by K. A. Linde
He had his hat in his hand and was twirling it between his fingers. She didn’t know if that was a show of confidence or nerves.
“I thought you made your position clear.”
“You know you’d rather be dancing with me.”
Patrick flexed like he was going to butt in, but Trihn just pushed him away.
“Save a dance for me later,” she said to Patrick.
“Man, whatever,” Patrick said. He glared at Damon before stomping off like a kid throwing a tantrum.
Damon tipped his hat back onto his head and smiled. “You’re way too good for him, you know?”
“We were just dancing. Last I checked, people could do that without having a relationship.”
He nodded and then pulled her close. Their hips effortlessly moved together. There was no thought to the motion. It was just a seamless perfection.
But it didn’t explain why he was down here or why he was dancing with her or why he was talking to her at all.
“What are you doing down here, Damon?”
“It’s my break.”
“I went up there and made a fool of myself. Now, you’re here, dancing with me?”
“You’re a good dancer.”
Trihn stilled and stared up at him. “What do you want?”
“Well, I wanted to dance with you,” he said, “but I also wanted to talk to you.”
“I think we’ve talked enough.”
“Later. After I get off work, wait for me.”
His hands landed on her hips again. It was so simple with him. Despite the embarrassment she still felt in his presence, dancing made total sense and made all the other emotions vanish. It was her favorite thing about dancing. Damon just made it that much easier because he was so good.
“Why should I?” she asked.
“Just wait for me, okay?”
He sealed their hips together, and they rolled in heart-stopping circles that pushed her body so tightly against his that she barely had room to breathe. She could feel the hard contours of his washboard abs under the dark T-shirt he wore. Her dress was so short that when he pressed a knee between her legs as they danced, her ass nearly hung out the back. If they wanted to, they could probably have sex right there on the dance floor. Their movements were so in tune together that it was basically foreplay. And when he finally pulled away at the end of his break, Trihn was breathing heavily, and his pupils were dilated.
“You’ll wait?” he asked.
“Against my better judgment,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Good.”
Then, he disappeared into the crowd to return to the DJ booth, leaving her more confused than ever.
“You sure you don’t want to ride home with us?” Eric asked.
He was holding up an extremely drunk Bryna, who was vacillating between giggles and rants.
When Bryna got drunk, she only had two modes—crazy and psychotic. It all depended on how happy Bryna was. Luckily, psychotic hadn’t been out in a while, but Trihn had seen her blow her fuse a few too many times not to always be a little wary of a drunk Bryna.
“Yeah. I’ll catch a ride with Maya if I have to,” Trihn reassured him.
When her friends finally cleared out of the bar, Trihn sat down on a barstool that was normally covered with people, and with jitters in her stomach, she looked up at Maya.
“I’m surprised you made it this long,” Maya said, wiping down the counter.
“I can’t believe I’m sitting here, waiting for a guy who rejected me when I offered him sex.”
Maya guffawed and then tossed her towel down. “You could have had sex with any guy in the place tonight, but you want him now because he said no.”
“I do not!”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Ugh! That’s not true. That makes it sound like I have issues.”
Maya leveled her with an accusatory stare.
“I don’t have issues. You all cooked up this idea together, so I’d forget about Neal.”
“And it’s working! Plus, you were into Damon last night,” Maya said with a wink. “But come on, tell me, you aren’t the least bit intrigued as to why he wants to talk to you after turning you down?”
Trihn rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m curious.”
“Well, good because here he comes. Fill me in on the details when you find out.” She fluttered her fingers at Trihn and then walked away.
Trihn sure hoped Maya wasn’t leaving her behind because, if things didn’t work out, she was going to need someone to take her home.
“You waited,” Damon said.
Trihn hopped off the barstool and teetered in her high heels. “You said you wanted to talk.”
“Yeah. I wanted to apologize for earlier,” he said, tipping his hat off his head.
His dark hair was mussed in all the right ways, and it made her want to run her fingers through it.
“I wasn’t expecting you or…your proposition, and I think I came off as a jerk,” he said.
Trihn shrugged and looked at the ground. “Not any more than how awful I came off.”
“If you just went through a breakup, your head probably isn’t even on straight. So, how about we just…I don’t know…start over?” he suggested hopefully.
“Yeah, sure,” she agreed easily. The last thing she wanted was to be reminded of what had happened in the DJ booth.
“Hey. I’m Damon Stone. Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said formally, sticking his hand out.
She took it in hers and shook firmly. “Trihnity Hamilton, but my friends call me Trihn.”
“Well, Trihn, can I offer you a lift home?”
She nodded with a smile. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
They walked out to the back parking lot and stopped in front of a silver Civic.
“I know it’s not much, but she’s gotten me through a lot of hard times,” he told her.
“It’s cute.”
“Oh no, the dreaded cute,” he said as he opened the passenger door for her.
She laughed and took a seat. He shut the door and ran around to the driver’s side. He got into the car, revved the engine, and he immediately fiddled with the heat.
“God, it’s freezing,” he said.
Damon blew on his hands to try to warm them up as the car thawed.
Trihn huddled in her leather jacket. “My high school self would be laughing at me for going outside without a winter jacket and tights this time of year.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked. “Where are you from?”
“Brooklyn,” she said into her hands. “I would have been freezing in this dress back home. Still, I can’t believe it’s thirty-seven here.”
“Back home in London, it would technically be about the same temperature, but it’s so much colder there with the rain, snow, and wind rather than the desert.”
“Exactly. So, you’re from London?”
“My dad’s from there. I attended primary school in London with my mum and dad, but he ditched us, and we moved here because my mum got a teaching job,” he explained casually, as if he weren’t telling his life story to a perfect stranger.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Damon smiled at her as he backed out of the parking spot. “Don’t be. I’m not. He and my mum were always fighting. We’re all better off.”
“Does your mom still live here?” Trihn asked curiously.
He’d sounded really excited when he mentioned her.
“Yeah, she still lives in the house I grew up in. She’s a theater professor at LV State now and probably cooler than I am,” he told her with a genuine smile.
“It sounds like you two have a great relationship.” She wished that her relationship with her family were as cut-and-dried as it had been before Lydia and Preston. At least she was still close with her father, who had put in all the effort to move her out to Las Vegas, to get her into school at the last minute, and to set her up with an apartment.
“We’re really close,” he agr
eed. He glanced over at her when he realized he had been driving without thinking about it. “Uh…where is your place? I went on autopilot.”
“The opposite direction actually,” she admitted. “But I like talking to you. Maybe we could just go to your place and do more of this.” She gestured between them.
He narrowed his eyes, as if he wanted to say something. She could see that he wanted her to come back with him and talk because the conversation was good. But he had made his point earlier about wanting a relationship and not being just some rebound guy.
He was debating with himself, but he finally nodded. “I’d like that.”
DAMON PULLED UP in front of an apartment building and cut the engine. “This way.”
They hurried out of the car and up the first flight of stairs. He carefully unlocked the door and then ushered her inside the apartment. It was a small studio with typical bachelor furniture—black sofa, oversized television, PlayStation, Xbox, and an assortment of cups and dishes.
“Sorry about the mess,” he apologized immediately. He grabbed everything in sight and then rushed it into the kitchen. “Wasn’t expecting company.”
“It’s fine,” Trihn said. She stripped out of her leather jacket and slung it on the back of the couch.
“Do you want a drink or something?” he asked.
“Sure. Whatever you have is fine.”
Damon came back a minute later with a beer in each hand. He handed one to Trihn and took a long swig of his. “I don’t drink on the job,” he told her, “so it’s nice to come home and unwind.”
She tipped the bottle up and took a sip. She was still buzzing a bit from the bar. Maya had been pouring her drinks with a heavy hand tonight—on purpose, she was sure.
“Do you live here alone?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s a one bedroom.”
“That’s nice. I live with my friends, Bryna and Stacia.”
Damon smirked. “I know who they are.”
“Oh, I’m sure. Everyone knows who they are.”
“Everyone knows you, too.”
She raised her eyebrow. “I really don’t think so.”
“Trust me. You’re hard to miss.” He flipped off his baseball hat and set it down on the table before taking the seat next to her. “I noticed you a long time ago. Yesterday was just the first time I got up the nerve to talk to you.”
“What took you so long?” she joked before taking another drink.
“Well, I thought you had a boyfriend, so I tried to steer clear. Then, when you were alone with your friends, I thought that might have changed.”
Trihn glanced up and met his dark eyes. “It did.”
His eyes dropped down to her lips and then back up. “Yeah. What happened with that?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t really want to talk about it. It happened. It’s over. And I’d rather just be here with you tonight.”
“He must have been a total arse,” Damon said.
Trihn took another big gulp. “You have no idea.” She set the empty beer down on the coffee table and leaned forward toward Damon.
He raised his eyebrows at the finished drink. “That was fast.”
“Why did you come downstairs after turning me down?” she asked.
“The truth?”
She nodded her head.
“It drove me nuts, watching you dance with that other guy.”
She smiled wide. “That so?”
Damon took another swig of his beer and then placed it down on the table next to hers. “You know it did.”
“Actually, all I could think about was you turning me down,” she said with a shrug.
Maya had told her to show him what he was missing, but that hadn’t been her motivation.
“Yeah, well, I was watching,” he admitted. “Where do you dance?”
“I used to dance at the New York City Dance House back home. Mostly ballet, but some contemporary.”
He nodded with a smile. “I’m not surprised you’re technically trained. It shows in your movements.”
“And you?”
“I learned here and there. My mum put me in dance and gymnastics when I was young, but I got bored quickly. I had a knack for the piano, and she pushed me toward that instead.”
“You play piano?” she asked.
“A couple of instruments actually. I just graduated a semester early in December with a music degree. All the good it’s doing me.”
“Oh, wow. What are you going to do with that? Why aren’t you in L.A. or something, trying to become famous?”
Almost sheepishly, he looked down at his hands. “Is it crazy to say that I don’t like the spotlight?”
Trihn laughed. “A little, but I know what you mean. I modeled in high school, and it was sometimes overwhelming.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You modeled? A ballerina, model, and club dancer. What kind of idiot would break up with you?”
“The kind who wanted me to just be an artistic fashion designer and nothing else,” she admitted.
Her shoulders drooped. That had been the problem with Neal. Only half a day from the breakup, and already, she had more clarity to her thoughts than she’d had in months. It ached, knowing that he’d clouded her mind in the worst possible way.
“Hey,” Damon said, reaching out and touching her bare knee. “I didn’t mean to take you down a bad road. Just trying to figure you out.”
“No, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“So…fashion designer?” he asked. “Is there anything you’re not good at?”
“Relationships?”
Damon gave her a serious look before closing the distance between them. His hip pressed into her side, and her stomach fluttered at his nearness. His hand came up to brush her dark hair off her face. His thumb lingered on her cheek, and she lost herself in the endless depths of his eyes. Her breathing hitched. When he looked at her like that, it was as if time stood still.
“That remains to be seen,” he told her.
Then, his lips landed on hers, soft and undeniably tempting. Something awakened within her. It wasn’t just the alcohol coursing through her system. It was the desire that came with a perfect kiss. Their lips moved together, and then his tongue ran across her bottom lip, opening her up to him. As he delved into her mouth, she groaned softly. Their tongues met in harmony, exploring a new frontier.
Her hands breached the small space between them, and she dug her fingers into the soft material of his T-shirt. Suddenly, the room shifted. Everything moved with her need to have him closer.
Damon’s arm swept around her body, crushing her against him. She spread her legs and straddled him on the couch, like she had done only a few hours earlier in the DJ booth. But this time, he wasn’t standing up and walking away. Instead, he was dragging her harder against him and running his hands up her exposed legs.
Trihn threaded her fingers up into his hair. Ever since she had seen it out of that baseball cap, she had wanted to grab ahold of it. The noises he was making when she tugged on it only fueled her forward.
He broke the intense kiss to come up for a breath, and then he started leaving kisses across her cheek and down her bare neck. She tilted her head back, letting her hair fall loose behind her, allowing him better access to her body. His lips were pressed over her collarbone and back to her neck where he nibbled gently until she was squirming on top of him.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “If you keep moving your hips like that, I’m not going to be able to stop this.”
“What, like this?” she asked, circling her hips in a figure eight.
“Exactly like that.”
He clamped his hands down on her hips, as if he wanted to still her. But she just moved his hands backward to cup her ass, most of which was exposed at this point.
“Why would you want to stop? You already know we move well together.”
“Yes, we do.”
“But…if you want to stop, we can,” she said with a smile.
<
br /> She started to stand up, but before she could even get her feet on the ground, Damon picked her up and tossed her back on the couch.
“I don’t want to stop anything,” he said.
Then, he covered her mouth with his, and she was lost all over again. His body lowered onto hers. He held himself up on his forearms, but their lower halves were pressed firmly together. He ground his hips against her. If she had thought dancing with him was sexual, that was nothing compared to this. He could do things with his hips that made her body hum.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and her breathing was ragged. They hadn’t even done anything yet, and already, she was fucking aroused. She dragged her legs up to either side of his hips and thrust upward to meet his movement.
He bit out a moan and then pulled back to look down at her. His dark eyes were practically black in the dim lighting. “You totally fuck me up,” he admitted.
She ran her hand down his pants and then over his dick. It was stiff and pulsing. She stroked it twice and watched his eyes roll into the back of his head.
Damon kissed her one more time and then slid down her front to land between her legs.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, he just slipped his fingers under the mesh of her dark green thong and ran a digit over the slick folds. “Jesus.”
“Yeah,” she groaned.
Then, he pressed his finger into her. A second joined the first, and he started up an easy movement within her. She felt her body building with desire as he worked her in and out. His tongue shot out and flicked her clit. Her hips bucked beneath him, and she swore that she saw him smirk.
Damon yanked her thong off and pressed her legs open in front of him without another word, and then he dropped his head to lavish her pussy. His fingers stroked her while he licked, sucked, and nibbled on her clit until she was shaking and couldn’t move. She practically ached with exertion as he drew more and more from her.
Then, just when she thought she couldn’t hold out any longer, he started moving in deliberate slow strokes inside her. She shivered as her orgasm hovered just out of range. It was so close and so far away. She was quivering. Her walls sucked on his fingers as he held her in place, as if he knew exactly how to work her body.
