Three Days

CHAPTER FIVE

POV: Damon

He should have lied better.

That was his first thought as the words left his mouth. Clean, damning, irreversible. He should have kept his face neutral, deflected with calm questions, and buried the truth so deep she would have started doubting herself. But the moment he looked at her in the firelight, yellow hoodie slipping off one shoulder, hair loose and wild from running her hands through it in frustration, the lie simply died.

“Damon.” Her voice was quiet. Dangerously so. “Say something.”

“Where is this coming from?”

“Answer the question.”

“Zara—”

“Was there a fumigation or not?”

He turned away from her, one hand braced against the stone mantle as he stared into the flames. The heat licked at his palm, but it was nothing compared to the burn in his chest. “No,” he said finally. “There wasn’t.”

The silence behind him was total. He heard her inhale sharply, then the slow, controlled exhale of someone fighting to stay composed.

“So you lied.”

“Yes.”

“To Marcus.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He turned around. Zara sat perfectly still on the couch, phone face down on her knee, eyes locked on him with that piercing certainty that had always undone him. She looked young, vulnerable, and impossibly resolute.

“Because Marcus would’ve asked questions,” he said.

“About what?”

“About why I wanted to come here so badly.”

“And why did you want to come?”

He met her gaze fully. The fire crackled between them as he took in the soft curve of her lips, the way the hoodie clung to her breasts, the bare legs tucked beneath her. “Your birthday,” he started, but stopped. He moved to the armchair across from her and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s not really about your birthday.”

She waited. She had always been good at waiting, letting silence stretch until it confessed on its own.

“Two months ago,” he continued, voice low. “Marcus’s birthday party. You were there in that green dress. The one that hugged every curve and stopped just above your knees. You were laughing at something, some stupid joke, and the way the light hit your face… I couldn’t stop looking. I realized I’d been not looking at you on purpose for years. Avoiding it. Burying it.”

Zara’s breath hitched, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I told myself this weekend was nothing. Just snow, just friends, just normal. Then Marcus left, the storm hit, and here we are. And I don’t know what the fuck to do with any of this anymore, Zara.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “You have a girlfriend.”

“Yes.”

“I have a boyfriend.”

“Yes.”

“Marcus is your best friend. He’s my brother.”

“I know every single reason why this is wrong,” he said, jaw tight. “I’ve repeated them to myself a thousand times.”

She stood slowly. For a heartbeat he thought she would walk out. Instead she stopped in the center of the room and turned back to him.

“Two months,” she whispered. “The green dress. I noticed you noticing me that night. I told myself it was my imagination. That I was projecting.”

“You weren’t.”

Her expression shifted,fear, hunger, and something raw and electric beneath it. “I have been so careful,” she said, voice trembling slightly. “For so long. Exhaustingly careful not to let myself feel this. And we cannot do this, Damon. Marcus would never forgive us. Ryan is good. Camille is good. We’re not blowing up everything.”

“I know, Zara.”

“So we’re not doing anything.” Her eyes held his, fierce and pleading. “Say it.”

“We’re not doing anything,” he echoed.

She nodded once, swallowed hard, and went upstairs.

He stayed in the armchair until the fire burned down to glowing embers, then to ash.

At 2:07AM, his bedroom door opened.

Damon hadn’t slept. Every creak in the old cabin had kept him alert, every gust of wind outside reminding him of the isolation. The soft footsteps in the hallway made his pulse spike. The pause outside his door lasted an eternity. Then the handle turned.

Zara stood in the doorway wearing only the yellow hoodie, the hem brushing the tops of her bare thighs. Moonlight from the window painted silver across her skin. She looked at him, and he looked back. No words.

She stepped inside and closed the door with a quiet click. The room felt smaller, the air thicker. She crossed to the bed and sat on the edge, close enough that her thigh pressed against his hip through the thin sheet. Heat radiated from her body.

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered.

“Me neither.”

The silence stretched, heavy with everything they had promised not to do. Then her hand found his in the dark. Fingers laced slowly, deliberately, giving him every chance to pull away. He didn’t. Instead he closed his hand around hers and tugged gently. She exhaled a long, shaky breath, as if she’d been holding it for months.

“Damon…” Her voice was barely audible.

He brought their joined hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, then turned her wrist and pressed his lips to the racing pulse there. She shivered. He did it again, slower, letting his tongue taste her skin.

“We said we weren’t—” she started, but her words dissolved into a soft gasp as he pulled her closer. Their foreheads touched. Her breathing was ragged, warm against his lips.

“Why aren’t you stopping?” he murmured, voice rough.

“Why aren’t you?”

Their mouths met in a kiss that started desperate and turned devastating. Months, years of suppressed want exploded between them. Her lips were soft, urgent, parting for him instantly. He tasted her, tongue sliding against hers as she moaned into his mouth. His hands slid under the hoodie, finding nothing underneath. Bare, smooth skin. She was already wet when his fingers brushed between her thighs.

“Fuck, Zara,” he groaned against her lips.

She yanked the hoodie up and off in one frantic movement, tossing it aside. Her breasts spilled free, full, perfect, nipples already tight and begging. He cupped them reverently, thumbs circling the sensitive peaks before leaning down to take one into his mouth. He sucked hard, tongue flicking, while his other hand explored lower. Two fingers slid through her slick folds, teasing her entrance before pushing inside. She was scorching hot, tight, and soaking.

Zara arched with a broken whimper, hips rocking against his hand. “Damon… oh god—”

He added a third finger, curling them, stroking that spot inside her while his thumb circled her swollen clit. Her hands fisted in his hair, holding him to her breast as she rode his fingers. When she came the first time it was sudden and violent, her thighs clamping around his wrist, pussy pulsing hard as she cried out his name into the dark room.

He didn’t give her time to recover. He flipped her onto her back, settling between her spread thighs. Kissing down her body, he worshipped every inch: the valley between her breasts, the soft plane of her stomach, the crease of her hip. Then his mouth was on her pussy.

He licked her slowly at first, savoring the sweet, musky taste of her arousal. Long, firm strokes of his tongue from entrance to clit, then sucking the swollen nub between his lips. Zara’s hips bucked wildly. He pinned her down with one strong arm across her lower belly and devoured her, tongue fucking into her, sucking, licking until she was sobbing with pleasure. She came again on his tongue, thighs trembling around his head, flooding his mouth.

By the time he rose over her, his cock was painfully hard, leaking precum. He rubbed the thick head along her slick slit, teasing her oversensitive clit.

“Look at me,” he rasped.

Her eyes were glazed with lust and guilt and overwhelming need. “Tell me to stop,” he said, giving her one last chance.

Zara wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him forward. “Don’t you dare.”

He thrust into her in one deep, smooth stroke, burying himself to the hilt in her tight, fluttering heat. They both moaned loud, raw, unrestrained. She felt incredible: velvet-smooth, gripping him like she never wanted to let go.

He fucked her slowly at first, savoring every inch, every gasp and flutter. Then harder. Deeper. The old bed creaked rhythmically beneath them as he drove into her. Zara met every thrust, nails raking down his back, heels digging into his ass.

“Harder,” she begged, voice wrecked. “Damon, pleaseeee fuck me harder.”

He gave her what she wanted. He pinned her wrists above her head with one hand and pounded into her soaked pussy, the sound of skin slapping skin filling the room alongside her desperate moans. He leaned down to kiss her messily, biting her lower lip, sucking her tongue. Then he shifted angles, hitting that perfect spot inside her with every brutal thrust.

She came a third time around his cock, walls clamping down so tightly he almost followed her. He pulled out at the last second, flipped her onto her stomach, and pulled her hips up. Entering her from behind, he fucked her deep and possessive, one hand reaching around to rub her clit while the other fisted in her hair.

“Yes, right there, don’t stop—” she chanted.

When she shattered again he finally let go, burying himself as deep as possible and coming hard. Thick, pulsing ropes of cum flooded her pussy as he groaned her name like a prayer. They collapsed together, sweaty and trembling, his cock still buried inside her as aftershocks rippled through both of them.

For long minutes they stayed like that, breathing hard. He eventually pulled out slowly, watching his cum leak from her swollen pussy with dark satisfaction. He rolled her onto her back and kissed her tenderly, forehead, eyelids, swollen lips.

Zara touched his face, eyes shining in the dark. “We’re so fucked,” she whispered, but there was no regret in her voice. Not yet.

He smiled against her skin and pulled the covers over them. “Yeah. We are.”

Outside, the snow had finally stopped. Inside, the fire they had both tried so hard to deny had only just begun to rage.

They didn’t sleep for a long time.

Sometime later, minutes or hours, he couldn’t tell, her hand drifted down his chest, wrapping around his cock. He was already half hard again. She stroked him slowly, exploring, learning exactly how he liked to be touched. When he was fully hard she straddled him, sinking down onto his length with a shared moan.

This time it was slower. Lazier. She rode him with rolling hips, hands braced on his chest, hair falling around them like a curtain. He watched her, breasts bouncing, head thrown back, lips parted in pleasure and felt something dangerously close to ruinous love swell in his chest.

He sat up, wrapping his arms around her, sucking marks into her neck and breasts while she ground down on him. They came together like that, mouths fused, bodies locked tight.

Afterward they lay tangled, his fingers lazily tracing patterns on her back. Guilt hovered at the edges of the room, but for now it stayed outside the circle of their warmth.

“We can’t tell anyone,” she murmured against his chest.

“I know.”

“And this can’t happen again.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I know.”

Neither of them believed it.