His mouth is on my belly, his teeth nipping at my navel. His hands have slid down over the dress, and he is easing it up. The soft material glides over my skin even as Damien’s lips ease down. His kisses are feather soft across my skin, along the rise of my hip bone and then gently, sweetly, over my pubis before he continues lower, and then lower still. My back arches involuntarily, and I gasp as his tongue flicks playfully over my clit before his mouth closes, hot and demanding, over my sex.

His hands move to my thighs, his thumbs grazing my scars before stroking the soft inner skin at the apex of my thighs. He pushes my legs apart, opening me wider for him. I want to shift my hips, to writhe from the pleasure of his oh-so-intimate kiss, but he holds me fast, keeping me exactly as he wants me. I raise my hand to my mouth, then bite down on the soft pad at the base of my thumb as I turn my head from side to side in time with the pleasure that grows inside me as Damien’s expert mouth and tongue increases the sweet pleasure, slowly, slowly, so painfully slowly.

And then it all explodes, and I arch up, my mouth open, but my cry silenced by Damien who has slid up my body and now holds me down with the weight of his. His mouth closes over mine, and I taste my own arousal. I kiss him deeply, hungrily, then moan in protest when he pulls away. He presses his hands against the soft earth at either side of me as he lifts himself and looks into my eyes. There is heat there, but it is fast fading to playfulness.

“Better?” he asks with a cocky grin.

“Oh, yes,” I say, then ease up onto my elbows so that I can sit up.

“No,” he says. “Lay back.”

I arch a brow, amused. “So demanding, Mr. Stark. What exactly do you want from me?”

“I want you naked,” he says, and now the playfulness is gone as fast as it came, replaced by lust and heat so potent it makes me wet all over again.

“Oh.”

Slowly, he lifts the hem of my dress. I don’t protest. I simply shift my body so that he can pull the garment up and over my head. He tosses it aside, then pulls his white T-shirt off before his fingers go to the buttons of his jeans.

“I’m going to fuck you, Nikki. Right here, on the warm earth with the sky open above us. I’m going to claim you with the entire universe looking on, because you are mine, and you always will be, no matter where we go from here.”

“Yes,” I say, though his words were not a question but a demand. “Oh, yes.”

His hands skim over me, his eyes full of adoration. I have always known that I am pretty, but when Damien looks at me, I feel more than beautiful. I feel special.

I reach up and stroke his cheek and watch as the passion builds in his eyes. I twine my fingers in his hair, grasp the back of his head, and pull his lips down to mine. Our kiss is hungry and wild, like the trees and vines around us. I pull him closer, unable to get enough of him. His hands stroke me, caressing my sides, stroking my breasts, sliding between my legs. His moan when he finds me wet and ready seems to reverberate through me.

He breaks the kiss, using one hand to prop himself above me. “Now.” He doesn’t wait for my reply, but my legs are already spread in demand, and I lift my hips to meet him as he thrusts inside me. I cry out, not in pain, but in the rightness of it all. This is how it is supposed to be, Damien and I joined together. Damien and I standing fast against the whole of the world.

We move together, wild and frenzied, and when the orgasm explodes through me, I realize that my face is streaked with tears.

“Baby,” he whispers, pulling me close.

“No, no,” I say. “It’s just that it’s too big to hold inside.”

“I know,” he says, and holds me tighter. “Sweetheart, I know.”

I do not know how long we stay like that. I only know that I never want to move again. All too soon, though, Damien rubs his hand along my bare arm, then kisses the lobe of my ear. “Are you ready to go back?”

I’m not, of course. I never will be. But I know that Damien needs my strength as much as I need his. And so I only nod and grab my dress before standing up. I reach my hand down for him. “I’m ready,” I say. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Three

Again and again in my dreams I go tumbling over the side of the building, falling down, down, down. Damien reaches for me, his face frantic as he thrusts his arm out, trying to grab me. But it’s no use. He is trapped above me and I am drawn unrelentingly toward the hard, cold earth where I will shatter, broken into a million pieces, praying that Damien will come and put me together again, but knowing that he won’t. That he can’t. Because he is the one who pushed me over that edge in the first place.

I wake screaming, clinging to Damien, my arms wrapped around him. Even the steady beat of his heart and his soft words cannot soothe me, because I can no longer tell what is the nightmare and what is reality.

All I want is for this to be over, but as we exit the Kempinski lobby two hours later—as the cameras flash and the reporters scream questions about the trial that is beginning today—I take it all back. I’m afraid that in wishing for it to end that I have been wishing for my own destruction. Instead, I want all this pre-trial nonsense to continue. I want to stay cocooned in the safety of the hotel if that’s what it takes to avoid reality.

From the moment we met, it was as if a magical bubble surrounded us. But the real world has begun to intrude. My mother, who flew into Los Angeles like a storm and ripped apart the fragile life I was finally building for myself. The paparazzi who almost broke me after they learned that I posed nude in exchange for a million dollars. And now this trial that is poised to rip away everything that Damien and I have managed to build together.

I have no intention of leaving Damien, and I believe that he has no intention of leaving me. But I can’t shake the fear that despite what we want, fate has other plans. Damien might be the strongest man I know, but can he fight the whole world?

The ride is all too short, and soon we arrive at the Criminal Justice Center, which houses the Munich District Court where Damien’s trial will take place. The building is modern, boxy in white stone and glass. It reminds me of both the federal courthouse in Los Angeles and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Considering the show that is about to be put on, I suppose that’s appropriate.

Over the last few days, I’ve been here a number of times for meetings between the attorneys. Those times, though, I hadn’t trembled. Today, I can’t stop shaking. A bone-deep quivering as if I am too cold. As if I will never be warm again.