The Man Behind the Monster
643 Words
Isabella got into the car.
She hated herself a little for it.
Not because she was afraid of Damian.
Because she wasn’t afraid enough.
The inside of the car smelled like leather, smoke, and his cologne—dark and expensive and entirely too distracting. Rain streaked across the windows as Damian slid into the driver’s seat beside her.
Neither spoke immediately.
The silence between them had become something alive.
Dangerous. Intimate.
Damian loosened the collar of his black shirt slightly before starting the engine.
“Where are we going?” Isabella asked quietly.
“To eat.”
She blinked. “That’s it?”
His mouth curved faintly.
“You seem disappointed.”
“I’m suspicious.”
“You should be.”
The car pulled smoothly out of the garage and into the rain-covered streets.
City lights blurred around them while soft music played quietly through the speakers. Isabella watched Damian from the corner of her eye as he drove.
Everything about him looked controlled.
One hand on the wheel. Sharp jaw tense. Dark eyes focused ahead.
But she was beginning to recognize the cracks beneath the surface.
The exhaustion. The possessiveness. The loneliness.
“Do you ever relax?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She studied him carefully. “That sounds miserable.”
“It is.”
The honesty surprised her.
Damian glanced at her briefly before looking back at the road.
“You think I enjoy being like this?”
“Obsessive?”
A quiet pause.
“Yes.”
She hesitated before answering. “I think you don’t know how to stop.”
His fingers tightened slightly against the steering wheel.
“That too.”
Rain hammered softly against the windshield.
After several moments, Damian spoke again.
“My mother used to say I was born angry.”
Isabella looked at him in surprise.
“You talk about her like she’s gone.”
“She is.”
Something in his voice warned her to tread carefully.
Still—
“What happened?”
For a moment, Damian said nothing.
Then quietly—
“She overdosed when I was twelve.”
Her breath caught softly.
“Oh.”
“She hated my father.” His expression hardened slightly. “Most intelligent people did.”
The bitterness beneath the words was sharp enough to cut.
“Were you close with her?”
Damian stared ahead silently for so long she thought he might not answer.
“She was the only person who ever touched me gently as a child.”
The confession shattered something inside her.
Suddenly pieces of him made terrible sense.
The control. The violence beneath the calm. The hunger for possession.
People built from pain often mistook obsession for love because obsession felt safer than abandonment.
And Damian had clearly been abandoned long before his mother died.
“You loved her,” Isabella whispered.
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
The single word carried years of grief.
Without thinking, Isabella reached across the center console and touched his hand lightly.
Damian froze instantly.
Not because he disliked it.
Because he felt it too much.
Slowly, his eyes lifted to hers.
The emotion in them nearly stole her breath.
Nobody had ever looked at her like touch alone could save them.
“You need to stop doing that,” he murmured roughly.
“What?”
“Being soft with me.”
Her brows pulled together. “Why?”
A dark smile touched his mouth.
“Because it makes me imagine impossible things.”
Heat curled through her chest.
“What kind of things?”
Damian held her gaze for a long moment before answering.
“The kind that end with me keeping you forever.”
The intensity of his voice sent a dangerous shiver down her spine.
He wasn’t joking.
Not even a little.
- Writer
