by SR Jones
Tonight, he might think he’s the one laying siege to me, but I’m the one playing for keeps. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Damen gets onto the bed, his big body bracketing me, and he’s a bona fide work of art. The sight of him towering over me has my stomach tightening in anticipation. I look down at his hard as nails cock and trail my fingers over the swollen flesh. He shivers in response, and his eyes darken.
I know if I ask him outright, he’ll say we shouldn’t do this, because asking him will make him engage his brain. I don’t want him to engage his brain. I’m clean, and I am on the pill, as the doctor said it would help regulate my cycle if I went on it for a short time before getting married. My periods had been somewhat erratic, and of course, I had to try to get pregnant as soon as possible.
So, I’m covered, and I happen to know Damen is clean, because I did a naughty thing two days ago and snooped. I saw some papers lying on a desk in the study and read through them. One was from his doctor, and he had a full physical only a few weeks ago and got the results, and he’d opted for testing as part of that. The man is in fine shape inside as well as out, and he’s disease-free. I wonder if he does it regularly, like a yearly thing, or if he did it because of me? Then again, that makes no sense because he had it done before Paris.
What if there’s someone else? Or what if he’s been feeling unwell? I couldn’t ask him after reading the letter, because I’d have to admit to sticking my nose where it most certainly didn’t belong.
An idea comes to me. I trail my finger down his rock-hard abs and smile. “You’re in great shape. Like a real-life Superman. I bet if you had a medical examination they’d want to send you off to be studied by science.” I chuckle and deep inside hold my breath because is this too obvious? Will he know I’ve snooped?
Clearly not as he gives me a lazy grin. “I had my yearly check a month ago, and everything is normal. No superhuman findings.”
“Why do you have a physical?”
He sobers then. “I was injured, and now I’m fine, but I get checked every year in relation to that. I might as well look at everything while I’m there, so I get the whole package of bloods, the scan on my head, and a sexual health test as well. Although I didn’t need that this year.”
My mind is whirling, head scan? What? Why? And why didn’t he need the sexual health test this year?
“You have to have your head scanned?”
“Yeah, I had a traumatic brain injury, and I had post concussion syndrome, but it’s a lot better now. I think my doctor is overcautious, but he has done a yearly follow-up MRI to check.”
Oh wow. My plans of seduction go flying out the window as I look at him. “Was it bad? The injury?”
“Not from the outside. I hardly had a bruise, but I hit my head hard when I went down to the ground. I mean hard, and hence the brain stuff. It’s mostly the odd headache now. I had a bit of memory loss at the time, though, and that was weird as fuck.”
“What did you forget?”
“The whole two months prior to the injury at first. It’s why I lost my job, retired on grounds of ill health from the military, and … other things.”
“Oh, Damen.”
He frowns. “It’s fine, and I’m all okay. I don’t need your pity.”
Oh, shit, men and their egos. “It’s not pity,” I bristle. “It’s empathy—totally different thing. Don’t be an ass.” I slap him across one hard pec.
He smiles then, and I’m glad the seriousness is lifting. “There she is, my tiger. You’re one hell of a ballsy woman.”
“Just because I stand up to you?”
“Yeah, because you stand up to me.”
“Maybe I like living dangerously.”
He chuckles darkly. “I should think you do, getting fucked in the ass the night before your virginity check-up.”
Yeah, totally forgot I told him that.
“Want to play around again? Make naughty with the virgin?” I waggle my eyebrows, and his grin widens.
He thinks I’m aiming for some fun, and I am, but I want so much more. I think he’ll give it to me because he’s hot for me, and he’s not a man to pussyfoot around when he wants something.
I pull him into me and kiss him hard on his gorgeous mouth. He soon takes over, though, and before long I’m being passionately kissed to within an inch of my life. His mouth is hot and wet, and simply delicious. I melt under him, my body going liquid and warm. My fingers trail up and down his back, and I pull him in closer, until we’re flush against one another.
Skin to skin, we kiss, and I move a little under him, relishing the sensation of my nipples brushing against his hard chest. I trace where I know the wings of his eagle tattoo are with my fingers, feeling the muscles of his back clench and contract as he moves with me.
Soon, we’re moving as if we’re making love, writhing against one another, his heavy cock pressing on my clit as we seek out what we both need.
I let my legs fall apart and kiss him harder. Just an inch, I think. Just move an inch lower and you’ll be right where I want you.
We’re both breathing heavily, and I think we’re about to do it, finally, when he stops.
“Shit, we can’t get carried away,” he says.
I stare at him. No way, not again. “What?”
“We can’t do this,” he says.
I push him off me, and he lets me, his brow wrinkling when I stand and head for the door of his room, stark naked.
“Where are you going?”
“To find some fuck me clothes and to go out and get laid.”
His jaw tightens, and he’s moving before I can figure out what’s happening. His big arms wrap around me, and he lifts me off the ground, hauling me back to the bed. “No, you’re not. I’ll tie you to this damn bed if I have to.”
“No, get the hell off of me,” I yell. I mean it too. I’m livid, and I’m truly fighting him. This is not play acting.
“My job is to keep you safe.”
“You can,” I spit at him. “You can come with me and stand outside the room while I screw someone, okay?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not safe.”
“Fuck you, you’re here to protect me not my virginity. That doesn’t matter anymore, because I am not marrying Yannis, and if you think I’m going to let my father or my uncle marry me off to someone else, you need your head examined. So there is no reason at all I can’t go and find me someone to have some fun with.”
He pins me down by the wrists. “You’re not going out looking for some guy to screw, Maya.”
He’s livid, but so am I, and I’m not backing down.
“Why the hell not? Huh? Why?”
“Because you’re mine,” he roars, and it’s the first time I’ve heard him raise his voice to me. It doesn’t scare me, though. I love it. Love the words. Love what they mean.
“Prove it then.” I look at him, the need surely naked in my gaze. “Make me yours; make love to me, Damen. I need you inside me. I need you to fuck me.”
He crashes his mouth to mine and takes me in a passionate kiss. He’s above me again, our bodies once more pressed together, but I know this time he won’t stop, and I am grateful for that. I need him in me like I need my next breath. It’s as if there’s an emptiness inside only he can fill.
I know it’s wrong to put this on him. To expect this man to heal me. I have to heal myself, get over the shit I’ve had my whole life from my family my own way. It’s not fair to use Damen to fill those holes inside me, but I’m doing it anyway.
I hitch my hips, and the head of him brushes against me, right at my core. “I’m clean and I’m on the pill,” I tell him.
He groans. “I’m clean too.”
His dick is right at my entrance now, teasing me there, and for a moment I think he’s going to push in, but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches down, takes hold of himself and teases me, rubbing his thick head over my clit, swi
rling around my wetness and making my belly clench with the exquisite sensations.
He keeps it up, and I honestly think he’ll make me come from this teasing, but then he stops, and without warning, he breaches me. I give a gasp and am shocked at the pain that hits.
“Relax and breathe,” he says.
I realize when I do as he says that he’s not far in. Damn, this is going to hurt. Maybe I should have tried a vibrator first, something smaller than Damen at any rate!
He leans down and kisses my neck, nibbling at my ear too, before going back to my neck. Goose bumps break out along my arms, and my nipples pebble harder.
Clever fingers find my clit and begin to stroke, soft but insistent, ratcheting up the good feelings once more. His dick is still only part way in, and he’s barely moving, but I’m enjoying myself once more, so I don’t complain. He keeps stroking at me and kissing me, and suddenly I feel the tightening at my core that tells me I’m going to come.
I gasp, lift myself to push against his clever fingers, and he presses on my clit as he slides further into me. Pleasure hits me, blinding and different from before. It’s deeper, and I’m clenching around him as I come hard.
Then pain chases it as he thrusts in me, deep. My body doesn’t know what to do. I’m still contracting around him, still chasing the high, but at the same time pulling away a little because of the pain.
“It will ease in a moment,” his deep voice whispers in my ear before he gives a sharp nip to my lobe, the pain nice and a distraction from the less pleasant pain between my legs.
He’s right too. It does fade a little as he moves in me. He does the same thing he did when he ass fucked me, not thrusting in and out hard, but hitching and circling his hips, and soon it doesn’t only not hurt much anymore, but it feels good.
I pull him into me, needing something more.
“There you go,” he murmurs, then he fucks me.
Oh, God. He. Fucks Me. He pulls out and drives back in, and I moan at the intensity of it, everything sensitized from my recent orgasm. Holy, hell, this is amazing.
I grab his hair and pull his face to me for the kiss I desperately need. Our mouths fuse, our breath shared, as we move together, him slamming into me, and me arching up to meet him thrust for thrust.
I think I might come again, but I’m not sure. It’s a different feeling, less certain than when I have some action on my clit, but I still feel it building, then it washes over me, sweeping me away on a deep, dark sea of ecstasy.
No longer able to kiss, or think, my head falls back, and my eyes close as I cry out my pleasure.
“Fuck!” Damen empties himself in me as he curses again.
When I come around from what was the most epic orgasm of my life, I open my eyes in time to see Damen brush a strand of damp hair from face and lean down to kiss me, gentle now.
He pulls out of me, and I wince because, ouch. I didn’t expect that part to hurt.
“You’ll probably be a bit sore for a few days,” he says, gathering me into his arms.
“That was…” I wave my free hand in the air, the other still clinging to him. “It was… I don’t have words. Wow.”
He grins and kisses me. “Then my work here is done.”
I laugh, but I sober quickly because I damn well hope not. I need more of this. So much more.
His smile is gorgeous, and I wish he did it more often. I wonder if his head injury, and how he got it, which I don’t know because he hasn’t shared, left him with some trauma or something. Some reason he always seems so serious, and to carry the world on his shoulders?
The thing is, I’ve shared a lot of myself with him and given him my body, completely, but he’s still a closed book. Something tells me if I dig, he’ll stonewall me, and I know that will be an issue for me, hence leading to rows. For now, I keep my mouth shut, but at some point I’m determined to know more about the enigma that is Damen.
Damen and Maya come downstairs, and even if I hadn’t heard them last night, one look at that girl’s face and I would know they’ve screwed.
Damen must be insane. I wouldn’t touch that girl with a mile long bargepole, and I've had plenty of chances. It seems she’s turned her attentions to him, instead, and I wonder if it bothers him? The way she put those shows on for me. I can’t help but feel she’s using him somehow. I can see her googly eyes for him, and yeah, she looks all loved up and blissed out, but the girl is an open wound, seeking someone to fill the gaping hole in her. I don’t want that someone to be my friend.
Firstly, he’s not cut out for that. None of us are. Secondly, getting involved with her is as dangerous as hell. We all know who her real father is, and he might not openly acknowledge she’s his, but the fact Stamatis paid a ton of money out to stop her from marrying Yannis, tells me he cares.
He’s going to go apeshit if he finds out the man meant to be protecting her has in actuality taken her innocence. Even if Stamatis doesn’t lose it, Spiros, her piece of shit father, will which puts Damen in the middle of some pretty nasty family politics.
I don’t know why he’s done this. I don’t think he loves her. He doesn’t look at her the same misty eyed way she’s gazing at him. Plus, Damen has issues. Deep ones. He blames himself for his mother’s death. It gave him a hero complex, hence the military shit, and the way he’s always rescuing me, but when it comes to women, he steers well clear. It’s as if he thinks he can be the hero so long as he’s not emotionally involved, which makes his decision to sleep with the woman he’s supposedly protecting, stunningly dumb.
“Morning,” he says, flashing me a rare grin.
I grunt a non-reply, and he narrows his eyes. Maya pours coffee, one for her, to which she adds creamer and sugar, and a black one for Damen. She hands it to him, takes hers, and says, “I’m going to call Stella. I have to tell her at some point, might as well be now.” With a tight smile, she leaves the room.
Oh yeah, now is when she chooses to tell her best friend. The morning after Damen fucked her, and probably because now, Maya thinks this is something it’s not. Something it will never be, because how can it?
“What the hell are you playing at,” I growl as soon as the door closes behind her.
“What?” Damen stares at me as if shocked at my outburst.
“Don’t act the innocent with me. I know you too well, friend. Why the hell have you fucked her?”
He sighs. I’m expecting some sort of defense. Or maybe a denial, instead he rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I swore to myself I wouldn’t. It kind of just happened.”
I give him a grin of my own, but it’s nasty—not nice. “Bull. You don’t let things just happen.”
“When it comes to her, I do,” he says, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Do you love her?”
“What?” He lowers his voice. “No, I mean… no. I like her, though, a lot.”
“Well then, you should end it because she’s falling for you. It’s written all over her face and in her big heart eyes.”
His features grow tight. I can sense him almost wanting to crawl out of his own skin, and this is why he shouldn’t be playing this game. Damen can’t stand it if he thinks a woman needs him. It’s his biggest weakness. If they need him physically? To save them? Screw them? He’s fine with it, but emotional neediness? He runs a mile from it because of his mother. More so because of his father, grandfather, and the long line of fucked up bastards he comes from. He’s not like them, but I could tell him a million times and it wouldn’t sink in. So he can’t be what Maya needs, because he fears any deep romantic connection the same way I fear spiders.
“She isn’t. We’re having some fun together while this fake marriage thing runs its course.”
“Yeah, not what I see.”
“Why are you concerned? Decided you wished you’d acted on her shows for you all of a sudden?”
He’s getting angry, and Damen and I rarely row; we don’t need to, our friendship is solid and easy. This, though, it
’s got me worried and pissed, and not because I want her. “No. Don’t be stupid; it’s not that at all. I’m worried, Damen. This has the potential to be a total mess. You should end it, now.”
“I know.” He takes another sip of his coffee and looks out the window.
“So?” I push.
“So?”
“So, asshole, are you going to end it?”
He shrugs. “Probably not.” Then he gets up, throws his remaining coffee down the sink, and walks out of the room.
What the fuck? I stare after him. Probably not. What the hell kind of answer is that?
I’m about to follow him and push the point when my phone goes. Speak of the devil, it’s Stamatis. Shit. I don’t like keeping something like this from him, but no way am I throwing my friend under the bus. In any test of loyalties, Damen will always win out.
“Yeah?” I force a smile into my voice.
“You with Damen?”
Oh, shit, does he somehow know? How would he, though?
“No.”
“I hear he gave my boy a hard time. Now, I get the reason why he did, but fuck me, Alesso, he’s got to show respect to my son. I can’t have my hired guys treating Costas as if he’s a nobody.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. This is the complicated I was talking about. Right here.
Damen only acted the way he did because his head is screwed up over Maya. I need to put a stop to it, or he’s going to find himself in all sorts of trouble.
“I’ll talk to him, but in his defense, Costas was acting pretty badly toward Maya. He is paid to protect her.”
“From death, not from petty insults,” Stamatis grouses. “Tell him to sort himself out. He’s not truly her fucking husband, and he needs to remember that. Particularly as I think my stupid brother is already trying to arrange a new marriage for her.”
“What?” I can’t hide the shock in my voice.
“Yeah, well, he lost out didn’t he, financially.”
“Not as much as he might have; you cushioned that blow for him.”
“I did, but I’ve heard he has been talking, and apparently the Katzakis family are looking for a bride. You know they like the old ways.”
