A dangerous love

CHAPTER 4

I go up the stairs as fast as my soreness allows me to. I glance behind me and there is no trace of Diego. I then find Damon on the landing in front of my bedroom door.

-“Where were you?” he asks me.

-“In the kitchen, I was putting ice on my face.”

He looks at me and I see again that tenderness I love to see in his eyes when they are on me. He places his hand on my cheek, exactly where Diego had touched me a few minutes earlier.

-“I hurt you… I’m sorry Eve. But I warned you.”

I nod.

-“I know… I’m sorry too. I failed where you never fail with me.” I say, my heart racing and butterflies in my stomach.

I love Damon. The palpitations I felt with Diego or even with Luis are absolutely not love. And yet…

Damon takes my hand and we enter my room. He places me on my bed, sits next to me, and moves a strand of my hair behind my ear. He leans in and places a line of kisses on my neck, right where a few minutes earlier he had strangled me.

I fall back slightly because the sensation is so intensely overwhelming.

-“I love your breath… I love your scent… I love your skin.” Damon whispers as he continues kissing me.

A moan escapes my lips. A little earlier I was suffering in his presence, and now everything feels so good with him.

-“I don’t understand how the police could have arrived at the scene.” he wonders.

I do not answer. I simply enjoy the moment, but I also know I have the answer. And that answer is Kyra.

Kyra and Damon know each other very briefly. They met only once while Damon and I were walking in the street. I had obviously already told her about him, but she had never seen him. Her first impression of him was very negative, but little by little, just to please me, she ended up accepting our relationship. She kept saying he was strange, that his words and actions toward me were toxic, but we always ended up arguing when the subject came up, so we stopped talking about it and she ended up accepting the relationship. As for Damon, he never bothered to get to know her or ask me questions about her.

-“I’m sorry, my love.” Damon whispers in my ear.

Lying on the bed, he settles next to me and holds me as if I were a child, as if nothing that happened tonight had ever existed.

-“I hope you forgive me.” he says one last time before falling asleep.

-“Yes… I forgive you Damon. I love you.”

The next morning, my hand touches the other side of the bed, completely empty. I get up, and the pain in my neck and face reminds me of what happened the night before. I sit against the wall and check my phone. As I scroll through the group chat of escorts used during mafia parties that I had joined earlier, I notice that a new party is going to be organized at Luis’ place again, this time behind closed doors at the end of the week, and only people with invitations will be allowed.

A soft smell of coffee reaches my nose. The silence of the house suggests it is empty, yet the creak of the door handle makes a familiar screeching sound. Then the door opens and I see him. Shock. I jump out of bed and shout at him.

-“What are you doing here?! Damon could see you!” I yell at the top of my lungs.

My heart starts racing wildly. I can feel it pounding in my temples. Stress. Anxiety.

Diego is standing there in front of me, holding a tray.

He looks at me without saying a word, then closes the door and walks in as if everything is normal. He sits on my bed, the same place where Damon was the night before.

-“Sit down.” he says in a soft voice that does not suit him.

My breathing becomes uneven. His gentle, caring gaze feels unusual. I open the window. I feel like I am suffocating even though the air is clear. The wind brushes against my skin.

-“Damon isn’t here, he went out.”

That smell of coffee brushes against my nose again. I slowly move toward him, as if everything happening might be a trap. And yet, when I sit next to him, I see something new in his eyes… softness. Nothing like the perverse look I used to see in him before.

-“Diego… what are you doing here? Why did you bring me breakfast? What is wrong with you?”

-“I heard your screams yesterday when Damon was hitting you. You know this is not love,” he says softly, as if he knows it might hurt me.

The blows, the screams… I remember all those painful moments I lived with him. And yet my heart still beats when I look at him.

My skin shivers when he touches me, and my stomach tightens when he kisses me. It can only be love. And I owe him everything.

-“You know very well that without Damon I might not even be alive right now to talk to you.”

- “You suffered in the past… but do you still deserve to suffer?”

- “Shut up Diego, you know nothing.”

Without saying a word, he looks at me… no, he studies me. What we were doing was forbidden, we both knew it. And even if my heart did not race the way it does with Damon, I strangely felt good next to Diego. That unusual softness filled something inside me, a void I had always wanted to feel filled.

The contact of his skin on mine, the softness of each of his gestures. My eyes close under this feeling of calm. My heart does not race, my breathing does not break, and no tears fall from my eyes. Just his hand on my cheek and this moment of stillness… something I had never fully felt with Damon. Something my heart still refused to let go of.

A sound of footsteps is heard. It gets closer and closer. I look at Diego. He freezes, his eyes scanning the room before stopping on my wardrobe. He quickly gets up and hides inside.

I follow him and close the door, just as the door of my bedroom opens at the same time.

He is there, standing in front of me, smiling.

I walk toward him and place my hand on his face.

- “Did you sleep well? I thought I would find you when you woke up.”

-“I wanted to bring you a gift to apologize for yesterday,” Damon replies before suddenly freezing.

His gaze falls on the tray Diego had brought me. The room feels like it is spinning.

-“You brought breakfast to your room… that doesn’t look like you.” Damon asks, intrigued.

- “I didn’t want to run into anyone today, so I thought I’d just eat here and wait for you.” I answer with a forced smile.

He nods, apparently convinced, and I manage to breathe normally again.

His gaze falls back on me. Desire appears in his eyes. He slowly leans toward me, and I feel his lips almost brush mine.

But strangely… I feel nothing.

I see him raise an eyebrow.