Telling myself that, I open my door and move to stand beside him, though this time I do not touch. This time I will wait for Damien, because I know that he will take what he needs from me, just as he lets me take what I need from him.

A moment passes, and then another. Finally, he speaks. “I will pay,” he repeats, as if he is responding to a question I just posed. He has been facing straight ahead. Now he turns to look at me, and what I see in his face is no longer flat, but fierce. “You say that you’re strong enough to handle seeing that shit with me and Carmela, and I believe you. But this … no.”

“I can handle whatever comes.” My voice is soft, but strong. “With you beside me, you know I can. And so will Jamie. She made her choices, and she knows they were bad ones. She gets it. And she understands what it will cost you to pay extortion money. And, Damien, it’s not even your choice. The file was sent to Jamie, not you. Not me.”

He manages a twisted smile. “You and I both know who they expected to pay.”

Since I can’t argue the point, I don’t. “Even so, it’s not your decision.”

“I’m making it my decision.”

“Dammit, Damien—”

“No. She made bad choices? She damn sure did. But she’s turned it around. She doesn’t deserve this. And I won’t have her tossed out there to the wolves any more than I will have you hurting for your friends. Not when I can fix it.”

“It’s blackmail.”

“It is, yes.” He takes my hands and pulls me close. “Dammit, Nikki. Do you think I didn’t see?” He brushes my cheek, and I shiver from his touch. “You were fine when it was just about us—you can stand it because you’re strong, and because you’ve stood it before. But where Jamie is concerned—when you are shouldering pain for a friend—baby, do you think I don’t know how it wrecks you? Don’t you know by now how clearly I see you?”

I nod, my eyes flooded with tears, because I do know how well he sees me. Just like I know that Damien will do whatever it takes to protect me and mine, no matter how much a sacrifice that protection is.

But this isn’t a sacrifice I want him to make. “It does wreck me,” I admit. “But I will get through it. So long as I have you to anchor me, you know I will. But what I can’t survive is knowing that you did something like this for me, when doing it will chip away at the core of the man I love.”

He doesn’t answer me. But I see the anguish on his face.

“I love you,” I whisper, but I barely get the words out before his mouth finds mine. The kiss is brutal, wild, and claiming. And I know that I was right—Damien will always take what he needs from me, and he knows that it is already his.

“Nikki.” My name is a moan, and I cannot respond. Not when he has claimed my mouth again, his tongue warring with mine, teasing and tasting, so deep and wild and hot that I can feel the power of this kiss reverberate through me, exciting every part of me so that I feel as though I will die if I don’t feel his hands upon me.

“Yes,” I say. “Oh, god, yes.”

He pushes me back roughly so that my legs are against the hood of the car. His fingers tangle in my hair, his palm cupping the back of my head as he bruises my mouth with wild kisses.

This is passion, but it is also punishment and domination. Because I had a moment when I needed the pain and I didn’t go to him. Because someone out in the world is fucking with us, and he can’t find them or make them stop, and swimming in someone else’s stream is not something Damien handles well.

I understand all that, and I want to give him what he needs. But right now, this isn’t about control or anger or frustration. It’s about heat and need. It’s about touch and demand.

It’s about the absolute certainty that I will not survive one minute longer if Damien doesn’t take me right now, and I really don’t care that we’re on the side of the road with the sky open above us.

“Please,” I beg.

And Damien, who will always be there for me, does not disappoint.

He turns me around, pressing me down against the hood of the car. I spread my legs and lift myself on my toes. My skirt is up around my waist, the pearl thong absolutely soaked.

He rips it off, and I hear pearls scattering across the turnout. I don’t even care. Right then, I’m lost in the feel of his fingers stroking my sex. I’m wet, and his hand slides over me, then thrusts inside. I moan with pleasure, but it’s not enough. I want all of him, and tell him so. Begging. Demanding.

I’m rewarded by the sound of his zipper and then—thank god—by the hard press of the crown of his penis against my slit.

He enters me. Just a little at first, and I bite down on my lower lip, wanting more. Wanting all of him. And yet he is going so painfully, teasingly slow.

It’s driving me crazy. Which, of course, he knows.

Then, without warning, he thrusts hard, sliding deep inside me. I cry out, my voice filling the night air. As I do, I arch up, and in that moment, Damien leans over me, his motion driving him even deeper into me. I try to thrust my hips back, wanting everything he has to give. He is filling me completely, and I cannot help but wonder how I survive even a second when I am not so intimately connected to Damien.

Except I am; I always am. Even when I am not touching him, I am connected to him.

The thought makes me soar, and as he cups my breasts in his palms—as he bites lightly on my neck and pounds hard into me—I shatter into a billion pieces, then cry out in passion and relief and exultation as Damien explodes inside me.

And the last coherent thought that I have is that no matter what, Damien and I give each other what we need, and we always will.

Chapter 9

“You’re sure that you aren’t going to get in trouble?” I ask Sylvia. “And there’s no chance he’ll walk in and see what we’re up to?”

We’re in the living room of the Tower apartment, and Sylvia is parked behind the tripod on which I’ve mounted the Leica that Damien gave me.

“I told you, he’s in meetings all morning.”

That much I know. Those meetings—including some video conferences that started before dawn—are the reason that we stayed in the apartment last night. “What if he forgot something?”

“It’s my job to make sure he didn’t,” she says. “And I promise, he’s booked solid. He’s doing nothing but meetings until the chopper gets here. But if you’re that worried, shut up and let me take the picture. Then I can get out of here and you can be sure we’re safe.”