Unlovely Things (Love By Design 2)

“You ask so nicely, Kristen.” His voice sounded droll, sarcastic, and a little bored as he drilled into me. He leaned in close, “Say my name, Pebbles.” He smiled against me. The stronghold around my heart relented for a brief second.

“Demon—will that do?” My nickname for him rang true. I felt like I’d entered the hottest and sweetest pit of hell with him.

“Yeah, it will.” Grunting, Damien kept up the pace until my arms leaning on the bed gave out and I collapsed. He fell on top of me, groaning against my ear and damp skin. On a shout, he released within me, filling me before pulling out and picking me up.

“What? Where?” My bedroom seemed to spin around me, I was disorientated until cool tiles met my bare feet when he put me down in the bathroom. Damien deposited me on the floor and turned the shower on full blast, heating up the bathroom though the door was wide open.

“Shower. I want to go again.”

Looking down, I saw he was still hard, impressively long and thick. A tang filled the air as hot water beat down on us. Our arousal was smeared colorfully on my thighs, but strangely I didn’t mind when he gently washed it away, our eyes never leaving each other. The squirt of cold body wash felt good on my skin while he took his time rubbing the soapy bubbles into me. Demon massaged away all the hurts, both physical and emotional hang-ups from years past.

“Kristen, I….” His eyes seemed to want to say something, and I didn’t want to hear whatever it was that could possibly ruin the moment. I pressed my lips against his, closing my eyes and blocking out the light and any other thoughts. We kissed with hunger, grabbing for each other when he pushed me against the shower wall, entering me in a single thrust.

He was grunting so loud I wondered if my neighbors could hear him in the house next door. It figured, Damien Hart was a damn yeller.

“Shhhh. Cool your jets, Demon,” I told him, and our kissing slowed into something more heavenly as we gave each other what we needed.

11

Damien

“No. No. No.” She said thumping her hand into the poufy sheets on her bed. Sex with Kristen was more complicated than politics or football strategy. Every time I thought I was getting closer to making a play she would pull back or throw a ball impossible to intercept or catch. The effort to keep up with her gave me a headache. Mr. Bryant was right in calling her a hellion.

Gritting my teeth from saying what I wanted to say, I rolled to my side so I saw Kristen fully. Her skin glowed with a rosy hue, flushed and sated for the time being. Her hair fanned out over her pillow and I saw her as a dark angel come to drag me back to my own personal hell of existence.

There’s something I want from her but I don’t know how to go about getting it without a huge fight ensuing between the two of us. I asked the question anyway watching her expression go from calm to murder in a flash of lightening. “I don’t understand why we can’t tell everyone we’re together. What would be the big deal?”

Her bed is comfortable, more than mine probably because it has all these girly pillows and crap I don’t have at my house. I rolled punching the pillows on my side preparing for a long discussion. A sheet draped over her body slipped away letting me passively admire her yoga toned body. It’s rare I to have these moments with the wildcat. Usually it’s a battle to not get items thrown in my general direction as I’m picking up my clothes and shoes on the way out the door. When the mood strikes she can be feisty, and cut throat more often than I care to think about.

“I’m still mad at you.” Controlling the urge to roll my eyes or dismiss the statement is a chore hard learned over the years. Just when I think things might be better, it’s her safety net to throw the past back in my face. Today, I’m not very good at letting it roll off my back and not hurt my feelings.

“Ten years wasn’t enough to get over that.” I said sarcastically hoping she was joking. There were things you just couldn’t take back and should have a statute of limitations on them. Something that she claimed happened in the seventh grade, for one. She’s never let that moment go, nor will she give me five minutes to explain what it is she thinks happened. I consider suggesting counseling, but I might have to enter the witness protection program when she found me.

“I see you still insist on dismissing my feelings in the matter.” I don’t but what she thinks happened didn’t exactly happen and trying to explain it would be a moot point. She doesn’t believe me and I can only keep defending myself on something for so long before I have to let it go or get just as crazy as she does over it.

I’m tired. I don’t want to fight and I say the first thing I’m thinking related to the incident. “No, but I don’t know how you can harbor something that far under the bridge.” I’m certain this is about the foreign exchange student but she doesn’t let me explain and I’ve gotten to a point where I almost wish something happened because she won’t believe otherwise.

It’s her stillness that should have warned me to stop while I was ahead. I had come over here to discuss a job offer for her from Hunter and me–yeah, now I was going to have to see Hunter and explain I never got to asking her about it.

“Under the bridge? Under the…. Arg… you know what, it’s time for you go.” She pushed me up and out of the bed as quickly as she pulled me into it. Maybe this wasn’t the space and time Grandma Halle had in mind when she told me to walk away a little bit.

“Go? Where?” We’re standing in her bedroom naked as the day we were born staring each other down. Nothing sexy about her glare that finds me lacking right now and when I step forward she puts her hand up and stepped back.

Night and Day.

Hot and Cold.

I would never figure her mercurial moods out.

“Home. I don’t know, don’t care. Just get out of my bed.” She picks up my pants from the floor and throws them at me stalking off.

“Seriously?” I hoped she wasn’t serious but she had already walked away and I figured that was the only answer I was getting from her. I didn’t have my truck right now and no way to get a ride back to my house, but she didn’t know that seeing as how I also didn’t tell her that my license was suspended.

I remembered other times in my past when I screwed up and that look of disappointment on her face. I didn’t need that right now, I didn’t need a lot of things right now including her judgment. If I told her about the suspension, I’d have to tell her that Evan was the arresting officer and then we would have to argue over him and the snowball became bigger and bigger as I mulled it over in my mind. I didn’t have that kind of fight left in me.

“Yes, be gone when I get out.” She slammed the door to the bathroom quick as a bee sting. Kristen wasn’t giving me a chance. She never gave me the chance and I was feeling used and tired–a usual thing with her.

“Pebbles come on.” I banged on the door when it swung open shocking me. Her tear streaked face broke me no matter obstacle lay in our past.