Chapter 337: I Was Promised a Real Bed**

The lock clicked.

Aria pushed his coat off his shoulders. Damien caught it before it fell, took the gun from the inside pocket, and laid it on the desk beside the biscuit tin.

Then he looked at her.

She went for the buttons of his shirt. Her fingers were still shaking. She got two open and fumbled the third.

His hand closed over both of hers.

"Aria."

"I’m fine."

"You’re shaking."

"So make it stop."

He held her eyes for one breath. Then he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

He kissed her hard, the way he had wanted to in the van. She gripped his wrists and kissed him back, and when his tongue slid against hers, she made a low sound against his mouth.

He walked her backward until the edge of the bed hit the backs of her knees. He peeled her coat off, and her hair spilled out of the collar where he had tucked it. He wound it around his fist and tipped her head back.

"I’ve wanted to do that since the florist," he said against her throat.

He kissed the spot under her jaw. Then lower, where her pulse was, and he bit down there, gently, then harder. Her knees gave. His arm around her waist held her up.

She dragged the rest of his buttons open. One tore loose and bounced across the floor. She pushed the shirt off his shoulders and ran her palms down his chest, over his stomach, to his belt.

He caught her hands and set them on his shoulders.

"Leave them there."

"Damien—"

"There."

She left them there.

He pulled her sweater over her head and dropped it. He unhooked her bra with one hand, slid the straps down her arms, and stepped back half a pace to look at her.

Her nipples tightened in the cool air. He watched them do it.

Then he bent his head and took one into his mouth. He rolled it slowly with his tongue and grazed it with his teeth, and the jolt went straight down between her legs. She dug her nails into his shoulders. He moved to the other breast and did it again, slower, until she was arching into his mouth and pulling at his hair.

He went down on his knees in front of her.

He pulled off her shoes, one, then the other. He unbuttoned her jeans and eased them down her hips and thighs, and she stepped out of them with one hand braced on his head.

He pressed his mouth to the inside of her knee. Then higher. Then higher still, until his breath was hot through the thin cotton of her underwear.

He kissed her there, through the fabric.

Aria’s head fell back. "Oh my God."

He hooked a finger in the waistband and drew her underwear down her legs. Then he put his hands on the backs of her thighs, tipped her onto the bed, and pulled her to the edge of the mattress.

He spread her knees with his palms and licked her, one long, slow stroke from bottom to top.

She cried out and clapped a hand over her mouth.

He reached up, took her wrist, and pulled her hand away. He laced his fingers through hers and pinned it to the bed beside her hip.

"Let me hear you."

Then he put his mouth back on her.

He took his time. He licked into her, slow and deep, and circled her clit with the tip of his tongue until her hips were rocking against his face. When he sucked it between his lips, she sobbed his name. He slid two fingers inside her and curled them, and she lost the rest of her words.

The pressure built low in her stomach, tighter with every stroke. Her thighs trembled on either side of his head. He held her open and kept going until it broke over her, and she came against his mouth with her back bowed off the mattress and her hand crushing his.

He stayed with her through it, softer, until she twitched and pushed at his head.

He rose over her. His mouth was wet. His eyes had gone dark gold.

He unbuckled his belt. She watched him push his trousers down and kick them away, and her mouth went dry.

She reached for him. He was hot and heavy in her hand. She stroked him once, base to tip, and his jaw clenched.

"Aria."

She stroked him again, slower, and watched his eyes close.

He caught her wrists and pinned them above her head in one hand. He moved her up the bed and settled between her thighs, and she felt the thick head of his cock press against her, slick with her own wetness.

"Look at me."

She looked.

He pushed into her slowly, inch by inch, stretching her, watching her face the whole way, until he was buried to the hilt and her breath came in pieces.

He held there.

"Damien," she whispered. "Move."

He drew back until only the tip of him was inside her. Then he sank back in to the hilt, and she gasped.

He did it again. And again. He set a slow, deep rhythm, and every time he bottomed out he ground against her clit until she was writhing under him.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her heels into the backs of his thighs.

"Harder," she gasped.

His eyes flashed.

He let go of her wrists, hooked an arm under her knee, and pushed it toward her chest. The angle opened her wider. When he drove into her again, he hit somewhere so deep that she cried out.

He kept that pace. The headboard knocked against the wall, and every thrust drove the air out of her lungs. She grabbed his back, and under her fingers she found the old ridges of his scars.

Sweat slicked his chest against hers. His breath was ragged at her ear.

"Tu es à moi."

"What does that mean?"

He pulled almost all the way out and held there, making her wait.

"Mine."

He slammed back in.

The second orgasm hit harder than the first. She clenched around him, sobbing his name, her nails raking down his back. He thrust twice more, deep and uneven, then buried his face in her hair and came inside her with a groan that shook through his whole body.

For a while they lay still.

Then he lifted his head and brushed the damp hair off her forehead. His thumb came away wet.

"You’re crying."

"I know." She caught his hand and pressed her lips to his knuckles.

He rolled onto his back and brought her with him, so she lay across his chest with the duvet pulled over them both. She listened to his heart slow under her ear.

Across the room, the tin sat on the desk beside the gun.

"I need something to play it on."

Damien got up. He crossed the room naked, took his phone from the coat on the floor, and made one call.

"A cassette player. Batteries. Leave it outside the door."

He came back to bed and pulled her against him.

"Sleep," he said. "It’ll be there when you wake up."

She meant to argue. She was asleep before she could.

***

When she woke, the windows were dark.

A lamp was on by the desk. Damien sat there in a hotel robe with a paper bag in front of him.

She checked her phone. 7:41 p.m.

She pulled on his shirt. It was missing a button. She padded across the room and looked over his shoulder.

The bag held a small silver cassette player, a pair of foam headphones, a pack of batteries, and a receipt handwritten on a shop’s letterhead.

"Damien. Eleven hundred euros."

"It’s a collector’s piece. It works."

He stood and gave her the chair. She sat. He loaded the batteries while she opened the tin and unfolded the yellowed tissue.

The tape was lighter than she expected. She turned it over once, fitted it into the player, and pressed the door shut.

It clicked.

Her thumb found the play button and rested there.

Damien’s hand settled on her shoulder.

"Whatever’s on this—" She stopped.

He waited.

"One more night," she said. "Of her just being my mom."

He bent and kissed the top of her head. "Then one more night."

She took her thumb off the button and set the player down beside the tin.

On the desk, her phone lit up.

[Incoming call: Unknown number]