Claim Me: A Novel (43 page)

“Damien,” I whisper, because I can’t wait any longer to feel his name against my lips.

That wide, spectacular mouth curves into a slow smile. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” He tugs my hand, pulling me onto his lap. His thighs are firm and athletic, and I settle there eagerly, but I don’t lean against him. I want to sit back enough that I can see his face.

“How could I sleep without you?” I ask. “Especially tonight?” I stroke his cheek. He hasn’t shaved since yesterday, and the stubble of his beard is rough against my palm. The shock of our connection rumbles through me, and my chest feels tight, my breath uneven. Will there ever come a time when I can be near him without yearning for him? Without craving the touch of his skin against my own?

It’s not even a sexual longing—not entirely, anyway. Instead, it’s a craving. As if my very survival depends on him. As if we are two halves of a whole and neither can survive without the other.

With Damien, I am happier than I have ever been. But at the same time, I’m more miserable, too. Because now I truly understand fear.

I force a smile, because the one thing I will not do is let Damien see how scared I am of losing him. “You couldn’t sleep? Are you thinking about the trial?”

“A bit,” he says, his eyes locked on my face. “Mostly, I’ve been thinking about you.”

“Oh.” I cannot help the flutter in my chest, and I feel the flicker of a smile tugging at my lips. “What were you thinking?”

“That I am a selfish man, but nothing that I have done in my life is more selfish than loving you.”

“Damien, no. I want to be here. I need to be here. You know that.” We’ve had this conversation before. When the German indictment came through, he’d tried to push me away, believing that he was protecting me. But he’d been wrong—and I’d flown all the way to Germany to tell him so.

“No,” he says with a small shake of his head. “I mean I should never have pursued you in the first place.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” I say. The thought that Damien never entered my life is worse than the thought of him leaving it.

“I pissed you off at Evelyn’s,” he says. “Remember? I should have let you stay pissed. I should have simply walked away.”

My mouth is dry, and my chest feels tight. I do not want to hear these words. I don’t want to believe that there is even some tiny part of him that would prefer to have never met me, not even if that fantasy is borne from a desire to protect me. “No,” I say. It’s the only word I can manage, and it sounds strangled and raw.

“Oh, Nikki.” His fingertips stroke my cheek, and though his smile is bittersweet, his eyes are filled with so much passion that it takes my breath away. “You can’t possibly know how much I love you.”

“I do,” I say.

The small shake of his head is almost playful. “It’s too big, too powerful. There is no start and no end, nothing with which I can measure the length and breadth of what I feel for you. I look at you and wonder how I can possibly survive the riot of emotions within me.”

“You make it sound almost painful.” My words are soft, gently teasing.

“You and I know better than anyone how pain and pleasure walk hand in hand. Passion, Nikki, remember? And with you, it fills me.”

I swallow, undone by both his words and by the intensity with which he is speaking them.

“I want to hold you close. To cherish and protect you. To draw you in until we are so close that I am lost within you. I want to take you to bed, to watch the way your skin tightens beneath my fingers, the way your body awakens under my touch. I want to trail kisses over you until you are lost in so much pleasure that you don’t know where you end and I begin. I want to tie you up and fuck you until there is no doubt that you are mine. I want to dress you up and take you out, and show you off, this beautiful, vibrant, brilliant woman. Everything I’ve built? All my companies? All my billions? They have no value compared to you.”

I open my mouth to speak, but he hushes me with a gentle finger to my lips. “So, no, Nikki. I couldn’t have walked away. Selfish, yes. But I cannot wish it otherwise. I need you, and I can’t regret that I have you.”

“I need you, too,” I say. “You know that I do.”

“I don’t regret having you,” he repeats. “But I regret very much what that does to you. You’re suffering for it, or you will.” The sadness that fills his eyes is enough to melt me. “You are the one person in all the world I cannot bear to hurt, and yet I’m the one who put fear in your eyes.”

“No,” I lie. “I’m not scared. If you see fear, it’s only because I was afraid you were going to try to push me away. But about the trial? I’m not afraid at all.”

“Liar,” he says gently.

“You forget that I’ve seen you in action, Damien Stark. You’re a goddamn force of nature. They can’t possibly hold you. Maybe they don’t know it yet, but I do. You’re going to walk
away from this. You’re going home a free man. There’s no other way that this can end.”

I don’t expect his reaction—Damien laughs. “I love you even more for pretending, but I know you’re scared. And you should be. This is the kind of case that has prosecutors salivating.”

“But you didn’t kill Merle Richter,” I remind him.

“No, I didn’t. But truth is a malleable thing, and once I walk into that courtroom, the truth is what a jury says it is.”

“Then you need to damn well make sure the jury has the information to do that. Dammit, Damien, you didn’t kill him. But even if you did, there were mitigating circumstances.” I force myself not to flinch as I say the words. Despite Maynard and all the rest of his attorneys pushing him to raise a defense, Damien has continued to refuse. I fully expect to be shut down now. Which is why I’m all the more surprised when he nods slowly.

“Yes,” he says, so softly I almost don’t hear him. “That’s one of the things I’ve been down here thinking about.”

I hold my breath and silently urge him to continue.

“I’ve wanted you for so long, and now that I have you, I’m risking everything there is between us.”

Yes
, I want to scream.
Yes!
I realize that I’m digging my fingernails into my knee, and I force myself to relax as I try not to anticipate his next words. As I try not to get my hopes up.

“I’m not convinced that revealing what Richter did to me is the panacea you and Maynard and the rest of them think it is. But maybe I should try. If it means that the charges will go away, then maybe I should sacrifice the privacy that I’ve spent my whole life fighting to maintain.”

I hear the bitterness in his voice, and I want to reach for him and hold his hand tight in mine. I don’t, though. I stay absolutely, perfectly still.

“There is no shame in being a victim, right? So why should I care if the world knows the vile things he did to me? Why should
it matter if the press writes about the dark nights in my dorm room. The things he made me do. Things I haven’t even told you. Things that I wish I could forget.”

He meets my eyes, but I see only the hard lines and angles of his face. “If it means that I can walk to you as a free man, shouldn’t I want to shout that story from the rooftops? Shouldn’t I want it plastered everywhere?”

Something cool brushes my cheek, and I realize that I am crying.

“No,” I whisper, hating the truth even as I say it. But this is the heart of the man I fell in love with. A man who lives by his own code, and it is that core of him that I fell in love with. “Not even for me,” I say. “Not even to stay out of prison.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and fresh tears spill out over my lashes.

The pad of his thumb brushes my cheek.

“You understand?”

“No,” I say, but I mean yes, and I can see that he knows it.

“Oh, sweetheart.” He pulls me to him, his arm swooping around my waist and shifting me on his lap so quickly that I gasp. The sound, however, is cut off by the pressure of his mouth closing firmly over mine. The kiss is deep and raw and all-consuming, and immediately warm desire blooms within me. His hand slides up my back, and I curse the necessity of clothing in public. I feel his body tighten under mine, the bulge of his erection under his jeans teasing my rear as I shift my weight and lean closer, deepening this kiss.

After a moment, I pull back, breathless.

“I love you,” he says, and I want to wrap the words around me like a blanket.

I smile playfully and slide off his lap, my hand extended to him. “You have to be in court at ten, Mr. Stark. I think you’d better come with me.”

He stands, his expression wary. “Are you going to tell me I have to get some sleep?”

“No.”

His gaze slides over me, my body quivering in response as if he had physically touched me. “Good,” he says, and that one simple word conveys a world of promises.

I allow the corner of my mouth to quirk up into a hint of a smile. “Not that, either. Not yet, anyway.”

The confusion on his face makes my smile grow wider, but he doesn’t have the chance to ask, as the concierge has approached. “Everything is ready, Ms. Fairchild.”

I smile broadly. “Thank you. Your timing is perfect.”

I take the hand of the very confused man that I love and lead him through the lobby, following the concierge to the front of the hotel. There, parked on the street beside a very giddy valet, is a cherry red Lamborghini.

Damien turns to look at me, amusement dancing in his eyes. “What’s this?”

“I thought you could use a little fun tonight, and the A9’s just a few miles away. Fast car. German autobahn. It seemed like a no-brainer to me.”

“Boys and their toys?”

I lower my voice so that the concierge can’t overhear. “Since we already have some interesting toys in the room, I thought you might enjoy a change of pace.” I lead him closer to where the valet stands by the open passenger door. “I understand she’s very responsive, and I know you’ll enjoy having all that power at your command.”

“Is she?” He looks me up and down, and this time the inspection is tinged with fire. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I like. Responsiveness. Power. Control.”

“I know,” I say, and then slide into the passenger seat, letting more than a little thigh show as I do.

And instant later, Damien is behind the wheel and he’s fired the powerful engine.

“Drive fast enough, and it’s almost like sex,” I tease. And then, because I can’t resist, I add, “At the very least, it makes for exceptional foreplay.”

“In that case, Ms. Fairchild,” he says, with a boyish grin that makes this all worthwhile, “I suggest you hold on tight.”

I almost hesitate to include this page because I am certain that I will forget someone, but I’m going to soldier on, wrangle my memory, and hope that whomever I accidentally slight will let me make it up to them with a martini (Damien Stark’s Glen Garioch bourbon is a little out of my league).

Right up front I have to say that I am cheating a bit with this acknowledgment, because it is as much about
Release Me
as it is about this book, and I have to start off by thanking everyone who helped get
Release Me
and the Stark Trilogy as a whole out to readers.

Most especially, I want to thank my fabulous agent, Kimberly Whalen, my amazing editor, Shauna Summers, and everyone else on the team at Bantam, who has made diving into the world of Damien and Nikki such an absolute pleasure: Gina Wachtel, Jennifer Hershey, Maggie Oberrender, Susan Grimshaw, Alison Masciovecchio, Sarah Murphy, Matt Schwartz, Rachel Kind, Donna Duverglas, everyone I’ve missed (sorry!); the rest of the folks at Trident; Janet Stark and Sofia Willingham who brought Nikki’s voice to life; and the wonderful publishers in foreign territories, especially the folks at Headline such as Kate Byrne and Veronique Norton, who have made Twittering across “the pond” such fun.

Special thanks to my “betas”—K.J., Heather, Stefani, and Liz. Thanks so much for the feedback!

And, of course, I have to thank my husband and my kids for putting up with “Mommy needs to write,” and supporting me in so many ways.

Most of all, though, I want to thank the readers, especially those who have reached out to let me know how much Damien and Nikki have come to life for them. Every email, every tweet, every comment on my website and Facebook page is appreciated. Thank you! And a special shout-out to Kathy Womack, who coined the term “Damienized,” which I have boldly appropriated, and to Redhotpolkadots on Twitter, whose #StarkOnSpeedDial hashtag made me grin—here you go, girl!