Claire’s fingers tightened around the water bottle until the plastic crinkled under her grip.
“What do you mean?” she asked again, her voice tight.
Damon turned his face away toward the blank hospital wall, his expression darkening into a picture of complete, defeated resignation.
“Forget it.”
“I’m sorry.
It’s just…”
He lowered his head, staring at his worn sneakers dangling off the edge of the examination bed.
“You ever feel so alone that silence starts to have a texture?”
he muttered softly, his voice dropping to a low, fragile frequency.
“I’ve been… waiting.
Not for anything specific.
Just waiting.
And no one’s ever waited for me.”
His voice cracked slightly, a subtle touch that hit her like a physical blow.
“I thought… I might just stop.
Vanish.
And no one would have ever touched me like I was something they wanted to keep.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered.
The words left her lips without force – a pure reflex, a polite tissue offered to a gaping wound.
A hollow, bitter laugh escaped him, more breath than actual sound.
“I know you barely know me.
I know it’s pathetic.
I shouldn’t ask.
I shouldn’t even think it.”
He finally looked back at her, his dark eyes brimming with an intoxicating vulnerability.
“I wasn’t asking for forever.
Or even for love.
Just… one moment.
One real, human moment of comfort.
To feel… affection.
Before the world gets its hands on me and wrings me out completely.
Is that so monstrous?”
Claire swallowed hard, her pulse hammering against her ribs.
“I can’t do that,”
she said, the sentence leaving her lips stiff, and final.
He didn’t argue.
He didn’t push.
He simply folded.
His head bowed, his shoulders slumped further, as if her refusal was a physical weight dropped directly onto the ton he already carried.
He seemed to shrink right in front of her on the small bed.
“I know,” he whispered, the words barely audible in the quiet room.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire’s chest tightened with instant, suffocating guilt.
She stared at Damon.
Here was a man drowning right in front of her eyes, and she was clinging to the lifeline of her own self-righteous propriety.
Her principles felt like ashes in her throat.
“Damon…”
Without a conscious decision, her legs moved.
She crossed the cold floor and sat directly on the edge of the mattress beside him.
Her hand lifted, hovering in the small space between them.
Then it descended, coming to rest lightly on his chest, directly over his heart.
Through the soft cotton of his worn t-shirt, she felt the frantic, heavy rhythm beneath his ribs.
Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.
And then… something else.
A sudden, unnatural warmth.
Not simple body heat, but a subtle energy rising from the exact point of contact.
A faint, intoxicating heat seeped through her palm and slithered up her wrist like a slow fever.
There was no sudden no force.
Instead, her senses simply dialed up to maximum volume.
The heat of his skin beneath the thin fabric felt like a small sun.
Her own breathing shifted, synchronizing subtly with his ragged inhalations.
She snatched her hand back as if burned, her heart leaping into her throat.
“This is too much,” she breathed, shaking her head.
“I barely know you.”
Damon nodded, his gaze fixed quietly on his trembling hands in his lap.
Outwardly, it was a picture of resigned acceptance.
Claire was still herself.
She was confused, hesitant, and rationalizing everything.
But her feelings toward him were rapidly mutating.
The distant, charitable pity she had started with was mixing with a dark, unwelcome current of physical attraction.
He caught every subtle shift in her body language.
She’s still in control, he noted mentally.
Interesting.
His demonic influence wasn’t overwriting her mind like a mind-control spell.
It was doing something far more effective—amplifying the latent, subconscious desire that already existed inside her.
He said nothing.
He simply lowered his head and waited.
He knew she was already fighting a losing battle against her own rising heat.
Just a little more pressure.
Claire stared down at her hand – the one that had touched him.
It still tingled.
The guilt in her mind was now thoroughly tangled with a confusing heat pooling low in her belly.
The memory of his heavy heartbeat against her palm was an echo in her bones.
With a soft sigh that was part surrender, part self-loathing, she reached out again.
This time, her touch went lower.
Her fingers brushed the worn denim of his jeans, sliding over his thigh.
Then, hesitantly, she cupped him through the fabric.
Even through the thick layers, she felt the soft shape of him, and then, astonishingly fast, the shift.
The firming, the swelling, the rapid transformation into a rock-hard ridge against her palm.
A gasp caught in her throat—equal parts shock and a sudden, sharp thrill.
Damon’s breath hitched sharply.
Encouraged by the sound, she fumbled awkwardly with his belt buckle.
The metal clinked loudly in the quiet room.
Her hands were shaking, clumsy, but she persevered, driven by a momentum that felt completely outside her usual self.
The button popped open.
The zipper hissed down.
She tugged the denim aside, freeing him into the cool, dim air of the clinic.
He was fully erect, thick and flushed—a stark, dangerous contrast to his overall physical fragility.
For a second, she just stared, her mind going completely blank.
Then, wrapping her slender fingers around him in an awkward grip, she began to move her hand.
Slow, tentative strokes.
Base to tip.
Her eyes remained locked on his face.
The effect was immediate.
His shallow panting evened out, deepening into a solid rhythm.
The constant tremor in his hands stilled.
His eyes closed, long dark lashes fanning against his pale cheeks, and a low sigh slipped past his lips – a sound of relief.
“How…” Damon whispered.
His voice sounded genuinely surprised, but the surprise had nothing to do with her.
It was because he felt the engine inside his body turn over for the first time.
The method survived.
Something was happening deep within his flesh.
Claire couldn’t see it, but he could feel every micro-second of it.
A faint, burning warmth flared in his solar plexus.
His dormant demonic essence stirred for the first time since his rebirth in this mortal world.
It really works.
A small stream of demonic nourishment flowed directly into his bloodstream.
It was weak—extremely weak compared to his former power—but it was 100% real.
He almost smiled.
Good.
Watching the tension bleed from his shoulders, seeing a sliver of peace touch his face, something shifted deep inside Claire.
Her moral confusion warred with a rising, wet heat between her own legs.
The initial act of mercy was rapidly mutating into something participatory.
Something hungry.
Swallowing hard, her mouth suddenly dry, she leaned forward on her knees.
She hesitated for a beat, her lips inches from the glistening tip, her warm breath fanning across his skin.
Then, with a sudden resolve that felt both brave and damned, she opened her mouth and took him inside.
It was inexperienced and messy.
Her tongue pressed flat against his shaft, unsure of its work.
She sucked tentatively, gagged slightly when he shifted deeper, then found a shaky, slick rhythm—up and down, her wet lips forming a tight seal around him.
A deep groan tore from Damon’s throat, vibrating through her skull.
His hand came up, tangling gently in her hair to guide her pace.
The corrupted energy within his chest pulsed stronger now.
A warm, lazy current joined his bloodstream, pouring minute but undeniable strength directly into his limbs.
The crushing, bone-deep fatigue lifted a fraction.
When she pulled back, saliva-slick and breathing heavily, a new idea took hold of her—born of some dimly remembered fantasy or a subtle whisper from the demonic influence stoking her mind.
Still on her knees, she pushed the cups of her bra down, freeing her soft, pale breasts into the cool air.
Taking his shaft in her hand again, she pressed him tightly between the yielding swells, squeezing her breasts together around his length.
The friction was slick, lubricated by her saliva and a pearly bead of pre-cum that had welled at his tip.
Damon thrust forward—a slow, deliberate rocking of his hips, sliding his hard length through that soft, hot channel.
Each time the flushed head emerged from her cleavage, she darted her tongue out, licking the salty drop right off the tip.
He let his head fall back against the wall, eyes shut tight as the demonic spark fed on her corruption.
This was just the beginning.