Claim Me(170)

“Oh, Nikki.” His fingertips stroke my cheek, and though his smile is bittersweet, his eyes are filled with so much passion that it takes my breath away. “You can’t possibly know how much I love you.”

“I do,” I say.

The small shake of his head is almost playful. “It’s too big, too powerful. There is no start and no end, nothing with which I can measure the length and breadth of what I feel for you. I look at you and wonder how I can possibly survive the riot of emotions within me.”

“You make it sound almost painful.” My words are soft, gently teasing.

“You and I know better than anyone how pain and pleasure walk hand in hand. Passion, Nikki, remember? And with you, it fills me.”

I swallow, undone by both his words and by the intensity with which he is speaking them.

“I want to hold you close. To cherish and protect you. To draw you in until we are so close that I am lost within you. I want to take you to bed, to watch the way your skin tightens beneath my fingers, the way your body awakens under my touch. I want to trail kisses over you until you are lost in so much pleasure that you don’t know where you end and I begin. I want to tie you up and f*ck you until there is no doubt that you are mine. I want to dress you up and take you out, and show you off, this beautiful, vibrant, brilliant woman. Everything I’ve built? All my companies? All my billions? They have no value compared to you.”

I open my mouth to speak, but he hushes me with a gentle finger to my lips. “So, no, Nikki. I couldn’t have walked away. Selfish, yes. But I cannot wish it otherwise. I need you, and I can’t regret that I have you.”

“I need you, too,” I say. “You know that I do.”

“I don’t regret having you,” he repeats. “But I regret very much what that does to you. You’re suffering for it, or you will.” The sadness that fills his eyes is enough to melt me. “You are the one person in all the world I cannot bear to hurt, and yet I’m the one who put fear in your eyes.”

“No,” I lie. “I’m not scared. If you see fear, it’s only because I was afraid you were going to try to push me away. But about the trial? I’m not afraid at all.”

“Liar,” he says gently.

“You forget that I’ve seen you in action, Damien Stark. You’re a goddamn force of nature. They can’t possibly hold you. Maybe they don’t know it yet, but I do. You’re going to walk away from this. You’re going home a free man. There’s no other way that this can end.”

I don’t expect his reaction—Damien laughs. “I love you even more for pretending, but I know you’re scared. And you should be. This is the kind of case that has prosecutors salivating.”

“But you didn’t kill Merle Richter,” I remind him.

“No, I didn’t. But truth is a malleable thing, and once I walk into that courtroom, the truth is what a jury says it is.”

“Then you need to damn well make sure the jury has the information to do that. Dammit, Damien, you didn’t kill him. But even if you did, there were mitigating circumstances.” I force myself not to flinch as I say the words. Despite Maynard and all the rest of his attorneys pushing him to raise a defense, Damien has continued to refuse. I fully expect to be shut down now. Which is why I’m all the more surprised when he nods slowly.




“Yes,” he says, so softly I almost don’t hear him. “That’s one of the things I’ve been down here thinking about.”

I hold my breath and silently urge him to continue.