Chapter 114

The Unwanted Bride Of Atticus Fawn Chapter 114 Book 2 Chapter 37 ~CLARISSA~

I walk out of the living room and into the hallway. He’s already walking in my direction when he spots me. He looks hesitant, and his steps slow down as he nears me. I can see the thoughts racing in his mind as though it’s on a screen in front of me. His hands tighten into fists and he’s ready fighting for control.

I know what he’s thinking. I know his concern for me is the only reason he showed up even after knowing it would be only the two of us in the house. He had to confirm that I was okay even though he knew there was a high possibility I lied about being sick. That was how much Damon cared about me.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed resting?” he asks suspiciously as he neared me. His steps are still very slow. He wants to keep as much distance between us as possible.

“No,” I answer him. “I’m feeling better. Well enough to be out of my bed.”

He nods as his eyes travel to my exposed stomach. Can he tell that I’ve been preparing for him? His body tenses and I think it’s possible that I was right; he could tell that I had been getting my body ready just for him to see it. He knows now that I was up to something he wouldn’t like.

He exhaled loudly and took a look behind him. I think he’s looking for all of his escape routes.

“I’m going to my room then.” He tells me. “I’m glad that you’re feeling better. If you need anything, you can call me, don’t come to my room.”

My jaw clenches at his words, but I quickly mask my reaction. I couldn’t make him any more suspicious than he already was.

I couldn’t let him leave like this. I had to act fast.

I held my head to pretend that I was getting a headache. “Ow.”

It was the fastest thing I could think of doing to get him to stay. He turns back around at the sound. I didn’t get to see his reaction, but I heard his sharp intake of breath.

He immediately rushed to my side. It’s crazy how quickly he always jumps to protect me. He was someone I could always count on to come to my rescue.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he lightly touched my forehead.

“I feel dizzy,” I whisper—another lie. I can’t seem to stop lying to him recently just to get some time alone with him.

I begin to sway on my feet, and Damon wastes no time picking me up into his arms. He walks with me back into the living room and places me on the couch. I was happy to be this near him again. Damon doesn’t realize how much I need his closeness. It’s almost like his body heat feeds my energy. I’m always the happiest around him.

He kneels on the ground and studies me with concern. I’d managed to scare him and convince him all at once.

“Should I call you a doctor?” He asks. I can sense his panic. I didn’t want him to worry about me when nothing was wrong. I just wanted an excuse to make him stay. It had worked, so now was my time to act.

I lean into him and bury my face against his neck. He stops all movement at my actions. It felt so good to be this close to him. I can’t resist as I turn my face so that I can easily inhale his scent. He freezes even more than before as his hands lightly grip my waist.

“Clarissa.” He whispers. “What are you doing?”

“Why do you always smell so good?” I ask.

He sighs, “did you lie to me about feeling dizzy? Was this another one of your tricks to get closer to me?”

I don’t answer him. Instead, I wrap my arms around his neck and held on tightly. He gently moves his hands to my arms, “Clarissa, did you lie to me?” He repeats.

Of course, I did. It was obvious. I didn’t have to spell it out to him.

“Does it matter?” I whisper against his warm skin. My lips accidentally touched his neck while I spoke, and I could feel his body shiver from the light touch. My heart skipped a beat at just the thought of being able to kiss him again. I desperately wanted to touch my lips to his. I desperately wanted to taste him some more.

“It does matter.” He growls. “We’ve talked about this already. Atticus already suspects us, and so does Anya. We can’t keep this up. It’s time that you move on. There’s nothing between us, Clarissa. The sooner you realize that, the faster we can move on with our lives.”

I shook my head against him, “no.” I say stubbornly. “I don’t want to let go of you. I refuse to stop fighting for us. You can try to lie to yourself about your feelings, but you can’t lie to me. I know that you want me just as badly as I want you. I’m tired of doing all of the fighting for us. Why can’t you do the same? If we both fight, don’t you think we have a better chance of being together?”

I can feel his heartbeat increase at my words, “you’re wrong.” He mutters softly. “I don’t want you. I never did.”

“I don’t believe you.” I insist. “You’ve lied to me before just to get me to stop going after you. You lied to me to protect me, and you’re still doing it. I don’t care what you say; I know you want me.”

He inhales sharply. I can feel his composure slipping away. It was almost time to show him the tattoo.

“You’re my f*****g adopted sister.” He growls. “I’m supposed to protect you, not f*****g l**t after you!”

My eyes widen, “was that just a confession?”

He runs a hand down his face and tries to pull away from me, but I don’t let him go anywhere. I’m not letting him get away that easily tonight.

I can feel him losing control. I knew Damon well enough to know when he was losing an inner battle. He was becoming desperate to escape before he did something that would change our lives for good.

“Please,” he begs. “I need you to let go of me. Not for me. But for your own good. You need to let go of me, Clarissa. Stop this before it’s too late.”

I pull away from him to look into his eyes. “Why do you keep pushing me away? You’ve never been a coward. You’ve always been a fighter. You’ve always been the Damon that has always been my hero, he was never someone that chose the easier way out. He was always someone that fought for what he believed in. He was always someone that fought for my happiness. Right now, you’re doing the opposite. You’re fighting for the wrong things. You’re fighting for something that would take all my happiness away.”

I can tell he’s in emotional distress by the look on his face. I know that my words have finally caught up to him. But I also know that it isn’t going to be this easy. Even if Damon was aware of what he was doing to me, he was still convinced that he was doing the right thing. I had to find a way to prove to him that he was doing the opposite of what needed to be done.

He gently cups my cheeks in his hands, and my eyes widen at the contact. It always feels so much better when he willingly touches me first. Damon was always cautious when touching me, and this was no exception.

“I know that you think I’m trying to hurt you. I know that you think I’m not the same as I was before. I know that I’m disappointing you. And I hate doing it to you; you have no idea how much I f*****g hate it. But Clarissa, there is no other way.” He whispers.

I bite my lip angrily. There is always another way. I just had to point him in that direction.

I pull away from him. I stood up to be right before him, giving him a good view of my body. He might think he was finally getting through to me, but he was about to get a rude awakening.

“I wish you would at least try,” I whisper, fighting back the tears. “When your family adopted me, I never wanted to stay, Damon. I considered running away so many times, but you’re the only reason why I stayed. You’re the reason I chose to remain. You were my shining light. You were the one that made everything better for me, and not because I thought of you as my brother. My feelings for you have always been different. What I feel for Atticus and the others is so different from what I feel for you. Nothing, and no one is ever going to change that.”

“Clarissa, I know you think that way, but I’m sure you don’t understand what you truly feel.” He tries to reason with me.

“You’re wrong.” I insist. “You have no idea what I feel for you. Maybe my words aren’t getting through to you, but I have something that might prove how much you mean to me. Just how much you’ve always meant to me. This isn’t some stupid crush that I developed out of nowhere. What I feel for you is strong and so real that it hurts.”

His jaw clenches, and his gaze softens.

I move my hands to the front of my jeans. His eyes follow my movements. I see the moment realization hits his eyes. He knows now that I’m trying to take it off.

“What are you doing?” He asks, his voice was high-pitched. He sees my hands, but he doesn’t want to believe that I would do something like that. He’s in denial, and I’m not allowing him to recover. He has to see his name on my skin. He has to see how beautiful it looks on me and how proudly I wear it. If things were different, I would have happily shown it off. Unfortunately, I’d had no choice but to hide it.

“Clarissa!” Damon hissed. “What are you doing?”

I don’t stop unbuttoning my jeans. He had to know how I truly felt about him, and this was the best way for me to show it to him.

“Stop that.” He growls.

I don’t listen to him. Instead, I continued to slip the pants down my legs until it was at my feet. Then I slowly turned around so he could have a nice view of my a*s.

I knew the moment he’d seen what I’d wanted him to. There was a sharp intake of breath, and even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew I had the effect I wanted on him.

I heard his breathing get louder and felt satisfied. This was what I wanted. This was what I needed to do so long ago.

I knew that he could see the tattoo of his name on the exposed skin. It’s been hard hiding it all this time. Whenever we went swimming, in a pool, or on the beach, I wore clothes to hide them. He’s the first person besides the tattoo artist and Autumn to see it. To really see it. To know whose name was written on my skin.

My body is filled with a sudden heat knowing that he was watching me, watching it. The person responsible for it to begin with finally knew of its existence.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

All the air is suddenly knocked out of my lungs at the sight in front of me. And it was a damn beautiful one. I can’t look away even if I want to. My eyes are glued to the spot Clarissa’s so eager to show to me.

A tattoo of my f*****g name. All along, that damn tattoo has haunted me. Every f*****g day since I found out that she’d gotten a tattoo on her a*s, I haven’t been able to sleep because of it. I’ve never been so desperate and curious to find out something before this. Now I knew what the tattoo was. I knew it wasn’t a tattoo of some random guy she liked. It was a tattoo of my f*****g name. Mine. I’ve been killing myself over this, and this whole time, it was my name.

Damon. It was drawn beautifully on her skin. I didn’t think my name could look so beautiful, but I was proven wrong today. I’ve never f*****g loved my name as much as I love it now. I was proud to see it on her. So f*****g proud that I felt sick to my stomach to know that something like this could make me this happy. I was a sick bastard for loving this. I was a sick bastard for even entertaining anything with her knowing that I had to protect her and keep her safe from men like me.

What the f**k was she thinking?

MY f*****g NAME.

How did she not see how wrong this was?

I know it’s wrong, but still, I’ve never seen anything more f*****g sexy in my entire existence.

I wanted to run my fingers over it. I wanted to trace the letters with my tongue. I wanted to sink my teeth into it and add my own personal mark.

So many dirty thoughts were running through my head. I knew how wrong it was. I knew I had to stop this before I lost my damn mind. I was losing control.

I had no clue how I was still standing here with a dumb look on my face and not covering her a*s with my face.

She wasn’t moving back around. She was intentionally standing there, giving me enough time to take in the ink on her skin. f**k me.

She knew what she was doing. She knew how to tease me, how to make me yearn for her. She was f*****g good at it.

Since when has Clarissa been this seductive? Has she always been this way? If she’d acted this way with me from the beginning, I wouldn’t have been able to last this long. She might as well have tied a chain around my neck and dragged me along. I would have been hers in a second.

A tattoo of my name. Damn it.

My eyes are still glued to the damn thing. It’s like a spell on it, begging me to touch it.

How did she manage to hide this for so long? How has no one else seen it yet?

“Should I start showing it off proudly from now on?” She threatens me. “Should I go to the beach tomorrow and let everyone have a good look at it? I’m sure that will stir up plenty of drama; you’ll have no choice but to postpone the wedding.” She says.

“Everyone will be talking about Damon’s little adopted sister and how she’s obsessed with him and has a tattoo of his name on her a*s. My name will be all over those magazines, and pictures of your name on my a*s will be on everyone’s phone. I’m sure it will be a lovely topic on everyone’s lips.”

A low growl tore from the back of my throat. I didn’t want anyone to see that tattoo; it should be for my eyes only. Mine. Mine alone.

I cross the room to her and grab her. I feel her shiver as I lean closer to her ear. “Are you insane? You wouldn’t dare put your life in danger like that!” I growl. “You’ll keep it hidden as you’ve done in the past. Don’t you dare show that part of yourself to anyone else but me!”

“How will my life be in danger?” She demands. “The only danger I see is losing you.”

She finally turned around in my arms to look into my eyes. My hands are itching to grab her a*s and pull her body onto mine.

“I don’t want to lose this.” She whispers. “No one else makes me feel this way, Damon. My body is hot for you. I’ve never wanted any other man in my entire life. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. The only man that has ever made me feel like I needed him by my side to breathe.”

“Stop it,” I growl. “Stop saying things like that to me.”

I was closer than ever to ripping the rest of her clothes off her body and burying my lips on her skin.

“I ache for you, Damon.” She whimpers.

Ah, f**k. If she kept this up, I would f*****g lose it in my pants.

“I wish you would stop pushing me away.” She cries. “I wish you would finally give into what we both need.”

I wish it were that easy. I wish I could pick her up into my arms and announce to the whole world that she was mine. I wish I could take her into my room and f**k her as hard as I wanted.

She closed the little distance between us, and I knew she could feel how f*****g hard I was for her right now. Forget feeling it; I knew she could see it as well. The bulge in my pants wasn’t exactly hard to notice.

She rubs her nose along my neck, and I can’t help but groan.

She was killing me.

I couldn’t f*****g take this anymore. I had to have her. I had to taste her. I had to spread her legs and bury my tongue inside her honey. I couldn’t wait anymore.

The front door slams shut, and her eyes widen in surprise.

They were back already. Our family was home.

f**k. f**k. f**k.

I pick her up and pull her behind the thick curtains with me.

I can hear footsteps as I cover her mouth with my hand to prevent her from making any noises that could alert them of where we are.

We’re so close that I knew she could still feel me between her legs.

What the f**k was I thinking? I almost destroyed everything I was working so hard for.

If they hadn’t reached home, Clarissa’s plan would have worked. I would have taken everything from her, and then I wouldn’t have been able to turn back.

I close my eyes in frustration. What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I have no control around her?

I almost ruined everything for her.

When the footsteps leave the room, I quickly move away from her. I had to put distance between us as fast as possible. I quickly pull her pants back up her body and button them. When everything was how it should be, I quickly storm out of the room.

“Damon!” She calls after me.

I don’t listen to her.

This couldn’t happen again. There were only a few days before the wedding. I had to have some control, at least until then.