Damian Read online

  “My dad’s from Iowa. He was on an annual company convention here in San Francisco, and for one of the company’s team development events, there was a wine and clay event at the pottery studio where my mom taught. My mom was one of the instructors that night, and according to my dad, it was love at first sight. My mom said that she only agreed to have dinner with my dad the next day because she took pity in him. Apparently, he was such a disaster on the wheel that he got more wet clay on his clothes and face than on his finished product.” I laughed at the story because my parents always laughed and teased each other when they told it. Tears began to well up in my eyes. “They were amazing together, and their love was infectious. Everyone who saw them together knew that they belonged together. And when I think back to all the distant memories I have of them, their love for one another was one of my most poignant of those memories.”

  “They sound like they were great parents,” he said softly.

  “They were the best,” I agreed. I quickly wiped my eyes and looked up at him. I felt a connection with him, so strong that I knew it was undeniable. A part of me wanted him to pull me into his arms and hold me. But if he did, I would never want him to let me go.

  Then I immediately shook the thought out of my head. Who was I kidding?

  “Anyway,” I said as my attention turned back to the photo in my hands, “this picture was taken when I was eight. It was the first time I was in front of a pottery wheel and my mom was teaching me how to center the clay onto the wheel. You know I always wondered what I was learning to make in that picture and whether it was one of the many pottery pieces I still have.”

  Damian moved closer toward me to look at the photo again from over my shoulder. “Center the clay?”

  “Yeah, that’s the first thing you have to learn to do on a pottery wheel. Making sure your clay is completely centered on the wheel while it’s spinning. It’s probably one of the most important things to master.” I looked at the photo and laughed as the memories of that day came back to me. “I was awful at it.”

  “I’m sure you were perfect,” Damian said encouraging.

  “I guess you of all people know what it’s like to be perfect,” I joked, trying to change the mood of the conversation.

  “Damn straight. Perfect is my middle name,” he said with a laugh. Then his face became more serious. “Hey,” he began, his voice surprisingly gentle.

  “Yes?” I asked hopefully. At that moment, our faces were only a few inches away from one another, and I wondered if he was about to kiss me.

  “Thanks for sharing that story with me,” he said almost in a whisper. “I don’t usually hang out with girls like this.”

  I smiled at him, unsure how to respond. I didn’t want to read too much into his words. I thought there was something special in this moment between us, but the mention of the other girls and my flashback to the gorgeous blonde he was with just the other night quickly brought me back to down reality. I wondered how many girls there were in this man’s life. I wondered if he was like this to all of them. He had warned me earlier that he wasn’t a sweet guy.

  Stop thinking too much, I told myself.

  “Yeah, well… So this is one of my favorite photos of me and my mom,” I said as I placed the photo back on the dresser.

  “Do you still do any pottery?”

  “Yeah, I do. Pottery reminds me of her.” I took one last look at the photo.

  “Do you have a studio?” He looked around my nearly empty apartment.

  “Yeah, I found a pottery studio close by that I can work out of. I actually get to teach every Saturday there, so it’ll be a nice change to a work week at a desk job.”

  “Nice. Maybe you can teach me a few things one of these days,” he said with a suggestive wink.

  “As long as it’s just pottery,” I rolled my eyes.

  He laughed. “You’re no fun.”

  “And you’re all about pure fun,” I threw back at him.

  “Fun’s my middle name.”

  “I thought it was ‘perfect’?” I challenged.

  He chuckled. “I have many middle names.”

  “Of course you do,” I said sarcastically.

  “Oh, by the way, you left this box at the bar when Roger came to unlock your door.” He picked up the Amazon box from beside my front door.

  “Oh! Thanks! I didn’t even see you bring that in.” I took the box from him.

  “What did you get? Pottery stuff?”

  “No, they’re just some books I bought on Amazon recently.”

  “Oh? What do you like reading?”

  “You read?” The second the words came out, I immediately realized how presumptuous and rude that must have sounded.

  To my surprise, Damian laughed. “Well, okay, not really,” he said sheepishly. “So what did you get?” He nodded toward the box.

  “I got some travel books.” I excitedly opened the box.

  “Well, that’s different,” he said in surprise.

  I smiled as I took from the box Lonely Planet guidebooks for Thailand, Peru, and Italy.

  Damian glanced at the books and then gave me a curious look. “Are you about to go on some around-the-world trip?”

  I giggled and realized how different and how far each of these countries were from one another. “No. I actually have no upcoming plans to travel at all. I don’t have enough money for that right now.”

  “You’re not? So…” His voice trailed off as he motioned at the guidebooks.

  “No. I got these travel guides because these are three of the countries I’d like to visit eventually.”

  “Okay…” I could tell he didn’t understand what I was thinking.

  “I have a question for you,” I began. I knew it was unconventional to buy travel guides for places I had no current plans to visit. I knew I owed him some sort of explanation before he thought I was nuts.

  “Shoot.”

  “If you had all the money in the world, what would you do?” I studied him to see how he’d react.

  “I would pay off some debt and buy this building from Roger so I wouldn’t have to pay rent and lease my bar space,” he responded.

  I shook my head. “No, I mean, if money wasn’t an issue, if you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? The question really doesn’t have anything to do with money or finances. I’m asking what you would do that would make you happy—what would you do with all your free time if you didn’t have to worry about money and everything that comes along with money, like working, bills, and responsibilities?”

  “Oh,” he said and paused to think about my question. He then looked at me. “What would you do?”

  “Well, up until a few months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But recently I realized that I hadn’t been really living my life the way I wanted. I have read about all these amazing places and pictured them in my head, but I really didn’t know anything about them. I have lived in Iowa almost my entire life, and while I have read so much about the world around me, I’ve never actually experienced any of it for myself. So if I had all the money in the world, I’d travel.”

  “Yeah. I’d love to eventually travel more as well,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Have you traveled anywhere?”

  He shook his head. “Not really, unless you count visiting Vancouver, Canada, which is less than three hours north of Seattle.”

  “Ah. I heard Canada is beautiful. It’s on my bucket list too.”

  “Your bucket list?”

  “Yeah. I made a long bucket list recently of all the things I want to do in my life.”

  “What else is on there?”

  “Well, my main thing on there is that I want to visit all seven continents before I turned thirty, which is why I got the travel guides. I thought they would help motivate me to save money for these trips.”

  “Oh wow. That’s an ambitious goal.”

  I laughed. “I know. But I still have seven years.”

  “So a con
tinent a year?”

  “Well if you put it that way, then yes, something like that.”

  “Oh shit!” he said suddenly as he looked at his iPhone.

  “What?”

  “I need to get back to the bar. My other bartender is almost done with his shift, so I need to cover tonight.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I felt a mixture of disappointment and relief.

  I walked Damian to the door, and as he walked into the hallway, he turned around at the doorframe and looked back at me.

  “You know what?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “There’s something about you, Alexis,” he said as his rich blue eyes bore into mine. “Hang out with me sometime this week.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. He said it as if he knew what my answer would be.

  “Can I ask you something?” I asked back.

  “Shoot,” he said coolly.

  “Are you asking me out on a date or are you just having some fun?” I was surprised by my own boldness.

  He was silent for a brief moment before he answered, “Alexis. I think you’re really cool.” He then paused.

  I sensed a but.

  I was right.

  “But I want to be perfectly honest with you. I’m not looking for a relationship. I don’t do commitments. I’ve never been that type of guy. I never will.”

  His answer felt like a punch in the stomach and it left me gasping for air. As much as I had expected this answer, I knew deep down I had hoped that maybe there was something special here, that maybe for me he’d make an exception, and that maybe I was special. But I’d been wrong.

  “Damian, I think there’s something about you too,” I said, echoing his words. “And I think you’re really cool too.”

  “I hear a but coming,” he said.

  “But—”

  “And there it is,” he said. I caught a look of disappointment flash across his face.

  I looked at him solemnly and wanted to laugh at how in sync we were but couldn’t. I wished things were different—that either he would be interested in a relationship or I would be okay with being one of his many casual female friends. But things were not different. I knew that I could get hurt if I put myself in that situation. I wanted something real, something deep, something meaningful.

  “I’m just not that kind of girl.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said.

  “Thanks for keeping me company, Damian. And for the sushi lesson,” I said with a meek smile.

  “Any time. You take care of yourself, Alexis. Don’t be a stranger.”

  And with that, he was gone. And I felt overcome with a sense of loss as the first thing that had made me happy and comfortable since I moved to this new city had just walked away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Damian

  SOMETHING SOFT, WET, AND HUNGRY around my morning wood woke me up. I groaned and involuntarily moved my pelvis up to meet the warm wetness. Not a bad wake-up call, but how did she end up spending the night?

  I yawned and forced my eyes open, turning to my left toward my bedside table. It was 10:20 a.m. Vague memories of last night started coming back to me. It had been another crazy Friday night at Damian’s, and there had been a group of hot girls having a bachelorette party at the bar. I had ended up taking a series of shots with them after a number of them order a round of shots off my body, which was what Damian’s was infamous for. The rest of the night was a drunken blur. All I remembered was having two of the girls from that group over to my apartment for a little night cap, having a bit of fun, and passing out.

  “Good morning.” A naked brunette grinned up at me as her mouth left my fully erect cock. She began to trace my lower abs with her lips, moving up toward my face.

  “Morning,” I mumbled groggily. “Hey, baby, why don’t you stay down there for a few and get rid of my morning wood for me?” I suggested, but we both knew it wasn’t a question. It was an order.

  She looked up at me from below, her lust-filled eyes peeking through her long curls that covered my lower region. Then my cock disappeared into her mouth again. I groaned in pleasure as her tongue moved purposefully along the side of my shaft and she took me deep inside her mouth.

  Then I noticed that, on the right side of me, a naked blonde was waking up.

  “God, I’m horny,” she purred as she enviously watched the brunette going down on me. She traced her fingers up and down my chest as she started to suck on my ear. She began to whimper as I fondled her right breast with my hand and circled my finger around her nipple.

  I groaned and grinned wide as the brunette moved up and down my cock like a champ. She hummed and moaned as she gained momentum, and the vibration against my shaft pushed me closer towards the edge. I love a girl who knows how to give good head. I grabbed a fistful of her hair with my free hand and moved her mouth, forcing myself deeper inside her as I increased the speed and depth of her movements. Once she began to move at a desired pace without my encouragement, I let go of her hair and allowed her to do the work.

  After a few minutes, I was close to my climax. But to my annoyance, the brunette slowed her speed and then stopped.

  “What the fuck.” I looked down at her. “Keep going,” I demanded.

  “My turn,” the blonde begged.

  Ignoring her friend, the brunette smiled up at me, her eyes glazed with pleasure as her hands fondled my balls. “Or I could ride you?” she offered. “You’ve got me so wet from tasting you. I want to ride you hard.”

  For some reason, I thought about it for a split second.

  “Sure. Saddle up baby. As long as I don’t have to do a thing, do whatever you want. Oh, and use a condom.”

  She obeyed and straddled on top of me, riding my cock like she was competing in a rodeo. Her large breasts bounced as loud yelps and whimpers escaped her lips each time her pussy took me in deeper.

  Then I saw the blonde move towards her friend and they began to kiss each other passionately as they eyed me. As the blonde started massaging her friend’s breasts with her hands, the brunette moved her hand down her friend’s body and glided her index and middle fingers in and out of the blonde’s wetness, synchronizing her thrusts with my cock’s movements. Both girls began to gasp and moan in pleasure as the brunette rode me deeper and faster.

  I closed my eyes again to focus on my own pleasure. But within seconds, instead of sinking into the simple pleasure of a typical morning fuck session, I found my thoughts drifting back to the dream I’d been having before this brunette woke me up.

  It was about Alexis.

  Despite all my efforts to keep my distance from her, she had been a reoccurring part of my dreams ever since the day she locked herself out of her apartment. It had been two weeks since Alexis had refused to hang out with me, and since then, I had been avoiding her. I was pretty sure she had been avoiding me as well. She hadn’t stopped by the bar since that night we had sushi. I knew a part of me had been looking out for her, waiting for her to stop in for a drink to see me. But each time I spotted a brunette coming into the bar from the corner of my eyes, I had glanced towards the door and felt a wave a disappointment when I realized it wasn’t her.

  In the last two weeks, I had tried my best to keep my mind and my cock from thinking of her. I had been fucking more women more often. I hadn’t known that was even possible with my busy schedule as it was, but I had made it happen. I would fuck these nameless girls several times throughout the night before kicking them out in the morning after another round in bed or in the shower. I would fucked them hard—not the soft, romantic shit, but the hard, dirty sex you saw in XXX porn videos.

  But to be honest, I was exhausted—sex had started to feel like a part-time job—and I was bored. The rush I normally felt after an all-night fuck session wasn’t as exciting. The highs were not as high as before.

  I didn’t know why, but every part of me wanted to see her again. It was like a thirst that couldn’t be quenched by anyone but her. And I was fucking parched
. Even in the short time I had spent with her, I felt as if she’d opened a door inside me that I hadn’t known existed. I knew she was different. She had something to say, she had opinions of her own, and she wasn’t afraid to share them. Plus, she was a challenge. She was able to say no to me even though I was confident that I had the same irresistible effect on her as I had on every women I’d ever met. She hadn’t given in to me, and that didn’t sit right with me. In fact, I had been feeling frustrated since the last time I saw her, and the frustration seemed to build without any signs of release. I knew deep down that the frustration would continue to be pent up inside me until I had my closure with her.

  I felt the hardness of my cock intensify and knew it had nothing to do with the talents of this brunette’s pussy working overtime on my crown jewels or the image of the brunette finger-banging her friend in front of me. At that moment, it was as if a light switch had flicked on inside me. I knew what I wanted, I knew who I wanted, and it wasn’t either of these girls.

  I wanted Alexis. I wanted to fuck her. Hard. I wanted her to desire me more than any woman had ever desired me before. I wanted her to be the one riding my cock like it was the rodeo.

  Finally, I opened my eyes and shifted as I nudged for the brunette to stop. “Just stop,” I said flatly with no explanation.

  Both girls stopped and looked at me in confusion. They then looked at each other, their expressions changed from pleasure to disappointment.

  “What happened last night?” I asked, ignoring their shell-shocked looks. I buried my face in my hands and rubbed my temples. Fucking hangover.

  There were a few moments of silence before the blonde finally spoke. “Uh. You invited us up here for some fun and you fucked us both several times. You were pretty fucking unbelievable.” There was an expression of awe on her face. The brunette nodded in agreement as she bit her lip and eyed my still-hard cock.

  “Sounds about right.” Shit, I need some coffee. “Well, thanks for the fuck. Do you girls need me to call you a cab or something?”

  The girls looked at one another again, as if trying to decide what to do next.