Claim Me(34)

I smile, knowing that I have found him.

I head to the glass door, but pause when I see the small table next to the boxing bag. A bottle of water rests atop the table, but that isn’t what catches my eye. It’s the newspaper that is on the floor. Reviewing the news is like a religion with Damien, but I’ve never once seen him not fold the paper neatly when he’s finished. This section, however, is on the ground. I suppose it could have simply fallen there, but somehow, I don’t believe it.

I pick up the errant sheet and immediately realize it’s the sports page. Considering Damien’s original career as a professional tennis player, this is hardly a shocker. But it’s the headline that has me gasping with surprise—and with understanding.

Apparently a new tennis center in Los Angeles is near completion. The dedication ceremony is next Friday, exactly one week away. And the center is going to be named after Damien’s former coach, Merle Richter. The man who killed himself when Damien was fourteen years old. The man who, I believe, abused Damien for five long years. The man Damien’s father forced him to continue working with even though Damien pleaded to quit tennis altogether.

I remember what Alaine had said about a tennis center dedication. It had meant nothing to me at the time. Now, it means everything.

I leave the paper on the table, then exit the room through the sliding glass door. The flagstone decking is smooth beneath my feet, and the robe flutters around my legs as I move toward the pool. The property is built in the Malibu hills, and the pool’s far edge is designed with the illusion of dropping away, as if you could swim over the edge and fall out into space.




Damien is swimming laps along that precipice, and I wonder if he has chosen that spot intentionally.

He is naked, and the pool lighting seems to accentuate his muscles as he glides freestyle through the water. His body is magnificent, athletic and powerful, and I feel a tight curling in my belly. Not sexual—though I would be lying if I didn’t admit that there is always an undercurrent of sexual desire where Damien is concerned—but of possessiveness. He is mine, I think. But the thought is tinged with fear. Because though I know that the reverse is true—I am most definitely, undeniably his—I sometimes fear that Damien belongs to no one but himself.

I fear, too, my motivations for giving myself so fully to him. Damien fills a need in me, that much is undeniable. But I do not have the best track record in that regard, and as my hand slips almost unconsciously inside my robe to feel the rigid hardness of the scars that mar my thigh, I have to concede that I have often needed things that are not only bad for me, but very, very dangerous.

Right now, though, I don’t care about my motivations. I neither know nor care if it’s the truth or self-delusion, but I cannot believe that anything about Damien is a danger to me. On the contrary, he is a gift. A rescuer. A knight upon a white steed, though he would scoff at the image and insist that the horse must be a black one.

Perhaps so, but to me there is nothing dark about Damien Stark. There is only the light that he brings to my world. And that is why I feel all the more helpless when I see that he is hurting. And why I feel all the more lost when it is not me that he turns to.

I’ve been walking slowly toward the water, and now I stand at the edge of the pool on the side near the house. There are five steps into the water here. Wide steps designed for lounging half-in and half-out of the water. I walk out, holding the robe up around my knees so that it won’t get wet.

Damien is at the opposite end of the pool and he has not noticed me. I take three steps, then move down to the next level. The water hits me just below my knees. This is the first time I’ve been in the pool, and I’m surprised by how warm the water is. Not quite bath-temperature, but balmy, and warmer than the night air that surrounds me.