“I’m free on Friday,” he said. “Silas won’t be around.”
“What’s he up to?” I asked out of curiosity.
“It’ll either be a gangbang or an evening sermon. Don’t think he decided yet.” Seth stepped closer to me again, eyebrows lifting pleadingly, eyes big and twinkling. “I don’t regret hooking up with you, Damon. So let’s not mess it up.”
“That, my dear, is the highest endorsement I’d ever received,” I said, pulling him into my arms again.
He wiggled free of me and hid his expression when the smile split his face. “We have an agreement, then.”
“Love doing business with you,” I said.
As Seth disappeared down the stairs, the night air still humming with his laughter, I stood there grinning like a complete idiot. Every warning he’d thrown at me, every line he’d tried to draw, only made the victory sweeter. He could deny the feelings, deny the pull, deny me, but not for long. Because he still wanted me. After everything, after all the rules and risks, he still wanted this. And that knowledge burned through me hotter than the ice ever could.
SIX
Seth
“I’m going, I’m going,”Silas said. He circled the room, checking under his pillow, rummaging through drawers, walking in and out of the bathroom. “Who is he, though? Is it the big hockey guy again?”
“You are sworn to secrecy,” I said.
“Girl, I know how to keep a secret,” Silas said, snapping his fingers.
“Name one secret you’ve kept,” I said.
Silas flipped me off. “I can keep a secret.”
“Why am I not convinced?” I asked myself aloud.
“Have fun. If you need any, er, supplies, check that drawer,” Silas said.
I most certainly wouldn’t. My stomach was hollow, and my heart was thundering like it was the end of the world. I had all I needed and more, except for any kind of certainty that I wanted to go through with this.
If playing with fire were a person, his driver’s license would say Damon Pierce. And I wasn’t very good at playing with fire at all. I swear. I was usually a pretty tame person. Bland. Boring. A vanilla nerd you wouldn’t look at twice. But Damon drewsomething out of me, made it present above all the rest of me, and I loved the person I was around him. I loved being what he saw. If only I didn’t confuse that self-loving feeling with something else.
And there, right there, was the spark of the fire I was playing with.
If I didn’t keep myself well guarded, I would fall for the worst guy you could ever fall for. I would go soft for a guy who didn’t do this kind of thing.
So when Silas left the room, I wrung my hands and wondered if I should text Damon to call it off. We didn’t need to start fucking in each other’s rooms. We could just, I dunno, talk dirty over the phone and deal with the business separately. It was less risky. I’d identified the areas of risk long ago. Damon’s touch was the worst of them all. He had that way of his, hypnotic and incredible, touching me until I was willing to be his everything. And that was when we were dressed.
What the hell I was getting into tonight was unfathomable, really.
I made up my mind. It would be better if we didn’t see each other tonight. He would have enough time to go out and hook up with someone else. There was no shortage of willing people. And I could stay here and regret it. So what? I’d survive.
My phone was on the charger on the nightstand. I walked over and picked it up, but the knock on the door made my heart leap higher than it had any reason to leap.
I hurried back to the door and opened it, voices in my head yelling to stop, to be silent, to let him think I was out, and to just bail on this ridiculous plan.
When the door opened and my gaze landed on Damon, left arm lifted high above his head, leaning against the doorframe, hoodie lifted high enough to reveal an inch of his flesh, the voices went silent.
Stillness came over me.
Since Wednesday night, I had let Damon visit me in my fantasies when Silas was out and the room was mine. The blunt way in which he set out the plan and proposed some fun times we could share was equally appealing as it was repulsive. Didn’t he have a single clue what these things did to me at the end of the day?
I wished I could be like him, waking up in the morning and not caring at all whether the person next to me was interested or not. Life had to be easier that way.
“Hey,” Damon said. “You look like you just opened the door to the poltergeist. You good?”