\Girls' Guide to Getting It Together\Rookie in Love (12 page)

At this point, the crowd was going ballistic; the mania had built to fever pitch. But then Damian’s mood changed to playful again as he reached for the button on his pants and started teasing the audience, until a collective, “Take it off, Take it off” rose up from the crowd. I felt another elbow and another whisper.

“He’s a God. And you can see he’s dirty in bed. That guy would give you a good spanking if he could!”

The mere suggestion of Damian in bed was enough to make me wiggle in my seat. I swallowed hard as the button was undone and the zipper slid down. He taunted the audience a little longer before dropping his pants to reveal a rather silly pair of boxer shorts.

Another roar of laughter rose up and as if it had been rehearsed, men began pulling out their wallets and hurling wads of cash at him. If ever a strip show could be described as funny, sweet, sexy and silly, this would be it. The song was coming to an end and I assumed the show would too, but for me it was only just beginning.

The house lights flicked on, illuminating the room and I saw that Damian was looking directly at me. I must have flushed the color of a fire truck and looked as coy as a toddler trying to get out of trouble. I averted my eyes and my eyelashes fluttered. Yes they did, they bloody fluttered, and they had a mind of their own. There was no controlling them.

He smiled at me, standing there in nothing but his boxer shorts.

And then he moved toward me…

Oh please, oh please do not let this be happening.

Too late. Damian had jumped off the stage and he suddenly appeared at my table. The crowd went mad and Mark jumped up and down like a possessed teenage girl at a 1D concert. There was no way I was going to be dragged onto that stage; I would rather die!

Famous last thoughts. I dug my heels in to resist. I held onto the chair and I begged and pleaded, but Damian was too strong to resist. He pulled me all the way through the now-standing, clapping men and onto the stage.

“Please don’t do this. Please,” I begged Damian, but alas, I was completely ignored.

Instead he swung me around as if we were doing the tango and then dramatically dipped me until the world was the wrong way up. The song had ended by now and I saw the upside-down figure of Mark stand up and shout.

“Kiss her! Kiss her!”

Oh, holy crap.

“Kiss her. Kiss her, kiss her!” He chanted and clapped until the rest of the club joined in. Damian pulled me up. We were face-to-face now. My body was pressed against his, and I was acutely aware that he was practically naked. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Well, you heard the men.”

I was simultaneously excited and panic stricken. This was it. He was going to kiss me, right there, right then, in front of all those people. He took my face between his hands and looked at me for what seemed like forever. I wished I knew what he was thinking.

“Kiss her, bloody hell!” Marks shrill voice pieced through the chanting.

He leaned forward, and I closed my eyes.

I waited to feel his lips touch mine.

The chanting in the club seemed to fade away into the distance.

All I could hear was Damian’s breathing, just inches from my face.

And all I could feel was the heat of his hands.

His lips finally touched mine, and I felt a flame of red-hot fire lick my spine.

His lips were soft.

Gentle.

Tender.

He let his still lips linger for a few seconds, before lightly planting another soft kiss on mine.

My lips parted slightly and I let out an involuntary breathy whimper, which I wished I hadn’t.

The tips of our noses touched.

I felt him run one of his hands through my hair and around the back of my neck.

He pulled me a little closer; you couldn’t have gotten a sheet of paper between us if you tried.

His other hand dropped down and I felt it slink around my waist.

His hand settled in the small of my back.

I let out another breathy whimper. (God, I wished I hadn’t.)

He pressed his lips against mine again and my legs went weak.

His lips parted ever so slightly and he gently kissed my bottom lip.

And then he let go of me.

Completely.

Took a step back.

The spell was broken.

The bubble had popped.

I was giddy and confused and looked at Damian. He had the strangest look on his face now.

Regret?

“I’m sorry, Lilly. I should never have done that.” His voice was deeply apologetic.

Why was he sorry for kissing me?

I felt my heart crack a little.

I wasn’t sorry.

Chapter Ten

When I was six, I was the only girl in my class who didn’t get a Valentine’s gift. I’d started at yet another new school, because my mother had moved us halfway across the country to be with her yoga instructor, an old white guy named Bhagavaan.

A week before Valentine’s Day, the boys’ craft teacher had them make gifts for the girls. It was very sweet—one of the boys made a heart from bent paper clips and someone else made a necklace with bottle tops. Come Valentine’s Day, they whipped out their respective creations, brimming with pride and accomplishment and handed them over. But they’d forgotten about me—yes, I was new, but it still hurt. I remember standing there among the sea of shiny crafty things feeling like no one cared about me. It was also embarrassing, and I didn’t want anyone to notice, so I snuck outside and hid in the playground.

And that’s how I felt right now as I stood outside the club.

It hurt that Damian regretted kissing me. It was the sharp pain of rejection, mingling with the sting of embarrassment, mixing with the dull ache of disappointment that took me right back to being that little girl who’d climbed into the colorful tunnel and cried softly to herself.

God, I felt pathetic. But I was also angry with myself for letting it get this far. I was clearly vulnerable and this was no time to open myself up to anyone, certainly not to Damian. And I didn’t even like him…
did I?
Whatever feelings I
thought
I had for him were obviously of the rebound ilk. I felt so alone and was overcome—once again—with a need to spy on Michael. I took out my phone and realized that it was flooded with messages: Mom, Dad, Val, Sue and even Stormy. I flicked through them quickly, not really absorbing much, although I did see that Stormy had cast a spell on Michael and with any luck, she said, he should have genital warts within a day or so. I logged onto Facebook and was about to go to Michael’s page, when I saw I had a friend request. I clicked.

Damien Bishop.

Damien with an “e.” I’d spelled his name incorrectly. My heart conveniently forgot that it was on lockdown and I accepted his request, went straight to his page and opened his photos.

And there he was. Beautiful Damien with an
E.
I got this strange feeling as I scrolled through his pictures, it was a feeling of familiarity—as if I was looking at photos of my oldest and dearest friend. But then I stopped. All the blood that usually pumped around my body drained out of me in one fast whoosh.

A photo caught my eye. It was of Damien, happy, smiling Damien, with his arm around a hot chick. She looked like his type, too: she was petite and her dark hair was cut into a severe bob with dead straight bangs. She had huge blue eyes and was dressed in black skinny jeans and a casual T-shirt with a Barbie doll print. Is there a shop somewhere that sells ironic T-shirts to cool people? I kept scrolling and she kept making more and more appearances. Yep, there they were in London together; yep, that’s them in front of the Eiffel Tower; and yep, that looks like them having lots of fun at some party somewhere. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Damien might have a girlfriend.

Suddenly, I felt cheated on. Damien was cheating on me with some hot, skinny hipster chick. She was probably cool, but in that I-so-don’t-care-what’s-cool kind of way. She was probably fun and rebellious and had tattoos and a nipple ring. They probably tattooed each other as foreplay. She probably didn’t even need to read
Fifty Shades of Grey
; she’d moved on from whips and ties years ago and was probably doing something that hadn’t even been invented yet. She and Damien probably had wild, loud, hot sex while hanging upside-down like vampire bats and listening to obscure bands that made avant-garde noise music on vinyl. I continued to scroll through the pictures and she was everywhere. Wearing more ironic T-shirts, large, big black-framed glasses and strange vintage shoes that might have been worn by a vagrant, but with the addition of knitted laces made from reclaimed wool—the look went from homeless to hipster. But the photo that grated me the most was the one of her lying on the beach wearing a yellow polka-dot bikini,
ironically.
She had one of those thin, hipster-girl bodies and you just knew she’d probably Instagrammed a photo of herself eating some kind of fattening vegan treat just minutes previously.

I was so jealous of her!

The door swung open and Damien stepped out. I jumped as if I’d just been caught doing something naughty, which I had been—I was stalking his hot girlfriend on Facebook. I had this sudden mad urge to confront him about his infidelity, but then my sanity slapped me in the face and told me to pull myself together and turn the phone off. The only reason I was still there, standing outside the club waiting for him, was that I didn’t want to attempt escaping the red light district alone—who knew what could happen?

“Do you think you can help me get back to my hotel?” My statement was curt.

“Sure,” he said, striding out into the road. There was definitely a weird vibe between us.

I followed closely, watching him walk. I wish I hadn’t seen him half-naked, because now I knew what lay beneath those clothes and this had only ignited a full-blown war in my head. My primitive reptilian brain was waging a fierce war against my logical self, fighting for control. Images of a shirtless Damien flooded my mind, and then some kind of superhero avatar of myself jumped in and beat him. This went on and on until I felt positively exhausted. I tried to focus on something else, so I looked around.

There was a mangy, flea-bitten cat with half a tail scrounging in a dustbin to my left, a group of lady boys to my right. We walked past a giant red flashing light that said
Girls
and past a group of drunk, stumbling guys.

“Hey, baby.” I heard a whistle followed by a shout and turned around. One of the drunken guys had changed direction and was veering toward me, so I quickly put my head down and sped up.

“Hey, hey, baby. Don’t run from me.” I could almost smell the alcohol, even though he was still a few meters away.

Damien stopped walking and swung around. He wasted no time in grabbing me by the arm and pulling me behind him with such force that it actually hurt.

“Is there a problem here?” His tone was menacing, and I’d never heard it before. It clearly took the guy by surprise, too, because he held his hands up in resignation.

“No problem, bro. Just trying to hello to a beautiful lady. No crime in that.”

“Well, don’t.” Damien glared at him and took an intimidating stride forward. The man stepped back.

“Hey, buddy, no worries. No harm meant.” The drunken guy turned and stumbled away, but Damien carried on standing there, staring after him. I walked around and looked at him. He had a terrifyingly dangerous look on his face. His eyes were squeezed together into thin, black slits, and his face had contorted into a look that
could
kill. I shivered. Damien definitely had a dangerous streak, that’s for sure.

“Come,” he said forcefully, taking me by the hand and yanking hard. But this time I resisted and pulled my hand away. This hand-holding thing we were doing had to stop.

“What are you doing?” Anger rasped in his voice.

“I’m more than capable of walking on my own without you holding my hand,” I said as indignantly as I possibly could.

“I’m sure you are, but I’d rather you didn’t. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re not exactly in the most kosher part of town. Come.” Again, his hand came for me.

I pushed it away. “No!”

“Do I need to pick you up and throw you over my shoulder?”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.” He glared at me without blinking, his poker face revealing absolutely nothing that led me to conclude he was joking.

“Why do you even care?” I started walking again, striding ahead as fast as my short legs would take me.

Damien caught up to me quickly and grabbed me by the elbow. “What are you talking about, Lilly? Of course I care. I’m not going to let some drunken guy take advantage of you. Never.”

This was killing me. I couldn’t bear to look at him and focused all my attention on a little puddle by my foot instead. “Please just get me back to my hotel.”

There was another one of those awkward moments, and I heard Damien fill it with a loud sigh
.

“Do we need to talk about the kiss?” His tone was calmer and even though I wasn’t looking directly at him, I could tell his demeanor had changed, too.

“No,” I said, trying to put on a brave face. “You made it perfectly clear that you regretted it and wished it hadn’t happened.”

“You think I wished it didn’t happen?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got it
so
wrong, Lilly. I don’t regret kissing you. I could
never
regret kissing you. It was…” He paused. “It was…” I looked up at him now and could see he was struggling to find the word, I could offer him a few: nice, great, amazing, hot?

He continued without saying it, but the implication was there. “And you’re so beautiful, but…” Our eyes met. “I just didn’t want you to think I was taking advantage of you. I know you’re hurting…”

Oh my God.
He thought I was beautiful.

“That’s why I’m sorry it happened. Not because I didn’t enjoy it or want it. Because I really did. Enjoy it and want it.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This moment couldn’t be more perfect if I’d written the script myself. I was about to let him know that I, too, had enjoyed it, and I, too, had wanted to do it and that I would very much like to do it again, when….