Page 75 of Realm of the Wicked

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DAMIEN

Focusing on work was impossible. I didn’t know why I was even attempting to pretend like I could.

I took my glasses off, resting them on the top of my desk with a sigh. Things had never been more perfect. Things had never been more dire.

It seemed like that was how my life was always destined to go. The best moments with the worst. I’d finally got to touch Stella, exactly the way I’d been dreaming about for years. But Clarissa was going to come back at any point, and I was no closer to figuring out a solution. I was desperate, but so was she. As badly as I wanted to keep Stella, Clarissa wanted to keep her power. I knew her logic. If I ignored her rules, that gave everyone in Hell permission to ignore her rules as well. Before you knew it, her precious Balance would collapse, and her power would be no more. I’d met a lot of people in my lifetime, but none so desperate to stay in control as Clarissa.

There was a soft knock at my office door, and I couldn’t stop the smile from appearing. Stella. ‘Come in.’

She peeked her head around the door, hair loose and wild around her shoulders. ‘Am I interrupting anything?’

‘Nothing of importance.’ Nothing was more important than her, anyway.

Stella stepped inside my office, leaving the door open behind her. She was in her yellow sundress again, the one I’d made Agatha immediately procure after seeing her in the golden silk dress at our damned dinner party. It swished around her hips, grazing the tops of her thighs that I now knew were the perfect amount of softness, and just how sweet her perfect⁠—

‘Damien.’

I looked up, and Stella was staring at me with a smile.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I was bored. It’s raining again and Agatha is making some kind of elaborate dessert in the kitchen that I couldn’t understand and she sent me away.’ Her fingers plucked at a loose thread on her dress, raising the hem an inch higher, an inch more of her perfect flesh on display.

I raised a brow. ‘You knocked on my closed office door because you were bored?’

‘And I wanted to see you.’ She smiled wider, crossing the floor between us, sitting on the edge of my desk. ‘Should I leave?’

‘No.’ Definitely not. Never. Besides, the way she was sitting pulled her dress up higher, any higher and I would lose all control, like a damned animal. Fuck it. ‘But I do have a question.’

‘Okay?’ She frowned, a crease appearing between her warm brown eyes.

I pushed my ledgers and my glasses to the side, spinning her around until she sat on my desk facing me, feet between my legs. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

‘By knocking on your closed door?’

‘You know what this dress does to me.’ I pushed the soft material up on her thighs, enjoying the goosebumps that spread across her skin where I touched her. She was so responsive. ‘I think you wear it on purpose to torture me. You know I can’t control myself.’

Stella’s brow smoothed, and she smirked. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

My lips curled up. Brat. ‘I think you do.’

‘I assure you, my motivations in coming here were entirely innocent.’ She sighed as my hands brushed against the edges of her panties. Or where’d they’d be, if she were wearing any.

She met my gaze with a wicked smile.

‘I. Don’t. Believe. You.’ I punctuated each word with a soft kiss against her thigh.

‘Maybe I like it when you’re an animal,’ she whispered.

‘You like it when I’m an animal? When I’m a bloody beast who can’t keep his hands off you?’ I dragged my tongue up her leg, keeping my eyes on her the entire time. Fuck, she was delicious. ‘What a dirty girl you are.’

‘Shut up,’ she murmured. She lowered her face down to kiss me with a narrowed gaze. ‘Just shut up and kiss me already.’

I got to my feet, towering over her, all too happy to oblige. I sighed as our lips met, feeling whole and right once more. I’d fix this whole mess because there was no other option. I refused to accept any time might be the last time I kissed Stella, the last time I held her, so I’d do whatever it took it fix it all.

‘Really, Stella, this dress… it makes me want to do depraved things.’