CHAPTER 8:The Point of No Return

I should have put the key in the door.

Should've ignored the magnetic pull toward him, the way his words continued to imprint on my skin like an intangible tattoo.

"You can lie to yourself, Elena, but you can't lie to me.

That voice lived on in the echo in my head, slowly, deliberately torturing me, against which I could vanquish no attack. I pressed a palm against the glass, still cool as my breath came uneven, and I felt it cleanly through my body: the wildfire that kept burning within me. I needed clarity. Distance. Anything to help me forget how Damien had looked at me—like I was already his.

As if he knew I'd let him, and worse.

I shut my eyes tight, pressing my forehead against the windowpane. No. This isn't happening.

But I was a different story inside my body. My heartbeat was erratic, a traitorous tempo exposing every lie I spun to myself. I could still sense him, ghosting over my skin like the awareness of his touch, the air of his breath a ghost trailing across my lips. It was madness.

It was inevitable.

The noise in the hallway sent my heart into hyperdrive. Slow. Deliberate.

I spun around, my heart colliding with my ribs.

For a moment, silence.

Then another step.

My fingers quivered as I reached for the doorknob. Maybe it's someone else. Maybe it's nothing.

But the moment I opened the door, I knew.

He hadn't left.

Damien was leaning casually against the far wall of a poorly lit hall, his hands shoved in his pockets. But the way he was watching me was anything but relaxed.

Dark. Unreadable. Dangerous.

The air humming between, a live wire stretched tight, ready to break.

My heart raced as I fought the lump in my throat. I should've shut the door." Should have walked away, pretended not to see him, and forced myself to forget the way the wiriness of his presence made my whole body feel as if it were on the brink of something horrible.

But I didn't.

Instead, I stepped forward.

"You're still here." "I hardly sounded like me." Too breathless. Too shaky.

Damien braced himself against the wall, slow and predatory. He moved without effort, yet there was something measured in his advance as if he were a predator who knew its kill was already defeated.

"You expected me to leave?"

I swallowed hard. Yes. No. I don't know.

"It would have been the smart thing to do."

His mouth curved, a slow, knowing smile that gave me goosebumps. Pure sin.

"You know as well as I do that I don't do 'smart' where you're concerned."

A heat licked up my spine and pooled low in my stomach. I stepped back but it only widened his smirk.

He followed.

One step. Two.

I recoiled instinctively, my back against the door frame, and he bridged the gap between us.

"You think you'll be better off running?" His voice was smooth, deceptively soft. A taunt.

So I forced my expression to remain blank, but he saw through it anyway.

"I'm not running."

"No?"

His fingers skimmed my arm, a breath of a touch. It wasn't meant to spark anything. Shouldn't have sent them racing down my skin.

But it did.

A flicker of heat.

A warning.

My breath caught, my body working against me.

Damien let out a puff through his nose, shaking his head slowly as if he was disappointed but also not surprised. Like he already planned for how it would end.

"You can lie to everybody else, but you can't lie to me, Elena."

His thumb edged across the corner of my lips and held there just long enough to give me a shiver.

Say it. Tell him to leave.

I opened my mouth.

No sound came out.

His lips ghosted over my ear, and breath swept another shiver up my spine.

"That's what I thought."

I should have pushed him away.

Should have slammed the door.

This time should have locked it.

If anything, my fingers got lost in the fabric of his shirt, clutching him like he was the one thing keeping me from crashing straight down.

I didn't know who made the first move.

One moment, the hallway stretched between us, electrified with unspoken words. The next second, Damien's mouth hit mine — a crash of hunger and defiance.

Heat. Desperation. A wildfire of need that consumed every thought, every reason I had to prevent this.

I gasped, and he swallowed the sound, curled his fingers around my waist, and pulled me closer. Too close. The weight of his body on top of mine, the sensation of everything — the raw power, the restraint that was barely keeping him intact.

I should've pushed him off me. Should have battled against the flame licking up my spine.

Instead, I broke.

A moan escaped from my mouth as Damien groaned, his hands on me tightening as if he were about to lose it.

His hands glided my hips, my back, pushing me against him, as though he were trying to forge us into one.

"Damien—" My voice was lost in the mouth between kisses.

He drew back slightly, peering at me. His pupils dilated, his breathing hard.

"Say it," he rasped.

I blinked, dazed. "Say what?"

His jaw clenched. His fingers flexed on my waist as if he were refraining.

"That you don't want me."

I opened my mouth. The words should have come easy. Three simple lies.

But they wouldn't come.

Damien expelled a strong breath through his nose, clearly irritated, body coiled tight with dark, dangerous energy. He combed my face like he was waiting for a signal — for me to have the strength to end this.

I wasn't.

"Elena—"

I silenced him with a kiss. Hard. Desperate.

If I couldn't say the words, perhaps I could help him forget why he wanted to hear them.

He groaned into my mouth, his fingers digging into my hips and then sliding down, squeezing my thighs. Without any delay, he pulled me up.

A gasp ripped from my lips as I hit the wall at his back, his body slamming me into place.

"You're playing a dangerous game," he said, lips skimming my jaw, trailing down my throat.

I shuddered. "I know."

His grip tightened. "This will ruin you."

I took his face in my hands, making him look into my eyes. "Then ruin me."

His chest rasped with a deep growl. Then he kissed me like he was trying to do just that.

It was reckless. Violent. Addictive.

His hands brushed over my body, tracing, owning. My nails clawed down his back, urging him closer, deeper.

I didn't care what came next.

Not when his mouth left flames across my skin.

Not when his hands were filled with my thighs, opening me wide.

Not when his name turned into a splinter of broken air over my tongue.

Then—voices.

My stomach dropped.

Damien stilled.

His breath hung heavy against my skin, but his body was coiled, taut, listening.

Another knock.

"Miss Elena?"

Panic surged through me. Shit.

I pushed against Damien's chest, racing heart.

If they saw us like this—

He released me, but not before his fingers traced my wrist again. A silent promise.

I struggled to adjust my clothes, hands trembling, pulse erratic.

"Go," I whispered, struggling to finish the word.

Damien didn't move. His eyes didn't leave mine, dark and inscrutable.

"Damien—"

His fingers grazed my cheek, holding.

"This isn't over."

Then with no further word, he turned and faded into the shadows.

I had hardly time to catch my breath before the knock came again.

"Miss Elena, are you in there?"

I gulped and willed my voice to steady.

"Yes. I'm coming."

But when I reached for the door, my fingers shook.

Because Damien was right.

This wasn't over.

It had just begun.

The moment I walked into my room, I knew I wasn't alone.

The air was too thick. It was thick with something unsaid.

I turned sharply.

Damien was already there.

My pulse spiked. How the hell did he get in?

He was standing by the window, drenched in shadows, his posture deceptively steady. But his eyes — dear God, his eyes — were on fire.

"You left the door unlocked." His voice was low, lethal. "That's dangerous, Elena."

I swallowed hard. I was still tingling all over from what had just happened in the hall. My lips tingled. My skin buzzed.

"You can't be here."

"You think that matters?" He stepped forward, slow and deliberate.

I backed up. Mistake.

His smirk was pure sin. "Scared to be alone with me?"

"I'm not afraid of you."

He bridged the gap in a second, his breath hot on my face. "Liar."

My chest tightened.

I wasn't afraid of Damien frightening me.

I feared wanting him too badly.

"Whatever this is — it has to stop." My voice was unsteady.

He cocked his head, examining me. "You believe that?"

"Yes." I made myself look at him in the eyes. "Because if we don't—"

His fingers grazed my wrist. "If we don't, what?" His tone was silky, smooth, and dangerous. "Say it."

I couldn't.

Because I did not know how to tell the truth.

That he was unraveling me. That all the warnings, all the reasons to walk away, were cracking under his touch."

His hand sweeps up my arm, light as a feather, but enough to light my nerves on fire.

"Tell me to leave, Elena."

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

His jaw tensed. His control was slipping. "That's what I thought."

I hated how right he was.

"Damien—"

He cut me off with a kiss.

Hard. Desperate. As if he needed this as much as I did.

I choked out against his mouth, palms fisting in his shirt. He tightened his grip, pulling me into him, pinning me against the door.

"You ruin me," he murmured against my lips. "And I fucking like it."

I should have told him to back off.

Instead, I allowed him to obliterate me.

The instant his lips took mine, I was ruined.

Damien kissed as if he were staking a claim, as if long before I ever had a choice, he decided that I was his.

And maybe I was.

His hands glided along my sides, fingers flexing, teasing, memorizing. Heat curled in my gut at the feel of his palm rubbing the underside of my breast. I arched my body into his touch before I could contain it.

His lips curled against mine. "You feel that?" Dark, rough, dangerous, his voice was. "That's what it means to be mine."

A loud rap at the door jolted me awake.

I froze.

Damien didn't move. His body pressed flat against mine, heat radiating off him, his breaths ragged.

Another knock. Louder. Sharper.

"Miss Elena?"

My stomach plummeted.

Damien's jaw tightened. His hands curled possessively around my waist. "Let them wait," he growled.

I shoved him back. "You don't understand. You have to go. Now."

His eyes bored into mine — frustration, heat, something unarticulated. But this wasn't about him.

This was about survival.

"Elena." The voice was closer now.

Damien snorted, but he didn't quarrel. He pulled back, his gaze pulling down my body like a promise.

"This is not over," he whispered.

Then, he was gone.

I'd hardly had a chance to catch my breath when the doorknob turned.

I yanked it open.

One of the house staff stood there, face unreadable. "Mr. Montgomery would like to see you downstairs."

A chill slammed through me.

My hands gripped the door frame. "Now?"

The woman hesitated. "Immediately. And he said..." She glanced at my lips. "You may wish to… correct that."

I stiffened.

I touched my face, my fingertips grazing swollen, bruised skin.

Shit.

My heart thumping in my ears. No amount of scrubbing would clean what Damien had deposited.

And Montgomery would see it.

I realized I wasn't going to make it through this.