Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
I turn to face him, and our eyes collide in a rush of memories, friendship, and something darker and far more obsessive. The same something that drove us together in that bedroom in the college fraternity. The same something that has us moving toward each other, closing the space between us.
We stop toe-to-toe, but not touching, and the rest of the world has faded away.
There is just me and Damion, and I’ve stopped—I think we’ve stopped—understanding what that means or where it leads.
Chapter Nine
Alana
“Why are you here, Damion?”
“Because you’re here,” he says, his voice a low, gravelly purr. “That’s how it’s always been, Alana. Where you go, I go.”
Not anymore, I think. “That was a long time ago,” I murmur. “A really long time ago.”
“We’ve spent more time together than apart.”
And yet, none in the past three years. I’d believe I no longer fit the impression he wants to make on the world, except everything he just did at the event says differently.
“If you came to tell me to return to the party, everyone is leaving.”
“I didn’t, but you were amazing in there.”
“Thanks. You weren’t so bad yourself.”
“Lots of practice. My dad pushes me. You know that.”
“Yes,” I say. “He’s always wanted you to rule the world.”
“He’s always wanted me to be as good as him.”
“Are you?”
“Not according to him, but I’m okay with that. I don’t want to be him. I’ve never wanted to be him. I’ve got a place here in the city. Let’s go there. We can catch up.”
My heart skips a beat and then begins to pitter patter like a drum. I reject the invitation and all the implications that come with it. I try to step backward. He catches my hand, darts of heat shooting up my arm and across my chest. Lord help me, my nipples pucker. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” he counters.
“We made a vow to be friends and—”
“We’re friends, Alana. We will always be friends. But that doesn’t change the here and now.” His hand settles on my waist, warm and firm. “I want you to come home with me.”
My hand goes to his hand as if I could control the insane warmth radiating from his touch. As if I could ever control anything I feel with Damion. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t act like I’ve never touched you. I zipped up your prom dress before your date arrived.”
“Because we were friends. Just friends. We agreed—”
His free hand is suddenly cupping my face. “You agreed. I did not.” His mouth presses to my mouth, and his tongue slides deep, and it’s as if a river of sensation and emotion floods my body. I moan with the impact and every soft part of me melts into every hard part of him. Time stands still and if I could stay here, in this moment, forever, I would. But a horn honks and our lips part.
“Come with me,” he says, soft, gentle fingers stroking my hair from my face.
My teeth scrape my bottom lip and a flash of that moment in the fraternity when that woman charged at us stiffens my spine. “I always knew that if we did this, we were over, Damion. You’re a player and I’m—”
“With that other guy while making out with me?”
“I wasn’t with him. He was a friend protecting me from you.”
He curses and scrubs his jaw. “You don’t need to be protected from me.” He snakes his phone from his pocket and punches a button before he says, “West side of the building.” He disconnects and cups my head and kisses me, a rough, demanding slide of tongue before he says, “You know that.”
But he’s wrong. My heart has needed protection from him for as long as I remember. He doesn’t mean my heart, though. He means other things, like the way he protected me from myself when I would have walked out tonight. Maybe. I think I would have.
“I know that,” I whisper.
His hand slides over my shoulder and down my arm in the most intimate of ways, until the fingers of one of his hands link with mine. “Then come with me.”
There was a time when the only person who knew everything to know about me was Damion. There was something safe and special about that bond that carried me through so much of my life. The kind of bond you wish to find once in your life and you think will be with your future spouse. But I’m not going to marry Damion. That was a childhood fantasy. He’s the protégé king of the financial world and it was clear to me tonight, so high above all of us on his throne, we’ll be lost to him in the sea of city lights and all the other people.
This might be the last time we ever see each other on the same ground, in the same place in life. This might even be the last time I see him ever again. It’s impossible for me to say no to one night with him, when that night might be our last.