He teases my clit as his cock fills and strokes me. He is working me into a frenzy, and his touch combined with the surroundings pushes me over the edge so hard and so fast that I am certain that without Damien to hold me up, I will tumble and fall to my knees.
As the orgasm blasts through me, my body milks him, muscles clenching in a desperate need that takes him the rest of the way, and he explodes into me, his hands closing tight on my shoulders as he cries my name.
He closes the curtain then, and I turn in his arms, then melt into his touch, into his kisses.
“I love you,” he says.
“I know,” I say, then snuggle closer. I am content. And right at the moment, I’m not feeling domestic at all.
We stay a bit longer, enjoying the sauna and the hot tub. Making love slowly in a pirate-themed private room where I let Damien take me captive and then ravage me. It is late when we leave, and I am feeling well-used and wonderful.
“How did you know?” I ask as we exit onto the sidewalk. “How did you know I would like it?”
“How do you think?”
I stay silent; we both know the answer. Because Damien knows me as well as I know myself. And as far as I am concerned, that is a glorious feeling.
I take his hand and pull him to a stop, then lift myself up to kiss him, planning a soft buss, and then laughing as he captures me long and slow and deep.
A bright light flashes, turning the world inside out, and it takes me a second to realize that the light came from the flash of a camera. It is followed in quick succession by a lightning storm of flashes, and I stumble backward, realizing only after the fact that Damien has pushed me aside.
Damien is in the street, and his fist slams hard into the photographer’s face even as I process the words that have been hanging over my head like a cartoon bubble since the first flash went off—“Fucking A. Stark pays for her, then he shares her.”
The accent is heavily British, and when I see the multiple cameras around the guy’s neck as he stumbles backward, his nose a bloody mess, I realize that he is a celebrity chaser from one of Britain’s tabloids.
I don’t even have time to feel sick before I see Damien lunge for the guy.
“Damien, no!” I shout, but my words come too late. Damien grabs the guy by the shirt front and pulls him back. He seems to hesitate, and then instead of breaking the guy’s face, he grabs one of the cameras and breaks that instead.
“Get the fuck out of here.” His words are low and very, very dangerous, and it’s obvious that the photographer knows that. He turns, then breaks into a run. I grab hold of Damien’s shirt, afraid that he will run after him.
“It’s over,” I say, breathing hard and starting to shake. “Just stop. It’s over.”
But even as I say the words, I know that it is a long, long way from over.
Chapter 11
“I’m sorry,” Damien says in the taxi on the way back to the H?tel Margaritte.
“For not stopping? For breaking his camera?” I make a face. “It’s okay, really. I don’t give a fuck about him. I just don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Not for that,” Damien says. “For bringing you here.”
It takes me a moment to understand what he’s talking about. “You mean to Paris? To the club?” I tighten my grip on his hand. “Damien, that’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” His words are tight. Clipped. “I almost canceled this entire trip after I saw your face in Mexico. How much you enjoyed the beach, the solitude.”
I remember the shadows I had seen on his face when we had talked about leaving the resort, and everything falls into place.
“And then to bring you to a city crawling with press—to put you back in that spotlight,” he continues. “And worse, to take you to that club. It was like opening a damn door for every lowlife asshole—”