Have Me (11 page)

“But I haven’t,” I whisper. “I haven’t because of you. You’re my strength, Damien. You know that.”

“And your dream?” he asks, and I have to force myself not to shudder with the memory of it.

Instead, I manage a shrug. “Everyone has nightmares. Not everyone is as lucky as I am to have a man like you to soothe them.”

His hand closes around my upper arm, his eyes boring straight into mine with the kind of heated ferocity that makes me breathless. “There is no fire I wouldn’t walk through for you, Nikki. But that doesn’t mean I want you to burn, too.”

“I already burn
for
you, Damien. Of course I’ll burn
with
you, too.”

For a moment, his grip tightens so much that I almost wince. Then he pulls me violently toward him, and his mouth is hard against mine. His palm is at the back of my head, his fingers twined tight in my hair. Our teeth clash, his tongue invades my mouth, and I want this—this heat, this wildness. I need him to know that I can take it. Him, this life, this place. All of it.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he asks as the taxi pulls to a stop in front of the hotel.

“At least as much as I love you,” I reply.

I start to edge toward the door, but Damien’s hand stops me. I follow his glance through the window and see the gathering of paparazzi near the entrance, their cameras aimed at us.

Well, hell.

“Go,” Damien says, with a firm smack of his palm to the glass divider between us and the driver.

To his credit, our driver continues on, leaving the vultures gaping. He takes us around back and delivers us to the service entrance. The decor is significantly less stunning as we walk through the kitchen and past the laundry, but at least it’s a photography-free zone.

We head for the service elevator to take us up to the penthouse, and as we’re waiting for it to arrive, Damien pulls out his phone and checks a text message. “Goddammit.”

“What?” I ask, but he is too busy opening apps and checking something.

I edge closer to see, and come face-to-face with the image of Damien’s hand on my breast, his other inside my skirt. And thank goodness for the shadows, because nothing beneath my skirt is visible. Not that anyone needs to see what we’re doing; it’s pretty obvious. My face is alight with passion, after all, and the very clear sign for À la Lune glows neon orange behind us. I recognize the image—it’s from before we entered the club.

I don’t recall making a noise, but I must have, because Damien looks up from his phone, his expression somehow both angry and sad, both cold determination and tender vulnerability.

“No,” I say. “This isn’t your fault.”

“The hell it isn’t.”

“We’re married,” I say. “What the hell do we care if it’s on Facebook?”

“It’s everywhere,” he says. “Sylvia says it’s gone viral. They’ll be dragging out the story about the painting soon, too,” he says, referring to the way the press vilified me for accepting a million dollars in exchange for a nude portrait of myself.

My stomach twists, but I tell myself it will be okay. “All that picture shows is that I love you and I want you. That you turn me on desperately. All it will do is make every other woman in the world jealous that I’m the woman in your bed. I can live with that,” I add with a sharp thrust of my chin.

“I don’t like seeing you exposed,” he says. “Especially when I’m the one who exposed you.”

“I can deal with it,” I say. I don’t mention that
can
deal and
want to
deal are two entirely different things.

“Doesn’t mean you want to,” Damien says, effectively reading my mind as always.

We’re in the elevator now, and it slides to a stop at our floor. I take Damien’s hand and squeeze it lightly. “We’ll be fine,” I say. “We’re together. How can we be anything else?”

His answering smile warms me.
Yes,
I think as the doors open inside our suite.
This will be okay.

And then I see the room.

“Back in the elevator.” Damien’s voice is hard and dangerous, and he is in front of me in less than a second. I have barely registered the state of the room—all I know is that it is in shambles. Our luggage wide open, our clothes scattered everywhere. We hadn’t taken the time to unpack. Apparently someone decided to do it for us.

“Damien—”

“In,” he says, backing me in, then jamming his finger on the button to close the elevator door before pressing the button to ring security.

“I think they’re gone,” I say. “Whoever did that to our room, I think they’re gone.”

“I’m not taking chances with you. Come here. You’re shaking.”

I fall into his outstretched arms and burrow close as he wraps me tight against him.

When the elevator doors open on the ground floor, we are met by hotel security. A team has gone up in the main elevator already, we are told. We wait, and I can see from the tightness in his cheek and the stiffness of his body that waiting is not sitting well with Damien. He wants to be up there. He wants to know what is happening. He wants action. And the only reason that he is not already in full motion is because of me.

Static bursts from a walkie-talkie, followed by a string of French much too fast for me to catch even a single word. The guard responds, looks at Damien, then at me. “The perpetrator is no longer in your room,” he says in clear but formal English. “We cannot at this time determine what is missing other than the … intimates.”

“Intimates?” I repeat.

He clears his throat. “It appears that whoever broke into your suite took intimate apparel. Underwear, bras.” His nose goes a bit pink and he makes a point not to look at me. “There may be more, of course, but …”

Damien stands beside me, rigid with fury. As for me, I don’t know if I’m going to laugh or cry. I think the laughing will win, but I’m not sure if that’s humor or hysterics.

No one speaks as we return to the room. When we arrive, we see that our things have been stacked neatly. The order doesn’t lessen the feeling of having been violated.

“How did this happen?” Damien says, his words sharp and clipped. I know what he means, and it is clear that both the guard and the hotel manager who have joined us also understand the unspoken part of Damien’s question—how the hell did someone get into our room in a hotel of this caliber with the kind of security that Damien demands when he travels.

“I assure you, Mr. Stark, we will be interviewing staff throughout the night, and will have answers for you by morning.”

By morning, I am certain, our underwear will be all over eBay. I catch Damien’s eye and see that his expression mirrors my own.
Fuck.

“In the meantime, if there is anything that you require—”

“Privacy,” Damien says, and the manager is astute enough to know that now is the time to stop with the platitudes and just get the hell out of there.

Damien’s facade remains intact until the manager and his staff leave. The perfect embodiment of a wealthy man who is very put out. Only I see the volcano boiling beneath, and as soon as the elevator doors have closed behind them, Damien picks up a decorative metal bowl and hurls it across the room to shatter the huge mirror that hangs behind the dining table.

As it breaks apart, I release a breath I have been holding. I do not begrudge him his anger. On the contrary, I want to toss a bowl myself. Except I don’t. Not really. What I want is to fall to the ground. What I want is to grasp one of those shards. What I imagine is the sting of glass against flesh—and
dammit,
I don’t want to feel that or imagine that or be that girl. And yet there it is, laid cold and harsh all because the paparazzi are fucking with us and Sofia is a stone-cold bitch.

“No.”

Damien’s voice seems to reach me through a tunnel. It starts far away and then it is right beside me. The voice and the man. I am standing still, a bit shell-shocked, and suddenly his hands are on my arms. He spins us around until my back is against the wall and his mouth is on mine.

One hand slides between my legs, cupping my sex through the material of my skirt. Not sensual, but hard. Demanding.

Wild.

And I am just as wild as Damien.

I yank my skirt up, and he never once breaks our kiss. As his fingers thrust deep inside me, his mouth bruises mine and his other hand closes tight on my breast. So tight that it is not just trails of pleasure that shoot from my breast all the way down to my clit, but pain, white-hot and familiar.

Damn me, I want more. I want it hard. I want to spin off into an away place—and I want Damien as the tether to bring me back.

Damien, I know, needs that, too. He needs to dominate, to regain control.

And I need—god help me—I need the pain to get centered.

“Yes,” I say, and that one word is like a trigger. I feel his muscles tense, his body tighten, both with need and with trepidation.

“Nikki.” He backs off, the increased distance almost imperceptible, but to me it is a dangerous gulf.

I pull him back. “Yes,” I repeat. “You need it. And so do I.” I meet his eyes, knowing that he understands the depth of my craving. The extent of my need. Knowing also that I understand that he needs this just as much as I do. “You’re the only one who can take me there.”

“And the only way you will ever go there.” His voice is harsh and firm, but he is right. I will never turn to the blade again. I don’t need it. I have Damien.

I do not respond; I don’t have to. Whatever fears he had about my need have been either soothed or overwhelmed by his own desire. By his need to lash out and grasp firm to the strands of our life that have been whipped into a frenzy, spinning wildly out of control.

I am those threads, and by claiming me, he can take back that control. And I—I can find the center that I crave, lost in the storm that is Damien.

My dress buttons up the front and I hadn’t bothered to replace the belt when we’d dressed at the club. Without warning, Damien clutches the material and rips the dress open. I gasp as buttons fly, then suck in air as he turns me around, then pulls the garment free, tossing it negligently aside before turning me around again and thrusting two fingers roughly inside me.

I arch my back, my mouth open in a moan, and I grind down on his hand, wanting him to fill me.

He withdraws, pinching my clit and sending shocks of pain colored as pleasure racing through me.

I gasp, overwhelmed by this new sensation, then cry out in surprise when he lifts me up and carries me to the sofa, bending me over the back. I start to put my arms down to balance, but he is having none of that. “Behind your back,” he says, and I use my right hand to clasp the wrist of my left. It is uncomfortable; I feel unbalanced. But I know that is how he wants me to feel. Unbalanced, shaky, off-center. Because if I am not, how can he make me whole again? He stands behind me, and I hear the metallic glide of his zipper as he strips, then feel the warm press of his hand on my ass, stroking, exploring, teasing. He slides it down slowly, sensually, then finds my core, so wet and ready for him.

“Is this what you want?” he whispers. “Do you want my fingers inside you? Stretching you, playing with you? Do you want me to fuck you, Nikki? Do you want me to take us both over the edge?”

I do—but that is not all that I want, and Damien knows it. I say nothing.

“Tell me,” he says, bending over me so that I feel the warmth of his skin over my rear and over my arms as his weight presses them down into my back. I could stay like that forever, warm and enveloped within him. But he asks the question again, his lips now brushing my ear so that his voice makes me shiver. “Tell me, Nikki. Tell me what you need.”

“You know,” I say, because I do not want to put it into words. I do not want to crave what I do—to need the pain to drive me back to center. But he already knows, because he understands me as well as he understands himself. “Please.”

“You are mine.” The words are a whisper, so soft I can barely hear them and yet those three words crash through me, full of love and hope and longing. “Mine,” he repeats, louder this time as he stands up, breaking that contact between us and leaving me longing for the warmth of his touch again. “Mine,” he says as his hand comes down sharply against my ass, sending hundreds of fiery pinpricks through me to gather between my thighs.

“Mine,” he repeats, as his palm strokes my ass, soothing before rising again to spank me over and over, the sting building inside, the fire of contact shooting out like lightning, making me cry out even as I focus on it, grabbing hold and pulling it back in, taking it over so that it is not the pain that controls me, but me that controls the pain.

“Mine,” he repeats as my body lights up with sensation and desire. He moves closer, his cock pressing against my rear as he spreads my legs and strokes my core, the touch sending shock waves rippling across my skin. “I take care of what’s mine,” he says, the words spilling over me as he thrusts hard and fast inside me.

I cry out as my body welcomes him, tightening around him to draw him deeper. But this isn’t slow and easy. This is hard and fast, and he pulls out, then slams into me again, our bodies coming together in a violent impact that sends me spiraling up out of myself.

He holds my hips tight with one hand, the other reaching around to stroke my clit as he pounds relentlessly into me. He is using me, and I am using him, and together we are leading each other through this horrific forest that has grown up around us.

I can feel everything inside me—everything inside him—and it builds and builds until the explosion is inevitable, and I know that if we were to explode like this without each other, we would be lost.

But Damien and I are each other’s bread crumbs, and we will always lead each other back.

After, he pulls me gently to the ground. I lay on my back and look up at him as he strokes my face and then gently, so gently, enters me again. He is no longer controlling me, but controlling himself, and I submit willingly, letting him go where he needs, and letting him take me with him.

I close my eyes, lost in the sweetness as he moves in soft and subtle motions, letting my pleasure build slowly and gently until it breaks over both of us, not an explosion this time, but a gentle rainfall that washes all the harshness away.