Damon:A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel(15)

"That's because of how fresh it was," he said.

"So humble," Tricia said, closing her eyes and shifting herself down to  the sandy soil to lay out beside the fire and digest, her head propped  up on the log they'd been sitting on. For a moment, looking at her laid  out like that with her eyes closed and her hands folded over her  stomach, Damon felt a dread sensation. She looked dead. Just like she  almost was. Would have been, if …

He pushed the thoughts from his head and focused on the soft rise and  fall of her chest, the way her nose scrunched when a breeze lifted a  strand of hair and tickled it against her face. She wasn't dead, she  hadn't died, she was here now, with him. That thought kicked up another  sensation, one far more pleasant but harder to push away.

Her body, gentle and curvaceous and tanned to the shade of the sand, was  enough to make his mouth water. She would be more delicious than any  gourmet camp side meal. He was going to wait for her to be ready, for  her to trust him, for her to ask for what she wanted from his body. But  the waiting was hard. The waiting was damn near impossible.         

     



 

If he could have, he would have gone over to her right then, in the  light of the sunset, and run his hands up her legs to where they met at  her delta, pressed his body against hers and spread her wide, licked the  flesh of her neck and readied her for him, watched her eyes expand and  deepen as he showed her everything a man could do to please a woman  worth pleasing …

Instead, he rose and walked a short distance towards the sea. He was  hard as stone, painfully hard, his erection throbbing against the zipper  of his jeans. The waves against the shore were like the blood pumping  up his neck, down his arms, through his manhood. There were always  stories about gypsy witches. Tricia had more power over him in one  finger than any sorceress of legend. He didn't question why, or how. It  wasn't worth questioning. He trusted the tides of his heart and body.

How long was it supposed to take to fall in love? He'd fallen in love  with her the night they met. And in the time since, that love had grown  patient, tempered, and true. He would wait. He knew not everyone was  like him, that most people needed to be sure of someone before they  loved them. So he would wait for Tricia to come to that by herself, if  she ever did. Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she wouldn't love him back. That  wouldn't make what he felt any less precious, any less worth having.

Back at the campsite, Tricia felt rather than saw Damon's absence. She  blinked her eyes open, turned to see where he'd gone, and saw his  silhouette against the setting sun. It was so beautiful she felt her  heart cracking in two. Off in the distance, she could see one of the  island's lighthouses, and thought that it was a fitting addition to the  living mural before her. Something sturdy and larger than life.

It's too soon, she told herself. You still barely know him … you've never even kissed … it's too soon …

But beneath that warning, her heart beat steadily, and the tune to which it beat was a salve to every wounded doubt.

My man, my man, my man, my man …





16





The dreams didn't always come, but when they did, it was with the sort  of violence that shook her whole body, spasms and screams that wrecked  the silence of any evening. Usually, she suffered them alone. She  preferred it that way. She didn't want anyone to know. She didn't want  anyone to step in, act like she was broken. She was, but she was healing  herself  –  as best she could, in her own way.

That night, after the fire crackled down to its embers and they kicked  sandy dirt over it, when the crickets and cicadas and night birds were  performing their nocturne, the dreams came. There was no rhyme or reason  to it. The day had been good. Lovely. Beautiful. Nearly perfect. But  the dreams came anyway.

Horrible claws tugged at her flesh, around her neck, raking open wounds  all down to her chest. They were cold, like they were dipped in liquid  nitrogen, and it flooded her veins with an ice so frigid that it should  have killed her. Death would have been a mercy. But it didn't come, it  never did.

All she could do was struggle and scream and try to escape, but the  harder she tried, the more the claws tugged, the deeper they went. She  couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. Soon, she'd be unable to scream.  Eyes in the darkness were an audience of evil men, all watching and  glorying in her torture. When she cried out, they didn't come to help,  but clapped. They approved of it.

Damon woke to the sound of her screaming. It woke him like a shot in the  dark, his heart racing as he shot straight up in the bed. Images  flooded his mind in a flash, wild animals and evil men coming to take  what little Tricia had left. And it fueled his anger, sense taking a  backseat to a crazed need to protect her, to keep her safe. He flipped  himself out of the bag and across the tent to her form, shaking and  convulsing in the confines of her sleeping bag.

She was asleep. There was no one else. She was dreaming.

It didn't calm him, knowing this. As he brought her into his arms,  trying to wake her without scaring her further, he felt as angry as  ever. Angry at a past that had left her like this, sweating cold bullets  against his chest, her screams quieting as she woke up. She had  thrashed her way out of her sleeping bag and was wearing only an  over-sized t-shirt that reached to her thighs, and a pair of panties. He  tried not to notice how soft and luscious her skin felt, how her legs  were strong and shapely against him.

"It's okay," he growled, one arm around her back, his hand on her chin  pulling her face towards his. He would fix this. Her movements slowed,  her eyes blinked open, her mouth still hanging agape in a wordless cry.  It was dark in the tent, but he could see the glossy sheen of her eyes  as they stared back at him. Her body was damp with sweat but warm, her  pulse quick, a small mewling sound escaping her throat.         

     



 

And then she was closer. She was right there.

Her mouth was closing over his, clumsy in the dark but finally finding  it, and their tongues clashed together, pushing against each other. She  moaned into his mouth, her body alive and buzzing in his arms, turning  towards him so that her breasts pressed against his chest. Immediately,  Damon's cock stiffened, the taste of her flooding every synapse in his  brain, potent as espresso. He growled against her lips and lowered his  hands, not thinking about his actions; he slipped his hands around her  bottom and clutched her closer, squeezing the flesh there tenderly. She  broke away, voice breathless, eyes glistening in the dark.

"Fuck me," she said, panting. "Fuck me, Damon, please … "

It was those words, ironically, that finally forced Damon back to his  right mind. He released her gently, slowly. He didn't want to "fuck  her". Not like this, not after whatever dream she'd been having. She was  begging him from a dark place, a primitive need rather than a primal  want. Sensing his reluctance, she whimpered and tried to crawl closer to  him.

"Please," she whispered, finding his ear, her words hot and misty  against his flesh, forcing a battle of wills between his cock and his  heart. His hands were on her sides; he was almost afraid to touch her,  afraid of what she did to him, the person she incited in him. She made  him want to be careless and wild and feral. He fought that urge, lifted  his hands to her shoulders, still bunched tight and knotty with fear.

"Calm down," he whispered back, gently beginning to knead the taut flesh. "Calm down, yes'tacha, calm down … "

Ves'tacha, beloved, slipping from his mouth so easily he barely knew he'd said it.

She responded to his ministrations, slowly but surely. Her breath  slowed, heart returning to normal. She was still curled close to him,  all the better for his hands to move around her shoulders and upper  back, rubbing away the built-up tension. He breathed a sigh of relief as  his cock finally showed signs of giving up the ghost.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked, still rubbing her flesh through her t-shirt. He felt her nod against his chest.

"A little," she said. "I got … I got a little carried away. I'm sorry, ugh, that's so embarrassing … I just felt crazy and … "

"It's alright," he said, biting back a sardonic smile. She had no idea  how close he'd come to doing just what she'd asked. "It's not a one-way  street, trust me … "

"Ugh," Tricia said, trying to pull away slightly now. "That was a gnarly one. I'll never get back to sleep."

Damon didn't release her as she tried to pull away. He wasn't going to  fuck her. He'd already decided that  –  it was too soon, and the  circumstances weren't ideal. But he didn't have to deny her a good  night's sleep. And he didn't have to deny himself a taste of what he  wanted.

"I can help you with that," he said, lowering his lips to meet the soft  flesh of her shoulder, his hand pulling at the neck of her shirt. She  shivered, her head rolled to the side, a slight coo escaping her mouth.