And maybe he was right, before, when he called me a baby. That’s what I had been, with Brennan. Using him as a security blanket. Even when I thought I might have sex with Damon, when I imagined it, it was some theoretical construct. The curve on a graph, its every point carefully plotted and explained.
Real life could never be that pure. Who would want that?
For the first time, my body becomes aware of him as a man. Of myself as a woman. Birthdays have never felt like big occasions for me. Mathematically one day out of three hundred and sixty-five isn’t significant. Except I’ve never felt like this before. Whether it’s because I turned sixteen today or because Damon is looking at me with pure hunger, I feel ready for him.
“I know why,” I whisper.
“Of course you do.” The words are condescending, but the way he says them isn’t. There’s a quiet confidence in him, almost pride, as if he likes me being smart. As if it affects him the same away his crisp suits and beautiful smile affect me.
Everything about him in his moment invites my secrets.
Like this one: “I dream about you.”
His breath catches. “Don’t tell me that. What I’ll do to you—”
“Do you dream about me?”
“Never,” he says, his voice harsh.
In the heartbeat that follows my world crumbles. I’m standing in the rubble when he runs a hand through his hair. When he says, “I could never let myself. Not if I wanted to leave you alone.”
My hand reaches out, before I’ve really planned it. Before I’ve really thought through what it means. To touch him. To feel him, his heat and his heart. Two fingers pressing against the perfectly smooth fabric of his shirt. He’s so solid beneath those white dress clothes. As strong and as wide as I would have dreamed my wild boy would be, grown into a man.
“I’m afraid to be alone.”
His eyes burn. “You will never be alone. I swear that to you. I would never let that happen. But you deserve to have a normal life. That’s what I want for you.”
“Does what I want matter?”
He laughs. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
I don’t know where the boldness comes from, but there’s too much of it. I’m overflowing with the desire to ask for what I want, to demand what I need. Is this what sixteen feels like? “A kiss.”
A rough sound. “What?”
“I’m asking for a kiss.”
“Christ,” he mutters. “You’re so innocent.”
Challenge simmers around us, sparkling and hot. “Then do it. What will it hurt?”
“It will hurt,” he says, capturing my face with careful movements, his hand cupping my whole jaw. He tilts me only the slightest angle, but it changes everything. Thirty degrees to the right. That’s all it takes for me to open for his kiss. Made ready for him, my whole body brimming with anticipation.
He leans close, his gaze a dark promise.
One millimeter away from me, so close it hurts to be apart. Like our lips are magnets, trembling with an unseen force. His hand holds me away, that small amount. “Say no,” he murmurs. “Scream. Fight me. Cry for me to stop.”
“Is that how you like it?” I whisper, the words brushing my lips against his.
Only the smallest shake of his head. “I like you moaning and needy and begging me for more.”
I can’t imagine moaning. “How do you know?”
“Because I did dream of you, Penny. I dreamed of you and I watched you and I wanted you. Even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t stop. It isn’t about how old you are—it’s you. It’s only ever been you.”
That’s the last thing I hear before his lips press against mine. Then there’s only empty sky in my head, only starlight, only a vast and pulsing space. There are no walls here. Nothing that could possibly separate us. His mouth so hot against mine that I’m melting, turned liquid in his hard grip.
Square inch by square inch, my body relaxes. Only then do I realize how tense I was. How tense I’ve been my whole life, braced for something awful to happen.
As if he were waiting for that sign, Damon moves against me. A new configuration of his mouth against mine, a new kind of kiss, every curve completely distinct. Pleasure sparks across my lower lip, and I realize he tasted me. Oh God, his tongue. He touched me with his tongue.
My lips part on a gasp, whether from sensation or shock.
He takes the advantage, nudging my mouth open. Opening me like a petal grown wide and blooming. Then his tongue touches mine. My whole body changes then, becomes something flushed and alive, every cell breathing for the first time. There are feelings in new places, a heat between my legs, a terrible tension that I think only he can fix for me.
I’ve touched myself under the covers before, but it’s never hurt like this.
There’s something happening inside. A change.
A sound breaks through the silence, low and sensual. It’s me.
And just like that he sits back. In the space he had been there’s only empty space. My breathing comes fast, my whole body aching and hot. I feel like he took me apart and put me back together. A child before. A woman now. And every womanly part of me attuned to him, wanting more.
He breathes hard, staring at me with something like desperation. “Fuck,” he says.
“Please more,” I say, before I even know that I’m pleasing him. Before I see the flash of pure desire in his dark eyes. I like you moaning and needy and begging me for more.
How much more could he make me do?
He stands, abrupt and impersonal. “That’s enough.”
“That’s enough,” I repeat, my voice hollow. “That’s what you have to say to me?”
A cruel smile mars his beautiful face, and even before he speaks, I know it will cut me. “What do you want to hear? That kissing you was so magical that I never want to touch another woman, never want to look at one? That you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted this badly?”
I flinch at his tone, but it’s a mistake. It’s blood in the water. “Don’t be like that.”
“Oh, but that’s what I am. Remember? I’m a criminal. A cold-blooded killer. So callous that I took money from a sad old man who can’t fucking stop gambling the money that should feed his daughter.”
The reminder of my daddy makes my breath catch. There’s something that can pierce the haze of desire. Grief can do it. A grief so hard and tight it’s a fist in my chest. “You didn’t take it. You gave him money.”
“You’re right,” he says, his voice silky smooth. So like his father it slices me open. Like two hands on either side of a wound, pulling the skin apart. “I gave him money he could never repay. Because there’s something I want more than his debt. There’s you.”
I’m completely flat. Two dimensional. Made into an object without value.
“Stop it,” I whisper.
“That’s not what you were saying a few minutes ago.”
“And this isn’t what you were saying a few minutes ago,” I say, tears hot against my eyelids.
“True. There’s something painfully sweet about your little jailbait mouth. But I can’t let you distract me. Not with Jonathan Scott still roaming the streets.”