Page 39 of Off-Limits

As if sensing my arrival, his eyes find mine.

My breath catches from the intensity, and any smartass thing I was about to say, dies on my tongue. Swallowing, I step back, and he stops me with one word.

“Dorothy.”

I suck in a lungful of air, but it proves fruitless. I feel my throat closing in. I step back again. I’m waiting for the blow I know is coming, one that has to come.

“What happened this morning can’t happen again, Dorothy.”

“I know.”

“I mean it. It. Can’t. Fucking. Happen. Again. If Arrie had walked in on us like we were, it would have meant disaster for us all. And let’s not forget about what Kerry-Anne and the rest of the fucking town would say if they caught wind of this. Fuck, I can see the headlines now.”

“I said I know,” I snap, feeling the anger, frustration and deceit toward Arrie singing me from the inside out.

“Don’t you take that tone with me, Dottie, this is fucking serious.”

“I fucking know!” I scream, and he pushes up from his chair and it scrapes along the floor.

He’s in front of me in an instant; his hand wrapped around my loose hair and pulling my head back. My breathing ratchets and I hate the spark that ignites in my belly. His breath fans against my face, and I smell the heavy scent of alcohol. He’s had more to drink than the one sitting on the table.

“I don’t lose control. Ever. But you are jumping down on my last nerve and I’m fraying at the fucking ends.”

“How is this my damn problem,Uncle Damon?!”I hiss.

“Stop it.”

“Or what?”

He laughs low and dark, and it sets off fireworks in my stomach, and then his face his inches away from mine like this morning. He tugs on my hair, and I wince, but I can see it in his eyes.

The loss of control.

The wildness in his dark blue eyes.

He’s barely hanging on and I feel myself feeling sorry for him.

“Don’t do that, Dorothy.”

“Do what?” I breathe.

“Pity me.”

Then his lips are on mine. and I find myself opening up for him, my tongue lashing at his and matching his ferocity. I grip onto his chest, feeling the muscles tense from my touch as I moan into his mouth, and all rationality flies out the window.

As soon as it begins, it finishes.

Damon releases me, staggering back, his fingers touching where my lips just were. He brings those shaky fingers level with his face, and then he looks at me from between them.

“This,” he tries, choking on his words. “This can’t happen, Dorothy. You can finish the mural downstairs and then you need to leave. I - I can’t do this, and I need you to stop whatever you’re trying to do.”

Anger resurfaces, dousing the earlier lust in acid.

“WhatI’mtrying to do? I’m pretty sure you just kissed me, not the other way around, asshole.”

Damon’s jaw works, but when I think he’s going to say something, he doesn’t. He shakes his head, grabs his drink and the bottle sitting beside it, before he walks toward his room.

As he reaches the door, his steps falter as he holds onto the doorframe with the bottle in his hand. I hear him draw in a couple of breaths before he finally speaks.