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aid, his voice gravelly and dark.
Gravelly, dark and familiar.
Her vision went all blurry with the stress of the situation, but hearin’ that hard but familiar voice, she stepped back, or tried to at least. The big brute of a man kept her in place as he wrenched the gun from her grasp.
“Britney? That you?” he said in the light above the hall, staring at her in disbelief.
Her own shock was no less, because though he was dressed in thick boots, black jeans and a leather jacket, looking like some biker criminal off of the TV, his dark hair and strong-jawed face was all too familiar.
“Damien,” she said in a light, airy voice; stunned almost to silence by the sight of her former crush.
“Shit,” he said, still holding her tight as he looked her up and down. “It is you,” he remarked, with a shrill whistle, and a wry grin that said he was impressed with how she’d changed in all the years past.
It made her heart beat even faster than before, and she was glad it was still dim inside so her blush was a bit more private. Pressed right up against him, though, it was hard to believe he couldn’t feel her heart near ready to break out of her chest.
“You scared me,” she replied with a bit of a grimace. She shouldn’t be surprised he’d come back for his own father’s funeral, but still, she wasn’t expecting him either.
“I ain’t the one pointin’ guns, Britney,” he said, that wry look on his rugged face still before he checked the chamber of the revolver and gave a whistle. “Fully loaded too. You was ready to pump me full of lead it seems,” he remarked, sliding the gun into his pocket as he held her close still.
Damien leaned in real close, his deep voice a low husk as he murmured to her.
“Y’know, that’s a bit far to go for an inheritance. Even by my standards,” he remarked with dry humour. Or at least, Britney hoped it was humour!
But with his warmth pressing into her, she was havin’ a hard time thinkin’ straight. She’d always been his annoying adopted sister, someone he never had time for, and he’d never held her like this before, not ever. She could smell the fresh air and rich leather off him, and it was intoxicating.
“I thought you were a burglar,” she said, trying to sound calmer and more in control than she felt.
“Nah,” he said, “not tonight.”
He flashed her a wink before finally letting her go from his iron grasp.
“And damn, Brit. It’s been a long ass time,” he said, crasser than ever as he unzipped the front of his jacket, showing a tight white shirt that clung to a well sculpted torso beneath.
Whatever Damien had been up to all these years, he sure as heck wasn’t takin’ it easy, judging by all that muscle beneath his leather.
She wanted to be a smart-aleck, to come back at him with something quick witted, but she was staring at his chest even though she knew she ought not to.
Nervously she went to tuck some blonde hair behind her ear before realizing too late it was all up in a ponytail. She licked her lips and took a deep breath.
“Well yea, you been in the city the whole time,” she finally managed.
Though a peek upwards showed she wasn’t the only one starin’ at a chest.
“Startin’ to have regrets about that,” he remarked, slidin’ one thumb into the waistband of his jeans as he tongued the center of his lower lips. It was an awkward sort of moment, but before it went on too long he said:
“When’d you get here, sweetie?” His voice kinder than she was used to, even though it was rougher than ever. Probably been smoking and drinking all these years.
“Earlier today. Just... cleanin’ mostly,” she replied, and where his voice was hard and rough, hers had gone even softer and more demure. Why was he looking at her like that?
The way his hand rested on and in his jeans, it tugged ‘em down an inch lower, pulled his shirt taut so that she could make out the bumps of his abs through the white cotton. He leaned one hand up on the wall as he got in real close to her.
“It’s a real shame about pa,” he said, which struck her by surprise, seeing that his mind seemed to have gone elsewhere from the moment he saw her. “But it was enough to draw the two of us back together here, at least. He’d have been happy ‘bout that.”
“Yea,” she answered, because it was true. Old Drake always wanted the two of them to get on better and to keep in touch more but that never happened.
She fluttered her eyes closed, feeling a bit overcome by it all and those weird thoughts she was havin’. She’d noticed he was cute when they were younger, sure, but that was just a harmless crush and then he rode on out of her life like he didn’t care at all.
But now he cared.
