Complete Me (Stark Trilogy, #3)(32)

“Get up,” I say. “Get up and get the hell out of here.” That gets a reaction out of her. A tight, condescending smile that only pisses me off even more.

Beside me, Damien squeezes my hand, but he says nothing. Somehow he knows that this is my fight now.

“You’re Nichole, aren’t you?” she says, though there is no doubt in my mind that she knows exactly who I am. “You’re the little girl who caught his eye in Texas at that ridiculous pageant.”

“I caught more than his eye, Carlotta,” I say, deliberately getting her name wrong.

Her eyes narrow. “Are you sure? Reality so rarely lives up to expectations. I hope you’re prepared for the day he realizes that you are not the woman he wanted, after all.”

I flash my best pageant smile and conjure a honey-sweet Texas twang. “Sugar, I think you have us confused. I’m the one he’s taking to bed. It’s you he doesn’t want.” I imagine a stadium of people leaping to their feet and applauding. “Now get the hell out of here.”

I know my blow struck home from the way her eyes dart to Damien, as if he will soothe the wound. But Damien is not her salvation. “You heard the lady,” he says. “Go.”

For an unpleasant moment, I think she’s going to argue. Then she rises to her feet. She moves with deliberate slowness as she takes the last sip of her wine and then hooks her purse over her arm. It seems to take forever, but she finally steps over the threshold and out into the hallway, the weighted door slamming shut behind her.

I turn to Damien. I can see the rage in his eyes. The rising fury. But it’s tempered by something else. Regret. And apology. No, I think. No way in hell is he apologizing for that bitch.

“Nikki, I—”

“You what? You didn’t know she would be here?”

“You know I didn’t.” His voice is hard. Firm.

“Do you think I’m going to be jealous, knowing that there was a time when she had free run of this suite?” I ask, making my voice even harder. I have a point to make, and I’m damn well going to make it. I cock my head, considering. “Just how many hotels around Europe is she intimately familiar with?”

“Goddammit, Nikki.”

“One? Three? Five?”

He stalks toward me and I take a corresponding step back, then another until my back is against one of the pillars that divides the sitting area from the kitchen and dining area. “Did you take her here? Like this? Hard against a wall?”

“What the f*ck are you doing?” Anger curls in his voice and I know that I’ve almost pushed him too far.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“Pissing me off,” he says, then kisses me hard, the force of his lips upon mine knocking my head back. I open my mouth to draw him in even as I hook one leg around him and curl my arms around his neck. I want him hard against me. I want to feel him—to feel our connection. Because nothing—not Carmela, not anybody—can break that.

Roughly, he wrenches his mouth off mine. I hold him tight though, so that I feel his breath upon my face when he speaks. “You’re the only woman in my life now, Nikki.”

I am breathing hard, my eyes never leaving his. “Don’t you think I know that, too?”

I see the exact moment when he realizes that I have been playing him.

“Unless I find you in bed with one,” I say, “don’t you even think of apologizing for another woman. Believe it or not, Damien Stark, I was not under the impression that you’d taken a vow of chastity before sleeping with me.”

He looks me up and down, his eyes filled with a dangerous kind of heat.

“What?” My voice is wary.

“I think, my very dear Ms. Fairchild, that you are in for a much-deserved punishment.”

“Oh.” I feel the tightening in my body simply from the thought of his hand smacking hard against my ass. Still, though . . .

I try to take a step backward, but am blocked by the pillar. “Why? Because I pushed your buttons? That doesn’t seem quite fair.”

“No,” he says, “it doesn’t. And not because of that.”

“What then?”

“Do you really think it’s in the realm of possibility that you would ever find another woman in our bed?”

“No,” I say.

“Well, there you go.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “But you know I don’t believe it and didn’t mean it.”

“I do,” he says. “But I’ll tell you a little secret. It’s the best excuse I have for bending you over and feeling the sting on my palm.”

I lick my lips. The room turns suddenly warm, and I feel beads of moisture at the back of my neck and between my thighs. I reach back, holding on to that pillar to steady myself. “Is that something you want?” I keep my voice low and even; it’s damn sure something I want.

“Right now,” Damien says, “I want it more than anything.”

He uses the pad of his thumb to trace lightly along my jawline. I close my eyes and draw in a breath, suddenly unable to concentrate.

“Why?”

“You know me better than anyone, Nikki. You know why.”

I do know. He needs me like I used to need a blade—like I now need him. In a day when he’s been blindsided by horrific pictures of his past and bitchy ex-girlfriends, he needs to know that I will surrender utterly to him. That it is Damien who controls my pleasure even by controlling my pain. He needs to know that he can take me to that limit. And he needs to know that I want him to.