Release Me (Stark Trilogy 1)

“Do you still need the pain?” he asks.

“I didn’t think so,” I say. “But then in the car—I wanted it, but I fought it.”

“If you need it, you tell me.” His voice is hard. Urgent. “Do you understand?”

I nod and curl up close to him and let him stroke my hair. Because I also hear what he doesn’t say. That if I need to feel grounded—if I need the pain to feel centered and real and here—then Damien is the one who’ll stand at my center. Whatever I need, he’ll give.

I shiver a bit. I’ve never been so exposed to another person, not even Ollie, not even Jamie. And I’ve never felt more taken care of.

“And what about you, Damien?” I finally ask. “What do you need?”

He looks at me, and for a moment, I think he’s going to tell me the secrets he’s kept buried deep inside. That he’s going to give me a clue as to what really makes Damien Stark tick. Considering how much I opened up, it only seems fair. But then his expression shifts and I see only a playful spark in his eye.

“You,” he says, and then he closes his mouth over mine.

22

“Blondie, I swear you are on fire today.” Blaine grins at me as I stand in the red robe with the morning light creeping in through the open windows. “So you think you’re good? We can take it slow again if you need to.”

“I’m good. Thanks. Damien told you why I freaked?” I’d asked Damien to explain to Blaine that my meltdown yesterday didn’t have to do with posing as much as it had to do with what Blaine would be painting.

“He did, and I’ll tell you exactly what I told him—except for the fact that your scars mean you’ve been hurting, I am one-hundred-percent cool with having them in the painting. Some models, especially the professional ones, it’s like painting air-brushed people. Give me something raw any day. Honest, Nikki. I’ll do you right.”

“I believe you.” I shift a little, and rest one hand on the foot of the bed, my palm cupping the ball at the top of the bedpost. With my other hand, I reach for the drapes. “Something like this, maybe?”

“I’m not sure,” Damien says from beside me. His hands close over my waist and he shifts me toward the window. “Maybe if we set up a fan outside? Really get the drapes billowing?”

“You’ll need to put back the two you took down,” I say with a smirk.

“Huh?” Blaine says, and Damien laughs.

“What do you think?” Damien directs the question toward Blaine and sidesteps my comment about the drapes.

“You’re the boss.”

“And you’re the artist.”

Blaine raises an eyebrow and smirks at me. “That’s a first. According to Evelyn, our benefactor doesn’t take direction from anybody.”

“I’m not taking direction,” Damien says. “I’m asking your opinion. I didn’t say I would accept it.”

Blaine studies me, circles me, and finally moves me a few inches to the left. Then back to the right. Then slightly at an angle.

He stands back, his chin in his hand, and looks at Damien, who moves me a few inches forward. Then shifts me to a slightly different angle.

“Boys!” I’m beginning to feel like the paid chattel I am.

“Actually, that looks good,” Blaine says. “Stay there. I think I’m having a moment of brilliance.”

I try hard not to move, while at the same time looking sideways at him.

“How do you feel about a reflection?” Blaine asks Damien, then brushes past me before Damien can respond. “I swear, this is going to be amazing.” He pulls out one of the window panels, leaving the wall mostly open except for one pane of glass in front of me. “You see? I’m right, aren’t I?”

He moves back toward the humongous canvas he’s propped up against a table. He shifts a bit as if looking for something, then points. “There. Her reflection on the glass, the breeze, and the woman herself facing out. It will be stunning.”

“Her face?” Damien asks.

“Hidden. Probably looking down. And the reflection will be muted. Nothing graphic. Trust me. It will look exceptional.”

“I like it,” Damien says. “Nikki?”

I force myself not to turn to face him, in case that messes up the composition. “I have a say?” I ask playfully. “I thought you bought me lock, stock, and barrel.”

“Stocks are tempting,” he growls, moving into my line of sight. He glares at Blaine. “Yes. I want the reflection. I want as much of her as I can get. I haven’t had enough this morning.”

My cheeks flame because that’s a rather private joke. We’d been in the shower when Blaine had pounded on the front door. And not just getting clean. I’d been about to follow up my breakfast of fruit and cheese with a delicious serving of Damien. But Blaine’s arrival put a damper on that—and I’m afraid it left Damien a little grumpy.

I smile sweetly again. “By the way, isn’t it Tuesday? Aren’t you supposed to be out of town?” I remember Carl saying that the original meeting was bumped to Saturday because Damien would be away on business at the time of the originally scheduled slot.

He looks at me blankly, and then his face clears. “No,” he says. “I have no plans outside of the office today.”

“Oh.” It takes me a second, but I figure out what he’d done. He wanted to see me sooner rather than later, and he’d lied to Carl to make that happen.

“Somebody broke a rule,” I say. “No lying.”

His grin is pure evil. “I never said the rule applied to me.”

Blaine laughs, and so do I. But some small part of me can’t help but cringe. I never said the rule applied to me.

I know he’s teasing, but at the same time, I’m certain he means it. The rule doesn’t apply to him. Has Damien been lying to me? Maybe not maliciously, but simply because he can? Because sometimes it’s easier?

I think about the questions he’s avoided, the times he’s shifted our conversations. Is he just being a guy? Silent and unsharing? Is he simply inscrutable?

Or is he hiding something?

I recall what else Evelyn said. About how after Damien’s rough youth she couldn’t blame him for being closed off. For being a little damaged.

I think about the Damien who’s held me and kissed me and laughed with me and teased me. I’ve seen a lighter side of Damien Stark. A side that most people don’t know. But have I yet to see the dark?