Damien (Slater Brothers #5)(95)

“Oh, my God,” I said with a shake of my head. “You spend way too much time with Alec. That was him that just came out of your mouth just then.”

Damien grinned as we neared my apartment.

“He’s my big brother, so I guess I’m more like him than I thought.”

“I’m still tellin’ the girls.”

Damien growled. “I’ll have to punish you if you do.”

“If you even consider spankin’ me, I’ll knock your teeth out.”

A lower rumbling chuckle filled the car. “You and what army?”

“Bronagh Murphy.”

“That’s not fair,” Damien huffed. “She is feral when she is mad.”

“Exactly, so don’t mess with me or me arse, buddy.”

“No promises.”

I grinned like a fool.

“Do you think a lot about when we’re gonna have sex?”

“At least one hundred times a day.”

I cracked up laughing, and Damien simply smiled and shook his head. I loved how he made me feel. Carefree, beautiful, and most of all, happy. I didn’t think of sex with him anywhere close to one hundred times a day, but I found myself thinking of it all the way home, and I decided we had both waited long enough to come together.

Literally.





Four days later …



Four whole days.

That was how long it took for Damien to break. It took four fucking days for me to seduce the man. What I thought would be an easy task turned out to be anything but. From the moment we got home from our first date, I had been dropping hints left, right, and centre that I was ready for us to be physically intimate. Damien picked up on zero of these hints, and I was too embarrassed to simply come out and ask him to have sex with me, so I upped my game. I subtly teased him whenever I got the chance, and I talked about sex, a lot. At night, I draped myself over him in bed and purposely rubbed against him, but nothing would happen.

Either he had the patience of a saint, or he just had no clue what I wanted.

I was truly beginning to believe the latter until I apparently took it one step too far in Ryder and Branna’s kitchen. We were already at the house, every one of us, kids and all. Damien waited until we all had finished our meal together to get to his feet, drawing everyone’s attention. He retrieved a black box with a silver ribbon tied around it from behind the kitchen door. His attention was solely on me.

“I wanted to give this to you on our first date, but it wasn’t delivered until today.”

I widened my eyes as Damien handed me the box.

“But it’s not me birthday,” I said dumbly as I accepted the gift.

“I know.” He chuckled. “It just something I got for you to show you how much you mean to me.”

The girls all audibly sighed, and it took everything in me not to join in with them.

“Th-thank you,” I said, looking down at the gift, perplexed. “Do I open it now?”

“Yes,” Bronagh and Keela said in unison.

Damien snorted. “You can open now or later. It’s up to you.”

“Now,” I said. “I want to open it now.”

I untied the pretty silver ribbon that was perfectly wrapped into a bow, and I held my breath as I lifted the lid off the box and set it down on the table. I stared into the box, not really knowing what I was looking at. There was fancy wrapping tissue covering a folder of some kind, but sitting on top of the tissue was a framed document. I carefully lifted the frame into my hand, and I read the document. When I realised what it was for, my breath caught. I scanned it twice more before I lifted my head, and locked eyes on the grey ones staring at me intently.

“You bought me a star?”

A beautiful smile graced Damien’s face, and my heart thumped wildly against my chest.

“And,” I said, looking back at the document, smiling, “you named it Freckles.”

“Yeah,” Damien said, pride radiating from him in waves. “That way, when I look up at the stars at night, I’ll always see you.”

“Omigod,” Bronagh whispered, her holding on Nico tightening. “That is so romantic.”

I didn’t look up at Damien, but I was smiling so hard my cheeks began to hurt.

“Thank you,” I said, pressing the star ownership document against my chest. “I’ll treasure this always.”

When I looked up at Damien, his eyes were still on me, and I stood up, not being able to help myself. I needed to be close to him. I took another step forward, completely in a trance, until Alec spoke.

“Little bastard,” he said, breaking the silence and pulling me back into the moment.

Everyone looked at him.

“What?” Damien asked, frowning.

“You’re a little bastard,” Alec repeated.

Damien looked at Nico, then back at Alec and said, “Not understanding why I’m a bastard.”

“Little bastard.”

Damien’s lips twitched at Alec’s correction.

“Sorry, I don’t understand why you’re calling me a little bastard.”

Alec scowled. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No,” everyone said in unison.

“Unbelievable,” Alec said with a shake of his head. “You’re a little bastard because you bought the woman a star. A fucking star. How the hell can we compete with that?”