Chapter 156 - ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIX

Chapter 156: Chapter ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIX

ANGEL

I was bored.

It’s a strange thing to feel, given everything. I should be terrified of having Damien’s baby and plotting my escape or doing something other than lying on this bed, staring at the ceiling thoughtlessly.

But I was just... bored.

Days had passed since Damien dropped his bomb about the baby. Maybe a week. Maybe two. I’d lost track of time entirely.

I guess time moved differently when you had nothing to mark it with—no phone, no computer, or any contact with the outside world. Just this large fortress and the endless silence that pressed against my eardrums.

Damien had been scarce.

He left early in the morning, before I woke up, and returned late at night, after I’d already fallen asleep. Whatever he was working on consumed him completely.

We hadn’t talked much. Not really. Ever since the day he’d shown me those documents and watched my entire world collapse around me.

I should be relieved by his absence. Deep inside, I knew I should be grateful for the reprieve from his intensity, his games, his suffocating presence. This was the time I should be using to figure out some way to escape this gilded cage.

Instead, I felt... empty.

The loneliness was crushing. Each morning, it pressed down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I had no one to talk to. Ines brought my meals three times a day, but she barely looked at me.

She just set the tray down and left without a word. The house was a tomb, and I was buried alive in it.

I found myself listening for Damien’s footsteps. Always straining to hear the creak of the stairs, any sign that he was home. I found myself staying up late just to be awake when he came from work.

It’s pathetic, I told myself. Stockholm syndrome. This was exactly what he wanted me to feel.

But knowing what it was didn’t make it stop.

The silence was the worst part. Hours and hours of nothing but my own breathing, my own heartbeat, my thoughts spiraling into darker and darker places. I started talking to myself just to hear a voice.

"Your father is a psychopath," I told my stomach one afternoon, lying on my back with my hands pressed to the small swell beneath my skin. "Just so you know. Complete and total lunatic. He kidnapped me and trapped me in this place."

The baby didn’t respond. Obviously.

"But he’s also..." I trailed off.

I couldn’t finish the thought. More like, I didn’t want to.

Because the traitorous part of my brain kept whispering, maybe Damien isn’t so bad. If we weren’t fighting and I just listened to him, he wouldn’t play his twisted games with me.

The thought horrified me. I shoved it away, burying it deep.

I tried to drown it in memories of everything he’d done to me. The way he’d broken me down and rebuilt me in his image, piece by shattered piece.

But it kept surfacing. Again and again, no matter how hard I tried to kill it.

I was going crazy. The isolation was wearing away my sanity, making me desperate and needy in ways I hated.

I hated that I was starting to miss him.

Everything about him.

From his voice, his presence, the way he looked at me like I was the center of his universe. I missed the weight of his body next to mine, the warmth of his hands on my skin, the sound of him breathing in the darkness beside me.

I loathed myself for it. Hated that he’d gotten so deep inside my head that his absence felt like a wound that wouldn’t close. But I couldn’t stop the feeling any more than I could stop breathing.

I was his. Even when he wasn’t here, I was his.

I shut my eyes, blinking back a sting when a creaking sound reached my ears.

And the door opened.

My heart leaped before I could control it, slamming against my ribs like a caged bird trying to escape. I was sitting up before I realized I’d moved, my eyes finding Damien in the doorway like they’d been waiting for him all along.

His dark hair was disheveled, falling across his forehead messily, like he’d just finished killing someone.

The shadows under his grey eyes only made them more striking, more unsettling... like storm clouds bruised with lightning. His jaw was shadowed with stubble, darkening the sharp lines of his face, making him look... wilder. More dangerous.

And when his eyes found mine, a slow, wolfish smile spread across his face. As though he precisely knew that I’d been waiting for him all these days. Counting the hours. Going mad from the absence of him.

"Did you miss me?"

The question was a trap. Answer yes, and I handed him another piece of myself. Answer no, and we’d both know I was lying.

I said nothing. My throat was too tight for words.

His smile widened. He knew.

He always fucking knew.

Damien crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. His black shirt was open at the collar, sleeves shoved up past his elbows, showing off the tattoos that wrapped around his forearms—black ink I knew continued up his arms, across his chest, and down his ribs.

Then, he reached out to cup my face in his hands, tilting my chin up so I had to look at him.

I didn’t flinch away. I didn’t want to fight.

So, I just let him touch me, my eyes grew wet with tears as his thumbs stroked across my cheekbones. My throat was clogged with all the things I couldn’t say. I wanted him to hold me. So badly it made my chest ache.

I was so fucking pathetic.

"Shh." His voice dropped, soft and low, a rumble I felt in my bones. "Don’t cry, baby girl. I’m here now."

A tear slipped down my cheek. Then another. I couldn’t stop them.

"Where have you been these days? You left me," I whispered, hating how small my voice sounded. How needy.

"I had business to handle. Things that couldn’t wait." He whispered to me, his promises as deceitful as a serpent’s kiss. "But every minute I was gone, I was thinking about you. About coming home to you. About this."

"Liar." I accused, meeting his gaze.

His eyes flickered with surprise, or amusement. I couldn’t tell exactly which.

"You did it on purpose," I continued, my voice trembling with hurt and anger I didn’t know I still possessed. "You wanted me like this. Crawling out of my skin just waiting for you to walk through that door."

He didn’t deny it. He simply watched me with those storm-grey eyes, his thumbs still stroking my cheeks, wiping away tears that kept falling no matter how hard I tried to stop them.

"Did it work?" he asked quietly.

I wanted to slap him. To make him hurt the way I was hurting.

Instead, I broke.

"Yes," I sobbed. "Yes, it fucking worked. Are you happy now?"

I was so relieved that he was here. So pathetically, shamefully relieved.

"Happy?" He pulled me forward, pressing his forehead to mine. His breath was warm against my lips. "Angel, I’ve been in hell these past weeks. Every night I came home and watched you sleep because I didn’t trust myself to touch you. Every morning I left before dawn because if I saw you open your eyes and look at me the way you’re looking at me right now, I wouldn’t have been able to leave at all."

"Then why?" My voice cracked. "Why did you stay away?"

"Because you needed to understand." His hands slid from my face to my hair, fingers tangling in the strands, tilting my head back until our faces were mere inches from each other’s. "You needed to feel what it’s like without me. So that the next time you think about running—you’ll remember this. You’ll remember the emptiness. And you’ll know that I’m the only one who can fill it."

"You’re a monster," I whispered. "A sick one,"

"Shh." He gathered me against his chest, one hand cradling my head, the other wrapped around my waist. "From now on, all you have to do is say the word, and I’ll stay. I’ll always stay."

I clung to him, burying my face in his neck. I breathed him in like he was oxygen.

"Bastard," I mumbled against his skin. "You manipulative, evil bastard."

He kissed me.

His lips moved against mine slowly like he was asking permission even though we both knew he didn’t need it. We both knew I’d give him anything he wanted right now, starving as I was for touch, for contact, for him.

I kissed him back.

The moment our lips meshed together, something inside me cracked open like an egg.

The kiss deepened. His tongue slid against mine, tasting, claiming, and a low groan rumbled from his chest into my mouth. His hands moved from my face to my hair, fisting in the strands, tilting my head back so he could take more. Take everything.