Damon:A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel(12)

"Okay," Tricia said, laughing slightly. "Okay, Damon, I'll stop."

"I don't expect you to be over it," he said. "So for now...for this trip...don't try to be."         

     



 

Tricia didn't respond, but she dropped her hands, revealing her face to  the flames. After a long moment, she spoke again, her voice strong.

"I'm doing really well," she said. "I am. Almost all my days are good  days. I don't want you thinking of me like I'm some lost kitten you have  to take care of."

"I don't," Damon said, and he reached over, placing his hand on her thigh. "But I kind of like the idea of you as a kitten..."

Tricia turned to him, mouth dropping open in a dumbfounded gape. What  had he just said? And what was that smile on his face? He took his hand  away, and Tricia felt unnaturally disappointed about it. And then she  started laughing. A big, hearty laugh that filled the woods around them  with its noise.

"Are you serious?" she managed to speak between gasps of much-needed  air. "Damon, you are...oh my God, was that supposed to seduce me? That  was the worst, the worst..."

He kept laughing with her, but now he leaned back, relaxing as the sound  of her happiness swarmed him. When it died down, he was still smiling.

"I wasn't trying to seduce you," he said, shaking his head as he looked into the fire.

"Oh no?" Tricia said, wiping tears from her cheeks. He thought he might  have heard some disappointment in her voice. He might have imagined it,  too.

"I just wanted to make you laugh," he said with a shrug.

"Well, mission accomplished," she said, rising once more to lift the  stick and poke at the dwindling flames. "And that's a pretty good cover  story."

"Trust me," he said, looking up at her. "When I decide to seduce you, you'll know it."

That made her turn around in a hurry, their eyes meeting in the red  glow. Tricia's mouth went dry. His eyes, looking up into hers, were  nothing but heat, reflecting the flames in front of them. The heat of  the fire licking at her flesh seemed to invert, and she felt warmth  burning her from the inside out.

"What are you waiting for?" she managed to croak out, the night suddenly seeming very still and quiet. "Who's to say I don't..."

"I'm waiting until you stop asking me why I want you here," he said,  voice low but almost flat, matter-of-fact. "I'm waiting until you feel  like you deserve to be here."

She couldn't look away, caught in his stare like a deer in the  headlights. With his dark hair and beard, he almost seem to fade into  the background, only his eyes and the pale pink of his lips remaining.  His words did things to her that she couldn't understand, and didn't  want to try to understand. They made her feel new.

"Okay," she finally said, feeling as soft and malleable as her voice.  When he decided to seduce her. When he decided to seduce her.

"Put some more wood on and come sit down," he said, breaking the tension  by looking away and nodding at the wood gathered by the side of the  fire. "I like having you near me. I like hearing your voice close by."

"Okay," she repeated, and bending down she added more wood to the fire,  satisfied only when the flames began to catch and lick up the branches.  And then she did what he said, and sat beside him, close enough to touch  but not touching.

"Tell me about your folks," Damon said.

"My folks?" Tricia asked, surprised. That was a pretty big leap from the  topic at hand. Nothing seemed less seductive, in fact, than a  conversation about her parents.

"I want to know you, Tricia," Damon urged. "Whether or not you trust me saying it, you're a woman worth getting to know."

Tricia studied him in the fire's light. A smile crept across her lips.

"Alright," she said. "Well, my father was an electrician, he retired … "





11





Ricky read the note on her table, her mouth falling further and further  into a frown with each word. She read it once, then again.

I can't explain this  –  so I won't try. Damon invited me along with him  on a road trip, and I'm taking it. I should be back in two weeks or so.  It feels right.  –  Tricia.

"What the hell, Trish," she murmured to herself, fighting down a wave of  anxiety. She let the little slip of paper flutter down to the table.  Tricia just got there, and now she was off on some impromptu road  trip … with Damon?

She pulled out her phone and called Cristov.

"Hey baby, I'm not home yet … is everything alright?"

"You picked up your phone while you're driving?" Ricky asked,  momentarily forgetting why she'd called in her concern for Cristov's lax  regard for personal safety.

"You're on speakerphone," he said.

"Is Kennick with you?"         

     



 

"Sure am," she heard a male voice respond, then a female voice, sounding slightly distant.

"Me too," Kim said.

"Listen, I just got home, and there's this note from Tricia on the  table. She says she left for a few weeks to go on a road trip with  Damon. Do you guys know anything about that?"

The silence on the other end answered her question. She could almost  see, in her mind's eye, Cristov and Kennick exchanging a confused look.

"Uh, no," Cristov finally said. "We don't. Where are they … what?"

There was an edge to his question that made Ricky bite her lip. She was,  however, selfishly glad that she wasn't the only one who thought it was  beyond weird.

"Doesn't say where," she said. "Just says they'll be back in a few  weeks, and that it ‘feels right', whatever the hell that means."

"Shit," she heard someone mutter beneath their breath, but couldn't figure out which of the men had said it.

"Did you call her?" Kim's voice came from the backseat again.

"Not yet," Ricky admitted. "But, I mean, we shouldn't be worried, right?  There's no reason to be worried? Damon's with her, she's with Damon,  it's not like they can get into trouble with each other … "

"Uh," Cristov said. "No, I guess not. She seemed pretty uneasy at dinner … maybe she just needed to get away."

"Yeah, I mean, I figured that," Ricky said.

"You're all crazy," Kim barked. "They're not allowed to just leave without telling anyone. And Damon … "

Her voice trailed off, but they were all thinking the same thing. Damon  hadn't been acting like Damon. Not for a long time now. The man who had  always been the knowable constant had changed into something unknowable,  and certainly not constant.

"Damon wouldn't hurt her," Kennick declared.

"No one thinks he would," Kim shot back. "But Tricia just got home, and  now he's swept her off for some mystery trip to nowhere? I don't like  it. I don't like it at all."

"Kim, maybe we need to just calm down and put ourselves in Tricia's  shoes," Ricky said with a sigh, crossing the room to plop down on the  couch.

"I am putting myself in Tricia's shoes. Sexy handsome gypsy hero wants  to take you somewhere special? Come on, Ricky. We both know what that's  like. You don't always end up making the best choices," Kim said, and  Ricky bit back a smile imagining Kennick and Cristov's reaction to that.

"Hey," Cristov said. "You James sisters aren't much better."

"Yeah," Kennick chimed in. "We take offense to that."

"Well, don't," Kim countered. "Because I married you anyway, remember?"

"I'm sure it's all fine," Cristov said. "We're nearly at the trailer  now. Damon probably left a note saying where he was going and all that.  You know he's not big on talking these days, and he probably thought  we'd have something to say about it."

"We do have something to say about it," Ricky grumbled into the phone.  She ran a palm over her eyes, pinching the sides of her nose. "I'm going  to call Tricia now, you guys let me know if you find a note or  whatever."

"Baby, try to stay calm," Cristov said, his tone lowered slightly as though Kennick and Kim couldn't hear him perfectly well.

"I'm fine, Cris," she said. "Talk to you soon."

Hanging up, she dialed Tricia's number; it went straight to voicemail.  She left a message, a casual what-the-hell-are-you-doing message. Then  she got up and went to her little balcony, overlooking Kingdom. It was  past 9 on a Tuesday night, and the sleepy little hamlet was doing what  it did best; sleeping. Only a few lights illuminated the summer evening.  She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she tried to see  the town as Tricia saw it. Someplace she belonged  –  and yet never would  belong again.

I understand that you want to leave it all behind, Ricky thought. But  you left us behind too. And the last time we couldn't find you …

She didn't let herself linger on that thought. Instead, she grabbed her  keys and went down to the car. If Tricia wasn't going to be sleeping  there that night, there was no reason for Ricky to sleep alone.