Chapter Four
Hadley
Damon letsme ride with him to the auto shop he works at the next day. He tells me to go next door to apply to Tony’s for a job, that he’s pretty sure they’re hiring.
I’m thrilled when I’m hired right on the spot. It’s not a super fancy joint, but it’s not a total dive either. They sell more than just pizza. It’s more of an Italian restaurant than just a pizzeria. I spend the entire day training, and after work Damon takes me shopping so I can pick up the appropriate type of clothes for the job. I need a white button-up shirt, black pants, and some black shoes since that’s what they want their waitresses to wear there. I grab a few white camis and bras too since I can’t wear the colorful sports bras Damon bought me underneath a white button-up.
Damon gives me a wad of cash and waits outside the store on one of the mall’s benches, giving me my privacy. The bench is facing the store, though, and every time I look up, his eyes are watching me and flicking around the store, taking in everyone coming and going. It makes me feel safe, like he’s guarding me.
When I finish, he drives us back to his apartment where we both take showers, and then we wind up watching TV together on the couch while eating turkey sandwiches.
And that’s the routine we fall into. I ride with Damon to work every day. It’s perfect since I work right next to him. He comes over and eats lunch at the diner, and he always leaves me tips that are way too generous. More often than not, I take my lunch break when he’s there and eat lunch with him. That way I keep him from giving me humongous tips that I don’t deserve.
True to my word, when I get my first paycheck, I pay him back for all the clothes and necessities he bought me. He acts like he doesn’t really want to take it, but when I insist, he does. When I offer to pay for half the rent, that’s when he puts his foot down. He tells me he’d be paying the same amount regardless of whether I lived there or not, so I finally let it go, recognizing that it’s a battle I won’t win.
I’m happier than I can ever remember being in my whole life. I have a job and a place to live where I feel safe, and Damon is nothing short of amazing to me.
I realize that I’m probably becoming too attached to him. Sometimes when I look at him, I get this tickly feeling deep in my tummy, especially when he smiles at me or when he’s walking around bare-chested with all his tats and muscles showing.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like for him to kiss me. I thought he was going to that day we were sitting on the couch together and he told me he’d been in prison, but then the pizza guy had shown up, and I figured I must have just imagined it all since he hasn’t so much as laid a finger on me since then.
He’s been respectfully distant. A true gentleman. The closet Damon comes to touching me is with his eyes that seem to caress every inch of me, but that’s probably just my wishful imagination too.
Damon is my friend and roommate and nothing more.
And really that’s probably for the best. We don’t need to complicate things since we’re living together.
I’m just grateful for the break I’ve been given after running away from home in the middle of the night after what my stepdad tried to do. I shudder remembering his body on top of mine. I realize things could have turned out very differently for me that night if I’d run into someone besides Damon. Damon might be a felon, but he’s the most honorable man I’ve ever known.
I know I’m safe with him.
* * *
Damon
It’s the sweetest torture being around her so much and denying myself, but it’s worth it. She’s worth it.
I tell myself day after day that this is enough. Sitting on the couch with her after work and watching a movie together. Eating lunch together. Riding to and from work together. Seeing the way her nipples pebble when she gets chilled while we’re watching movie. Those goddamned sports bras I bought her don’t do anything to hide them.
I made sure she got a job at Tony’s. Fortunately, I know Tony. He went to school with Rick and me, and he was more than willing to take her on after I put in a good word for her.
I’d have been okay with her not working and staying here in my apartment where I knew she was safe, but there was no way Hadley would have ever gone for that. She has this fierce desire to prove herself and make her own way as much as she can, and I have to respect that—no matter how tempted I might be to lock her up and never let her leave.
There was no way in hell I was going to chance her getting a job across town where I wouldn’t be able to check on her as often I want. Although I drop by Tony’s every day for lunch, she has no idea how many times throughout the day I also walk by to glance in the window at her and make sure she’s okay.
I realize I’m completely fucking obsessed with her, but god help me. I can’t stop. I need to look at her a hundred times a day—at least.
My entire apartment smells of her. The scent of the rose shampoo I bought her follows her everywhere and clings to every surface. I jack off every night with her scent in my lungs and the vision of her sweet face in my mind.
And that’s just it. I don’t even have to picture her body to come. I can come just remembering her smile or her laugh. Fuck, everything about her has me ready to blow at a moment’s notice.
She’s reduced me to a goddamn animal through no fault of her own. No, she’s so damn innocent she doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing to me.
And fuck if that doesn’t make me want her even more.
She’s the light inside my darkness, the sunshine that brings warmth to my dreary world.
I mean it. Even if she never wants to be anything more than friends with me, I have to have her in my life. She’s like a drug that I’m addicted to. Every glance at her is a hit that sends a high throughout my system.