Restore Me (9 page)

“Ahh!” he bellows, breathing loudly. His fingers
dig and squeeze painfully, but it feels so damn good. Each hard
thrust seems to make my stomach tighten and clench more and more.
He releases my hair and brings his hand swiftly down on my ass with
a resounding crack just as the tip of his perfect cock hits the
deepest parts of my body. A tiny bolt of pain races through my womb
and my ass feels like it’s on fire in the wake of the spanking. His
hand crashes down again and I yelp. He reaches around me and puts
his masterful fingers to work on my clit. I twitch and jerk in
response to his ministrations on my hypersensitive nerve endings.
One finger works me in a steady circular pattern, making me gasp
between moans. I’m ready to explode under his touch.

“Fuck! Ah!” I sputter.

My core clenches hard as I inch closer to
climax. Damon’s thrusts become frantic and intense. My legs quiver
uncontrollably. My arms pull and jerk in vain against the straps.
My toes curl so hard that the arches of my feet cramp painfully. A
firestorm buds deep in my womb and explodes violently. My veins
feel like they’re filled with searing hot liquid sex instead of
blood.

My climax consumes me. It steals what little
breath I have. My channel squeezes and spasms around Damon’s cock,
which jerks and twitches in return. He makes one more deep thrust,
drawing out my orgasm, and grunts as he empties himself into
me.

We both work to catch our breath and Damon
withdraws from me, still fully erect. He quickly begins untying the
strap around my ankles. The bed shifts as he moves around me to
free my arms. There’s obviously no cuddling planned. I sit back on
my feet then splay my fingers and roll my shoulders. Damon unknots
the blindfold and pulls it from my face. I blink rapidly to clear
away the haze. Despite knowing better, hope creeps into the front
of my thoughts as my vision clears and I see Damon in front of me.
For a fraction of a moment I have hope that when I see him, there
will be life in his eyes and emotion written on his face.

Of course, life’s a bitch and all I see in front
of me is the same cold, stoic Zombie Damon that woke up in the
hospital over a week ago.

I guess I thought giving myself to him would do
the trick. How fucking naïve am I? I just got fucked half to death
and that’s all it was. For the first time in my promiscuous adult
life I feel cheap and used.

I lift my hand to caress his cheek but he turns
and walks towards the bathroom. The door shuts and I hear the click
of the lock.

I feel hideous.

I feel dirty.

I have the urge to shower and wash it all
away.

I think I know exactly how Dog felt.

***

By the time Damon is
out of the shower, I’ve already rummaged through my clothes to find
something clean to wear. I step out of the closet in my loose
cotton shorts and ancient, paper-thin t-shirt and come face to face
with Damon’s chiseled chest. He has a towel around his waist and
even though he’s dried off, a couple droplets of water linger in
the dip of his bruised sternum. I glance up at him hopefully. His
eyes are just as cold as ever. I lift my hand to touch his chest
but he catches me by the wrist.

“Don’t.”

“Stop it!” I cry, jerking my arm free from his
grasp.

Despite the fact that he could easily hold onto
me, he lets go. He won’t look me in the eyes, but I lift my hand to
his chest again and he stays still as a statue while the pads of my
fingers trace the bruising.

“Does it still hurt?” I ask softly as my fingers
inspect the damage that has marred his chest.

“I’ve had worse,” he mumbles, pushing my hand
away and shouldering past me to go into the closet.

I know he’s hurting but
fuck!
I don’t
know how much of this punishment I can take. He’s talking to me, at
least. He needs to know that I won’t leave him again. I’ll never
desert him like that again, but this treatment is hard to stomach.
I turn on my heels and march into the damn closet after him. I
stand by the door and wait for him to turn around.

“Do you hate me? Do you want me gone? Is this my
punishment? Huh?!” My lip quivers and tears threaten. My heart
pounds. Adrenaline courses through my veins. I’m so damn frustrated
with him, with everything about him, with everything that has
happened. I feel cheap, disposable, and used.

His eyes are no longer warm, his touch isn’t
affectionate, and his voice is filled with cold indifference. It
claws at my resolve. He’s just not my Damon. Zombie Damon is a
creepy, belligerent shell of my Damon. I can fight for him with
everything I have to give, but even I have a breaking point.

“Hate you?” he questions with quizzically raised
brow. “No, Josephine. I don’t hate you. If I did, I’d give you a
generous amount of money and send you away.”

Bastard.
His comment is a low blow and he
knows it. He knows his money has never been my motivation for being
with him. If he wants to punish me, if this treatment is my penance
for abandoning him when he needed me most, then I’ll take it for as
long as I can. I just hope my breaking point is far off. The fact
is, this is a battle of wills between us and I don’t intend on
losing

“I don’t want your fucking money, Damon! I
didn’t back then, I don’t now, and I damn sure won’t want it in the
future!” I hiss.

He prowls closer to me and I stand my ground.
His stoic eyes stay locked onto mine. He comes to a stop mere
inches from me. “Then what is it you want from me?” His voice is
whisper soft and chillingly ominous.

I’ve never heard him this way, and after the
“taking all of me,” I admit to being just the tiniest bit scared of
how this battle of wills is going to proceed. “I just want you. I
want my Damon back,” I admit truthfully.

His empty eyes stare back at me without an ounce
of emotion. He steps around and leaves me standing in here alone.
No response. Just his back as he walks away. I lean my back against
the door frame of the closet and slide down to the floor in a heap.
Familiar hopelessness swallows me up and I let it.
Fuck it.
There’s no running from this, so I might as well not fight it. It’s
better to embrace the hurt than to struggle against it. I know this
better than anyone. It’s like being swept out to sea and having to
choose between battling in vain against the current or letting it
take you under. I’ll let it take me under, but I damn sure hope
that I surface at some point with a breath of life still in me.

If this is what Damon’s going to be like, I’ll
let him drag me under with him. I just hope that after it’s all
said and done, we can come out on top. I know what he’s doing;
Grams made it clear that he’s done this before. I’ll hang on for
dear life. I’ll be his life raft. I’ll let him get this out of his
system, and when he’s done with this shit, he’ll realize that I’m
still standing and so is he. If he needs an emotional punching bag,
I’ll be the best goddamned punching bag on the planet! It’s going
to hurt like hell to keep feeling rejected when I want him to love
me like he used to, but not having him hurts a whole lot worse.

I want no part of life without Damon. It would
be a sad existence for me. No one could possibly ever compare to
him. He is my one and only. I’ll get him out of this. When he’s
being a dick, I’ll tell him so. But I’ll also tell him how much I
love and miss the old Damon. I’ll remind him over and over that
none of this is his fault. Most importantly, I’ll get it through
his thick skull that I’m not going anywhere. I’ve gone through some
shit in my life, but I have a feeling that I’m in for the battle of
my life with Damon. For Damon.

I gather myself up from the floor and make my
way downstairs. I find Damon in the kitchen digging through
cabinets. He’s hungry. He’s always hungry after sex.
Animal.

“I’ll make you something,” I offer. He nods,
without even looking in my direction, and begins to walk off.
Now or never.
“You can be as big of an asshole as you want
to be. I’m not some dog you can just run off. I still love you, and
I’m not going anywhere.” My voice has finality to it and I’m
feeling brave again.
Thank fuck for that.

He pauses in his tracks for a split second, as
if he’s thinking of turning around, and then continues down the
hall to his office. He’s going to hide. I’ll let him hole up in
there for now.

Cooking dinner is a welcome distraction from
everything, and I waste no time getting to it. My Big Man has one
hell of an appetite, but he’s going to have to deal with my
vegetable soup. With the irrigation thing they did to his stomach,
I’m afraid to give him anything heavy.

I chop and boil and whisk and have dinner ready
in no time. Now to bring the Big Man to the table. I’m not sure
what he does in his office for hours at a time, but it definitely
seems to be his happy place. I thought the library was; maybe
that’s changed. I tap on the door twice then push it open. His back
is to me and he’s standing in front of that cabinet again. He looks
over his shoulder and nods, turning a key to lock the cabinet. He
tucks the key into his pocket and turns to face me.

“Dinner?”

“I made soup for you.”

“Soup?!” he asks incredulously.

“Uh, yeah. I figured you should keep eating
light food because of the stomach thing.”

“No.” He shakes his head vehemently. “I’m fine,
but I’m hungry and soup isn’t real food.”

“Um, yes it most definitely is.” I fold my arms
over my chest and scowl at his stubborn ass.

“I’m hungry, Josephine. I’ve eaten next to
nothing for a week solid. I want food.”

“So go eat.” I shrug. “Please just eat the damn
soup. It’s really good,” I plead, making sure to use a little
female charm. “There’s yummy bread, too.”

He gives me zero response, of course, just a
disinterested stare, and stalks past me towards the kitchen. He
walks right up to the pot on the stove and scoops up the soup to
inspect it.
What the fuck? I’m being judged?
He bends down
and opens a cabinet. After digging through the cabinet, he produces
a dish and ladles out three huge scoops into a
mixing bowl
.
Then he goes to the fridge and begins pilfering through it.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He says nothing as he fishes out a bag of
shredded cheese and covers the top of his soup with at least half
the bag. I watch him with shocked disbelief. He opens yet another
cabinet and snatches up an entire box of soup crackers.
He can’t
possibly eat all that.

“There’s bread,” I remind him, pointing to the
bakery bread and butter on the counter.

He grabs the entire loaf and the butter dish
from the counter and adds it to his pile of loot, heading back to
his cave without even a second glance in my direction.

Hemingway’s wet nose nudges against my ankle. I
peek down at him. “Want to have some dinner, little guy?” He sits
pretty and looks up at me with his big brown eyes. “It’s just me
and you. Let’s eat, handsome.”

I eat my soup alone; ok, with the dog, and clean
the kitchen. I’m amazingly not completely miserable about it,
either. At least I know he’s feeling hungry. Feeling something is a
start, right?

Hemingway has finished licking his little dish
clean and hops around at my feet. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go outside.” I
scoop up my little guy and sling my bag over my shoulder.

I give Howard a wave on our way outside. He
smiles curtly as usual. I reach into my bag for Hemingway’s leash
then clip it to his little collar. I walk him around in the small
patch of grass we frequent until he’s ready to go back inside. I
dig out the “Doggie Doodie” bags that I got from that pet store and
clean up after the brat. He loves being outside and always makes
sure to take his sweet time walking around.

When I open the door to the penthouse, Damon’s
in the foyer looking flushed. “Where are you going?” he demands.
“Are you leaving?”

I scrunch up my eyebrows and shake my head.
“Nowhere. Hemingway wanted to go out for a walk. We just came back
in.”

Damon nods, clearly content with my response. I
guess I should’ve told him where I was going. He must have thought
I was leaving again.
Shit.
I unclip Hemingway’s leash and
set him on the floor. I step in towards Damon, placing my palm on
his sculpted jaw. He closes his pained eyes.

“I love you, Damon.”

He doesn’t respond and it hurts like hell. I
know he loves me, even if he doesn’t say it. My hand falls from his
face as he steps away from me, inhaling deeply and running his
hands through his hair. My Big Man is so tormented right now, poor
guy. I just wish I knew how to help him.

“I’m going to bed, I guess.” I scoop my little
man up from my feet and make my way up the stairs. I kiss
Hemingway’s furry head and put him in his kennel. He flops down in
his plush little dog bed and sighs contentedly.
This guy is
living the sweet life.