Page 16 of Protégé King

“How about sugar? Or sweetie? Or just Alana? Come on.” Those last two words are silk followed by the offer of his hand.

I lower my lashes, laughing and submitting to the moment. This is happening. I don’t know why I’m fighting it.

“Alana,” I approve, and press my hand to his. His long fingers close around my hand and it’s all over. I’m his. But then I was always his. I have always been his. The only thing actually uncertain about me with Damion is the future.

I slide closer to him and he stands and lifts me with him. I’m swimming in my reaction to Damion, and it’s a deep, blue sea, a mix of emotions and physical need that translate to fire. My hand plants on his chest while my breath lodges in my chest. Both of his hands frame my waist. It’s wickedly intimate and my body is liquid heat, melting away, and we haven’t even reached his apartment. His lips curve and I don’t know if it’s from my reaction, or because we’re here together or what, and it doesn’t even matter. It’s contagious and while my cheeks are as hot as the rest of me, I’m smiling, too.

He slides his arm around my shoulders and guides me toward the double glass doors. It’s not until we’re inside the lobby with a security desk to our left that I feel a bite of reality. The idea of being one of many women to be trotted through a showroom pricks like the sharp edge of a blade. But Damion doesn’t so much as wave at the man behind the desk, or the one in a suit in front of it, watching over the building. Somehow, it helps me downplay being watched, not that Damion has to acknowledge them for me to be another notch on the bedpost. Even if Damion doesn’t intend such a thing, these men could keep numbers on the famous West family bedmates.

I’m relieved when we reach the elevator bank and with one push of a button, the doors open. Once we’re inside a car, Damion punches in a floor and then folds me close, molding our lower bodies together, the thick ridge of his erection pressed against my belly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say, and in this moment, pressed close to him, it’s the truth.

“This isn’t my play place, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he surprises me by saying. “But I do live here now. My father has me here more than in school and when I say here, I mean working twelve and fifteen hour days. He worked a deal out with the school for credit.”

Suddenly the years without seeing him make more sense. “You’re not in school?”

“I was gone before you ever got there.”

“But I saw you, you know when—”

“When you actually believed I was all over you while I was with another woman?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I wasn’t, by the way. I was not with that woman.”

“She sure thought so.”

“That was a friend’s girlfriend, who was trying to fix me up with her friend when I had no interest. I was free of my father for a few days. The last thing I wanted was some clingy chick trying to marry me. And that’s what was going on.”

The last thing he wants is a clingy chick. I must be a clingy chick. I’m embarrassed just thinking about him ever finding out I used to fantasize about marrying him. I shove aside the thought before he reads me and ask, “Why were you at campus at all if you’re basically off site now?”

“Testing requirements I couldn’t complete off campus.”

I wish I could say this erased the years we haven’t spoken, but if I think too hard on that, I’ll be a mess of anger and confusion. Thankfully, the elevator dings and I don’t have to think at all. Apparently as eager as me to get out of this steel box, Damion straightens and catches my hand in his, leading me into the hallway.

He turns us right and it’s then, on the walk down a ridiculously long hallway, my nerves kick up dirt in my belly and a full-on windstorm of emotion explodes inside me. I’m about to be alone with Damion in his apartment. I have to stop now, or I will never stop. Or don’t stop and just live with the consequences.

Apparently, I’m living with the consequences because we’re at his door, and he’s punching in the key code, with me planted right next to him. Nope, not leaving. I’m doing this. We’re doing this. He shoves open the door and I expect him to give me space to enter or something. I don’t know what the something is, but it’s not what happens.

Before I can process my next thought, he’s pulled me inside, shut the door and I’m against it, with him—tall, hard, and perfect—in front of me, his powerful thighs caging my thighs. As if he’s afraid I’ll run from him. I never ran from him. I walked out, I walked away. But now, I’ve made my decision.

I choose to stay.

Chapter Eleven

Alana

Damion stares at me, a hand planted on either side of me.

Seconds tick by and I don’t know what he’s searching for, but I’ve spent what feels like most of my life lost in the piercing blue of his eyes, and now is no exception. “We were always going to end up here,” he says, his voice a gravely affected tone. “You know that right?”

He’s not wrong. I knew. I always knew only I saw a white picket fence and a wedding dress when it was sex, just sex, and maybe not even friendship. Three years of silence is brutal in the reality it delivers. So if that’s all this is, sex and just sex, then I’m going to enjoy every moment. “I do,” I whisper, grabbing his ties, and tugging him close, “so can you shut up and kiss me already? Because when you’re kissing me, nothing feels wrong about this. When you’re not—”

His fingers tangle roughly in my hair, erotic and demanding, almost angry. “You want to be friends again?” he demands.

“Yes,” I admit, “because—”

“Damn it, baby. Why does it have to be one or the other?”

“You’re a guy. Why would you want it to be more?”

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