Page 25 of Surviving the Merge
My speech left Damon puzzled. Sitting forward on the barstool, elbows resting on the counter, he said with a pinched brow, “But, Just, you are not yours to give.”
I moved from mildly irritated to infuriated. “I’m going to bed. You can sleep in the guest room or on the couch for all I care.”
“What did I say wrong? And we’re sleeping together?”
“No.” I whipped around, pointing my finger in his direction. “We are not. Don’t push me, Damon. Enough is enough.” Fuming, I took the stairs two at a time.
* * *
Something jarredme out of my sleep. I felt around the nightstand for the alarm clock, knocking it over in the process. A flash of three-something crossed my vision. A hand landed on my hip, startling the last dregs of sleep from my mind. “Damon, damn it, do you ever listen?” I went to shove him away, but the touch that seized my wrist was gentle.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s me.”
A kiss was placed on my palm. I rolled him over and sat atop him. “Blake?”
“Yes, I’m here.” He blew a tired breath. “I’m sorry, love,” he said, stroking my lips with the tips of his fingers.
His remorse was a tangible thing between us in the dark. The weight of it threatened to tow him under our moment of reunion. I took his mouth aggressively and grabbed onto his hair with no care for his pleasure or pain. Anchoring him. I managed to squeeze a couple words out in between peppering him with kisses.
“How?
“When?”
“When he fell asleep,” he answered, running his hands down my back and into my underwear to cup me. I clenched, undulating my hips, grinding myself onto his burgeoning erection.
He still wore the lounge pants Damon had on, and I made quick work of tugging them off and shimmying out of the boxer briefs I fell asleep in. I reached for the lube that we kept in the nightstand drawer, and while I opened myself up, I apologized to him in advance for what was to come. “I can’t be gentle. Not because it’s Damon that I want, but because I need some of the control back that I lost today.”
He stroked my hair out of my face. “Don’t ever apologize to me for taking what you need.” Reaching his arms back and holding onto the headboard firmly, his muscular body on display, he said in a hushed tone, “Take me.”
I did. Again and again. Hard, fast, and wild. Until we were both sore, and all I could do was collapse on top of him. He was still inside me when my eyelids lowered.
7
There were so many ways a person could be woken up. A kiss on the lips. A light shake. The smell of coffee. The options were unlimited. Violence, however, did not make my list of ways that I liked to reenter the world of the living.
Damon hauled me out of my sleep by my hair. “You fucked him. You fucking slut!”
The pain in my scalp and the ringing in my ears from the shouting left me unable to catch up quick enough. But I eventually did.
Damon lay beneath me, my head raised off his chest by the fist in my hair.
“How do you know that?” I mentally shook myself. “Put me the fuck down, Damon.”
“Not until you tell me why.”
“Because he’s my husband, you asshole!”
“I’m your husband, you twat. Or did you forget it was me you were standing next to in that courthouse?”
How could I forget. Our marriage was a spontaneous affair that stemmed from jealousy—his and mine. His college roommate wanted him, and Damon swore my roommate wanted me. It had very little to do with love. It quenched our desire to own and be owned in return.
Damon released me suddenly, and I flopped down onto his chest. Sitting up to straddle him, I managed to hold myself back from decking him—barely—when I remembered that hurting him would hurt Blake. “You were gone. Blake has been my husband,” I said, rolling off the bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, sitting upright.
“I’m going for a run,” I tossed over my shoulder.
“You can’t even fucking walk. How the hell are you going to run? And from the position we were in when I woke up, I’d say you fucked yourself unconscious.”
