Platinum (All That Glitters #3)(31)

Damon handed over two passes to a guy, and he nodded his head for them to take the line to the right. Someone checked her small purse and gave them each a handful of glow sticks, and then they were through.

They entered what more or less looked like a closed-in mosh pit. There was a stage at the far end of the football field–sized area. Damon took her hand and seamlessly threaded his way through the crowd, getting as close to the stage as they could get.

In confusion, Trihn held out her glow sticks to Damon.

“You’re going to need those,” he said.

After breaking them in half, she pushed the ends together and created a necklace as well as a few bracelets. Damon had a long chain up his arm. The sky darkened, and soon, the entire audience was glowing. Black lights flickered to life around them, illuminating their white clothing, and then the music started.

“Welcome to Poet’s Paint War. Rock on.”

The music grew with intensity as DJ Poet got into the groove. The crowd immediately started dancing all around Trihn, but she was focused on one word that had come out of Poet’s mouth.

“Paint?” Trihn asked.

Then, she felt it. A giant glob of neon green paint landed in the middle of her white T-shirt. Damon laughed at her reaction just as more paint rained down on them.

“Where the hell did you bring me?” she asked.

His hands landed on her hips, and their bodies moved together, as if they were made for each other. “A rave.”

“This isn’t any old rave.”

“It’s like those color runs everyone goes on about but with dancing and good music. And you.”

Paint covered their bodies. Her skin was already plastered with neon green, orange, pink, and yellow. It was on her clothes and skin and in her hair.

Everyone threw their hands up in the air and danced with their glow sticks over head.

Losing her inhibitions, Trihn threw her arms around Damon’s neck and leaned against his body. She teasingly circled her hips as the techno backbeat picked up the tempo. The crowd around them started jumping, but Trihn leaned forward and pressed her mouth to Damon’s.

Their heated bodies slammed against each other, and paint-slick wet hands grasped onto bare skin. Desire flared in her stomach. Lust mixed with hope and the promise of something real. She had feelings she had sworn off for undeniably good reasons. But his kisses tasted like chocolate. His skin was a canvas she wanted to turn into a masterpiece. His seductive movements hypnotized her. Cognizant thought fled, leaving behind something she hadn’t felt in a long time—abandon.

Damon brought out the old Trihn, the one who had danced on rooftops in Milan, flirted with strangers in London, and lived her life without fear.

But fear had a way of eating you up from the inside out.

Slowly, over time, fear had done its job and mingled with his bastard cousins—doubt, regret, and depression—leaving a hollowed out corpse of a person.

Damon crept into those empty spaces and infused them with light. His mere presence seemed to rid her of the dark despair that had fallen on her shoulders like a familiar blanket.

This could be real. This could work out. She at least owed it to herself to give it a real shot. If she opened herself up one more time and found heartbreak waiting around the corner, then it would really be the end. She couldn’t survive it a third time.

And Damon’s soft kisses over the pulse of the music honestly made her believe it was possible.

The DJ played well into the night, but Damon pulled Trihn from the crowd when he got to the point where he couldn’t seem to take his hands off of her. They sped back into the city, and without a word, Damon drove them to his place.

He parked, rushed around to the other side of the car, and held the door open for her. She sympathetically looked back at his painted cover interior.

“Don’t worry about it. It all washes out,” Damon said before drawing her in for another kiss.

He couldn’t seem to get enough of her. At the show, they’d been all over each other—not that anyone else had noticed or had been lucid enough to care.

They took the stairs to his studio. Trihn kicked off her shoes at the entrance. Damon took her hand, and she was careful not to touch anything as they walked through his suite.

When they got to the bathroom, he closed the door behind them and turned the shower on full blast. He peeled her destroyed white shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. He kissed across her collarbone and then down her stomach before sinking to his knees before her.

Her heart stuttered as she watched him worshipping her body. His fingers deftly unsnapped the button on her jeans and dragged the zipper to the base. Then, he took his time inching her once white jeans off her legs and threw them into a pile with her shirt. His hands crawled up her legs, admiring every bare inch of her skin.

He moved to her face and smudged away some paint on her cheek. “There. Better.”

“One smudge, and that was all it took?”

“You’re my pièce de résistance.”

Their lips met again, bridging the distance between them. He snapped her bra free with one hand. She felt exposed with him in so much clothing, so she worked her way up his shirt. He pulled away long enough for her to remove it. His jeans followed, but she wasn’t as patient as he was. Her fingers tugged at the material, stripping him out of everything as quickly as she could. He made no protest as his boxers fell to the floor next, showing just what their stripping had done to him.