Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Once I’ve lined up my clothes, I hurry into the bathroom and claim a few spots as my own, hoping Damion doesn’t mind. It’s all so surreal. When I’m finally done, I step into the closet again and just stare at my clothes opposite Damion’s clothes. I walk to the rows of suits and run my hand over the finely woven fabric.
It’s then that I realize the apartment is silent, and I wonder if I’m alone. Unease fills me, and I exit the closet, walk through the bedroom, and pause in the doorway between it and the living room. I find Damion in one of two leather chairs facing the window that appear to be new, his jacket gone, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and displaying his powerful forearms.
He downs the contents of a glass and reaches for the bottle on a table next to him, pouring amber liquid, allowing it to slosh around the ice. It’s only then that I recognize the familiar beauty of a classical violin, the same music he’d favored as an older teen, and not during happy times. This was how he escaped the hell of his many battles with his father—brutal battles at times. Damion would be left bruised and bloody inside, if not outside, feeling as if he wasn’t good enough for his father. As if he wasn’t living life as his father demanded and expected. This music was always a sign of dark times for Damion.
Damion leans back in his chair and tilts his head skyward, the glass resting in his hand, his energy a heavy pulse. Something has happened—something that has deeply upset him—and my gut knots with this absolute certainty. And just as I didn’t hesitate to go to him during his turbulent times in the past, I won’t now, either.
Decision made, I cross the room, confirming the pair of chairs and the small table to be new and, I suspect, for us to share the view. This touches me deeply, and I settle on my knees in front of him, my hands on his knee next to me.
There’s a flex of muscle beneath my palm and his head lifts, dark eyes meeting mine, a punch of his torment stealing my breath, but somehow, I offer a raspy, “Hi.”
He downs the contents of his glass again, discarding it as he sets it next to the bottle, before he leans close and catches a strand of my hair. “Hi,” he says softly. “All settled?” There’s a gentleness to his tone that defies the intensity of his mood.
“I am,” I say, “but obviously you are not.”
“You being here with me, Alana, is everything.”
It’s not an answer. In fact, it’s the avoidance of an answer. “But it doesn’t make all the chaos around us go away, now does it?” I ask. “There’s a reason you’re out here alone.”
“Waiting on you, baby. That’s all. Just waiting on you.”
“And raking yourself over the coals because your father did as well. Did you think I’d forget your way of dealing with him or this music?”
His lips lift; more of that tenderness I feel in him tonight in the curve of his mouth, but it can’t break through the darkness of his mood. “Of course you didn’t,” he says softly, his fingers trailing over my jaw. “Do you know how many times since I bought this apartment a few months ago that I stood at this window, wishing you were here?”
I want to push him to tell me what happened with his father, but I can sense that he doesn’t want to talk. He will, I know he will, but he has a process with his father and with all challenges, and I have to give him time to process. “I’m here now,” I murmur. “And I wouldn’t be anywhere but here.”
He stands and takes me with him, his hand sliding under my hair and pressing warmly to my neck. “I don’t want you to be anywhere but here, Alana. I should never have stayed away this long. I should have ended this and done so decisively, but I’m going to now. Walker is here. They’ll stay with you, but I have to go out for a little while—”
“No,” I say, my heart leaping and my fingers curling at his sides around his shirt. “No, you will not. We agreed that tonight—”
“I’m making sure we have many more nights,” he vows, his mouth slanting over my mouth, tongue stroking deep. And just that easily, I’m drowning in all things Damion West; in the taste of him, the musky male scent of him fills me up and slides inside the emptiness that was me without him. I’d convinced myself so many times in my life that I didn’t need him, but I do. I need him with every part of me, and too easily I’ve seen how we fall apart.