Chapter 18: DAMON - A Very Good Bad Idea

I’m beginning to resent Jade’s clothes. They’re annoying and time consuming, and always in the way. Sometimes I fantasize about burning them in the fireplace or throwing the whole pile over the fence, where she can’t reach them. And she’d have to walk around in my clothes—if I let her. Or possibly . . . in nothing at all. The view would be amazing and the access beyond compare.

“That’s all the oil for this drop-off. You want to bring in the sheetrock next, or the lumber?”

I’m also beginning to hate my best friend.

I shouldn’t. It’s wrong. Ian’s a solid guy who spends his days busting his ass to gather everything on my demand list so I can not only survive in this semi-barren landscape, but thrive.

And yet . . . he’s here. He exists. He’s talking, trying to make conversation and keep my morale up, when all I want for Christmas is for him to disappear—at least, for a little while. And he can take Piper with him.

Because I’m dying to get back inside Jade. Like I didn’t just fill her up a couple hours ago. Like there’s not a stiffness to her step that only I’m picking up on, because her poor, pretty pussy is still sore. Like her eyes aren’t looking me up and down and following my every move, her pupils so large, they seem almost black. From the rush of feeling I pumped into her and because she wants it again just as badly.

If Ian and Piper don’t leave soon, I might drag Jade into an upstairs coat closet. I’m that fucking hard for her.

It’s insane. Incredibly hot. Possibly concerning. Definitely twisted.

The memory of her slicked with my sweat, covered in my scent, filled with my come, lying there too satiated to move a muscle because of what I did to her—what we did together—it turns my blood to liquid fire.

And all I want to do is sink into her, feel her flesh surrounding me, over and over again.

Once the supplies are in the house and the coolers are filled with ice and food and Jade and Piper have had their own powwow, I herd everyone to the foyer like a horny, dark-haired sheepdog.

“. . . right, Burke?”

Ian’s voice cuts through my X-rated distraction.

“What? I didn’t hear you.”

“I said, are you sure you’re all right?” Ian asks. “You’re kind of acting . . . not like you.”

I’m not sure I know who that is anymore. Who either of us are. It’s like Jade and I have been stripped down to our studs or leveled to the ground and rebuilt again into something different.

Piper waves a hand over Jade’s face. “Yeah, you too. And you’re all flushed. Like you’re getting a fever.”

“I’m fine,” Jade answers, shifting her feet and fidgeting. “I’m just focused these day—in the zone.”

“Deep, deep, deep in the zone,” I add, to taunt her. Because she’s stunning when she’s at my mercy—being teased and tormented, writhing and begging.

Okay, time to pull the fucking plug.

I smack Ian on his back and basically shove him out the door. “Thanks for coming, buddy.”

Jade loops her arm through Piper’s, walking behind us. “See you in a couple weeks.”

“Are you sure you want me to go already?” Piper asks. “I still have a few minutes. It won’t break the rules.”

“Why don’t you guys use the extra time to get something to eat together?” Jade suggests.

And I am no longer the only person in the room who wants to lick Jade’s ass.

If Ian could drop to his knees while still maintaining his dignity in Piper’s eyes, he’d already be on the floor.

“Sounds good to me,” he says.

“Okay,” Piper agrees and they leave.

While Jade watches them walk down the path, I slide my gaze down her body, dragging my eyes over every curve and swell, licking my lips, debating where to start first.

Decisions, decisions.

The second they’re through the gate, I grab her arm, spin her around, and slam her up against the door, cradling the back of her head with my open palm. I kiss her hard, licking at the inside of her mouth so rough, she can barely keep up.

“Fucking finally.” I scrape my teeth along her jaw.

“Alone at last,” she sighs. Then she’s moaning and melting against me. “I thought they’d never leave.”

* * *

Now that it’s clean and tuned, Jade plays the piano every day. She taught me to play “Chopsticks,” but I’m not really interested in learning more.

Watching her play is much more interesting. The way her pretty, talented fingers dance across the keys, the smile that plays on her lips and the little crease of concentration that appears between her brows. Clara has classical and modern sheet music, and Jade plays a little of everything, but her favorite is “Everything I Own” by Bread, and she plays that one the most.

The morning after Ian and Piper’s visit, we’re in bed later than usual. I smack her hip with my palm, and position her so her ass is up and her face is down.

“Hold on tight.”

“You’re a bossy asshole,” she says into the pillow.

“But I’ll make up for it when I make you come again, before I come at all.”

I grip her outer thigh and thrust into her tight wet heat. And it is fucking heaven. As I move inside her, giving her exactly what we both need most in the world, my fingers skim down her spine and my thumb strokes up and down, gliding between the globes of her ass.

“You should be careful about mentioning asses to me in this position. When yours is so close by . . . and so very pretty.”

When I pause my thumb over her bundled hole, pressing teasingly, Jade’s cunt contracts, pulling a groan from me, my head tilting back.

“Have you ever been taken here?” I whisper darkly, sliding my thumb back and forth.

Because I want to take her and possess her in every way I can. Because she’s so perfectly unpossessable.

There’s a second of quiet, long enough to make me wonder if she’s going to answer, before a soft “no” comes from the pillows.

I push forward, harsher and harder—the orgasm barreling down my spine like a train. I have to contract my stomach to keep from coming.

“Do you . . . do you want to?” Jade asks me.

I continue stroking that sweet entrance with my thumb, steady and slow, applying just the smallest press of pressure.

“Yes, I want to,” I groan.

Jade grinds her hips back against me, searching for the feel of my finger and fucking herself on my cock.

“Damon,” she keens.

“Not today, not yet.”

She starts to come, her pussy fluttering and squeezing as she moans. My hips snap and withdraw harshly and I whisper and promise and swear.

“It’s gonna feel so good. I’m going to make it so good for you, baby.”

With a gasp and a moan, she goes over the edge. I slide my thumb into the tight ring of flesh, which makes her come even harder. Whining and gasping my name again and again.

It’s that sound that makes me see stars and flood her pussy in thick, glorious pulses. The sound and the thought that I get to have her like this—own her like this—for weeks, months more. That for right now, she’s mine.

And as I collapse across her back, showering small worshipful kisses across her neck, I let myself admit that for now . . . Jade owns me too.

Afterward, she starts working on a new song at the piano, and I demo the old bathroom and frame out the new one in the main hall. Jade is attached to the black-and-white hexagonal mosaic tile pattern on the floor, so I swear not to bust it up. The new footprint of the floor will be uneven, but it’s a Frankenstein job anyway, and the bathroom doesn’t need to be pretty for my fantasy to come to life, just functional.

Getting the porcelain tub down the stairs from the second floor, however, is a major production. I use an old dolly from the attic, but with every thump down each step, the staircase shakes and trembles—and a collapse is not outside the realm of possibility.

Thump, thump, thump.

“I could help, you know,” Jade calls up to me from the foyer.

“Stay there.” I grunt out the order. “And supervise.”

Thump, thump, thump.

“I’m not a weakling,” she insists.

“Never thought you were . . .” I say through gritted teeth.

Thump, thump, thump.

“. . . but I prefer you not pulverized or dead, so stay there.”

I can practically hear her eyes rolling.

And Cujo snarls like I’m hauling a grizzly bear instead of a tub.

“Yap, yap, yap!”

“And hold onto the frigging dog.”

Thump, thump, thump.

At long last, I make it to the bottom. I swipe my arm across my forehead and Jade hands me a glass of cold water.

After draining the glass, I set it on the bottom step.

“Okay,” I breathe out. “Now you can help.”

She releases Cujo from her arms. “What do you want me to do?”

I smirk. “Me.”

I splay my hands across her black-leggings-covered ass and lift—circling her legs around my hips and pressing her up against the nearest wall. “I want a reward for protecting you from the big, dangerous tub.”

Her laugh is lyrical and honey sweet.

Then she kisses me, and rewards me plenty.

* * *

The next afternoon, I’m attaching a pipe extender to the main water line in the hall bathroom, when the song “Ring of Fire”—the Social Distortion version, not Johnny Cash, because at some point in her life, Clara went through a punk era—starts blasting from the record player. I stick my head out the door just in time to catch Jade bopping and ass-shaking back into the music room—and the sassy swing of her hips lures me into following her.

In the middle music room, she really gets into it—singing the words, bouncing around, waving her hair, and thrashing her head. Looking carefree and wild and good enough to fucking eat. She bites her lip coyly and sashays up in front of me, sliding down down down in time with the lyrics—and teasingly brushing her mouth over my groin before skimming back up my body.

“Your dancing’s definitely improved,” I laugh.

I lean against the wall, watching her for a bit, soaking up the strange, warm sensation of watching Jade Buchanan be silly. Happy and unguarded in a way I didn’t think was possible.

But when the song ends, I take a look at the progress she’s made on restoring the trim. “Wow.” I skim my hand over the wainscoting. “This is . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, amateur hour, I’m aware. And I don’t care.”

Refurbishing woodwork isn’t so different from the delicate restoration of any other piece of art. It takes skill and knowledge, but also inherent creative talent.

“It’s impressive, Jade. You’re good at this.”

“You really think so? Or is it the endorphins from all the sex we’ve been having?”

“The sex has been phenomenal. But I’m lucid enough to be objective, and this is beautiful.”

I plant a kiss on her pink lips for emphasis.

“I’ve suggested starting an historical restoration department at the firm, but I’ve always been outvoted. It doesn’t make any sense anyway. It’s more cost effective to just level a property and build from scratch.”

I cock my head at her and cross my arms. “That’s a neat trick. You open your mouth and your old man’s words come out.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s right, either.”

She shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. This is just for us, and only for as long as we’re here, right?”

And she crouches down, turning back to the molding.

“Yeah,” I agree quietly. “Only for as long as we’re here.”

* * *

That night, Jade rides me. On the couch, my feet braced on the floor, so turned on, my cock is hard granite inside her wet heat, and my blood pounds loud in my eardrums. Her hips swivel and swerve, her hair wild as her head rolls on her neck while she comes. I envelop her needy nipple in my mouth, sucking until she gasps. My hands grip her waist, still in control, and Jade’s palms glide over my chest.

“This is so much better than fighting,” she moans.

I slide a hand to the nape of her neck, pull her down and kiss her—snapping my hips and coming with the grunt of her name.

It takes a few minutes for our heartbeats to slow down and our breaths to even out. When they do, we touch and kiss and laugh against each other’s skin.

Because this really is so much fucking better.

A few days later, when I have to wait for the PVC pipe to cure, I work on a different project in the house. I want to do something for Jade . . . instead of to her. So I’m in the solarium for several hours and thankfully, she doesn’t come looking for me.

Don’t want to ruin the surprise.

When I’m finished, I wash up and walk into the music room, where she’s crouched on the floor with a putty knife in her grip.

I hold out my hand. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

She sets the tool down and slips her hand in mine before I pull her up to her feet. Outside the solarium, I step behind her and cover her eyes.

“Gotta have Ian bring me a blindfold. All kinds of interesting uses,” I whisper in her ear.

Then we walk in and I take my hands away. Jade doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. She stares, slowly rotating, one hand over her lips.

Because the windows are clean, clear, and sparkling in the winter sun—the light splashed across the terra-cotta floor, bright and shining. The black paint was a genius move on my part at the time . . . but it’s not needed anymore. Jade still does her yoga, but she does it in Gunther’s old room, and she should get to have the sunrise back. So I had Ian bring me a couple gallons of turpentine.

When Jade turns toward me, fat, wobbly tears well in her eyes. Seeing them—

even if they’re the happy kind—makes my internal organs twist and tighten.

“I didn’t do this to make you cry.”

She snorts out a laugh, touching her cheek and glancing down at her fingertips, like she’s surprised to find the wetness there. Then she asks me—not with suspicion, exactly, but intense curiosity—“Why did you do it?”

I reach out to brush her hair back, but end up rubbing the strands between my fingers, because it’s just that soft. “Because you give me free rein with your body—let me play with you in any filthy way I can come up with. And you showed me your sketch pad, which was one of the hardest things you’ve ever made yourself do.”

More tears trickle down and I’m tempted to shut the hell up. But I tell her the rest, because it’s true. “Because you give me your trust, all the time—every second we’re near each other. So I wanted to give you something . . . besides the many tremendous orgasms.”

She laughs, which is so much better than her tears. And she wraps her arms up around my neck, clinging and grateful.

And she whispers softly in my ear, “Thank you.”

* * *

The hours seem to go by faster than before. Possibly because now our daily schedule is packed with a swirling whirlpool of screwing and record-playing, dancing and home renovations, screwing and piano-playing, eating and sleeping and more sensational screwing. The calendar turns, and in a heartbeat, Ian and Piper’s fourth supply visit arrives.

Eight weeks down, eight more to go. It’s a buzzing tinnitus in my brain that I don’t acknowledge, but that’s constantly in the background. Eight more weeks with Jade—and from now on, eight weeks of being able to watch something other than Friends with her.

Because after we drag the oil supply down to the basement, Ian holds up the VHS tape I requested he track down and asks, “Since when are you into Dirty Dancing, dude?”

I didn’t think he’d actually be able to find it—he must’ve traveled to the middle of bumble-fuck Minnesota to find a still-functioning video store.

I shrug, blowing off Ian’s question. “I meant to write The Dirty Dozen. I must’ve been delirious from boredom and my hand slipped.”

And these old walls don’t just have a whole gaggle of rodents likely running through them—they also have ears. Because a second later, Jade and Piper stick their heads in the kitchen.

“Did I hear someone say, Dirty Dancing?”

Jade’s eyes are on me like a hot spotlight, already tearing off my clothes in her mind.

I am so getting lucky tonight.

And then it’s like the Gift of the frigging Magi around here, when Piper says, “That’s funny! Jade had me bring a VHS of The Predator with that big Schwarzkopf guy, and I had to drive all the way across Pennsyltucky to pick it up from a lady I met on Facebook Marketplace.”

Which prompts Ian to jump all over the potential “date with Piper” opportunity like a live grenade.

“Maybe I could drive with you next time, Piper? Since we’re both going to be on the hunt for VHS tapes for a while.”

While that’s happening, I mouth “Schwarzkopf” to Jade with a questioning expression.

But Piper is immune to embarrassment, because Jade answers out loud.

“She meant Schwarzenegger.” She turns to Piper, kindly. “It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

“Oh, right.” Piper nods, unfazed. “That’s who I meant.”

Jade taps Piper’s elbow and mock whispers, “And we’re supposed to keep all list items double super-top secret.”

“I wasn’t sure if that applied to VHS tapes, but—got it. It was just so weird. I didn’t even know you liked sci-fi.”

Jade smiles slyly, her eyes on me. Because she definitely put that movie on the list for me. “Just trying to broaden my horizons.”

And she’s getting really lucky tonight too.

* * *

It happens in the kitchen, a couple days later, in the middle of week nine. There’s no build-up or drama. It’s during one of those mundane, everyday moments that no one remembers at the time.

That’s when my and Jade’s string of fabulous sexcapades is interrupted by bravery.

And reality.

Jade’s at the sink and I’m at the table. She sets a dripping glass on the counter, dries her hands, and turns off the water. Then she braces her hands on the counter and speaks in a voice so low, I might’ve missed her words if the faucet was still running.

“What are we doing, Damon? What is this?”

“I don’t understand.”

But that’s a lie. Foul and blatant—the first and only falsehood I’ve told her. I understand immediately what Jade is asking. I’m just stalling for time, waiting for an answer to appear—a solution I can pull from the ether.

“I don’t grab the bull by the horns,” she says. “I know it seems like I do, but that’s an act. The truth is, I keep my head down and choose the path of least resistance. It’s smarter—more economical, less energy, less risk.” She turns, but her gaze stays trained on my chest, center body mass, an aimed sniper’s scope with a finger on the trigger. “But I have to know . . .”

Jade lifts her eyes to mine. And everything she is—brave and stubborn, talented and tender, smart and resourceful and passionate, and so sweet sometimes my heart hurts when I watch her—swirls in their green depths. I dream of those eyes now.

“Am I alone in this? I can’t be, can I? The way you . . . you must feel it too. Do you?”

I stand up from the table, because I need to be closer to her. “No, you’re not alone. I’m right here with you . . . I’m in this too.”

Such small, simple words for a tsunami of emotion and an earthquake of change.

The corners of her mouth lift, and she dips her chin, pressing her forehead against my sternum.

“What are we going to do when this is over? What happens then?”

I kiss the crown of her head, inhaling the warm, cinnamon spice of her hair. “I don’t know. But I want to figure it out, with you.”

She sighs and nods against me.

And then it all goes to shit.

Because when she pulls back, her expression is changed, slipping into a blank mask of detachment and practicality. This is Professional Jade. Negotiator Jade. This is Daddy’s Girl.

And old habits do not die easy, so my own shark-tooth, corporate instincts sharpen to life in response.

“My father will never agree to shared ownership,” she says.

The mention of Buchanan fills me with a familiar choking rage. More potent than a few weeks ago—there are so many more reasons to hate him now.

“I do not give one solitary fuck what your father will or won’t agree to. And neither should you.”

“He’s my boss,” she argues.

“He’s a monster,” I shoot back. “And I’m starting to suspect, a fool. He doesn’t utilize you, doesn’t value you, the way he should. How can you not see that?”

Her lips purse, and her heels rock back, digging in. “It’s his company, his call.”

“You should leave. You should quit.” My tone is snapping and direct—landing less like advice and more like a command. Because if I had my way, it would be.

Jade blinks at me, like I’ve told her to sprout wings and fly. As if not working for her father is some impossible, unfathomable thing. Like the idea has never even occurred to her. And somehow, that pisses me off even more.

“It’s a family business. They’re my family. The only one I have.”

I shake my head, grinding my jaw. “They don’t have to be.”

“That doesn’t . . .” Her eyes crinkle. “What does that mean?”

I throw my hands up. “It means you can walk away, Jade! From the shitheads you happen to share DNA with and the whole damn company. Buchanan Industries is a boulder and right now it’s dragging you along—but one of these days it’s going to turn around and crush you.”

“I can’t do that.” She says it softly, shaking and shaking and shaking her head. “I would never do that.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because they’re my family, Burke. It’s about commitment. A common allegiance. I know you can’t understand that, but I was raised on—”

I lift a hand. “Hold up. I can’t understand what?”

She takes a breath, calm and even, like she’s explaining something to a five-year-old. “Loyalty—to your family. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just saying it makes sense that you’d have a hard time understanding family loyalty because of how you grew up.”

“How I grew up?”

“Without a family. So you can’t know what it means, not really.”

My voice comes out deceptively soft. Almost gentle. “And you think you do? Because of how you were raised in your family, you think you understand what family means?”

“Of course.”

The words spill out my mouth—the lash of the whip, the cut of the blade, the liquid molten metal armies used to pour on each other.

“Tell me again, Jade, did Mommy off herself with a Chanel belt or was it Gucci? I can’t fucking remember.”

She winces—her head flinching back and her skin blanching ghostly white. Like she took a fist to the face. All she’s missing is the bloody nose.

And then . . . she laughs. Astonished and stunned and ravaged inside.

“I can’t believe I forgot. My God.” Jade rubs her fingers at the center of her forehead. “I actually forgot for a minute what a callous, unbelievable bastard you are. Thank you for reminding me.”

She walks out of the room, and a dozen seconds later, one of the doors upstairs slams shut.

* * *

Similar to grief, there are four stages of seriously fucking up.

Stage 1 is Denial.

It involves delusion and babbling to yourself.

“Ridiculous bullshit,” I mutter to no one, hammering nails into the bathroom studs like I’m trying to kill them. “So frigging oversensitive.” I push a hand through my hair, tugging a little. To distract from the weird weight pressing down on my chest like an elephant’s foot—that is absolutely not guilt.

Stage 2 is Anger.

Anger is the asshole teenager that denial grows up to be. “What, you’re just gonna stay in there? You’re not gonna talk to me—that’s how this is gonna go?” I pound the wall next to Jade’s closed door with the side of my fist, hard enough to dent the plaster. But—shocker—I get no response from inside. Anger is pointless and directionless, spewing on anyone unlucky enough to be in its splash-zone. Not even little Cujo makes it out unscathed as he sits in the hall at my feet, condemning me with big, black marble eyes.

“Shut up,” I tell him.

He flips me off with his tail and heads back downstairs.

Stage 3 is Regret.

Like a second floor with compromised support beams, Anger inevitably collapses into Regret. And Regret is Humpty Dumpty in pieces on the ground forever, and the Big Bad Wolf in a brick fireplace—burning alive. It’s wishing you had been different, better, and yearning for a rewind that can never happen.

The final stage is Penance.

Sacrifice. Punishment. The slaughtering of a lamb, the scour of flagellation, the self-imposed deprivation. If you can’t take it back, and you can’t make it better—you can try your hardest to even the score.

It’s pitch black outside when I sit down on the floor, my back braced against the wall, my arms resting on bent knees. I tip my face toward the ceiling . . . and talk to her through the door.

“It didn’t get really bad until the last week. She was good at hiding how much pain she was in. Until it was constant. And she couldn’t eat, couldn’t talk. All she could do was sit in that car, with her eyes closed. Sometimes she was so gray and still, I’d think . . .”

My words float down the silent hall, returning and echoing.

“. . . and I would whisper, ‘Don’t go. Come back, please come back.’ And it became our thing. She’d pry her eyes open for me and smile. And I was so . . . relieved, that she was there, a little while longer.”

My eyes burn, dampening, my throat so narrow and clogged it’s hard to breathe.

“She was in the hospital at the end. The pain meds made her drowsy. She’d fade in and out, and there I was, holding her hand, whispering, ‘Don’t go. Come back, come back, please come back.’ And I should’ve let her go sooner . . .” My voice cracks, splintering. “But I loved her so much. So she stayed for me, opening her eyes and smiling every time I asked. Until she didn’t. I kept saying it, and then I was screaming it, but she was gone. And I . . . lost it. And I couldn’t stop screaming. Brother Mateo was there, carrying me out, saying it would be all right.”

I inhale a slow, shaken breath. “They had to sedate me and by the time I was coherent, they’d already taken her away. That was the last time I saw her. Because I couldn’t keep it together long enough to say goodbye.”

The door opens a few inches, and Jade is on the other side, on the floor, her face streaked with wet trails and her eyes dark with devastation.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you gave me a piece of you and I hurt you with it. So I’m giving you a piece of me—that no one else has.”

Jade cries a little harder, reaching out her hand, covering mine. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

She crawls out from the room and slips onto my lap, her chin tucked and eyes downcast. I pull her tight against me, kissing her eyes, her nose, her forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean what I said about you not understanding. I don’t know why I . . .”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but I already know why. Because she was trying to hold her ground, fight her corner—because as grotesque as her family is, they’re all she’s ever known. That’s her normal.

I wipe at her face, trying to dry the tears that continue to fall.

“Sometimes I say fucked up things, when I’m angry or not in control. It’s not an excuse. But I don’t want to be that way with you.”

She nods, frantic and forgiving. “I don’t want to hurt you either.”

Jade wipes at my cheekbones, and kisses my brow, my eyes. And her words come out whispered, like a confession. “I think there’s something wrong with us, Damon. I think we’re messed up inside. I don’t know if we’re healthy together, because a part of both of us is just broken.”

I’m self-aware enough to recognize that Jade and I might not be good for each other. That we’re . . . toxic—I don’t know.

And I don’t care.

Because even poison can taste sweet. Fire is more beautiful the hotter it burns. Saltwater quenches while it kills you, and chemo cures even as it obliterates the good cells right along with the bad.

I want Jade Buchanan more than I’ve wanted a single thing in my entire life.

So I’m keeping her. No matter what it takes.

“I like you broken. I want you exactly as you are. I’ll take you jagged and shattered and I’ll keep the pieces of us together with both hands, I swear.”

I kiss away every tear that I caused her. Jade’s lips are warm and puffy when she presses her mouth to mine and grips my shoulders, pulling me to her. I slip my hand from her cheek to her chin, then down across her back, rocking and holding her with all the tenderness she deserves.