Chapter 243: not seeing her again
(Damian POV)
The rope snapped taut beneath Damian’s hands, the coarse fibers biting into his palms.
Vivienne was directly in front of him, her body tensing as she leaned into the strain. Her snug bikini bottoms accentuating every flex of her hips.
Suddenly, the roaring crowd vanished, leaving only the heavy, ringing silence of a world containing just the two of them.
Vivienne shifted her footing, then looked back over her shoulder, her lips curving.
"Harder, Damian."
Damian’s breath hitched. His hands let go of the rope entirely. "You want it harder?"
𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
"Yes."
He stepped straight into her space, closing the distance until his chest was pressed against her back. His hands came up, wrapping firmly around her waist and pulling her body back against his. She didn’t pull away; she arched into his palms, her skin burning against him.
Damian leaned down, burying his face into the side of her neck, inhaling her scent. Lowering his stance, he pressed his hips flush against the swell of her backside. The heavy, throbbing pulse of his erection pressed hard against her lower back and the curve of her rear through his trunks.
He ground himself against her, setting a slow, heavy rhythm that rubbed his length flush against her skin.
Vivienne gasped, her fingers clutching uselessly at the air in front of her.
Then the scene shifted instantly.
They were in the cool water of the pool, but the crowd was gone. Vivienne was sitting high on his shoulders, her thighs resting on either side of his neck.
She looked down at him, her eyes heavy with a dark, deliberate warmth. "You know, I quite like the view from up here."
Damian looked up, his pulse hammering against his ribs as he met her gaze. "You do?"
"Mhm." Her smile deepened, slow and wicked. "And this isn’t the only way to get your head between my thighs."
In the next heartbeat, the pool vanished. They were on the dark, cool floor of an empty room, the world stripped bare down to just the two of them.
Vivienne lay beneath him on the ground, wearing only her bikini, her legs parted wide. Damian hovered over her, driven out of his mind by the sight. He reached down, his hands sliding up the smooth skin of her thighs, pressing his body down against hers.
He gripped her waist and ground his throbbing length hard against her center, rubbing his heavy arousal directly over the thin fabric covering her wet heat. The friction was searing.
Vivienne’s back arched off the floor, her nails digging into his shoulders. "Harder! Harder, Damian!" she screamed, her breath coming in wild, ragged gasps as she rocked her pelvis directly up into his thrusts.
Driven to the absolute brink, Damian’s hand hooked into the edge of her bikini bottoms, ready to tear them off and drive himself completely inside her.
"Stop that," she murmured suddenly.
Damian froze, his breathing ragged, his body rigid with a intense, aching need. He gripped her hips tighter, pinning her to the floor as he leaned down until his lips almost touched hers.
"You’re mine, Vivienne," he rasped, his voice thick and possessive, his heart hammering in his chest. "You’re mine."
Vivienne didn’t answer.
Instead, her hands came up to rest against his chest. Slowly, deliberately, she pushed him back. Not with effort or anger, but with a chilling, absolute detachment.
Damian stared down at her, his stomach plummeting as the warmth drained instantly from her face.
"Mine?" she echoed softly.
A sharp, cruel smile spread slowly across her lips, her eyes turning into cold glass.
"Don’t be ridiculous, Damian." She tilted her head, her voice dropping into a razor-thin whisper. "I’m only using you to make Anthony jealous."
The words struck him like ice water.
Damian woke with a sharp gasp.
His eyes flew open.
For several seconds, he simply stared at the ceiling.
His heart was pounding.
He could still hear her voice.
Don’t be ridiculous, Damian.
He shut his eyes.
The rest of the dream was already beginning to dissolve.
But that sentence remained.
I’m only using you to make Anthony jealous.
Damian exhaled slowly.
Of all the things his mind could have dreamed about, it had chosen that.
He rubbed a hand over his face.
Ridiculous.
It had only been a dream.
And yet the humiliation of it lingered.
Because the worst part wasn’t that Vivienne had rejected him.
It was that, in the dream, he’d been so certain she wanted him.
He had believed it.
For those few moments, he hadn’t questioned her.
He hadn’t thought about Anthony.
He hadn’t wondered whether every smile, every touch, every request had been meant for someone else.
He had simply believed that she had chosen him.
Damian stared toward the window.
He exhaled slowly.
It was only a dream.
A ridiculous dream.
And yet it had managed to take everything he’d been trying not to think about and put it directly in front of him.
Yesterday.
Vivienne.
Anthony.
The way she had behaved.
The way he’d allowed himself to believe it meant something.
Damian sat up.
Enough.
He had already made the decision.
Yesterday had been humiliating enough.
He wasn’t going to spend today dissecting every little thing Vivienne had said or done.
He was going to leave it alone.
No more trying to interpret her behavior.
Whatever she wanted from him, it clearly wasn’t what he had hoped it was.
And that was fine.
He would simply stop giving her the opportunity to have him become part of whatever game she was playing with Anthony.
He had his pride.
More importantly, he had his self-respect.
And there was no reason for this to be difficult.
Vivienne was a first-year.
He was a fourth-year.
They didn’t share classes.
They weren’t in the same year.
The next time they actually needed to work together would be Saturday.
Six days.
Damian could manage six days.
He got out of bed.
By the time he left his room, he had almost convinced himself that the matter was settled.
Almost
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