Page 27 of An Illicit Seduction

“I know you’re scared to see him like that, but you can’t abandon him, baby. He needs to hear from you.”

With her arms wrapped tightly around her waist, Seraph willed the headache she felt forming to give up the ghost and back down. She’d had to hear too often about Damon’s needs over the past three months and even though it was in a different capacity, she couldn’t help the way her body reacted to it. Damon, or the demon, had trained her well and she hated it.

When they reached the hospital, they signed in at the nurse’s station, pressed their visitor stickers to their chests, and Joyce led Seraph to the room that Damon had been moved to. They stepped inside the room just as a nurse was completing a check on his vitals. He greeted them with a warm smile and encouraged them to talk to Damon and hold his hand. Before he left, he showed them how to call them at the desk if anything happened then stepped out of the room, pulling the door closed softly behind him.

Seraph stood near the door, staring at the wall, completely disregarding the occupied bed taking up the majority of the space in the small room. Joyce pulled one of the plush armchairs over to the head of the bed on the side with no machines, and then she grabbed Seraph by the arm and pushed her into it.

“Talk to him,” she instructed.

Staring at her mother helplessly, Seraph asked, “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything!” Joyce threw her hands up in exasperation. “Talk to him as if nothing happened. Talk to him about whatever you two would talk about before. Be normal. He needs that right now. He needs to know that we are here for him.”

Seraph sat there silently for a moment. Again, with Damon’s needs. “Damon and I didn’t really talk.” Her face heated as soon as she’d said the words, thoughts of the things they did instead of talking running through her mind. But…wasn’t that why they were all here in the first place?

Smirking, Joyce propped a hand on her hip. “Mmhmm. I bet. Then why don’t you talk to him about what y’all were doing in my pantry at the barbecue last month?”

Mouth hanging open in shock, Seraph watched her mother tilt her head toward the bed then walked out of the room. She’d known it was a possibility that someone had heard them, but finding out that her mother had known this whole time was mortifying. It also explained why she continued to suggest that Seraph and Damon get together; she probably thought they already were.

Bending over, she balanced her elbows on her knees and pressed her face into her hands, listening to the hum and beep of the machines that worked to monitor the man who lay still beside her. Faintly, she could hear him breathing, and it occurred to her that she’d never experienced him sleeping beside her. He always left immediately after he deemed them finished. It was just one more factoid in the long list of fucked-up shit she’d endured from him.

She sat there, wrapped up in her thoughts until finally, her curiosity got the best of her, and she took a peek at him.

And immediately, she regretted it. Her eyes filled with tears as she took in his appearance. His face was swollen and mottled with purple and black bruises. His arms were covered in cuts and scratches. There was a cast covering his right foot that stopped in the middle of his calf, and a long gash covered in sutures across his forehead that would more than likely become an undeniable scar. It would be an ever-present representation of how he had once possessed her while simultaneously being possessed.

Suddenly, she was filled with rage.

“I hate you for this,” she whispered in a gritty, anguished voice. “You did this. You terrorized me for months and yet, I’m being pushed to be here for you. It’s not fair. You took and took and took from me—without ever asking if it was what I wanted—but I’m supposed to care that you got yourself hurt? You’re the dumbass who stepped into a busy street, probably on the way to find me and fuck me senseless—” Her voice cracked and she stood from the seat, pacing the room for a moment before returning to the chair and slipping her hand underneath his. She curled her fingers up to thread them through his limp ones, clutching his hand in hers. She was angry, yes, but this was still Damon—maybe even her Damon.

“Why did you do this? If you liked me, why didn’t you just say so? Why put us through all of this? I can never look at you the same; you know that? I don’t even know who you are anymore, but after the things you’ve done to me, I don’t know that I want to go back to how things were before. I think it’s best if we sever all ties completely.” Even after getting that off of her chest, she still didn’t feel better, but as she sat there, she had another thought.

“Damon. When you wake up, you’d better be your old self again because you are out of your damn mind if you think I’m about to climb on this tiny-ass hospital bed and bounce on your dick.” It was funny because she knew that he was in no position to do that, but it was right up the incubus’ alley.

“You know what?” She asked the quiet room, bringing her eyes to the man once more. “I just realized that with all of the fucking we did, you never kissed me. You ate my pussy and licked my ass but never kissed me in the mouth.” She stared at his motionless body, wondering—no, knowing that she was crazy for the thought that crossed her mind.

The knowledge didn’t change the desire, and she felt like she deserved it. She deserved the right to take something from him, no matter whether or not he wanted to give it. She stood from the seat, still holding his hand in hers, and leaned over him until she was hovering right over his face. Even with all of the bruises, it was clear that he was handsome, and four months ago, she would have even called him sweet. Now, she knew that he had the potential to harbor a monster inside of him. Still, she bent her head and pressed her lips to his.

Surprisingly, they were soft and moisturized. Maybe his mother had been regularly applying lip balm on his behalf. She sighed into him, wondering how different things might have turned out if he had actually verbalized his feelings, but then she was surprised by the movement of his mouth under hers. What had felt like pressing her lips into the corner of her bent elbow, turned into an actual kiss with him responding. Her eyes flew open, and she was startled to find herself staring into Damon’s eyes.

Lurching back, she broke their connection and tried to yank her hand free, but his grip was now ironclad and he refused to let her go. Her chest heaved as they stared at one another for a few seconds before the consistent beeping of a machine snapped her back to reality. She reached above his head to grab a large remote-like device from the wall and pressed the red call button. When the nurse responded in question, she breathed into the receiver, “He’s awake.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Another Again

Damon remained in the hospital for another three weeks after he awakened. When the doctor and nurse rushed in, they had to urge him to release Seraph’s hand so they could begin testing. As soon as her hand was free, she shot out of her room and found her mother to let her know what was going on. Joyce called Louis, who showed up with Carla—Damon’s mother—and her crew in tow, and they all camped out in the waiting room, eagerly awaiting word from the doctor.

The word came and brought with it shock and disbelief. Louis told Joyce and Seraph that Damon had retrograde amnesia. According to the doctor, Damon believed the date to be one that passed three months ago. When they repeated the date, Seraph’s heart thundered in her chest. Damon thought it was the day of Jaime’s Pajama Jam. Why? What did that mean?

Through a series of verbal tests, the doctors learned that while Damon hadn’t sustained any injuries on that day, he’d been in New Orleans the night before and had gotten drunk on Bourbon Street with his friends before passing out in his hotel room. That’s the last thing he remembered.

That was all Seraph needed to hear. She knew what happened after that. Hell, she knew what happened now. While the doctors were puzzled over his memory loss, Seraph knew what had happened. She’d chanted seven times for his mind to be cleared and apparently, it had. Once that realization settled in, she decided not to return to the hospital.

After endless tests, and scans, and examinations, the specialists that were called in couldn’t figure out the cause of his memory loss and eventually decided to let him go home. Damon was released from the hospital and cleared to return to work on light duty. Except for a sprained ankle that would continue to heal over the next few weeks, no matter his location, he was in great shape. In fact, many people said that he was lucky—that being hit by a bus while on foot could have meant instant death. He was lucky to walk away with only a cut on his forehead, sprained ankle, and a few forgotten months. It sounded callous, but it was honest.

It was good news—the kind of news they could all use more of after hearing that he’d died at the scene. Instead of rushing to Damon’s apartment with her family and his friends to celebrate his good health, however, Seraph kept her distance, on edge as she waited to see if he would do the inevitable and show up at her apartment, primed and ready to shove her face into the mattress.

It never happened.