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“Oh shit. You’re right.” I twisted to grab my phone, firing off an SOS text to Legs. “I’ll have it delivered so we don’t have to leave our cocoon any sooner than we’re ready.”
The words from my own lips were surprising. Who the fuck was saying them? Damian Fairchild did not createcocoons.He created temporary sex dens that evaporated into thin air as soon as the orgasm hit.
Jessa made it hard to want to evaporate, though.
“This is a pretty great way to spend a Sunday,” she said.
“Sure beats what I normally do,” I told her.
“What’s that?”
“Work and stress myself out,” I said with a laugh.
“You never turn off, do you?” The question was soft. A blunt-edged probe. Normally I’d harden up at a question like that. Deflect, divert. But something about the softness of the morning and the warmth of her buried in my arms prompted me to open up.
“I don’t,” I admitted. “I can’t.”
She drew a breath. “What are you afraid will happen if you do turn off?”
That one landed less like a blunt-edged probe and more like a spear. I had a list of things I was avoiding through work. An entire thesis outlining what I hoped to achieve via endless dedication and devotion to my career.
“You want to go deep this morning, huh?”
She smiled sweetly. “Just making chit-chat.”
It was funny only because she knew how full of shit that response was. “I’m turning off now, see? I can do it. I’m not afraid of it.” But that was a lie. I was terrified of it. And as soon as the sweetness of this encounter ended, I’d need to be back on a mission.
“When’s the last time you turned off?” She drew aimless, lazy patterns over my bare chest, right over the ribs that practically vibrated from how hard my heart slammed against them. It was like she knew and was trying to calm me down.
“I can’t even answer that.” I stared at the ceiling, groping for some sort of idea. It hadn’t been months. It had beenyears. But how did you tell someone you had a problem and chose to ignore it?
“I guess that’s how you and your brothers rose so high, huh?” Her designs drifted across my nipple, down the side of my ribcage. “You don’t stop. You don’t see anything but the finish line.” Her finger paused. “Whatisthe finish line?”
I laughed again. “Is this an interview or a counseling session?”
“Sorry.” She sounded sheepish. “I’m just curious.”
“They’re good questions. I just try not to think about them too much.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know what the answers are, and I don’t like them.”
She tipped her head back, searching out my gaze. “How could you not like the answers? You’re on top of the world, Damian. You’re one of the world’s wealthiest, most powerful men. You have the power to do exactly what you want to in this world. Youaredoing it, regardless of what the finish line is.”
“And despite all that, there are still the haters who will show up to shit all over my fundraiser. Still reporters out there desperate to find whatever dirt they can to trash my life. It’s not the top of the world, Jessa. It’s the bottom. Because the world is on my shoulders now, and it’s a fucking burden.”
My words hung loudly in the air, echoing through my head over and over again. I’d never said it out loud before. Not to anyone, least of all a woman I’d hooked up with. But Jessa wasn’t just a woman I was hooking up with.
The truth was, all of it was a burden and I fucking hated it.
But I had to choose it. Over and over and over.
“Is that the double-edged sword of it?” she asked quietly, after an eternity had crawled by.
“I guess.”
“You could walk away from it.”
