Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
With that logical thought, I return to counting, picking up where I left off: five, six, seven…
I rotate my body, settling my back against the wall, and sit down, pulling my knees to my chest and curling my arms around them. The darkness expands around me, suffocating me, and I squeeze my eyes shut, counting again: eight, nine, ten…I get to twenty and chide myself for allowing this weakness to live inside me. It’s stupid. It was just a wine cellar, and nothing happened to me down there. Only my therapist suggested my reaction wasn’t about the place, but rather something going on in my home life at the time. That something was my father disappearing for random periods of time, and despite my mother telling me it was for work reasons, I’d sensed differently.
In my core, I’d known something was wrong at home, but I hadn’t dared speak it out loud, beyond the admissions I’d made to a therapist who’d played tug of war to pull it from me. I hadn’t even told Damion. In truth, I hadn’t wanted anything to disturb the world as it appeared back then, with our two happy families next door to each other. Apparently, trauma and stress can create phobias, and it’s forever irritating that I can’t beat it, at least, not wholly.
My fingers curl into my palms. Pull it together, I scream in my head. I cannot afford to be this weak and survive this. I have to stand up and fight. I will stand up and fight, but as I open my eyes, the darkness swallows me.
And it destroys me.
I’m shaking all over, and I can’t make it stop.
Chapter Fourteen
Damion
The Past—Age Fifteen
While most of my buddies are at some party, chasing a couple of girls from our class, I’m in a better place—weathering a hell of a storm while hanging out with Alana and waiting on a pizza we just ordered. I’m not chasing Alana, and trying to make her mine, but—okay, maybe I secretly am. Whatever, though. No one knows but me and probably her, and tonight our parents are out at some gala that will last until well after midnight, which makes tonight the perfect time to get her to see us as more than friends.
That means loosening her up a bit.
At present, she’s flipping through the TV channels, trying to find us a good movie to watch while I plot the best moment to kiss her. I catch her hand and motion toward the hallway. “Come on. I want to show you something.” I tug her to her feet.
She laughs one of her sweet as sin laughs and jokes, “Oh no. Do I want to know what?”
“I thought you wanted to know all my deep, dark secrets,” I tease.
“I do not remember ever saying that.”
“Well, maybe I want you to,” I counter, a flirty reply that I favor with Alana, therefore, it’s no telltale sign to her that I’m about to make a move. We flirt. And then she cockblocks me, and while I know why—she doesn’t want to lose our friendship—it’s fucking killing me. Her sweet-smelling floral perfume dances in the air and tickles my nose. It might as well be her hand on my cock, I’m so fucking hard. I want to pull her into the closet, repeat our childhood, and kiss her again, but I won’t just yet. I’m a gentleman, at least where Alana’s concerned.
I’ll ask her before I kiss her again.
I lead her down the hallway to the basement door and punch in the door code. Her pretty blue eyes go wide when she realizes what I’ve just done. “I thought you weren’t allowed to go down there?”
“My parents have no idea I’ve figured out the code, and they’ll never know. I want you to see it. It’ll be fun. I promise.”
“You know how much trouble you’re going to get into if we’re caught, don’t you? And me with you.”
I open the door, reach inside, and flip on the light before winking at her. “We’ll only sample a little.”
“You’re always asking for trouble, Damion,” she chides, but she’s laughing as we head down the stairs. “One day, you’re going to find it,” she adds from behind me.
I glance over my shoulder at her and say, “I found trouble in a closet with you, remember?”
She laughs and says, “Unfair reply.”
At the bottom of the stairs, we’re in the only area of the “vault,” as my father calls it, that isn’t locked up behind heavy glass doors. Rows of wine and walls of stone surround a small round table where we can sit and sample. Alana is instantly scanning the room with wide-eyed wonder. “This place is magnificent. One day, I want a room like this.”
I set two wine glasses on the table, followed by two bottles of wine, and motion for her to sit. “If you want a room like this, you need to understand and enjoy wine.”