Chapter 9: Collateral Damage
524 Words
Chapter 9: Collateral Damage
(When hearts crack, someone bleeds)
The leather seats were cool against Aria’s skin, but her pulse was molten.
Damon didn’t say a word as he drove. He didn’t have to.
His hand gripped the steering wheel like he was holding back everything he wanted to say, to do, to claim.
She finally broke the silence.
“You were waiting.”
He glanced at her, slow and sharp. “I told you. You’d come back.”
Aria swallowed hard. “I didn’t go back to you. I left him.”
His knuckles flexed. “Same thing.”
They didn’t end up at his penthouse.
Instead, Damon drove them out of the city, winding through the cliffs until the ocean opened up like a secret only he knew.
The observatory stood on the edge of the world, high above the waves, glass-domed and abandoned this time of day.
He had the key. Of course he did.
“This place is off-limits,” she said, stepping into the cool, echoing silence.
“So are you,” he murmured. “Doesn’t stop me either.”
They stood beneath the stars, silent but vibrating with tension.
“I told myself I wouldn’t do this,” Aria whispered, staring through the glass ceiling. “Not again. Not so soon.”
Damon moved closer. “But you’re here.”
“And you’re not making it easier.”
“I’m not here to make it easy,” he said, brushing her hair back. “I’m here to make it real.”
She turned to face him. “You act like I’m already yours.”
He didn’t blink. “Because you are.”
The kiss came fast.
No more teasing. No more pretending she wasn’t unraveling.
Damon kissed her like he’d waited a lifetime for the taste. His hands roamed her body with reverence and hunger, mapping her curves like they were sacred.
She let herself fall.
Let herself feel.
Every touch. Every gasp. Every breathless moan.
She wasn’t thinking about Cade.
Only this.
Only now.
But across the city, Cade was thinking.
Thinking about her smile. Her laugh. Her voice.
Thinking about her walking out after he finally told her he loved her—and still choosing him.
He drank. Too much. Too fast.
He ignored every call from his agent. Every text from his brother.
Until one name flashed on his screen.
Damon Wolfe.
He didn’t answer.
But the rage lit his veins.
And the next thing he knew, Cade was outside Damon’s building—waiting.
For what, he didn’t know.
Maybe a fight. Maybe a chance. Maybe a miracle.
But what he got… was worse.
Damon’s sleek car pulled in just past midnight.
Aria stepped out first.
Her hair a mess. Her lipstick faded.
And Cade knew.
He knew.
It was done.
She was his. Damon’s.
And Cade had no one to blame but himself.
---
He punched the wall so hard his knuckles split.
Blood smeared his palm.
But it didn’t hurt nearly as much as the ache in his chest.
He’d lost her.
For real.
And this time, there was no saving the wreckage.
- Writer
