It had done something to him. He didn’t just want to help her. He needed to.
The thought sent a tremor through his body. Was that how Melanie had felt when he had looked up to her all those years ago? Was that why she had sacrificed her whole life for him?
Mia reached up and pulled his face down to hers. Their lips touched and Damien knew this woman would be his undoing. She would wreck him.
Her nipples pebbled in front of him and Damien bent to suckle. She whimpered and he flicked his tongue. She cried out and he sucked.
With every stroke and pinch of her sensitive flesh, Mia came apart. Her cries turned to mewls and she clawed at his arms, dragging him closer.
“Please, Damien.”
Oh, Christ. Don’t beg me, baby. I can’t…
Damien flipped her around with a groan. Her breasts mashed into the cold tile and her fingers scrabbled up the wall as he crowded tight against her.
“You’re a dangerous woman, Mia Davenport.”
She moaned. He nipped her earlobe with his teeth.
“You make me forget to look behind my shoulder. When you’re here, like this…” Damien slipped his hand between her legs. So wet. “I forget about all the people who want me dead. The thugs hunting us this very minute.”
He found her clit and rubbed, up and down, side to side. Around and around until the little bud swelled with anticipation. Mia whimpered and bucked into his hand.
“You make me reckless.”
She shuddered against him and Damien couldn’t wait any longer. With one hand braced on the tile and one gripping her hip, he took what he wanted. The woman he so desperately needed.
Drugs weren’t his thing. He’d seen addiction and its devastation first hand. But Mia made him crave. Made him ache.
She was his heroin. His meth. He’d do anything for one more hit. One more high.
Oh, God. His cock sunk inside her tight sheath. No holding back. No easing in. Just base need. Animal drive.
He grunted and slammed his other hand on the wall. So fucking tight.
She pressed her ass against him and he thrust. Hard and quick, over and over. A brutal rhythm that crushed her upper body into the shower wall and brought him racing toward the abyss.
Mia cried out, her voice stolen by the torrent of water sloshing over them both, and her body gripped him in pleasure. Again and again her muscles milked him, spurring him toward his own release.
How could he hold back when this beautiful creature was shaking beneath him?
With a final pump of his hips, Damien came. Hot and fast and thick, his release filled her up. He’d taken her bare. Again.
He sagged against her, his head pressed into the tile. Mia had been the first. The only woman who’d trusted him enough to take him without protection and to let him come inside her.
Knowing that he’d filled her with his seed—with a part of his fucking soul—it crushed him. She was light where he was dark. She was heaven and he was so far down in the depths of hell.
No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he would never, ever deserve her.
As the water turned cool, Damien pulled back. He turned the shower off and grabbed a towel. Draping it over Mia’s shoulders, he tried to focus. She wasn’t his forever. Damien didn’t have one.
The first shot he took, the first life he ended, that was where his future stopped. There was nowhere for him to go but down.
After grabbing another towel and wrapping it around his waist, he turned back to Mia. She’d tugged the cotton around her shoulders, but exhaustion was creeping up. She lolled against the tile wall.
He dried her off with slow and gentle strokes, soaking up the water along with his guilt. The beautiful, lonely woman turning around in his arms deserved more than this. More than him.
She deserved a husband and a family and a fucking white picket fence.
Not death and destruction and fear.
With a deep breath, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He tugged the bed covers down and nestled her into the sheets. She didn’t even open her eyes.
He tucked the blanket up around her and stepped back. Damien had never looked after anyone before. Not a cat or a stray dog. Not even his sister.
Melanie.
He tugged on his clothes and sat down on the room’s only chair. Threadbare and frayed, it wasn’t much. Just like him.
With a deep breath, he pulled the locket from around his neck and flipped it open. The faded picture had a crease running through the middle and a torn corner. But it was the only picture he had. Damien ran his finger over the little girl’s face. Her hair was like Mia’s—brown and straight—but her big blue eyes held a pain no child should bear.
A worker in the group home had taken the photo. She had told Melanie to give her best smile since her picture was the first thing foster families would see. His sister knew better. No one wanted a twelve-year-old girl and her tag-along little brother.