Claim Me (Stark Trilogy 2)

My hesitation lasts only a moment, because while I do want to understand the man, I want even more to comfort him. I want to hold him and touch him and silently promise him that no matter what he needs, I am there for him.

I want …

Maybe I am still being selfish, but I’m arrogant enough to think that Damien needs me. And, yes, I’m selfish enough to go.

I see that he left his phone beside the candle. I pause, thinking of the text he received, and then the phone call that came soon after. He either recognized the number or the caller’s name is programmed into his phone. Should I look?

I hesitate just long enough to be disgusted by myself. If Damien went pawing through my call history, I’d explode into a completely justifiable rage. And yet I’m actually thinking about looking at his phone? Have I been miraculously transported back to high school?

The thought is undeniably unpleasant, and I forcefully push it out of my mind as I pad to the service elevator at the back of the kitchen. It opens on the first floor in a utility room off the main kitchen, a magnificent space filled with commercial-grade equipment that hasn’t yet been used. I pass through the kitchen into a sunporch. I expect to find him in the gym that eats up at least a thousand square feet on the north side of the house. But when I get there, there is no Damien.

The room is large and divided into distinct sections. The first one I come to is a weight room, filled with machines, free weights, mats, and a boxing bag. I move quickly across the room to the functional but beautiful polished oak door that separates this room from the larger area beyond. In this second room, there is a running track complete with stations. More free weights, pull-up bars, spin bicycles, another boxing bag, and a variety of other equipment.

As is Damien’s style, an entire wall of the track room is made of glass, giving a view of the property and the ocean beyond. The negative-edge pool opens off the living room on the main level, but it is also accessible from the gym, with one of the glass pocket doors opening onto the deck. From where I stand, I don’t have a view of the water, but at least one of the pool’s dim lights must be on, as I see the greenish-blue light undulating on the deck. For a moment I think nothing of it—Damien has left the light on since the pool was filled three days ago, ever since I mentioned that as a child I loved to sit by the pool at night with my sister and watch the light dance as the wind played across the water’s surface.

Right now, however, there is no wind. Even the three drapes that Damien left unmolested had been still when I’d awakened. And the dancing light is moving in a rhythmic, controlled pattern.

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.

I walk to the edge of this second level and look out toward the man who has captured my heart. My feet are about twelve inches below the pool deck now, and from this new perspective all I can see is Damien, the water, and the wide night sky. I watch, entranced, as he cuts through the water. His movements are efficient and controlled, just like the man himself. I don’t realize that I’ve moved to the third step until I notice that I am no longer holding up the robe. Instead, the thin material is spread out like the petals of a rose floating on the gently lapping surface.