“Good girl.” Damien panted as he withdrew from me and placed a kiss on each arse cheek. “Fuck, that felt awesome.”
“Why am I a good girl?” I asked, my eyes closed as I continued to lay spread out over my desk. “What’d I do?”
“You tightened your pussy muscles when I asked you to,” Damien replied. “It made me come harder.”
I hummed. “I didn’t even hear ye’ ask me that.”
“You didn’t?”
I shook my head.
“Are you … Don’t you dare fall asleep on your desk!”
I groaned as he pulled me upright, and he laughed when I turned and sagged against him.
“I told ye’ I’d be tired and sleepy. I told ye’ so.”
I didn’t even make a sound when Damien lifted me into his arms and carried me into our bathroom where I tiredly cleaned myself up. A little light from the approaching sunrise peeked in through a slit in our bedroom curtains, but neither of us got up to fix them once we got into bed. I snuggled against Damien, and once I threw my leg over his body and my arm over his stomach, anything but sleeping became impossible.
“I love you, freckles.”
I was already falling asleep, and Damien’s soft laughter was the last thing I heard.
We both managed to sleep for a few hours until our responsibilities forced us to get up—Barbara and Damien’s job. We were both lounging about in our sitting room on our settee, snuggled next to each other. Both of us were on our phones. I was working, and Damien was scrolling through Facebook.
“I think I’ve found a new assistant.”
The words had barely left my mouth before Damien snatched my phone from my hands to study the profile of the woman I was considering to hire to run my website and handle my hectic email and calendar online. I didn’t get mad; I simply folded my arms across my chest and waited. He needed to read up on this new person who would possibly be entering my life so he knew every detail about her to relax himself. It was the least I could do, considering how against he was about me finding a new assistant in the first place.
“It’s an online job this time,” Damien said, looking from the phone to me, “right?”
My lips twitched.
“Right.” I nodded. “I’m confident she isn’t a ghost from your shady past comin’ back to haunt ye’ by gettin’ inside me head and turnin’ me against your family. I think that only happens once in a lifetime, love.”
Damien scowled at my teasing, not in the slightest bit impressed, and returned his attention to the device in his hand.
“It happened before, so it could happen again.”
I wanted to say with confidence that he was wrong, but I couldn’t. The truth was that Morgan Allen, who was really Carter Miles—a once childhood friend of Damien hell-bent on revenge—made it an easy task to turn me against the Slater brothers in order to hurt them for the murder of his brother and uncle. Morgan had entered my life and my home with a shocking amount of ease. I knew Damien was scared that another person with ulterior motives could possibly do the same, but I believed I wasn’t as naïve as I once was. The things I now knew about Damien and his family, the things I had learned about while being too trusting with Morgan, were always front and centre in my mind. I learned a lot from that experience, and while it emotionally ruined me for a while, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
It helped me grow as a person, even if I was struggling as of late with nightmares because of it.
“Morgan isn’t comin’ back,” I said, repeating the same thing I had told Damien a million times in the six months since Morgan left our lives after he turned it upside down. “Ye’ heard ‘im. He just wanted to manipulate me and turn me against ye’ because he knew it would hurt you and your brothers.”
“He succeeded for a time, Alannah,” Damien said, his jaw tight. “I just thank God you saw through his bullshit and saw my truth.”
I thanked God for that, too.
“Would ye’ feel better if it was someone we know who helped me?”
That got my better half’s full attention.
“Who do you have in mind?”
“Bronagh,” I answered with a shrug. “She’s surprisingly handy on a computer; she’s been helpin’ me since everythin’ with Morgan went to shite. The only thing I can credit ‘im with is how organised he made everythin’. Me and Bee have just been followin’ the system he set up, and it’s workin’ a charm. I’ve never had so many clients book me in advance. I mean, ye’ve seen me calendar. I’m booked for the next seven months with projects. The only time I can make room for someone is when I have a cancelation.”
The second I finished speaking, Damien leaned over and surprised me by covering my mouth with his. When he pulled back, I blinked.
“Not that I don’t love you kissin’ me whenever ye’ want, but what was that for?”
“For suggesting Bee help you instead of a stranger,” he answered, and I could see the relief in his grey eyes. “Please hire her. It will make me feel immensely better if Bronagh helps you and not a newcomer.”
He just made my decision for me.
“Then I’ll ask ‘er,” I said, snuggling into his side. “Ye’ need to relax about this, though, Dame. It’s not healthy to be lookin’ over your shoulder every two seconds, thinkin’ someone is gonna snatch me away from ye’.”
I felt like a hypocrite for telling him to relax when I worried about the same thing. Only not me being taken from him, but him being taken from me.
“I can’t help fearing that.” He sighed. “Jesus, Lana, I can’t imagine my life without you. I’d be broken … good for absolutely nothing if I lost you.”
I moved, cocked my leg over his body, and straddled him, placing my hands on either side of his face.
“I’m ‘ere with you, Dame,” I said, leaning in and resting my forehead against his. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, sweetheart.”
Damien closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. I looked into his eyes when he opened them, and I smiled. His breath caught a little.
“You’re beautiful.”
I ducked my head, making him chuckle.
“Alannah?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you marry me?”
I leaned back and looked down at him as I said, “No.”
Damien looked away from me; a deep hurt that he couldn’t hide played out on his face like the two other times he asked me to marry him in the past six months. And just like those two other times, saying no left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Damien,” I said, brushing my nose against his cheek. “You know how I feel about things movin’ too fast with us. I don’t want to jinx what we have.”
“Is what we have solid?” he asked, and when I nodded, he said, “Then why won’t you say yes when I ask you to marry me?”
“Because we’re together six months,” I stressed. “When we do things too fast, bad things happen, and I don’t want to ruin our relationship.”
“I want to marry you,” Damien pressed. “That’s not going to change. You said you wanted to marry me and have loads of babies. I want that now.”
I knew he wanted that. Especially now that Kane and Aideen had recently tied the knot in the city’s registry office and became husband and wife, quickly followed by Alec and Keela a week later who didn’t want a traditional church wedding. Ever since both couples got married, Damien had been adamant about us moving to the next stage of our relationship. He saw three of his brothers blissfully married with gorgeous kids, and his twin happily engaged with a beautiful child and expecting one more, and he wanted that badly.