“Kissed me,” I whispered.
His lips tightened.
“Taken me to your room and made me cum…”
“Fuck.” His lips tightened. “Fuck.” He whipped around, turning his back to me, but by then it was too late. I had already caught a glimpse of what he was trying to hide, and it was so, so much larger than I thought was normal.
“Damian—-”
“It’s obvious then, isn’t it?” And without looking at me, he said curtly, “You have an asshole for a stepbrother.”
And then he was walking out, leaving me all alone in his room, my lips parted in shock.
I wanted to cry. I almost did. Until I felt a gentle, cool wind coming in from the open doors of the suite’s balcony, tickling my ear…like a heaven-sent breeze.
Oh.
That was when I had my answer, and I realized I knew what to do.
Three
Spring break had finally arrived at Laramie, and hormone levels and booze consumption rates were steadily rising by the second. The streets occupied by the university’s fraternity houses and residence buildings were particularly busy: most students were hurriedly loading their vehicles as they prepared for an out-of-town trip while others, with a flight to catch, were just as hastily sliding into the backseats of their booked Ubers. Either way, all of them, at one point or another, found themselves staring the moment they caught a glimpse of the extraordinarily handsome, elegantly dressed stranger walking past them.
He appeared too sophisticated to be a college student, but since he also appeared too well off to be faculty, everyone eventually (albeit not collectively) came to the conclusion that he could only be one of the three major Fs in one’s life: family, friend, or fuck partner.
In truth, however, the man was actually either none or everything of the above, depending on who was being asked.
Damian sternly repressed the urge to smile the moment his gaze fell on the dark-haired girl seated atop her metallic pink luggage, gaze downcast while she idly kicked pebbles out of her way with the tip of her sneaker-clad foot.
He slid his hands into his pockets as he halted a few feet away from her. A pebble rolled towards him at the exact moment, and he heard Sarah’s audible intake of breath when he struck it with the tip of his leather-clad shoe, and the pebble rolled back to her.
“Damian.”
The breathy sound of his name on her lips still shook him to the core, and he had to clench his jaw against the urge to yank her towards him so she could say it again but closer, with her lips caressing his ear.
He saw her take a peek behind him, and he was bemused and concerned when her brows automatically furrowed. “What’s wrong?” His long-legged stride had him reaching her in moments, but she irritably shook her head at his offer to help her up.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Sarah muttered.
“Why not?” The silkiness of Damian’s voice effectively hid the fact that her words had him bristling. “Do you have something to hide?”
“What do you think?”
She pointed to something behind him, and when Damian turned around, a part of him expected that he’d be greeted with the sight of a college boyfriend whose face he’d immediately want to punch. But instead…there were girls? A crowd of them, literally, and whose numbers still seemed to be growing by the second. What the fuck?
“That’s why I didn’t want you to come here,” Sarah was grumbling as he turned back to face her. “This place used to be one of the few safe havens I had, you know. No one knew about you, so I never had to listen to another girl talking about liking you, falling in love with you, wanting to have sex—-” Sarah saw Damian frown and made a face. “I’m old enough to drink beer now. Can’t I be old enough to say—-”
Damian’s blue eyes had turned icy in disapproval now.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “Forget I said anything.” She saw him instantly relax and had to hide her smile. Their secret little roleplay of Dom/sub had been going on for three years now, and the only reason she was eager to continue with it was because she had realized early on that he was only ever autocratic where she was concerned. To the rest of the world, his own father included, Damian had cultivated a mild-mannered veneer that had people endlessly praising him for his even temper.
A rather perverse way to make her feel special, Sarah knew, but she would take what she’d get.
They started walking, Damian taking charge of wheeling her luggage next to him while she kept pace on his other side.
“You never offered to pick me up before,” she remarked.
“You never refused to take our jet back home before.”
“Oh.”
“Why did you?”
“I was thinking I should try being a little more independent—-”