Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (38 page)

31: Seen

Damon couldn’t sleep. He shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have stayed. He lay beside Georgia and tried to keep from moving, waking her, tried to make this moment with her in his arms last for as long as possible. Because it had to be the last time he held her like this.

He had to make things right by her. Maybe he should buy Avocado. Tiptoeing towards insolvency, it was going cheap, Jamie said, but the thought of a blind mute owning a sound studio made him dizzy. And Georgia didn’t need him to buy her a job. She’d taken a redundancy and was talking to Trent about possible freelance jobs.

He should’ve known how she felt about Hamish too, not just the fact of him writing to her shaking her, making her rethink her marriage and her time with him. That was a different kind of avoidance; that was the dark fire of jealousy, the rising spectre of the ex. He was not immune to it; not stronger than it, and it was made worse because they’d changed hats. Now Hamish’s was white and his was distinctly charred.

Maybe he should let her go back to him.

It would be light now. Georgia slept still, curled against his arm, her breathing a series of soft sighs. He’d exhausted himself running from his love for her and now learning her anew in a reunion that should never have been needed and never should’ve happened. He was still a coward, and so much worse a one for how he’d taken her heart and how he’d leave it.

He’d had words while he explored her, like songs, like poetry in his head while he held the planes of her body, the dips and swells of her flesh, silky on his tongue, fragrant on his lips. And he couldn’t shut them up, stuff them back inside. But the cost of them was high. Each one was a staple of his heart to hers, a wound he’d leave behind, because no matter how much he loved her, how much she sang to him, he still needed to let her go. It would be like losing another of his senses, but he couldn’t take her where he was going, a private hell of adjustment, of silence and rage.

The kind of hell she’d already walked through.

Rage is what turned him from her, from the rest of them, and he didn’t have it under control. It burned in him. He was like Georgia’s Hamish in that. Too ready to blame, to lash out, incapable of stopping it happening. He felt that way now, lying in this comfort, his gut a watched pot of boiling muck ready to spill and scald. It would only get worse, and by the time he adjusted, worked out how to live as a man with different limitations, he’d have ruined what they had together, ruined her worse.

He breathed her in. The night had been an act of insane selfishness. He should’ve let Jamie steer him away, better, let Taylor take him home, rather than walk him to Georgia’s door.

He felt the swell of Georgia’s ribs, the languid heaviness of her limbs and tried to memorise those parts of her he’d be without. All her colours, all her sounds. Georgia forever on his mind. When she’d stirred, clutching at him, nuzzling him as she woke, he found the strength to do what he needed to do to give her back her freedom.

He cleared his throat; he could get decent tone and control for those first few hours of the day. “Hello, beautiful.”

Her lips to his. Her mouth so warm, so effortlessly capable of arousing him. He kissed away the morning taste of her, till she was pure addiction sprawled across his chest, till there was no sleep left in her and he felt energy tweak in her limbs.

She put a finger to his cheek, to his dimple. “I am going to mess you up.”

He smiled. “You don’t think you might have already done that.” He was messed up about a lot of things, but utterly scrambled about her.

“You’re so good at making sex about me, but not this morning.”

He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“When we’re together like this, it’s always you pleasing me. You never ask anything of me for you.”

He trailed a hand from her back to her neck, around its column to her cheek. “Is that what you think?” He felt her nod. “You’ve got that so wrong.” He brought her face closer for a kiss and got lost in it. When she broke it he said, “I ask everything of you and you give it without question.” Emotion was a steel bar across his chest, making it hard to breath. “You make me selfish for need of you.” She was quiet, still and it unsettled him instantly. “God, baby, talk to me.”

“You really think that?”

“I know it.”

“You don’t have to impress me, you’ve got me. I lusted after your voice, but you had me the moment you used it to show me who you are. I’ve already forgiven you all the things you’ve done to push me away and all the things you’ll do in the future.”

A wounded sound poured from him. He tightened his arms on her. She was a witch with extra sensory vision. She could see into his black soul, into his panicked psyche.

She put her fingertips to his throat, her breath on his face. “Now who’s speechless?”

They came together with all the fire and fury of a star being made. She was the elemental one, the atom of light. She’d learned his body and knew its secrets, knew to keep her hands on him, move them in a pattern that soothed, that to touch him suddenly outside that anticipated flow could surprise, madden, delight. She fused those approaches with hands that stroked then stopped to change position; a sneak attack, to squeeze or pinch; lips that dragged, then wet, then stung. She was everywhere and nowhere, absence and pressure, gasp and twist and compressed desire so intense he was flattened by it, unable to do anything but receive her hands, her mouth, the sucking slide of her heat, the ache to have, have more, have all.

He gave up trying to predict her movements; gave over to the pulse of his blood, the gravity of her, drawing him into a place where his thoughts dissolved like scattered space dust, and only his body remained, a housing for energy so concentrated, so brilliant he was unbalanced, unearthed and fused to her.

She used her mouth, her tongue, her excited breath to stun him, take him higher, make his back arch off the bed. He fisted her hair, the sheet, to try and ground himself, prolong the moment.

He didn’t want to finish in her mouth, but she wasn’t giving him a choice. “Come with me.”

Here he could have what he couldn’t have in life. He curled off the bed, his abs bunching, his legs shaking, and caught her under the arms, raised her over him. She would be wide-eyed and wild, her hair all over the place, her lips red and plumped up. There was a sheen of moisture on her skin and she tasted salty, tangy from her feast on him. She pressed him down and centred over him, her heat, her juices shockingly beautiful, loosening his tongue.

“Slide hard, baby. Take us there. Show me the sun.”

She picked a new pattern, a new rhythm, this one punctuated by rolling hips and clutching thighs, her hands on his chest, her song a string of verbal tics and moans, high pitched hitches and low exhales.

She raked her short nails down his sides and dripped sweat on his stomach. “I hate you for shutting me out.” Her voice shook and her body trembled.

He took her hands and dragged her torso to his, grunting as the hot silk of her covered him, easing inside her, mouths open on each other’s, gone deaf, gone insensible from the need to thrust, knowing only the crash of their energies, the force of their joining until the cloud burst, the white blasts and the star was made.

And he knew what he needed to do.

They washed each other in her tiny shower, an excuse to stand close, to keep touching, and he told her about London, about trillions of frequent flyer points he’d never be able to use up, about wanting her to have the chance to talk face to face with Hamish. The idea confused her.

“Why would you do that, and I don’t mean the airfare. Why would you want me to see him again?”

“Because you need to. I know you’ve talked.”

She put wet hands over his ears. “You weren’t supposed to know that.”

“You wanted to keep it from me.”

She shut the water off and dumped a towel on his head. “You had enough going on. I didn’t want you to think I was secretly fixating on my ex-husband.”

He scrubbed the water from his hair, passed the towel over his face. “Are you?”

She bit him. Not softly. Teeth to his bicep. He’d heard enough of her private conversations to know it was more tangled than that. To know it was a mass of contradictions and feelings, all of which he had no business in, least of all now.

“I don’t know what to think about Hamish. I don’t know if I can believe what he says. He sounds the same but what he’s saying is different.”

“Which is why I think you should see him.”

“You are the strangest man.”

“You’re just working this out now?”

“I don’t get why you’d do this.”

He reached out, hand to her shoulder, slid it around her waist and brought her back against his front. He breathed deep of her shower freshness, her green tea shampoo, her freesia sweetness and she leaned into him with a sigh. “I want you to be happy. I want you to be strong and free and not carrying around past regrets.”

“You sound like Carmella.”

He sounded like a desperate man who knew Georgia would have reason to take his words and all his actions as false. He turned her head to kiss her. He shouldn’t have but his greed knew no end.

When she broke away with a happy chuckle and a shove, it galvanised him, “Let me get you an airfare.”

She came back to his side, her lips to his neck. “Only if you have enough points for both of us.”

Georgia phoned Hamish. Damon could hear the suspicious delight in her voice and held his breath, there was always a chance Hamish didn’t want this. Hamish did.

Damon made the booking. First available and got lucky. A flight the next morning. They spent that night at his place. Taylor made herself scarce. Georgia made herself impossible to resist. She wasn’t finished assaulting his senses, eroding his will. She insisted on undressing him, pushing his hands away, stopping him from helping. She had him naked and desperate for her, so hard it hurt, before she let him touch her, strip her, slide against her.

“God, your skin.” It made his feel electric, snap with it, fizz with it. He put his nose in her hair and she sighed her joy. He could smell her excitement, feel it ripple on her. Her nonsense articulations were connected to his sympathetic nervous system. They spoke to his arousal, drawing it out, urging it on. But it would be too quick if he didn’t slow them down and he wanted this to take all night, take all time, all motion and make a study of it, preserved for his repeated replay.

He pushed away from her, both of them panting. She laughed. “Too much for you.”

“Too quick for me. You’ll have me wrecked before I can enjoy myself.”

She twirled a finger around the head of his cock. A surprise attack that made him gasp. He made a grab for her hand and got air, then her hand to his shoulder, as she climbed across his lap, sitting on his thighs.

“A little bedtime story might slow things down for you.”

He laughed. “Might rupture something.” His volume failed on the word rupture. At day’s end his voice was a tattered filament of sound, at times more a suggestion than a reason to be heard.

“Once upon a time,” she started.

“It’s a fairy story.”

“Only so much as there’s a mirror.”

“An evil truth-distorting mirror?”

“Not this mirror. This one sees only the good and true.”

This was not a mirror he wanted to see into.

“This one sees your legs.”

“Crushed under the weight of a very naked, very turned-on woman who’s got the wrong end of the stick about slowing down.”

She stroked him and he groaned. “I have exactly the right end.” She took her hand away. “I love the muscles in your legs. You even have nice feet. You plant them wide to hold onto the world. The muscles in your legs, these tendons and ligaments, they give you grace.”

He knew that wasn’t true. His gait was sometimes halting and uneven. Oddly, music gave him better balance, greater fluidity. He shook his head.

“It’s true. There’s grace in mastering space. Moon walking in the dark.” Like others she’d thought he was drunk when they’d first met, but she’d made it sound like he was something special. “Then there are these hips.”

He grinned at her. “You skipped an important part there.”

She pinched his cheek. “Payback. These hips,” her hands on his hipbones, “this crest,” a long lick in the dip that was the belt of muscle, he exhaled. “I like this part of you.” She eased her hands underneath him and he adjusted to let her. “It’s not polite but this butt of yours. You don’t know how much I like to watch it, in jeans, in those black trousers you wear when you’re singing. In nothing.” She squeeze him. “You’re blushing.”

He dropped his chin. Her hands came away. He felt awkward under her examination.

“I don’t want to embarrass you, but I mean to show you how you look to me.” She brushed hair from his forehead and smoothed a thumb over his brow, then her hands were gone from his face, fingers walking his abs. “These are just lickable. God, Damon, you have no idea how gorgeous you are. This chest, broad, thick. You worked to get this shape, to have this grace, this poetry in how you move, in how you make love to me.”

Her lips to his sternum, her hand across his pec, over the throat chakra tattoo. “I was so worried about you marking your skin. But this was a prayer when you knew you were losing your voice. Now it’s a badge of your courage.”

“Stop, baby.” He put his hand over hers. “Enough.” This was too much to live with, her words striking too deep, too sharp at the core of him.

“Nowhere near enough. I want you to see you like I do.” She picked up one of his hands, made their fingers thread. Took the other and put it over breast, her skin softer, cooler there but rapidly warming under his palm. “I love your hands, these long fingers, so capable.” He couldn’t help himself but roll his thumb over her nipple, making it peak. She moaned.

“Your hands are magical. When you put your hands on me, I know you see me. You can make my pulse jump, you can make my blood run fast when you touch me.” She shifted forward so her lips were against his ear. “When you put your fingers inside me. I want to die from pleasure.”