“I love you,” he rasped. “You’re about to come. I can feel you tighten around … Fu … uck.”
I drew in a sharp breath as my orgasm slammed into me and spread out over my body like molten lava. The heated bliss wrapped around my muscles and soothed them until they were soft like jelly. I heard my cries, my screams and pleas for Damien to fuck me harder, to prolong the sensation of delight that filled me. I could feel bites of pain mixed in with my pleasure, and it only heightened the experience. When the pulses slowed, and the pleasure slowly faded, only relaxation and exhaustion remained.
“Good girl.” Damien panted as he withdrew from me and placed a kiss on each arse cheek. “Fuck, that felt awesome.”
“Why am I a good girl?” I asked, my eyes closed as I continued to lay spread out over my desk. “What’d I do?”
“You tightened your pussy muscles when I asked you to,” Damien replied. “It made me come harder.”
I hummed. “I didn’t even hear ye’ ask me that.”
“You didn’t?”
I shook my head.
“Are you … Don’t you dare fall asleep on your desk!”
I groaned as he pulled me upright, and he laughed when I turned and sagged against him.
“I told ye’ I’d be tired and sleepy. I told ye’ so.”
I didn’t even make a sound when Damien lifted me into his arms and carried me into our bathroom where I tiredly cleaned myself up. A little light from the approaching sunrise peeked in through a slit in our bedroom curtains, but neither of us got up to fix them once we got into bed. I snuggled against Damien, and once I threw my leg over his body and my arm over his stomach, anything but sleeping became impossible.
“I love you, freckles.”
I was already falling asleep, and Damien’s soft laughter was the last thing I heard.
We both managed to sleep for a few hours until our responsibilities forced us to get up—Barbara and Damien’s job. We were both lounging about in our sitting room on our settee, snuggled next to each other. Both of us were on our phones. I was working, and Damien was scrolling through Facebook.
“I think I’ve found a new assistant.”
The words had barely left my mouth before Damien snatched my phone from my hands to study the profile of the woman I was considering to hire to run my website and handle my hectic email and calendar online. I didn’t get mad; I simply folded my arms across my chest and waited. He needed to read up on this new person who would possibly be entering my life so he knew every detail about her to relax himself. It was the least I could do, considering how against he was about me finding a new assistant in the first place.
“It’s an online job this time,” Damien said, looking from the phone to me, “right?”
My lips twitched.
“Right.” I nodded. “I’m confident she isn’t a ghost from your shady past comin’ back to haunt ye’ by gettin’ inside me head and turnin’ me against your family. I think that only happens once in a lifetime, love.”
Damien scowled at my teasing, not in the slightest bit impressed, and returned his attention to the device in his hand.
“It happened before, so it could happen again.”
I wanted to say with confidence that he was wrong, but I couldn’t. The truth was that Morgan Allen, who was really Carter Miles—a once childhood friend of Damien hell-bent on revenge—made it an easy task to turn me against the Slater brothers in order to hurt them for the murder of his brother and uncle. Morgan had entered my life and my home with a shocking amount of ease. I knew Damien was scared that another person with ulterior motives could possibly do the same, but I believed I wasn’t as naïve as I once was. The things I now knew about Damien and his family, the things I had learned about while being too trusting with Morgan, were always front and centre in my mind. I learned a lot from that experience, and while it emotionally ruined me for a while, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
It helped me grow as a person, even if I was struggling as of late with nightmares because of it.
“Morgan isn’t comin’ back,” I said, repeating the same thing I had told Damien a million times in the six months since Morgan left our lives after he turned it upside down. “Ye’ heard ‘im. He just wanted to manipulate me and turn me against ye’ because he knew it would hurt you and your brothers.”
“He succeeded for a time, Alannah,” Damien said, his jaw tight. “I just thank God you saw through his bullshit and saw my truth.”
I thanked God for that, too.