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“I’m gonna . . .” My mouth was so dry. “I’m gonna send you to jail.”
“Then you better hope I never get out.”
“The mind-fucks are a little rough,” I told her. She scoffed, sounding like she understood. “Yeah, they are good at that.”
“After everything that was happening in that house happened to him.” “It’s no excuse,” I pointed out. And she agreed. “No, it’s not.” she said. “It’s a reason. Plain and simple. There’s always a reason why things are as they are.”
“And I hate myself around you,” I told him, saying anything to hurt him. “I hate what I let myself do with you, because the only way I can get you away from me is to get it over with!” “That’s not true,” he bit out.
“And I learned, really quick, that life wasn’t going to be pretty. Not until . . .” Until . . . me?
“I was so alone,” he explained from somewhere on the other side of my room. “I couldn’t talk to people. I didn’t have any friends. I was scared all the time.” His voice was thick with memory, as if it had all happened just yesterday. “I just wanted to be invisible, and if I couldn’t be invisible, then I just wanted it to end. I was going to run away, because . . .” His sad voice trailed off. “Because the only other way to escape was to end it all.”
“You made the world look different,” he told me. “You always had, and it struck me as odd, because I hated to watch my mother dance growing up. It was just some elaborate lie that I couldn’t stomach, but you . . .” He trailed off, searching for words. “It was pure, and it was a dream. I didn’t want to change you. I just wanted to be a part of it all. Of everything beautiful you were going to do.”
“When it was time to come clean, I couldn’t,” he said, his voice growing thick. “I just wanted to stay there with you. Behind the waterfall, in the shower, in the ballroom . . . Just stay with you.”
Why didn’t you say all of this years ago?
“Nothing was a lie,” he whispered. And then he walked out, and my chest ached so badly, for air or for him, I didn’t know, but I ran to the window, yanked it up, and drew in a lungful of air, feeling everything give way. Slip away, fade, and ease. My fear. My worry. My hatred. My anger. Why hadn’t he said all that years ago? Why?
I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth. “I’m sorry.” They all just looked at me, frozen, for forever, and my stomach was knotted so tightly, I was about to hit someone if the words hung in the air any longer.
“Because if there’s one thing they know about revenge, Damon, it’s that it won’t feel nearly as good as her love will.” I clenched my teeth together against the ache in my gut, but I felt it anyway. Fuck you, Rika. “But I think you already know that, don’t you?” she continued. Fuck you so much. “She’ll make you stronger,” she said. “And we need you strong.” I closed my eyes, not wanting to feel the shit I felt when I was nineteen when I let myself . . . want her. When I let myself fucking love her.
But God, Rika was right. I knew she was right. Nothing in my life had ever felt as good as Winter happy because of me.
“And in the meantime, be an adult. Get to work on something and show her you can survive without her. Without her respect, you have no chance.” “No chance at what?” “No chance at not becoming your fucking parents,” she replied.
I wanted her. I broke last night because I didn’t want this. I just wanted that kid back who sat in my lap and drove my car. I made her happy. Me. And instead of sticking to the plan and making her hate that she wanted me, I hated that I still wanted her. None of it was a lie, except my name. It was real, and I wanted it again. I fucking loved her. Goddammit.
“It’s called a date,” she explained, “and it’s where you do something she likes that makes her happy. You and she will keep your clothes on for this.”
“A fucking date,” I mumbled.
“I might kiss you again when we’re older,” he says. “Just so you know.”
It was a fountain maze. I stood there in the center, towers of water shooting up and spilling around me as the tears started to fall. Hiding me in a world within a world. Just like his fountain when he was growing up. Just like the tree house. Damon, what did you do?
I loved him. I still loved him. Goddamn him.
“Having Damon around was the only time I ever felt solid in my life,” he told me. “He’s powerful. But painful.”
“Now,” I breathed out. “I want you now, Damon.” He sucked in air between his teeth. “Say that again. With my name.” “I want you now, Damon.”
“Who’s fucking you?” Oh, God, I was coming. “Damon Torrance,” I breathed out.
“Say you love me.” I swallowed, my throat so dry. “Say you love me,” he demanded. “I love you,” I told him, surprised by how easily it came. “I love you, Damon.”
“You left me,” I said, her chin tucked on my shoulder as she held me from behind. “Everyone is always doing that.” “I needed to think.” “Think,” I repeated, shaking my head. “Fuck you, baby. It was perfect last night. There were no problems.”
“I sometimes wonder what I’d be like if I grew up in Michael’s house. Or Kai’s.” She laughed a little. “You wouldn’t be like them.” “Probably not,” I agreed. “People are a blend of external and internal influences, not all controlled variables. Sometimes, just sometimes, we are who we are. Even in the sea, a snake is a snake.” “A lion, a lion,”
In the pool, there’s something you can have. Something of yours I saved. Something you forgot about.” She waited a moment, probably thinking. “I’m not missing anything,” she informed me. “There’s nothing I’m forgetting, Damon.” I closed my eyes. “There is so much you’re forgetting, baby.”
“It’s fine.” I relaxed into her, her arms still around me. “I could die happily right here.” “You’re not dying,” Winter argued. “You haven’t even told me you love me yet.” Oh, that. “Someday,” I teased. “Damon, wake up.” She jostled me. “Come on, we’re doing this, right? We’re in love. We’re doing this.”
I needed to think, she’d said. My dick was inside you four times last night. Now you needed to think? Really?
I wasn’t fucking staying. I’d rather pierce my eyeballs than lie here, resting. I’d rather chug a gallon of piss-warm milk than stay in bed doing nothing. I’d rather get a third-degree burn on my dick. Or develop a peanut allergy.
If that hadn’t worked, I would’ve killed Rika. But it did, so . . . Fine, whatever.
“Just breathe,” I told him. “Trust me. We’re getting out of here.” He met my eyes, starting to break down as his chin trembled. “Please, don’t . . .” he begged. “Please don’t leave me.”
I clenched my jaw, shame washing through me all over again at what I let Trevor do to him. How I left him. How I would never have lived with it if anything had happened to him that night. I held the back of his neck and planted my forehead to his. “I never did,” I promised.
“I almost drowned,” he choked out, his breath ragged. “Again.” “Shhh,” I soothed him, holding him, because that was all I could do. There was nothing that would erase what I did; I could only to hate myself more because I’d done it at all.
“Whatever is after you is failing,” I told him. “You’re not fucked. You’re the strongest of us all, because you’ve survived the most.”
“You see that shit?” I growled, both of us zoned in on the triangle of Winter’s panties. He breathed hard. “You stay on the outside of it,” I ordered. He chuckled, his playful tone like his old self again. “And if I don’t?” “Then you just might die tonight, after all.”
“I’ve never let women do that to me,” Damon said quietly, breaking the silence. “Do what?” “Put their mouths on me,” he replied. “Down there.” He didn’t let other women use their mouths on him? “I just never . . .” he trailed off. “It’s not something I . . .” He struggled to find the words, but I realized what he was talking about, and I tried to keep the sadness from my voice. “I know,” I told him, saving him from having to say it. His mother and what she did to him. He didn’t like that, and the reason had to do with her.
“Why did you let me?” I asked, keeping my tone soft. “I didn’t even think about it until it was over,” he whispered. “It was like she wasn’t here. It was just you.” He sucked in a breath and tightened his arms around me. “I love you,” he said. I immediately broke down, tears springing to my eyes. Happy tears. He turned me over, slid on top of me, and kissed me as he nestled himself between my legs again. “I love you,” he whispered over my lips again. I held his face in my hands. God, I love you.
The anger and fury and heat and need—years of it leading to this moment when we finally knew what we were and who we lived for. Red. Out of all the colors, I liked red the best.
“People come together, and for a tiny space of time,” she went on, “it’s beautiful and raw, because you can’t think and you don’t want to. You just feel.” She paused and then continued. “The moments are what we remember.”
“So have you forgiven him?” she asked. “Who?” “Damon.” I thought for a moment and let out a long sigh. Now, that was a question. “Yes,” I replied. “No . . . I don’t know. I’ve been angry for so long. But I love him.” “You just don’t know if you can trust him.” “I don’t know if I should,” I clarified.
If I ever thought I couldn’t do something with her, then I wasn’t doing it at all.
“How much does this fun cost?” “Sticking with me for the rest of your life,” I replied, putting my arm around her waist. “That’ll suck.”
“A few years before her, though,” he told me, “Christiane had a son.” And then he looked at me, taking a drag of his cigar and thinning his eyes against the smoke. A son. I stopped breathing. They were my sisters, but Erika wasn’t my father’s. So that meant . . .
I could’ve had a different life. Christiane would’ve been different. I would’ve had good parents.
“That’s not your life anymore. I don’t leave.” I couldn’t help the smile that broke out as she kissed me again. I wouldn’t admit it to her, but that fucking made my night.
“Who’s your employer?” I asked, suspicious. “Who’s paying you? Who’d pay the city off to look the other way about this?” He just stared at me, unblinking, and then answered, sounding almost serene. “Someone who wants you to have a chance, Mr. Torrance.” And I sat back in my chair, my eyes finally open and knowing the answer without Cason telling me. Christiane Fane.
“Someone liked the shit I built at your house,” I replied. “Wanted me to make a tree house and fountain for their property.” “And you said no?” “I don’t have time for that,” I shot back. “I need to get a job and figure out what we’re doing.” And then I paused, my back straightening and understanding dawning on me. “Ohhhhh.” “Yeah, dumbass!” she screeched. He was trying to hire me. To design and build.
“We’re going to rule the world, Rika.” I held out my hands, grinning. “You, Banks, and me.”
