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Tear-tracks scarred his cheeks and his breathing was uneven, and when he turned his head, his eyes locked Carrie under their dark spotlight.
‘I felt his heart stop beating beneath my hands, Carrie. I felt it the moment his life ended.’
Tears flooded out of her eyes. How dark and frightening the world must have seemed to him in those immediate moments. How alone he must have felt, especially when his mother had abandoned him not long after.
She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but it felt so insufficient. She wanted to tell him she understood his pain, but she knew there could be no understanding the agony he’d been made to suffer. It made her feel useless, so achingly inadequate that there were no words that she could offer that would help or heal him.
All she could really offer was herself. Her empathy. Her emotion. The assurance that he was no longer alone.
But would he accept it?
Unable to bear the distance separating them any longer, Carrie moved to the seat beside him. She tucked her arm under his, laced her fingers with his and pressed her face into his shoulder.
‘I’m so sorry, Damon,’ she whispered against his skin.
His body was rock-hard with tension, the tendons in his strong arms standing out. He said nothing, and the only move he made was to rub the pads of his fingers against her knuckles. After a few moments of sitting like that, he unlaced their fingers. Carrie shifted upwards, bracing for him to pull away from her, but he kept hold of her hand and trailed his fingertips in dazzling, sizzling patterns along her palm.
Hot sparks ignited in her stomach, excitement shifting through her veins at the slight and simple caress. It shouldn’t have been so provocative, but Carrie struggled to keep her breath steady—a feat that became even harder when Damon raised her palm to his face, curling it around his cheek. The skin-to-skin contact sent a jolt through her. His stubble-roughened jaw felt delicious beneath her hand and she exhaled sharply.
He turned his head, and his dark eyes bored into hers. She didn’t blink, didn’t dare to breathe, didn’t want to do anything that would interrupt the moment. But the need to feel more of him beneath her fingers eventually won out, and gently she allowed her thumb to trace small circles on his skin. His eyes drifted closed, his lips curving into a facsimile of a smile. When his eyes opened again it was as if they were on fire, so bright and burnished, and all Carrie craved was to be kissed by that unique heat, branded by his flame.
As if he was reading her mind, he leaned in to capture her mouth, slowly drawing his lips across hers. Her craving awakened fully, she launched herself onto his lap, curling her arms around his strong shoulders and pressing herself to him as hard as she could, matching the urgent feasting of his deep, drugging kisses.
Her blood hummed with the intimate contact. Their physical reunion was everything she had been yearning for day and night for weeks. The slide of his lips and the stroke of his hands soothed every ache in her body and answered every wish of her heart. It was sweet and sharp, deep and needy. It was everything.
And Carrie wanted every second of it—along with so much more. She wanted the tight embrace of his arms, the weight of his powerful body above hers. She wanted him to drag down her top and bare her breasts to his mouth. She wanted him to rip off her underwear and ride her to sweet fulfilment.
But he didn’t want that. In his eyes she was tainted.
‘Damon, wait.’
Somehow managing to disengage her lips from his sweet mouth, Carrie braced her hands against his shoulders to stay out of reach. She made an attempt to slide off his lap, because trying to think with his enormous erection straining against her was impossible, but he held her too fast.
‘We shouldn’t do this,’ she muttered, shaking her head and trying not to look at him. Because she knew that one look at his face would cause her to crumble. ‘It isn’t what you want—not really. You’ll regret it...just like you regret that night in Paris.’
‘I won’t regret it,’ he said, and there was tenderness in his eyes as he forced her to meet his gaze. ‘And I definitely don’t regret our night in Paris.’
‘But...’
Silencing her with a finger across her mouth, he continued, ‘The only thing I will regret is if I don’t have you in my bed again.’
Carrie wanted to believe him more than she’d ever wanted to believe any words spoken to her, and even though she had convinced herself that all he felt about that night was remorse, the glint in his eyes and the feel of his hands on her waist told a different story.
As he slowly pulled her mouth down to his, Carrie didn’t resist. Sinking into the hot, slow strokes of his tongue, she felt warmth suffuse her. Fear forgotten, she allowed her body to open to his, crushing her breasts against his chest, rubbing the apex of her thighs against his growing erection.
Through the thin fabric of her pyjamas his fingers burned where they touched, and she squirmed with her need to be free of the flimsy fabric. She reached for the hem of her top at the same moment he did, and together they pulled it over her head. Then Damon brought his mouth to her nipple, moving his tongue in a neat circle before suckling with such intensity that streaks of lightning shot straight to her molten centre. She could feel herself splintering as he offered the same worship to her other breast and knew his words had to be true. He had to want her. He could not caress her with such reverence if he did not feel something for her.
‘Carrie, kiss me,’ he commanded throatily, and she lowered her parted lips for him to drink from, loving the satisfied growl from the back of his throat when their mouths crashed together. ‘It’s not enough,’ he growled against her mouth. ‘I need to make love to you. I need to be inside you.’
‘Upstairs?’
Her shook his head, his eyes burning with a fire she could feel thrumming beneath his skin.
‘Here. Now.’
There would be no complaint from her.
Reaching down, she manoeuvred the fastening on his trousers so his erection sprang free and held his velvet length between her fingers, drawing her eyes up to watch how her touch commanded an instant reaction from him. His eyes were closed, face contorting with delight and resistance, and she grew even more bold, squeezing gently to see an even greater play of emotion, delighting in the power she possessed over him.
