by J. Kenner
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t push me. Not now. Not tonight.”
Her hand was flat on his lower abs as she took a step toward him, an ephemeral, magical creature alive with light. Fragile and beautiful. Too fragile and too beautiful to withstand the rawness he felt tonight. The violence inside him. The wildness that was fighting to come out.
Right now, he was danger personified, a beast inside him raging to break free. To be set loose so that he could burn through the pain, like a wildfire spreading fast and furious, leaving nothing behind but charred ground and smoldering destruction.
And yet the feel of her hand on his skin was driving him crazy. Carving a hole inside him. A hole that only she could fill. He needed it. Her heat. Their fire.
Needed to obliterate it all. And, dammit, he couldn’t fight much longer.
“You want me to come to you when I crave a blade? Then I need you to do the same.” Tears trailed down her cheeks as she withdrew her hand, then slammed it right back, this time against his chest. “You bastard. You goddamn bastard.” She choked on a sob. “This is where you come? To the night and the court and a fucking ball machine? You think that’s going to help you battle down the mess that’s inside you? Do you?” She shoved him again. “Do you?”
He said nothing. The words wouldn’t come.
“You know what we are to each other. You know.” As she spoke, she pressed her palm against her belly, then slid it down, her movements slow and measured. She traced the curve of her body, touching herself, her skin flushing, her lips parting as her breath came in little gasps. And then a low, soft moan of pleasure as she slid two fingers deep into her cunt. She rocked her hips, her soft noises making him crazy. And when she lifted those same fingers to her mouth and sucked, he almost lost his resolve.
But he didn’t.
“I can’t.” He could barely croak out the words. His throat was parched. His mouth like a desert. “Not like this. It’s too much. Don’t push me, Nikki.” He’d die if he truly hurt her, and tonight, he didn’t see how he could do anything but hurt her.
“Fuck you, Damien. Fuck. You.” The curse was soft, but raw and heartfelt. “You think the world is slipping away? That you’ve lost control?” She thudded her sex-slick hand against his chest, but this time he caught her wrist, holding her in place.
“Stop,” he ordered.
She looked into his eyes, naked and defiant. “Make me.”
“Nikki.” His voice was low. Dangerous. And he saw the heat flare in her eyes.
“You lost control, Damien? The world not behaving the way you want it to? Your wife not doing exactly what you say? You want the control back, Mr. Stark? Then you fucking take it back. You can’t control the world? So what? Control me. That’s what we do, Damien. That’s what we are to each other.”
She blinked, and fat tears streamed down her cheeks. “Goddamn you, Damien. You know what you need. Hell, you know what I need. Don’t you dare treat me like some fragile fucking thing who’s useless to you.”
“Goddammit, Nikki,” he growled, something hard and tight snapping inside him. He still held her by the wrist, and she stood there, breathing hard, her lips parted, her eyes on fire. She looked alive and aroused and wild. And she was his. A goddamn miracle, but he knew it was true. She was his.
Fuck it.
He yanked her close, both her wrists held tight in his large hand. He thrust his other hand between her legs, fingers jamming roughly inside her. She arched back with a strangled cry of yes, and the last of his hesitation burned away. She knew what she was offering. What she was freely giving. And though it scared him how much he needed it, he couldn’t push her away any more than he could be gentle. Because she was right. He had to take what he needed, and what he needed was Nikki. Her body. Her submission.
There would be nothing gentle about tonight. On the contrary, he was going to take and take. Was going to burn through all of it. The pain. The self-recrimination. All gone. All ashes. Until there was nothing left but her. Nothing left but him. Two shells, empty of the pain, and ready to rise like Phoenixes from the ashes, alive and magnificent, and absolved.
She was his salvation. His oasis in a storm of hurt and loss and doubt and failure.
“Nikki.” Her name was a plea, a prayer. He bent her back, two fingers deep inside her and his thumb on her clit as he held her in place. He closed his mouth on her breast, biting, tasting, sucking as she writhed, her swollen clit rubbing against his thumb, her body like a live wire in his arms, her heat burning as hot as his own.
“Up,” he demanded, though he didn’t wait for her to comply. In one motion, he stood, managing somehow to wrap her legs around him. His fingers were free of her pussy, and he held her ass, then stumbled past the doubles sideline until their bodies slammed against the chain link perimeter, the rattle and clang filling the night. “Arms out,” he ordered, his voice hard and raspy. “Legs apart. Hold on, baby.” He closed her fingers in the diamond-shaped links of the fence. “And don’t let go.”
She started to speak, but he silenced her with a kiss, wild and frenzied and tasting of blood. He craved her. Wanted to consume her. Needed to hear her cries fill his head and the night. Needed to bury himself inside her and know—truly know—that she belonged to him, forever, for always, no matter what.
Now he claimed her breast, tasting her sweetness, reveling in the fact that she was his. That she’d given herself to him so wildly. So willingly.
“Tell me you like this.”
“Yes. God, yes.”
“Tell me you want more.”
“I do. Damien, please. Please, I want more. I want everything.”
Her words were like music. An aphrodisiac. A promise and a prayer.
“Tell me how, baby. Tell me what you need.” He tilted his head back so that he could see her face, her eyes on fire, her lips swollen.
“You know,” she said, and her words shot through him with all their unspoken truth. He knew. He knew because she belonged to him. Because he knew her as well as he knew himself. And he would always, always, give her what she needed.
He slid his hand down, then thrust his fingers inside her so that she was grinding against him, fucking his hand. “Is this what you want, baby? Rough? Wild? Do you want me to fuck you hard? To claim you. To make you mine?”
“Damien, please.” The need in her voice was like a living thing, making him harder than he could ever remember being. He longed to pound his cock inside her, slamming her harder and harder against the fence, making the chain link rattle.
But not yet. Not until they were both on the edge.
“Tell me why,” he demanded, his fingers slick with her.
“Because you need it. Because I need it. Something to center me. Something dangerous I can hold on to. And I know you’ll take me as far as I can go, but never too far.”
His heart swelled. “I will always give you what you need.”
“You’re what I need. Please, Damien.” The desperation in her voice was palpable, and he couldn’t take it anymore. In one motion, he lifted her, tugging her free of the fence as she wrapped her legs around him. He stumbled a few yards down the fence, then laid her out on the chaise that was set up on the court’s perimeter.
For a moment he simply looked at her. The rise and fall of her breasts. Her nipples as tight as pebbles. Her pale skin glowing under the moon. So beautiful. And all his.
“Over,” he demanded. “On your knees, your forehead down. I want your ass, baby.”
She whimpered, then complied. And, dammit, he couldn’t hold back any longer.
He took her from behind, his cock sinking deep inside her slick heat, filling her. She cried out, arching back, silently urging him to go deeper, thrust harder.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered, twining the fingers of one hand in her silky hair as he used his other hand to tease her ass and make her writhe even more, her moans and soft cries of pleasure making him that much harder.
“Faster,” she begge
d. “Please. Harder.”
Her words fueled him, and he fucked her hard and deep, taking what they both so desperately needed, claiming her as he did, because she was his, goddammit. His. No matter how much he fucked up, no matter how far off the path he strayed, she would always be his. Always be his beacon back home again. Back to her.
And with that thought, he cried out, his body shattering in time with her own screams of ecstasy. The storm raged through them, and when it passed, he collapsed onto the chaise, pulling her body against his and holding her close. “Christ, baby, did I hurt you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But not any more than I wanted.”
He chuckled, and kissed her shoulder, then realized that she was crying in his arms. Alarmed, he sat up. “Nikki? Baby, what is it? Are you okay?”
He hooked a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Are you okay?” he repeated, not breathing until he saw her nod.
“Okay? God, Damien, yes. I’m perfect.” A laugh bubbled out. “Now I am.”
He frowned, but she just smiled broadly.
“Don’t you get it?” she asked. “Oh, Damien. Don’t you see? I thought I’d lost you. I really and truly thought I’d lost you.”
Chapter Five
“Lost me?” They lay together on the chaise facing each other, and he held her close in defense against the chill from the ocean breeze. “What are you talking about?”
She kissed his chin, then tilted her head so that she was looking into his eyes. “Do you remember the girls’ party? When it was wrapping up? How we made love in the library?”
“Are you kidding? Of course I remember.” She’d amazed him that day. She’d shown him a video that Jamie had helped her make. A video that had since been released to the press, and which had drawn uniformly positive comments and a flood of support.
In the video, she talked about being a cutter. About how she hoped that sharing her struggle would help others, especially teens who were battling self-harm.
More than that, she talked about him. About how Damien had been her rock through the years. How he still was even though she’d gone over the edge and cut during the kidnapping. About how he’d pulled her back. Anchored her.
And about how she knew that he would always be there for her, and how that knowledge gave her strength.
Her words had lifted him up, and he’d pulled her to him. They’d made love on the mezzanine, hidden from view from the last of the party guests.
“You held me as if I was fragile that night,” she told him now.
He swallowed. “So now tenderness is verboten?”
“Don’t play games with me,” she said, her voice firm, but her tone gentle. “Anyone else, but not me. You’ve spent the entirety of our marriage—of our relationship—telling me I’m not fragile. Which means that when you start treating me like I’m made of glass, I know something’s wrong. Damien,” she added, her voice breaking, “that’s the only time we’ve made love since we got Anne back.”
He closed his eyes, shocked by the realization that she was right.
“Talk to me,” she demanded. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
He wanted to. God help him, he wanted to spill out the words. But how could he confess so much weakness when she needed him to be strong? “I’m fine now,” he said, tracing the outline of her body with his fingertip. “Really. I was lost in the dark, but you guided me back.” He met her eyes, then kissed her gently. “Don’t you know that you’ll always be my path back into the light?”
She blinked, tears pooling in her eyes, then leaned forward to rest her forehead on his. “Damien.” His name was barely a breath, but it ricocheted through him, full of love and longing. He closed his eyes, his heart pounding. She’d told the world that he was her anchor? The hell with that. She was his—and she always would be.
“Damien,” she said again, and this time when she pulled back, he heard the core of steel in her voice. He opened his eyes, and saw that the tears were gone, replaced by a firm determination. For a moment, she studied his face. Then she slid off the chaise lounge and stood as he sat up, surprised.
“I will always guide you back,” she said, moving the short distance to pick up the robe, then wrapping herself in it. “And you’ll do the same for me.”
She picked up his shorts and her nightgown, then brought them to the chaise and dropped them on the cushion beside him while she remained standing. “That’s what we are to each other.”
“We are,” he agreed.
She sat. “Which is why if you won’t tell me what’s wrong, I will.”
He said nothing, but his heart skipped a beat.
“You think you failed.” She opened the robe and trailed her finger over the still-raw wound on her thigh. “You look at what I did and you see failure, and no video is going to change that. Do you think I don’t know you well enough to understand that?”
He stayed silent, barely breathing, but her words hung like hope in the moonlit sky. And he listened.
“You think you failed, but you didn’t. And maybe if it had just been me, you would have seen that. But the universe has been a bitch, and the world that you see is skewed.”
She took his hand into hers. “We can’t ever erase what happened. And I would give anything—anything—to have spared Anne, you, all of us. But it wasn’t your fault.” She cupped his cheek and held his gaze. “It was not your fault,” she repeated, her voice as soft as a lullaby.
“It was horrible and terrifying and awful, and when she was gone I didn’t know if I could survive. But I did, Damien. We did. And Anne is okay. Were you even with us today? We played in the pool. We sang stupid songs and cooked burgers on the grill and made a birthday cake. And she wore her yellow floaties and she smiled and laughed and splashed water on her daddy.”
She was crying again, tears glistening like diamonds. “Weren’t you there with us? Didn’t you see the joy today?”
“You know I did.” His voice sounded hollow, as if it came from a long way away.
“Then let yourself feel it, too,” she said. “Because today didn’t feel like failure to me. Today felt like love.”
He wanted to speak, but the words stuck in his throat.
“Please, Damien. I’m not discounting what happened to our baby girl, but it wasn’t your fault.” She lifted a hand to his lips when he opened his mouth to protest. “No. You didn’t fail. Don’t you see that? You can’t control the world, Damien. But you did what you could. And sweetheart, what you did was wonderful.”
She clutched his hands so tightly it felt as though she would crush his bones. “You’re the one who realized it was Rory. Who led the way back to him.” Her voice hitched with emotion. “And now that asshole is in jail. Because of you, Damien. He’s behind bars because you made it happen. That’s not failure. That’s wonderful.”
He closed his eyes, her hands held tight in his. He wanted to weep. And finally—finally—he let himself surrender to the knowledge that she loved him. And he let himself glory in the knowledge that she trusted him. That she saw beyond his flaws.
The thought made him smile.
“I like seeing that,” she said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Just that I love you.”
She laughed, and the sound filled him with joy. “You mean that I’m right.”
He sighed, reveling in the warm rush that came with the return of his equilibrium. He hated what had happened. Hated how powerless he’d felt. Hated that he hadn’t been able to reach out his hand and fix everything that was broken in his world. More than that, he knew he would continue hating it.
But maybe it didn’t all mean that he was a failure.
More important, he knew that Nikki didn’t believe him to be one.
“Yes,” he told his wife. “You’re right.”
“That means a lot,” she teased. “Especially from the great Damien Stark.”
“Careful, Ms. Fairchild,” he countered, shifting on the chaise so he
could tumble her down onto her back. He bent over her, kissing her softly. “It’s late. Shall we go back in and see if there’s room in our bed to sleep?”
“Yes, but not yet.” She took his hand and pressed it over her heart. “I know we’re together here. But I need to feel it here, too,” she insisted, now taking his hand and sliding it between her legs, making his entire body thrum with renewed need.
“Christ, Nikki.”
“Make love to me gently this time, Mr. Stark. Never stop making love to me.”
He looked at her, bathed in moonlight. He wanted to exalt her to the heavens. To paint her portrait in the stars. But he didn’t know how. So he did the only thing he could do. He kissed her and touched her and buried himself deep inside her. And when she cried his name and begged him to never, ever stop, all he could think was that maybe—just maybe—she’d beaten back the demons that had plagued him.
Chapter Six
Damien frowned as he paced the length of the mezzanine. Part of the Malibu home’s second floor, the mezzanine overlooked the entrance and the floating staircase that led up to the third floor. Unlike the public area of the second floor, this portion was accessible only by a private elevator or a hidden staircase. It was Damien’s refuge. His library and home office. It was where he kept the glass cases that held his memories. Cherished first editions. The awards and accolades that truly mattered to him. Photos of Nikki and the children.
He used the area for work, yes, but that didn’t change the fact that he considered it a sanctuary.
Today, Richard Breckenridge had wormed his way into the peace.
Once again, he looked at his computer monitor and the itinerary that Rachel, his executive assistant, had finalized for him that morning. As he’d requested, she’d kept it light. While home with Nikki and the kids, he was handling only the bare minimum. But there were things that needed his attention. And as unpleasant as the reality might be, Breckenridge was definitely on that list.
