Tiana (Starkis Family #3) (25 page)

I closed my eyes against the adoration I saw in his. I closed my heart against the love I longed to share. I closed my mind against the dreams I thought I’d buried years ago. Instead, I opened my body to the possibility of one more incredible night in the arms of the man who’d turned my life upside down. “Make me forget, Damon.”

Of course, he had no idea what he was helping me forget, and he’d never know because I would never tell him. I couldn’t. Certain words would never leave my lips. They were sealed in my subconscious, on an endless loop in my mind, taunting me day after agonizing day. But right now, in this moment, I could forget. I could get lost in sensation, absorbed in his touch, the feel of his mouth on mine, his hands caressing me, his stubble scraping me, his body possessing me.

His mouth claimed mine, and I knew he felt as desperate as I did. We both wanted to find a way to make this work, to make it last. But neither of us knew how to change who we were. As much as it hurt, our fates had been determined a long time before we met.

His kiss lingered on my lips long after he’d moved from my mouth to my neck. I tingled from the top of my head to the tips of my feet, feeling electrically charged as he teased me to the brink of an orgasm before retreating, making me beg. “Please, I need this.”

“You need
me
.” He drew my lower lip between his teeth gently before swiping his tongue over it. His hooded gaze was dark and erotic, letting me know without words what he intended to do to me, with me, for me. “As much as I need you.” His fingers pumped slowly in and out of me while he licked his lips. “You need this. A man who knows your body even better than you do. Who can give you the kind of pleasure you never thought to seek.”

His thumb traced restless circles over my clit, making me quiver with anticipation while air stuttered in and out of my open mouth. When I swore I couldn’t endure another second without passing out, I screamed with the force of my release, gripping his shoulders when I feared I might collapse.

He guided me to the bed and laid me down gently before setting his leg between mine to prop them open. I wanted to shut down, to close myself off to the pleasure he promised, at least long enough to get my bearings, but he wouldn’t let me retreat. With his eyes fixed on mine, his mouth traveled over the curves and planes of my body, leaving a trail of heat and succulence that reminded me that nothing tasted quite as good as he did.

When he settled between my legs, I was torn between pleading for more time and begging him to give me everything he had. He made love to me with his mouth, drawing sobs from me that must have sounded torturous to my neighbors. He was attentive, generous, everything a lover should be, but I knew his attention had nothing to do with the fact he was a skilled lover. It was his way of showing me how incredible it could be when I surrendered to someone, trusting him to take care of me.

After another endless orgasm, my entire body was vibrating with need, energy… a muddle of desire mixed with a healthy dose of fear. He suspended his body above mine, his strong arms supporting his weight while his eyes drank me in. I felt so exposed, as though he could read every thought racing through my mind—as though he knew all of my secrets, saw them, felt them as if they were palpable, which to me, they were. They were the reason for my trepidation, the barrier standing between me and the life I wanted with him.

If he knew, what would he think? Would he judge me? I didn’t think so. Would he pity me? That would be even worse. I’d been the architect of my own life. Even though I had been young,
I
had made the decisions that would ultimately change my life forever. I loved him too much to make him pay the price for my sins.

He entered me slowly, as though he intended to savor every second of what we both knew would likely be our last time together. I closed my eyes when that thought became too much to bear. Just as I’d always done, I shut out the world when sadness threatened to overwhelm me.

“Open your eyes.” He glided his tongue over the shell of my ear and thrust slowly, as though he had all the time in the world to see to my pleasure. “Don’t shut me out. You can try, but it won’t work. Don’t you know that by now?”

He was right, of course. I’d spent my entire adult life keeping men at arm’s length, but Damon was different. He’d found a way to make me break my own rules and fall in love with him, and now we would both pay the price.

I opened my eyes slowly, determined to make him face the truth, as I had. “I’m no good for you. I can’t give you what you need.”

He smirked, using our joined bodies to make a liar out of me. He lured me into that state of ecstasy where passion overruled common sense and the only thing that mattered was the end result.

“You can give me exactly what I need, beautiful.” He kissed me tenderly, bringing tears to my eyes. “You’re the only one who can.”

I stroked his face, thinking that I’d give anything for that to be true, to be the woman who could make him happy for the rest of his life, but he longed for a life that would feel like imprisonment to me. Marriage. Kids. The promise of forever. Those were for other people—people who weren’t broken and scarred, who hadn’t vowed to spend their lives alone.

“I’ll prove to you I’m right,” he said, creating just enough friction and hitting just the right spot to take me to the pinnacle.

I cried out my release, clenching him hard as he let go too. He moaned my name as he buried his face in my hair while holding me close. I felt tears sliding down my cheeks. It had been years since I’d cried like this. I was crying for the past, crying for the future we could never have, crying for the people I’d loved and lost, just as I would inevitably lose him.

With a final kiss, he rolled over, taking me with him. With no means of escape, I curled into him, laying my head on his chest as he stroked my hair. I told myself I should cut this short and ask him to leave, but I couldn’t bear to since our time was running out.

“Do you know how brave I think you are?”

“If I were that brave, I would have stayed at your place until your ex-girlfriend arrived.” When he chuckled, I said, “I would have demanded to know why she felt she had the right to call on you to rescue her.” Jealousy felt better than hopelessness. Jealousy was an emotion mixed with anger, and I was well-acquainted with that. “I would have made it known…”
That you were mine.
I longed to say that almost as much as I wished it were true. But Damon could never be mine any more than I could be his.

“What we had ended a long time ago. She’s just a friend now.”

I believed he felt that way, but I questioned why a married woman whose husband had just left her would show up on her ex-boyfriend’s doorstep with her kid in tow if she didn’t have an ulterior motive. I wanted to see her, to meet her, to know what she was like and whether she was worthy of Damon. Whether she made him laugh or smile, if she had what he needed. I didn’t want to think about losing him, but if this woman loved him and could give him the life he wanted, I loved him enough to want him to be happy.

He glanced at my bedside table where a single diamond stud was sitting in a crystal bowl on the nightstand. “Damn, I meant to tell you my cleaning lady found your earring when she was changing the sheets. You must have lost it the night of the wedding.”

The wedding.
That seemed so long ago now, the night when I’d fooled myself into believing maybe I could have a normal relationship… before reality had come crashing down on me the next morning.

“I was going to bring it over tonight, but the truth is, all I could think about was you being out on that date.”

The disdain in his voice made me laugh. “Chad is a just a friend.” I patted his chest. “Sort of like your ex is just a friend, except I haven’t slept with him.”

He growled, a long, drawn-out sound born of irritation. “When are you going to get off this Andra thing? She’ll be back in Boston in a few days, hopefully reconciling with her husband, and we can get back to our lives.”

I propped my head in my hand, staring down at him. “You mean you can get back to your life and I can get back to mine.” His tortured expression made me soften my words as I stroked his chest. “What happened between us tonight doesn’t change anything.”

“It changes everything,” he said, gripping my wrist. “You can’t go on lying to yourself, pretending this isn’t exactly where you belong.” Before I could argue, he cut in. “I know commitment is a scary word—that’s why I’ve avoided it most of my life—but there comes a time when you have to face your fears.”

I dipped my head. He didn’t know what he was asking of me. To most people, I seemed fearless—becoming emancipated at fifteen, moving to the big city, making it in a cutthroat business, supporting myself with no family and only a few close friends. But I knew my fears ruled my life ruthlessly. “I’m not a coward.” Even though I felt like one more often than not. “I’ve faced plenty of fears.”

“I know you have.” He cradled my face. “But you haven’t faced this one, and you need to. You need to trust someone to love you, to be there for you, to—”

“I can’t.” I shook my head. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”

“What happened to change your mind?” he asked, looking irritated.

“Your ex came back into your life and reminded me how vulnerable you make me feel,” I whispered. “Any day you could wake up and decide you’re done with me, and I think that just might kill me.” Saying those words was painful, but not as painful as seeing the look of disappointment cross his handsome face.

“So you’re going to hurt me before I can hurt you. Is that the plan?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” I leaned in to kiss him gently. “I’m doing this because I don’t want either of us to get hurt, and if we stay together and try to make this work, heartbreak is inevitable. Don’t you see that? I’m just trying to save us both a lot of grief.”

“How can it get any worse than this?” he asked, his voice gruff. “It feels like you’re tearing out my heart.”

I lowered my forehead to his chest when I couldn’t stand to see the hurt I’d caused any longer. “It can get so much worse. When the fighting starts. The endless battles because no matter how hard you’ve tried, you can’t change each other.”

He gripped my shoulders fiercely, his fingertips biting into my flesh. “Listen to me. We are not your parents. Just because they were a mess doesn’t mean we will be.”

“You’re right, but we could be, and I’m just not willing to take that risk.”

He sat up, looking down at me as though he was struggling to find the words he hoped would change my mind. “Don’t you know this could be the biggest regret of your life, letting your one chance at happiness slip through your fingers?”

“You might be right, but with a lifetime of regrets, what’s one more?”

***

Damon

A few days after my gut-wrenching encounter with Eleni, I was on our private plane headed to Boston with Andra and Dalia to look at houses. My little girl was wide-eyed, taking in the wonders of luxury air travel.

Bouncing up and down in the plush seat, she exclaimed, “I like this. Can we fly like this all the time, Mommy?”

Looking amused, Andra stroked Dalia’s dark curls. “I’m afraid not, honey. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so we’d better enjoy it, okay?”

Not if I had my way. I planned to visit Dalia often and hoped she would visit me when she had extended vacations from school. We hadn’t told her the truth about her parentage yet, but Andra agreed we would at the first available opportunity.

“Excuse me,” Andra said, unbuckling her seat beat. “I’d like to make a call.”

I knew she’d been trying to contact her husband to no avail.

When we were alone, Dalia asked, “Are you really rich?”

By now I’d gotten used to her bold questions. Not only had I come to expect them, but I admired her curiosity and fearlessness. “I guess you could say my family is.” Of course
rich
didn’t begin to describe it, but part of my journey to maturity had involved separating my father’s wealth and accomplishments from my own.

“What’s that like?” she asked, tipping her head to one side as her feet dangled in front of her.

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I noted her worn pink sneakers. Nic and Andra did the best they could to provide for their family, but Dalia clearly had to go without a lot of things I’d taken for granted as a kid.

“It can be pretty cool.” I thought remorsefully of the money I’d wasted over the years. That money could have helped Dalia and kids like her have better lives. “But it can also destroy you if you’re not careful.”

She frowned before kicking off her shoes and wiggling her sock-clad toes. “What do you mean?”

There was no way to describe it to a little girl in terms she would understand, so I simply said, “Money means you can do a lot of good in the world, help a lot of people, but it can also get you into a lot of trouble.” I thought of all the trouble I’d gotten into over the years—five-star hotel rooms my friends and I had trashed, luxury cars and boats we’d totalled, opulent homes we’d treated like frat houses. Definitely not my finest moments.

“It can? How?”

I smiled. “Let’s just say I made a lot of the mistakes other kids do, just on a bigger scale.”

“What’s that mean?”

I bit my lip. Her inquisition wouldn’t end until I put an end to it. “Are you excited about going to look at houses today?”

Her eyes lit up. “Yeah! Mommy says I can walk to school instead of taking the bus.”

My realtor had selected each of the homes based on their proximity to Dalia’s school and the dance studio where she took lessons. “Just like a big girl, huh?” I felt a twinge of regret when I realized how much of her life was lost to me forever.

“Yeah. I want the one on Maple Street.” She grinned.

I struggled to remember which house that was. Not that it mattered. If that was the house Dalia wanted, I wanted to give it to her and her family. “Why that one?”

“My best friend lives on that street. We could play together after school and on weekends if we lived down the street from each other.”