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I’m as much of a sitting duck as he is. At least when it comes to this girl.
What kind of work do you give the father of the girl you can’t have?
What must it be like to run away for sport instead of necessity? What must it be like to tackle other men for fun instead of survival?
“You can’t own another person.” Then how does Penny have such a strong hold over me? Why do I worry about her with every inhale, hope for her happiness with every exhale? If this isn’t ownership, I don’t know what it is.
Because she’s like the limp in my step. The ache in my hands. The weakness in my body. “Because it’s the only way to keep her safe.”
As the years pass I find more interest in literature and art than I ever had, as if the discovery of mathematics as a creative pursuit has given me permission. The numbers still call to me, as does Dr. Stanhope. He becomes my undergraduate advisor as I head into my junior year, both a mentor and a friend. A secret and painful crush, the kind of yearning for a life free from crime.
There is no future in a mathematics degree. It needs something practical to sit on top—engineering or computer programming. By itself it’s about as useful as an art degree in terms of securing actual employment. Most everyone goes on to get their doctorate, which is what Dr. Stanhope expects me to do.
I still remember the direct silver gaze of a man intent on possessing me, consuming me; this abstract interest is so much safer.
Only here did I learn that not every man wants you as his prey.
I wouldn’t put it past Damon to keep tabs on me through him. Then again, that’s probably pride talking. Maybe even perverse wishful thinking, because part of me wants to keep tabs on him.
There’s safety in numbers.
There are years between us, a lifetime, but it might as well have been a minute.
A fist tightens around my throat, but I don’t know if it’s in the shape of Damon Scott’s hands. Am I afraid of him? Or am I afraid of who I am around him?
It’s far too complex a relationship, an equation I’ve never been able to write. It makes me wonder if I’m lying about the other parts—if maybe some twisted part of me misses home. If some twisted part of me misses being powerless, too.
He shouldn’t be able to wound me.
“You made me care. You made me want, when I needed to leave. You made me feel, when I would have preferred to die. You brought me back to life.”
Something is happening in Tanglewood, something bad enough for my father not to call, something horrible enough that even Damon Scott has warned me away.
His touch is confident, firm, the kind I can rely on, and right now I’m desperate for someone to hold me. Even if he’s not the man I’m dreaming about.
“Lovers are friends,” he says softly. Not the way Damon Scott does it.
I care about you, Penny. Deeply. I would do a lot for you. Probably more than bears mentioning.”
Two men saying they care about me in a twenty-four hour period is more than my heart can take. After a lifetime of wanting only one person to care, two is too many.
I was blind to his faults. So desperate to hold on to my last piece of family.”
I can see the old arguments in the air of her apartment, how she wants to help me, how she doesn’t need the money. It feels too good to have a friend, though. One I don’t owe. One who doesn’t owe me.
“I don’t think Damon Scott kisses people out of pity.”
It bothers me more than I want to admit to hear that Gabriel Miller and Damon Scott have had a falling out. What could it be about?
I don’t know the man walking toward me. My dreams cast him as the savior. My nightmares showed his father as the devil. But those were the imaginings of a little girl, the same as my terrible crush and my private yearning.
Can he guess what I dreamed about? Because whether I meant to or not, I have been waiting for him.
I have been waiting for this man, the illusion of him. Someone who doesn’t exist.
The cold silver of his eyes tells me Damon’s conscience would not ache for even one second over my father’s death.
“I didn’t kill your father,” he says, his voice low enough to be private. What I requested before, if not quite the way I wanted. “I haven’t seen him in weeks. He’s not here.”
“My name’s Hiromi, but you can call me Hiro. I’m your personal security.”
“Why did he want you to take the job so bad?” “Aside from the fact that I’m the best?” she asks without arrogance. “Because I’m a woman, probably. And I’m guarding the woman he’s keeping in his bedroom.” My mind trips on the implication, that Damon Scott might be jealous. “It’s not like that between us.”
I have no idea how to quantify Damon as a creator of comfort and art. It goes against all my experiences of cooking.
“She seems competent. And a little bit scary.” “Those are the actual job requirements for her position.”
Hiro isn’t here to protect me from the city in general. She’s here to protect me from my own father.
He knows things that might even help solve the rest of the code, but he lets me scribble away in the dark.
What a strange idea, that I belong there. That I belong anywhere. I always felt like an imposter at college, like someone would rip away my notebook and messenger bag and expose me for the poor trailer-park trash that I really am.
No matter how well I understand numbers, people remain a complete and utter mystery. They’re black boxes. Unknowns. I don’t understand what happens inside them.
Damon looks almost bored. Until he sees me at the other end of the room. Then his expression turns anticipatory. That’s never a good thing when you’re dealing with a man like him. Nothing he looks forward to will be good for me. If I’m a broke-down version of Cinderella, Damon is a very dark prince.
Ordinary people are a puzzle, but Damon is the only one who’s ever interested me. The only one I wish I could solve. And never more than right now, as the darkness sets in.
It’s like I’ve been waiting for him my entire life, since I was that six-year-old girl.
Except Damon Scott isn’t sane. He’s perverse, and he wants this. A chaste white bra that no other man has seen. Pale white skin that no light has touched.
In the end it’s not Brennan or Dr. Stanhope who made me afraid of sex. It’s the man we’re going to see tomorrow.
“Let me make this very clear. No other woman has been in this bed. You’re the only one here. The only one I’ve ever wanted here.”
Damon isn’t the kind of man to tell me false platitudes, but if I doubted the truth of his words, he proves them with the thoroughness he shows my breasts—as if he could stay here all night, kissing me, biting me. Making my body writhe. It’s minutes, hours, an eternity later that I realize my body is moving in a specific rhythm. The same way I move my hand between my legs at night.
I didn’t know truth could feel good.
He wants me to run away, to undo the deal I made with him, the very devil. That he would help Avery for the price of my body.
It’s suffering, being made to lie open and vulnerable while he’s coated in armor. The clothes don’t matter now. His armor comes from his tattoos and his scars. It comes from the way he controls my body, moving me, pleasuring me, bending me to his will.
The more he tries to insult me, the more I see it as the distraction it’s meant to be.
“I didn’t just survive what he did to me. I thrived in it, understand? I became what he wanted me to be. Fuck, I was already a monster. Coming from that man. Being his son. I can’t escape that.”
