Have Me (Stark Trilogy, #3.6)(9)

His lashes flutter. Color returns to his cheeks.

And then his lips move in a word so broken and soft that I almost do not recognize it—“Nikki.”

He is alive. He is back.

He is mine.





[page]Chapter 4


I sit bolt upright, my skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat, my breath coming hard and fast. We are on the oversized patio chaise lounge, and Damien’s arm is around me. He pulls me back down to him, his voice so soft and gentle that I understand only the sentiment and not the words. It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.

I close my eyes, letting his strength fill me. And when I have taken all I need, I turn to him. “I’m okay now,” I say. “You can let go.”

He brushes my lips with a kiss. “Never.”

I burrow closer, then smile against his shoulder. That one simple word is as comforting as a down blanket in winter, and I am content? the rough edges of the dream finally smoothed away by this man who loves me.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No,” I say, then find the words coming anyway. How he was pulled away from me. How everything in the sea seemed to conspire to keep us apart. How I found him dead in water that had been comforting only moments before, but then turned suddenly menacing.

“I couldn’t bring you back,” I say, feeling the tears well again.

“But you did,” he says. He pulls me close and captures my mouth with his. The kiss starts out sweet, then turns hot and hard, demanding and possessive. “You did,” he repeats once he has released me. “And you will never have cause to bring me back again, because I will never leave you. I was foolish enough to do that before, and it just about killed us both.”

I nod, then take another deep breath, steadying myself. Because I know the truth in what he is saying. Damien wouldn’t leave me any more than I would leave him. And yet fear still clutches me, its sharp talons digging in and taking hold.

Now that I have shaken off sleep, I think I understand the nature of my fears. Despite being married—despite being taken, claimed, possessed by this man that I love so dearly—I am desperately, horribly afraid of losing him, no matter how determined we are to stay together.

I finger my wedding ring. I thought that I would have no fears once he slipped it on my finger. But even matrimony cannot erase reality, and I know that there are still things out there. Things like Damien’s murder trial. Yes, the case was dismissed. But what if it hadn’t been? He would have been ripped from me, forced to spend his life behind bars. And there is neither a vow nor a ring that can protect us from that.

The trial, thank god, is in the past. But there are still horrors lurking in the world. Things that could tear him from me. Things that could crash into our lives, trying to force us apart. His father, for one, who surely isn’t done trying to get a piece of Damien. Or Sofia. I can’t blame her, his childhood friend, for loving Damien, but I can damn well blame her for trying to rip us apart. She’s locked away now, her past and the world having taken their own toll, and while Damien receives regular reports from the doctors that say she is improving, I don’t think she will ever be well enough to hold tight to sanity in a world where Damien and I are together.

And yet at the same time, I know that Damien still loves her like a sister, even though what she did came close to destroying both of us. He declined her request to come to our wedding, and although he had sounded casual when he told me, I know that the necessity of keeping her away hurt him. I can only imagine how much it had angered her, and I stifle a shiver, more glad than I like to admit that she is far away, bound to her treatment by court order.

As if that weren’t enough, there is also my mother, the paparazzi, ex-bosses, ex-lovers, the press, competitors, and god only knows who else. It’s a big world, and when you cast as long a shadow as Damien, you make a lot of enemies. And Damien’s enemies are mine now, too.

I was wrong in the dream, I realize. The ocean wasn’t Damien. The ocean was the world. And the world is brutal.

When Damien’s hand closes over mine, I realize that I have been unconsciously stroking one of the long scars on my thigh. I wince, both embarrassed and disturbed. I do not cut anymore—with Damien, I don’t need to. Not even when my thoughts turn dark and fear seeps into me.

Yet here I am, groping for that pain, barely even conscious of the need to find my center, and that simple fact scares me. Because I do not understand the insecurity that has led me to touch that most horrible of souvenirs.

I wait for Damien to comment on it, but he doesn’t. Instead, he gently traces my wedding ring. After a moment, he says only, “I was wrong back in Malibu.”

I frown. “What are you talking about?”

“I told you we didn’t need the ceremony. That it was just a formality because you and I were already one. I was wrong.”

I cock my head. “We’re not one?”

He chuckles. “About that, I was right on the money. But I was wrong about not needing the ceremony.”

“You were? How?”

“How many times have we faced the world together and survived?” he asks, and I know right now that he understands my fears. “How many times has that world tried to tear us apart? Your mother, Sofia, the past?”

I don’t answer, but it doesn’t matter; he is not expecting me to.