“We’re here.”
It’s dusk by the time Damien opens the car door and helps me out. I take in our new home, breathless. Against the backdrop of an orange-red forest sprawling over acres of hills stands a large white house, and behind it, a smaller red structure. A velvety green lawn stretches out toward us, welcoming us in, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m taking a step forward, irresistibly drawn to the place.
“Hold on,” laughs Damien, and he lifts me up effortlessly in his arms. “Let’s do this the right way.”
He looks very different from the man who whipped my hands and breasts earlier for refusing to tell him my secret. He’s cheerful and smiling, and makes no comment about mydisobedience. It’s like he’s forgotten it in the happiness of discovering our new home.
I’m aware, as he crosses the lawn holding me snugly, that I can’t smell dirt. All I can smell is his cedar cologne, his own deep musky scent, and thefresh, clean breeze. My heart flutters the way it used to, back when springtime rolled around and I was too little to let my hopes get quashed by life.
I’m suddenly full of those hopes again, because now, I know.
He loves me. He wants me. And he’ll never let me go.
I close my eyes, letting myself sink into the delicious feeling, but as we draw nearer to the house, curiosity gets the better of me and I open them again. The red shutters around the windows match the red roof. The front door is also painted red, and Damien fumbles in his pocket for the key before unlocking it. Then he plants a deep kiss on me and crosses the threshold.
I gasp as I take in the house. Not because it’s anywhere near as luxurious as the apartment he once kept me in. But because it feels likehome.
The front entrance gives off to a mudroom on one side. On the other, it opens onto a cheerful living room. There’s a brick fireplace, a mantelpiece with a pile of books and unlit candles.
Comfortable-looking couches and chairs surround the fireplace, and thick sheepskins cover the floor. The door at the back is open just enough to allow me to see rows of bookcases lining the walls, some of them already filled with books, many others empty. Still carrying me in his arms, Damien gives me a quick tour.
“The kitchen,” he announces, designating a pale-yellow room with shelves lined with pretty blue China and wooden bowls.
“It’s… very different from your apartment,” I comment.
“What can I say?” he chuckles. “You’ve turned me into my worst nightmare. A family man.”
I nestle my head in his chest, wondering if I’ll manage to turninto a family woman.
“Upstairs, the bedrooms,” he adds.
He climbs up a polished wood staircase and gestures to no less than six doors.
“Are we going to have guests?” I blush, already knowing the answer.
“No guests,” he says gruffly. “But kids. Enough to fill all this floor, at least.”
He mounts another set of stairs, and we arrive on the third floor. A small entrance leads into the largest room I’ve ever seen. A bed, which has to be king-sized at least, is set on a raised platform that looks out straight onto a deep blue lake.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I spy a wrap-around balcony with lounge chairs set up facing a lake.
“What do you think?” grins Damien.
I look up at him, speechless.
His smile widens, and he kisses me again, before depositing me on the edge of the bed. Then he begins to explore the room. He tests the sturdiness of the furniture, studies the jacuzzi in the bathroom, goes out to the balcony and looks down.
“Railing’s nice and thick,” he says with an evil smirk.
“Damien!” I gasp.
I still remember the time he punished me while dangling me over the railing of the apartment in Devil Tower. Clearly, he does too.
He returns to the room and kneels down before me. “Let’s play a game,” he teases.
My heart picks up as I look into his eyes. I know that glint of danger. In a past life, I might have been scared, but now, my heart skips a beat.
“What game?”
