Emily answered the insistent buzzer for the outside door of her apartment building.
"Emily, it's Damian. Let me in," she heard the young man's voice on the other end.
She had mixed reactions to the voice, excited and dejected at the same time.
"Damian, you shouldn't be here. I told you last week we shouldn't see each other again. I'm just not right for you."
She heard the anger in his voice over the pouring rain. "Do you think I'm down here freezing my ass off for you to give me the same lame excuse I didn't believe the first time?"
She sighed deeply in frustration.
"I'm here to talk, Cha Cha," Damian continued, "and I'll stay as long as it takes. So you're basically a prisoner in your apartment until you let me in."
Emily was startled by his mention of her comic alter ego. He had only seen her as Cha Cha once when they were Glee Project contestants. How did he know she sometimes used that name in her emails and texts?
"It's Alex, isn't it," she asked, mentioning another former contestant and her confidant. "He's always had a soft spot for you."
"He has a soft spot for us," Damian answered. "Now open the damn door."
Emily sighed again as she pressed the button to allow him admittance to the building. "It's number…"
"I know what number it is," he said impatiently, "I'll be right there."
She got a towel and a blanket, thinking as she did, He's going to despise me now-so much for being that gleam in his eye that his future wife wouldn't understand. Damn you, Alex.
She did a quick tidying of the room, dusting the coffee table in front of the love seat and fluffing the arm chairs on either side of it.
At the sound of the door knock, Emily's pulse quickened and she resorted to her fallback position of aggressive flirt. "Oh, baby," she said when she saw a drenched Damian standing at the door, "you're soaked. Let me have your jacket, take off your shoes-okay, don't. Come here," she instructed, leading him to the love seat.
She wrapped the blanket over his shoulders then straddled him as she dried his head with the towel.
"What are you doing standing in the cold out here anyway," she asked sweetly, almost motherly. "You should be in L.A, banging an extra in a trailer or playing FIFA with Cameron."
She moved closer for a kiss. "But as long as you're here…."
Damian moved her off his lap. "I love that Emily as much as any man," he said, "but that's not who I came to talk to."
In a downcast voice, she asked, "Do you want some coffee?"
"Fine," he said shortly.
Attempting once more to compensate for her nerves, she leaned over the back of the sofa, close to his face, and asked "Do you want it hot and sweet like yourself?"
"How about black, like my mood," he shot back.
"Yeesh, okay," she said, going to start the coffee and still trying to downplay the tension between them.
She stood quietly in the narrow, dim-lit kitchen, her thoughts spinning. I was right. He does hate me now. Damn you, Alex, she said again to herself.
Then she felt Damian move behind her, wrapping her up with him in the blanket.
"This is what I need to warm me," he said huskily, in a tone she remembered from last weekend. "It's what I've needed all week."
"Two minutes ago you rejected me," Emily said confusedly, her arms pressing against her sides.
He hugged her tighter as he said, "You had your armor on. I couldn't feel you. But now, you're soft and warm and feel so good. This was worth flying across the country for."
Emily was still baffled. "I thought you were mad at me."
"I'm livid," Damian said as he buried his face in the hollow between her neck and shoulder.
Her eyes closed and her head tilted back. She could feel herself succumbing to his touch but managed to ask, "Then why are you holding me...running your hands all over me…nibbling my neck?"
"Because it's all I've wanted to do all week. It's the only thing I could think about," he answered.
He turned her around to face him. "Haven't you wanted me to hold you, run my hands over you?"
The next few seconds took on a dream-like quality for Emily, as Damian described his actions.
"…rub my face against your soft cheek… move down to your mouth….deep kisses."
She allowed herself to respond to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and parting her lips for his deep kiss. Just enjoy it while you can, she told herself, it'll be over soon enough once he's thinking again and remembers what you did.
She shuddered a little at that thought and Damian felt it.
"You're still fighting me, Emily," he said softly, "but you're fighting yourself too…why?"
He lifted her onto the counter top and stood in front of her. "Talk to me."
She looked down and said hesitantly, "It was just supposed to be a really great weekend."
He nodded. "It was a great weekend. I want more. I don't only want your insanely hot body, though God knows how much I do. I want to know how your mind works," he said, placing his hand on her temple.
He lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist. "I want the excitement I feel around you. I want the hot Emily who greeted me at the door and the baby Emily I found in here, who for a moment, I just wanted to wrap my arms around to make her feel better. I want your strength and sass, your softness and sweetness and your heat. I want all of you," he finished, sliding her on the counter even closer to him.
"That's why I'm here," he said, his breathing becoming labored through his desire. He asked with difficulty, "Why don't you want me here?"
Emily disengaged herself and again lowered her head. She rubbed her foot along the outside of Damian's leg as she repeated, "It was just supposed to be one great weekend and a great memory. Now your greed has spoiled that. "
She hopped down from the counter and went back to the main room. "A lot of the people I've been with, I've ended up regretting the time I spent with them. You were supposed to be different."
He trailed her back to the main room, as she went to sit on the love seat and looked up at him.
"For that period of time," she explained, "I felt like the girl of his dreams for a real sweetheart, who unexpectedly had a powerful physical effect on me."
She was quiet for a moment organizing her thoughts. "But you know what I did to put us there, how I manipulated you and your friends. I tried to tell you before that you couldn't understand what others might do to have a little of the things that come to you so damned easily. I just appeared on your doorstep but I had to plan and connive for weeks."
She looked around the room, down at her hands in her lap, anywhere but at Damian. "And I still can't tell you exactly why I did it. I just got this idea of the two of us in my head and I couldn't shake it so I became like this really resourceful fangirl. "
She held her head in her hands. Oh, God, this is embarrassing, she thought.
She continued with effort. Tossing back her long, black hair, she concentrated on the throw pillow in her lap. "Right now, because you're lusting for me, you're not thinking of that. But when you do, I'm going to be pathetic to you and deceitful and just…low. And that's what I'll have to replace the perfect memory. Your greed and selfishness might be your only faults, but you're taking a lot from me, less honorable as I am."
Standing a couple of feet behind the love seat and looking down at her as she tried so hard not to openly weep, Damian felt as though he were uncharacteristically swimming in emotion.
People have done real damage to her, he realized.
His fists clenched as he thought of them-the unscrupulous music producers, the callous former lovers and before them, the people who had confused her in her formative years—maybe a creepy uncle who was a little too interested in her development or older boys in the neighborhood who might have flattered her and made her an object of desire before she was ready. They should all suffer at my hands, Damian thought, No one will ever hurt her like that again.
Emily brushed the tears from her eyes and raised her shoulders, trying to regain her composure.
Beautiful, brave woman, he said to himself. He couldn't express it but seemed to realize that with her flirty, sassy armor, she looked strong and carefree but beneath it, she was still the fragile little girl who took the first blows to her self-esteem and innocence.
To break through the defenses she was putting up again, he knew he would have to be direct, maybe a little harsh.
He moved to the front of the sofa, looking down on her. "Of course I'm lusting for you. I can see you; that's all it takes. But it's not clouding my judgment."
He crouched down so they were at eye level. "Look at me Emily."
She raised her heavy lids and he could see the new defensiveness in her dark brown eyes and the set of her mouth.
"You're not a pretty little spider spinning your evil webs," he said. "And forgive me for being coarse, but for someone that I fawked senseless just a few days ago, you have me on a damned high pedestal. I have plenty of faults. Yes, I'm greedy and self-centered and I have a bit of a mean streak."
Emily's knitted her brows in query.
Damian continued. "I've known something since I came in here that could have relieved your worry but I liked seeing you off your game. I didn't know it was the reason you've been driving both of us bonkers. If I had, I would have shown you first thing. That's the self-centeredness. I'll take care of it now."