Cold Dark Heart by Julie Kriss
Twenty-One
Andie
I followedDamon up the stairs to his apartment. With every step, my nerves and awkwardness fell away, and I felt more confident. More sexy. I’d never been this woman, who showed up on a man’s doorstep with pleasure in mind. But with Damon, I could be that woman, and I liked it.
He let us in to his place. It was a small apartment, cozy, with a sturdy old sofa, a TV, and a functional kitchen. The back door in the kitchen opened to a small back deck and a fire escape, and through the window I could see a beautiful view of the mountains. A laptop was set up on the kitchen table, and I pictured Damon eating alone while working. There were no personal photos anywhere, no vacation shots or photos of family, but the space was still very much Damon’s. His things were everywhere, his scent everywhere, and the combination of loneliness and comfort reflected his personality.
He was moving through life alone, perhaps, but he wasn’t as cold as he let on.
“I need a shower,” he said, pulling off his sweaty hoodie. Beneath it was a T-shirt, stuck to his torso with sweat.
I was going to say the polite thing: Okay, I’ll wait. He didn’t give me the chance. He took my hand and led me toward the bathroom.
I followed, too startled by the warm strength of his hand grasping mine. Just that touch sent warmth up my arm and through my body, and I stared at his taut arm, with the edge of the tattoo on his biceps, as he led me where he wanted me to go.
Because I was stupid with lust, it took me a minute to realize he was bringing me into the bathroom with him, where he was going to take a shower. He led me through the door, then dropped my hand and pulled his T-shirt off with one motion. He unlaced his running shoes and took them off, followed by his socks. He straightened and hooked his fingers into the waistband of his gray sweatpants, and then he paused, looking at me.
“Strip,” he said.
I barely heard him. I was transfixed by the sight of his naked torso. Not just the beauty of it, the taut muscles and the dusting of dark blond hair over his chest and flat stomach. I was also transfixed by the two scars on his chest, one in the soft area below the bone of his right shoulder, the other a few inches down where the second bullet must have penetrated his ribcage. The scars were months old now, white and smooth, yet still they looked angry and painful, remnants of the horrible thing that had happened to him. It was one thing to hear someone tell you they had been shot twice. It was another to see the evidence of two bullets piercing someone’s skin.
Watching my gaze, Damon stepped closer to me. Without a word he lifted one of my hands and placed it over one of the scars. “I don’t bite,” he said.
His skin was warm, so warm. I was touching a man, this beautiful man, and we were going to do amazing things together for as many hours as we wanted. This wasn’t Terry. I never had to touch Terry again. I never had to let him put his hands on me.
Instead, I would have Damon’s hands on me. I suddenly wanted that more than anything, to feel this man’s hands everywhere on me. I inhaled a breath as my body throbbed with desire. I moved my hand over his skin, feeling the soft touch of the hair there, the smooth place where the hair ended and the scar began.
Getting bolder, I ran my fingertips over the scar itself, feeling the texture and the warmth of it. Then I moved my hand to the other scar, touching that one, too. Damon stood still, letting me explore at my leisure, but the muscle in his jaw was ticking again. He was barely keeping control.
I raised my other hand and put my palm on his chest. I let my skin move over his, taking him in, letting him take in the feel of me, skin to skin. I brushed over his nipple and felt his inhale of breath. Just touching him like this was making me breathless, making heat pulse through my body and deep into my belly. I moved both hands down to his stomach, touching the hair that led down into the waistband of his pants. I stopped just short of the waistband and moved my hands to the sides, caressing his waist and the tops of his hips.
“Andie,” he said softly. I raised my gaze to see his eyes on mine, dark and intent. He cupped my jaw with both of his hands and kissed me.
We melded perfectly, the kiss deepening fast, both of us leaning in. He ravished my mouth and I kept my hands on his hips, gripping him, feeling the heat and the strength beneath my hands. I wanted this. I wanted him against me, inside me, like I had never wanted anything. I was an endless swirl of need, of craving, and what I needed most was him.
He broke the kiss. “Strip,” he said again, still cradling my jaw, and my hands immediately went to my jean jacket, then to the buttons of my shirt. In seconds I had both off and had stripped down to my bra. I had a split second to remember that my bra was nothing special—just an everyday bra I’d bought on sale a year ago instead of something lacy and seductive—before Damon had unhooked it and dropped it to the floor.
I inhaled as his hands cupped my bare breasts. Only two men had ever seen my breasts, had touched them, until this moment. And all of it felt right. What had happened before, and what was happening now—that this man, right this minute, would be the third person I’d give my body to. It was perfect. I let my eyes drift close as he touched me, his palms moving over my sensitive skin, over my nipples. I forgot about the fact that I wasn’t a model, that I’d had a baby, which made my body less than picture perfect. I just tilted my head back and let myself feel.
Damon ran his thumbs lightly over my nipples, making me gasp, and then he leaned in and kissed the sensitive skin of my neck. “Take off the rest of it,” he growled, and then he pulled away to turn the shower on.
I pulled off my ankle boots and my pants, leaving only my panties. As the steam from the shower began to fill the bathroom, Damon dropped his track pants and his underwear in one motion. He stepped forward and slid my panties off my hips and to the floor. Then he pulled me into the shower with him.
He kissed me as we moved under the water, and then we were skin to skin, our bodies fused together, our hands everywhere. The heat of the water mixed with the heat of his touch, and every nerve ending on my skin was alive. Damon kissed me deep, and he tasted so good. I broke the kiss and put my mouth on his neck, tasting his skin and the hot water, sucking on him like a wanton woman as his hands moved down my back and over my ass.
We were soaked now. Damon pressed me back against the wall of the shower, making me yelp as the cool tiles hit my overheated skin. He pressed his body into mine, his chest and hips pinning me deliciously, and I could feel him hot and hard against me. Yes, I thought. This is exactly what I want. Just this, just now. I want it and I deserve it.
I slid my hands down to his hips again, pulling him against me, the bossiest move I’d ever made with a man. I felt Damon smile against my skin.
“I need to grab a condom,” he rasped.
The woman who was coming through me now, the one who had no limits, said, “You don’t have to. I had my tubes tied five years ago.”
Damon’s body went still against mine, though he didn’t move away. “Fuck, Andie, you’re killing me.”
“I got tested after you told me about Terry,” I went on. Where had my awkwardness gone? My sense of shame? They had both vanished. I was completely shameless right now for maybe the first time in my life. “I’m clean.”
He groaned, the sound mixing with the sound of the running water. “So am I. Jesus, Andie, are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” I was. I pressed my hips against his, feeling the heat and power of him. I’d never been sure like I was in this moment. “This is what I want,” I said to him. “What do you want?”
Damon kissed me, slow and harsh, and then he said, “I want to make you feel good. That’s all I want. Just to make you feel so fucking good.”
“Then do it,” I whispered.
His gray eyes were serious and beautiful as they looked into mine, assessing me. Reading me. I let him see everything, all of the rawness of myself in that moment, without holding anything back.
He made a decision. He lifted one of my knees and hooked my leg around his hip so I was open to him. Then, as the hot water ran over us, he pushed inside me.
The feel of him only made my pulse pound harder and my desire more frantic. “More,” I said. “I want to feel good, Damon. Please.”
He obliged. He started to move, taking me against the shower wall just the way I wanted. This wasn’t sweet, romantic lovemaking; Damon took me hard, his powerful body pinning mine, his biceps flexing where his arm was braced against the wall, the water running in rivulets over his muscles. I’d never had sex in the shower before, but right now it came naturally as I softened myself and opened up to him, letting pleasure wash over me. Taking what I wanted. Giving pleasure to this man, and only him.
He was so slick inside me, so powerful, that when I came I dug my fingernails into his bare back. He made a sound deep in his throat as he felt me squeeze him, and then he pounded me mercilessly for another minute until he came. Without missing a beat he turned the shower off and kissed me again, deep and just a little rough, as his arm reached out and grabbed a towel from the rack. He wrapped it around me, then dug his fingers into my wet hair.
“Don’t leave yet,” he said, his voice a rasp. “Stay longer.”
I hadn’t even thought of leaving. In fact, in this moment, you couldn’t have made me go anywhere.
But Damon didn’t know that. His expression was deadly serious, as if I’d already told him, seconds after coming, that I was planning to go.
What made him think that? Why did he assume I would fuck him, then walk out the door?
“I’m staying,” I told him.
Damon looked at me a moment longer, as if wondering whether to believe me. I pressed up onto my toes and brushed my lips over his mouth, reassuring him.
“All right,” he said finally, the words tentative. “You’re staying. I’m taking you to bed.”