Insanity (9 page)

Stepping inside, I run the tips of my fingers over the wooden handle of one of the plungers. The rough yet glossy handle tickles my fingertips and distracts me. Distracts me while the door slams shut behind me and the light in the room goes out. Hands. There are hands sliding up the back of my gown, against my skin, and over my hips. Fingertips dig into my upper thigh and a nose nuzzles my hair. Warm breath trails down the nape of my neck. Inside I’m screaming, so built up with aching want, passion, and ravenous desire that my lungs clench and I can barely breathe.

“Damien,” I whisper into the darkness.

“Hmm,” he moans against my hair and lowers his lips to my ear. “I didn’t think you were going to show. I thought I was going to be stood up.”

His lips are on my neck and all of the emotions inside of me are building and building and building. I’m seconds away from exploding. Erupting. “No. Never,” I moan softly.

He takes my left earlobe between his teeth and gives it a gentle tug. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you, Addy. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this.”

He hugs me, pulling me closer to his body. I reach over my head and run my fingers through his chin length ebony hair. “Oh,” I say. “But I do.” Because I’ve been waiting for this day too and I’ve felt like it was never going to arrive.

Damien’s arm is wrapped around my waist and his fingertips graze against the bare skin on my stomach. I can feel the want for him pulsating between my legs. His free hand rests low on my belly and I whisper, “Touch me.” His hand slides down a little further. “Please, Damien. Touch me.”

His hand goes further down my underwear. “Where do you want me to touch you?” I hear the smile in his husky voice. He’s toying with me, but I’m too far gone to be upset about it. I’m too swept up in him to be anything but putty in his grasp. He moves his hand down a little further then traces my jawline with his tongue before working his way back up to my ear. “Is this where you want me to touch you?” he murmurs against my ear.

“Yes,” I say, half-moan, half-hiss. I close my eyes and see his radiant blue eyes in my mind. I see the way they used to burn into mine, so full of love and passion and the vision nearly breaks me. I hunch over as the tips of his fingers skim over my private area. “Damien, please.”

A deep throaty chuckle leaves his throat. “You want me don’t you?” He jerks me upright. Wraps his strong hand around the back of my neck. Twists me around to face him. “Tell me.” His lips brush against mine teasingly and it’s crazy how a soft brush from his warm, full, and moist lips can send me over the rails of insanity. My whole body is trembling. My heart is on fire. His name is in my throat and I think about screaming it, but I hold back. “Come on baby,” he murmurs against my lips. “Tell me. Tell me how much you want me.”

“I want you so bad.” I’m almost at the point where I can’t handle him teasing me like this anymore. My private area throbs with the heat for him to be inside of me and I think I’m about to lose it. Go wild. Go crazy. Run down the corridor back to my room and beg for the employees to take me to the basement and put me out of my misery.

“That’s my girl.” His voice is thick with emotion. Twisted with lust. He spins me to face him then backs me into the wall. He hovers over me and grips my chin. “I love you, Adelaide. I always have. I always will.”

“I love you too.” I know he’ll always be the core of my everything. I can’t even imagine feeling this way about anybody else. I can’t imagine giving myself to anybody else the way I’ve given myself to him.

Daddy used to say that ‘sex’ is a dirty, tainted word, only used by whores and sinners. I guess that makes me both a whore and a sinner because I’ve let Damien taint me over and over and over again for the last year. And I know that I’ll continue to let him because I’ll never have enough of him.

Damien presses his body against mine. My hands slide up his muscled abdomen and he lifts his shirt over his head. My fingertips trail over his defined six-pack and the jingling of him fiddling with his belt rings out in the small room. His pants hit the floor with a thud. His hands drop from my shoulders, fingers digging into my body as he crouches down. He loops his fingertips through the corners of my underwear, slides them down my legs, and I swear I can see a wicked gleam of desire in his blue blue eyes. Even in the dark.

After Damien removes my hospital gown, he lunges for my mouth. At first our kiss is gentle and sensual. Then as the kiss deepens, he slips his tongue into my mouth and it intertwines with mine. I’m breathless, hungry, and flying. I feel like I’m soaring through the clouds and I don’t ever want to come down.

With his tongue still dancing around in my mouth, Damien wraps both of his strong arms around my waist and hoists me up, pinning me between him and the wall. He leaves a trail of kisses from my neck to my collarbone and I bite down softly on his shoulder blade and moan. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed being this close to him.

In one swift motion he thrusts into me and a growl escapes from his throat. I gasp and throw my head back as Damien holds me up easily with one arm. He grips my chin and pulls my mouth to his, thrusting gently, and slowly inside of me. The tip of his tongue flicks against mine and at that moment, I feel like I’m almost at the top of Mount Everest. Every time I pick up a foot I’m climbing higher and higher and the altitude sucks the air from my lungs. My voice is hoarse, but I say, “Damien.”

He moans in response, thrusting harder and his face is so close to mine I notice his scrunched brows and the way he’s biting his lip with determination. He pulls me closer. So close that our damp bodies, thick with sweat are sticking together. My hands work their way up his face and tug at his strands. I throw my head back, so lost, so wrapped up and infected by the way he feels inside of me that I can’t even speak.

Suddenly he pulls out of me and lowers me to the ground. He flips me around. My bare feet are planted firmly into the cold, hardwood floor and my palms are flat against the tan plaster walls in front of me. Damien’s hands work their way over my hips and I arch my back in response to him thrusting inside of me again. My spine is curved. The back of my head, resting against his shoulder blade. He tightens his arms around my waist and moves one up around my collarbone. He moves inside of me, holding me as close to him as he can. His lips are hot against my ear and he moans. “You’re mine.”

I bite my lip and choke on a strangled grasp. “Oh, God. Damien.” I think about how much I love him. How one word from his lips can make every nerve ending in my body tingle. Then I think about society in this day and age and how sex before marriage is severely frowned upon. But how can you frown upon something that is so beautiful, so perfect, and so right?

Damien crushes his mouth to mine and groans against my lips. “Tell me you’re mine.” He’s breathless and his deep voice is thick and raspy. He clutches me tighter and thrusts harder. “Tell me, Addy.”

I try not to scream, so the words come out strained. “I’m yours. All yours, Damien.”

At that moment, the room collapses around me when I feel myself and Damien completely let go. His name is on the tip of my vocal cords and I swallow hard to keep myself from shouting it. He tenses and he pulls me closer to him when he finds his release and then breathes softly into my hair, his fingers digging into my stomach.

Seconds after, I feel the tears pooling in my eyes. I try to suck them back, determined to not let him see me like this, but I let out a soft whimper and Damien is pulling me to his chest again and kissing my hair. “Why the tears, my love?” he asks.

“I don’t want to leave you,” I tell him. What I don’t tell him is that I’m scared because I don’t know when I’ll be able to see him again.

Thinking of him is not enough. Watching him from afar is not enough. Surviving on memories of the past is not and will never be enough.

Damien traces my jawline with his fingertip and brushes my hair away from my face. I find his blue eyes in the dark, gripping onto his biceps, wanting to never let go. He kisses me softly. “Soon, you won’t have to leave me, baby.” His voice is filled with certainty. Does he know something I don’t?

“What?”

“I’ve got a plan, Addy,” he says with confidence. “I am going to get you out of here.”

Chapter 10

~BEFORE~

The sky is cloudless with miles of powdered blue as a backdrop. The wind is breezy, not too forceful, but not too soft, and the sunshine is heavy. We’re in the field behind my house, hidden amongst the long swaying grass. The humidity is nonexistent, so I’m wearing a floral dress, covered by a blanket of Damien’s arms.

Damien reaches beside him and plucks a piece of yellowed, dead grass then trails it along the bare skin on my arms. As the hardened, dead grass connects with my skin, it makes me shiver and tickles me at the same time. I can’t decide if I should moan out in pleasure or laugh out gleefully. Damien continues moving the grass down the length of my body and then moves it up my thigh higher and higher until the end disappears underneath the skirt of my dress. He rests it against my underwear and at that point I laugh and snatch the blade of long grass from his fingertips. “Ha!” I wiggle the piece of grass in his face then trail it along his arms. “Now who has the upper hand?”

Damien snorts then his sapphire eyes move in a circle before resting on me. “We’re in a field full of grass, you beautiful silly girl.” He plucks another long piece of grass and slaps his palm with it. “Now if I were you, I’d start running.”

I’m on my feet with my hands on my hips and a smirk of my face. “What are you going to do? Whip me?” A beating by a blade of grass, seriously, what is he on?

“Who knows what I’m capable of?” he says, a devilish glint in his eye. “But if I were you, I’d start running.” He picks up a foot and moves closer. He’s so close that when he leans over, his cool breath that smells of chocolate and mint leaves washes over my face. “Now.”

With that I take off running. I’m pumping my legs as hard as I can, pushing my body to its limit as I put more distance between Damien and I and pick up speed. I glance over my shoulder to see if he’s still behind me. He’s not.
Where the heck is he?
I can still hear his feet crunching against the grass. I can still feel the heat of another body close by. He has to be hiding from me or something, but just when I turn my head and think of calling his name, he jumps from an area where the long grass grew in a thick patch. He scares the crap out of me. My heart is racing. My stomach is all jittery. He lunges for me and I try to dodge him, but his long arms ensnare me by the waist and pull me to the ground.

We roll onto our backs and laugh together. I laugh so hard that my mouth is dry and my side aches. I hug myself and try to control myself, but when I look over at Damien, the laughter flies out of my mouth and the smile slips from my face. “Damien, is something wrong?”

He gazes up into the pale blue sky and inches his fingers toward my hand. I lie on my back next to him and he takes my hand, brings it to his lips and kisses it. “Nothing,” he says. “I was just thinking about how lost I was until I found you. And I was also thinking about how much I love you.”

“And I love you.” I enunciate each word then lean over and kiss him on the cheek. “So much.” Sometimes I feel like I love him so much that there’s no room for me to feel anything else. But I don’t mind. I don’t mind that my feelings for him smother everything else. No one has ever uttered those three words to me. Well, not since my mother left, but that was years ago.

His thumb grazes over the skin between my thumb and forefinger. “We’re having a brunch tomorrow, will you come?” he asks.

I mull over my answer before coming up with, “Maybe.” It’s not that I don’t want to come, I do. Honestly, if he and I could be together every waking minute, I’d relish our time together, and I’ve convinced myself that we’d live happily ever after. But after my last run in and
little talk
with his mother, I’m not sure if I want to have another one.

“Just maybe?” He smiles, winks, and crooks his forefinger brushing it over my upper cheek. “Why just maybe? I thought you said you loved me,” he teases.

We roll onto our sides and face each other. Damien reaches out and twists a piece of my hair between his fingertips. I shiver in delight when the tip of his finger grazes against my skin. “I do love you,” I tell him. “But tomorrow is a Saturday and Daddy will be home all day. I don’t think he’ll let me go.”

Daddy doesn’t let me do anything. Plus if it’s a Saturday and he’s off, I know that he’ll be drunk all day long and I’ll have double the housework to do. And Daddy doesn’t like it when I get behind on the housework. And I don’t like to make, Daddy, angry.

Damien is silent for a moment. “Okay then.” He smiles. I love his smile. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. It brings a smile to my lips. “I’ll meet you tomorrow evening then?”

“Of course my love.”

He hovers close. “Beneath the willow tree at dusk?”

I nod and smile. The ancient willow tree in my backyard is our haven. We meet there at dusk almost every day. Then we lie together, wrapped up in our love and each others arms for hours and watch as the sun fades and the night sky comes to life.

His lips flutter over top of mine and when he pulls away, I notice the heat in his eyes. “I’ve never seen eyes like yours,” he brushes some of my hair away from my face to get a clearer look, “they’re stunning.”

“I got them from my mother,” I say. “A mixture of navy blue and magenta—violet.”

Damien rolls on top of me and presses his body against mine. He plants a trail of soft kisses down my neck. Sucking in a deep breath, I moan quietly. Then I throw my head back as want climbs down my thighs and desire swells low in my stomach. Every time he places a kiss somewhere on my bare skin, I feel the heat inside of me rising. “I want to make love to you,” he whispers against my lips.

“Then do it,” I tell him as my needy fingers crawl up the back of his shirt and my fingernails dig into his skin.

In one swift motion Damien pulls his shirt over his head, then moves down my body. He lifts up my skirt and kisses my inner thighs and I feel like I’m a hot air balloon that’s about to be deflated. He reaches for my underwear and his fingertips graze against my hips, bringing out goosebumps all over my skin. He slowly starts sliding my underwear down my legs and my back is arched on the ground and I’m writhing like a mad woman.