Insanity (Asylum 1)

Damien is at my side, removing my fingers from my hair, curling his fingers around my wrists and pulling me off the toilet and into his lap. Covering me with a blanket of his arms, he embraces me tightly and I rest my head in the crook of his neck. “Don’t worry my love, I’ll take you away from this madhouse,” he breathes into my hair. “I don’t care what it costs me.” He cradles me, rocking me back and forth then he smoothes my hair away from my forehead and places a soft, tender kiss on it. “You’ll never have to live in fear again.”

His words rush through me. Fill me up with hope. Send the fear that reared its ugly head just minutes earlier into a darkened corner of my brain. Damien has a way with words. He has a way with touching, kissing…come to think of it he has a way with everything.

The top two buttons of his white shirt are undone and I trail my finger along the hemline before sliding my palm inside. I wait to feel his heartbeat and gaze up into his sapphire eyes hidden beneath his thick, dark lashes. Strands of his shiny, black hair fall down into his face and I push them back and tuck them behind his right ear. “I worry about you, you know,” I mention. “You helping me escape could be dangerous for you.” He silences me with his lips. The kiss only lasts for a nanosecond and when he pulls away I feel like I’m going to spontaneously combust if he doesn’t kiss me again. “Don’t stop,” I plead needfully, clutching the open lapels of his button-up shirt. “Kiss me again.”

He traces my lips with his long finger, a teasing smile on his beautiful face. “I love you, you know that right?” I position myself in a different way so that our faces are inches apart and I’m straddling him. With a quick sweep of his hand he brushes my long flowing hair off my shoulder, fingers skimming a patch of skin next to my collarbone, and my body goes up in flames. The want inside of me explodes. Fire, sparks and raining ash everywhere. I feel the want in him too as it presses between my thighs.

I run my fingers up his shirt, and through the small patch of dark chest hair. My lips move in closer to his. My nose is against his cheek. I inhale his scent, basking in it, a toss up of his essence and laundry detergent. My lips are on his now. His mouth opens, welcoming my tongue with a sensual growl. My tongue rolls around the tip of his in a teasing way and I breathe into his mouth, “Then show me.”

In one swift motion, he grips my shoulders and shoves me back on the floor. His adventurous hands climbing up my gown, across my stomach before stopping at my breasts. There’s a moan in my throat that I can’t cry out. A heat between my thighs that I won’t let fade. When Damien presses his body into mine I am so far gone, contorted in a haze of love, lust, and desire that my legs are trembling.

The sound of his zipper echoes through the small room. The feel of his hand between my legs, sliding my underwear to the side sets off a chorus of screams inside my head. Please. Please. Please. I want to beg. I want to cry. I want him to make sweet, sweet love to me until my legs can’t function anymore. He thrusts into me and I bite my lip hard to hold back the groan of pleasure that’s stuck in my throat. My hips grind into his with each thrust and my breathing escalates with each kiss he places on my lips. “Addy, I’d steal the stars for you and serve them to you on a gold plate,” he murmurs against my lips. “I’d rip the sun from the heavens just so it would brighten your day.” Another soft brush of the lips. “I’d die for you.”

His words are so beautiful, so timeless, so completely and utterly perfect. And it’s not just his words, the moment is perfect, flawless, one of a kind, a moment that can never ever be recreated. I close my eyes and let out a whisper of a moan. Even though I don’t have much experience with men, I’ve convinced myself that Damien is a rarity when it comes to his gender. He spouts harmonious sonnets, is a devoted lover and boyfriend and claims he loves me more than his own life. And I love him more than anything too, so I can’t understand for the life of me why, when I turn my head and open my eyes to gaze into his deep seas of blue, that I see Dr. Watson’s face and his ocher eyes staring back at me.

My mind is in a blunder.

My heart is in an uproar.

I blink several times rapidly and wait. I widen my eyes. Damien locks my legs around his elbows and begins thrusting with more force. He grunts, the tip of his tongue hanging out of the right corner of his mouth and I’m still stunned by that brief flash of an image of Dr. Watson that I can’t concentrate on what we’re doing anymore.

Damien leans down and takes my earlobe between his teeth. He hums into my ear and I exhale as the warmth from his lips sends volts of heat down my thigh and in between my legs. The way he moves, grinds, and pounds his hips into mine feels so amazing, so heavenly, so transcendent, that it distracts me for a moment, but when I turn my head and close my eyes all I can think about is Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson and the intensity in his beautiful ocher eyes when I saw his face.

This isn’t fair to Damien. It’s not fair for me to be making love to him and be thinking about another man. And I can’t tell him what I just saw because that would be wrong on so many levels. Not to mention just plain mean. I love Damien, and I’d never want to hurt him. On top of that his behavior toward Dr. Watson earlier tells me that as mean spirited as it would be to tell him what I just thought also means Damien might do something drastic and crazy. So I pretend to find my release when, Damien does and breathe heavily with him when he collapses on top of me.

Afterward we walk hand in hand down the abandoned hall and we stop outside my door. Damien turns up my hand with a smile and kisses my wrist. “I’ll be in touch, my love.” He lets go of my hand and turns away from me. “I’ll have everything mapped out the next time we see each other.

I nod.

Keeping my eyes on Damien, I watch his back until he turns a corner and disappears from my view. It’s not until that point that I start to panic, breathing in and out deeply, coughing out emotional gasps, pacing back and forth in front of my door. What the fuck is wrong with me? Maybe I really am crazy. Maybe I should be here. Mid-pace I come to halt when the door to my room swings open and Aurora peeks out, her profile resting against the metal. “For God’s sake, Addy, would you get in here!” I follow her inside and she closes the door. “What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to flag Marjorie down for a midnight shot?”

“No,” I mumble and curl up on my cot. “I didn’t think I was being that loud.” I dip my feet underneath the thin white sheet and secure it around my chest.

Aurora climbs into her cot and says, “Loud is an understatement. You were stomping and muttering and it was beyond loud. I was asleep and you woke me up.”

“I’m sorry,” I say sincerely.

She senses the sadness and confusion in my tone. “Are you all right?”

The question flits through the darkness over to me and throbs in my ears. “I think so,” I tell her. But the truth is, I don’t really know.

Chapter 15

~BEFORE~

I can see Damien’s silhouette in the darkness. His long lean body, roped with muscle. His back, which is facing me, and his broad masculine shoulders. He’s propped against the tree trunk, arms folded, elbows jutted out, back muscles tensed. He pushes away from the tree, and lets out a frustrated sigh, before raking his fingers through his thick black waves.

“Damien,” I call out. But my voice is too soft. He doesn’t hear me. “Damien,” I try again, raising my voice the slightest bit.

This time I get something. He freezes and cocks his head over his shoulder. Then he takes a few steps toward me. “Addy?”

“Yes. It’s me. Who else would it be?”

Damien closes the gap between us and sweeps me up into a tight embrace. “I don’t know. I thought you weren’t going to show.” I wince and groan at the tightness of his arms and the small stabs of pain that accompany them. Then I let out a soft cry. Damien pulls away and I lift my eyes to meet his intense gaze and the worried look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

I lower my head and look away. “Nothing.” I try to play it off like I’m fine even though I know he’ll figure out what’s going on with me anyway. He always does. It’s like a gift mutant people in science fiction novels are born with. Or maybe it’s just because Damien knows how to read me that well.

“Don’t lie to me.” His voice is stern. “You know I can always tell.”