Misty Blue (21 page)

“Then what is it that you want?”

“I want the woman that I married a few hours ago. I want the one who begged me to help her keep her vow because she found it difficult to say no to me. I want the woman who gets hot when she looks at me, Mia, that’s what I want. And please, for God’s sake, tell me where she went because she sure as hell isn’t here.”

Mia stared at Damien. He was right. She wasn’t the same woman. She stared until she burst into tears again. Then she pulled the covers over her nude body and burrowed her head in the soft down pillows.

“Mia, I’m going downstairs for awhile. I need to cool off and so do you,” Damien said, as he closed the door behind him. He stood for a minute listening to the sounds of Mia’s sobs through the door. He put his palm against the door and whispered, “Stop crying, baby girl. I’m sorry, it’s going to be okay.” But he wasn’t so sure. He shook his head and walked back toward the elevator thinking,
What a difference a day makes
.

For over two hours Damien sat in a bar at Caesar’s Palace. He smiled dully at the scantily clad waitresses coming and going. This wasn’t how he’d envisioned his honeymoon, his bride crying in their hotel room while he sat in a bar nursing a drink and feeling sorry for himself. He also hadn’t envisioned his bride remaining a virgin.

With that thought he got a renewed surge of energy and his erection pulsed in his pants. But his erection was the thing that had made Mia go off in the first place. How the hell was he supposed to control it? He wanted her. Hell, he’d always wanted her. Their honeymoon was definitely no exception.

Damien threw a few bills on the bar and walked out, heading for the house phone he knew was just outside the door.

“Mia,” he said as she answered. “I’m sorry, baby. Can I come back up?” His voice was raw with his need. He didn’t want to frighten or anger her but he needed to feel himself inside her body. He needed to cement their relationship. Once they made love, he knew all would be forgiven. That was his talent, his gift. If only he could get the chance to show his bride just how good he could be.

“I’m sorry too,” Mia answered. “I’m acting like a child. I know that. I think…I think maybe all the wedding preparations. My mother, your father. I think everything just made me hormonal. Come on up.”

“Are you still undressed,” he asked.

“I’m still undressed,” she replied, a bit of the frost returning.

“Do you think you could put on that lacy thing I didn’t get to see last night?” Damien could practically see Mia smiling through the phone.

“I can do that,” she answered.

“I love you, my sweet wife.”

“You can’t possibly love me as much as I love you,” Mia answered.

* * *

She hadn’t ruined things. Mia raced for her bag, dug around and found the gown, ignoring the wedding gift her husband had gotten for her. Mia washed her face with a cool cloth and quickly brushed and gargled. Yeah, she was more than ready to make love to her brand new husband.

When Damien returned, Mia was waiting by the bed. Her heart fluttering, she lifted her eyes to his face and smiled. “Damien, I love you and no matter how I’ve been acting this morning, I’m glad we’re married.” Then she was in his arms and he was kissing her and she was kissing him, laughing as he kissed her nose, her ears, and nibbled at her lips. His heat consumed her and became her own.

“Mia, we’ve waited so long,” Damien moaned.

She sucked in her breath, holding in her own moan. “I know,” she answered, giving in to the hunger, touching him with delight. As she felt the heat from her husband’s body, desire flared in her and exploded. Together they undressed him and Mia stood for a moment in shy embarrassment, watching him as his flesh jutted forward. She’d never seen a naked man this close, only in the movies, only in her mind. She shivered as her desire burned her to the depths Of her very soul.

“Damien,” she moaned as she felt herself being lifted into his arms. Her hands trailed down his side, feeling the hard rippling muscles. She had never before touched her husband’s flesh without the barrier of clothes between them. Her fingers twitched. This was a dream she wanted badly to fulfill.

Under the covers, her thoughts centered greedily on her own pleasures. Damien was touching her in her most intimate of places, probing all the areas she’d before smacked his hands away from, and she could feel the juices, her own juices, racing through her body, pouring out of her. She was moaning at his touch. Such ecstasy, such wonder. He suckled her breasts, licked her ears, her belly and all the time his fingers probed. And she was touching him in return, feeling his hardness in her hand, exploring his body with the pads of her fingers. She was burning with the heat, the lust, the wonder of it all.

Then he rose up, instructing her to open her legs. She complied and then he was there, at her entrance and she tensed without thinking as he pushed against her.

“Don’t tense up, Mia.”

She ordered her body to relax. Damien pushed a little harder and a sudden pain and intense burning ripped through her. This too she could handle. It would go away. She knew that.

“Mia, you don’t have to worry about a thing, not with me, and, baby, you’re going to be a fast learner. I can tell.”

Her needs took on a life of their own. She was doing whatever Damien asked without question. Liquid fire crawled through her.

“My God, Mia, you’re so tight.”

She chuckled. That was a good thing, she knew at least that much. Despite the feeling of her flesh being on fire, of being ripped apart, Mia wanted more. She trembled with the knowledge, and clung to Damien.

“Come on, baby girl, wrap your legs around my back, Damien urged.

Sweat covered their bodies, so much that Mia’s hand fought for purchase on Damien’s flesh, only to slide away. They were both grunting, deep, guttural, almost animalistic sounds.

“Raise your hips to meet my thrusts, Mia.”

She did as he asked, wincing in both pleasure and pain as Damien plunged even deeper inside her.

“Mia, you’re a natural. You were born for this. It’s in your blood.”

A natural? In her blood? It couldn’t be. She didn’t want it to be her mother’s blood that was awakening these feelings in her. All at once a tremble of awareness started in her belly and spread throughout her body. She shivered, thinking of all the things she was doing, all the things she was enjoying. She liked the things Damien was doing to her. Were virgins supposed to enjoy themselves the first time? She’d always heard they didn’t. Did their bodies respond as hers was doing? Mia didn’t want to be a natural. It could mean only one thing…

She opened her eyes and looked at her new husband, his face contorted in lust, and a shiver traveled down her spine, chilling her soul. She knew that look. It was the same look she’d seen on the face of a man Mia had found lying atop her mother. She knew in that instant that if she looked into a mirror her own face would be distorted by the lust. Just like her mother’s had been. She shut her eyes tighter as the memory forced itself into her thoughts-the memory of how at five, hearing her mother’s screams, she’d run into the bedroom to find a strange man on top of her. She’d thought he was hurting her mother, had tried to help her but her mother had screamed at her to get out and she’d run into another room and hid in a corner, covering her ears and crying until Keefe came in from riding his bike and found her there.

Oh God, what was she doing? Her hands were clawing at Damien and she was moaning and grunting like some animal in heat…like a slut…like her mother. Terror skittered down her spine, and Mia struggled desperately to shove the image of her mother out of her head. She didn’t belong there, not now when her husband was making love to her. She tried hard to remember that this was Damien, the man she loved, whose touch she craved like flowers crave rain. This was Damien, her husband now. The man she’d wanted to make love to her for months, the one who’d made her melt, made her feel things she’d been unaware existed. She’d wanted him with every fiber of her being, risked her relationship with her brother by lying to him.

Suddenly it was as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her entire body, freezing her, freezing every emotion except shame. Mia loved Damien, she truly did. But she was helpless to resist the horrible images and thoughts flooding her brain. Every doubt, every worry she’d ever had about herself coalesced into this one moment with Damien. She was her mother’s daughter! Mia closed her eyes against the horror of that thought but what awaited her was even worse. She saw her mother laughing, her finger pointing and the tears worked their way from beneath her closed lids.

A wave of revulsion swept through Mia. Her husband’s touch that only moments before had filled her with a sweet intense heat, making her crave more, now filled her with a different heat. She was burning up alright-burning up with shame.

Mia screamed out, the pain of the images more that she could bear. “Stop! She screamed. “Stop, Damien!”

* * *

Damien had everything he wanted, Mia as his wife, him buried deep inside her. Damien groaned in pleasure, feeling his release getting the better of him. He was taking it damn slow, making sure he didn’t frighten Mia, didn’t hurt her with his intense need, his greed. But he’d promised her he’d teach her, that she’d enjoy it and he was teaching her. He hoped like hell she understood the gruffness of his voice when he called out encouragement to her, little hints of things that would increase their pleasure.

He dove into her again and again. God, how he loved her. Then he heard her calling his name just as he’d always imagined, just as he’d told her she would and the sound of her voice pushed him farther over the edge. She was almost as incoherent as his thoughts.

“Stop, Damien.”

He wasn’t sure if that was what she said but he knew she couldn’t want him to stop. She hadn’t come. He knew that. Maybe he was still hurting her. “Don’t worry, baby girl,” he consoled her. “It won’t hurt much longer, just a few more seconds.” Just then his entire body trembled and he could no longer control it. His release shook him all over and he growled, clutching Mia to him. Then he collapsed on her chest.

“Stop, Damien,” she screamed again and he shook his head to clear it. As he attempted to rise up, he felt himself being shoved upwards with such force that he slid to the floor with a thud.

What the hell! “Mia,” Damien called to her as she snatched a rumpled sheet to cover her body.

“Leave me alone,” she sobbed and ran into the bathroom.

Damien stood up, panic filling him. He looked toward the bed, then the bathroom door, not knowing what to do, what had happened. I
must have hurt her
, he thought. But he’d been so gentle. He’d made sure of that. If not, they would have been done the moment he slid into her wetness.

“Mia, why are you crying, baby girl? Did I hurt you, Mia? I’m feeling like hell out here. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby. Sometimes it’s painful for virgins the first time. I promise you it’ll get better. Come on out, Mia.”

The sound of rain came from the bathroom and Damien frowned. “Are you taking a shower? Let me come in. We can shower together.” He was having a difficult time getting his voice normal. He knew what Mia was doing. She wasn’t just taking a shower. She was washing his scent off her.

An intense pain filled his chest and he groaned again but this time there was nothing pleasurable about it. Without warning his mother’s laughing words returned to him
. “It will serve you right if the one woman you want to please, you can’t.”
He looked again at the bed.
“Stop, Damien
.” He now heard the words loud and clear. “
Stop, Damien
.” They were reverberating in his head. She’d wanted him to stop. What the hell did it make him that he hadn’t? Shivering, he looked down at his nakedness and felt foolish. As unbelievable as it seemed, he was still hard. That knowledge disgusted him. He’d scared the hell out of his wife, and even now she was washing the smell of him away. She was disgusted by him. And he had an arousal.

* * *

Mia stood beneath the hot water crying, her heart breaking. She’d loved Damien touching her, the feel of his hands on her body, inside her, and even with the pain she’d welcomed him inside her. “Oh, God,” she moaned, “God, please don’t let me be like her.”

Despite the running water she could hear Damien calling to her. What could she tell him? How could she explain her behavior. How could she tell him that she’d tried to control the images and hadn’t been able to. He’d think she was crazy. She just needed time to work her way though this…to apply her process.
But how did a woman get over finding that she was a slut-just like her mother?

All she wanted was to make Damien happy. She cried harder. She loved him so much. How was she ever going to face him. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “Damien, I’m so sorry.”

* * *

Mia came out of the bathroom at last, wrapped in one of the hotel’s huge fluffy white towels. She wished she’d thought to take clothes with her into the bathroom. She didn’t want to cross the room in only a towel but she had no choice. She aimed for her open bag, averting her eyes from the bed.