Celeste had always been a girl who measured her wants with rationality, tucked her desires into neat boxes that she could unpack when the world felt a little less threatening. But not tonight. Tonight, her desires weren't contained. They spilled, cracked, and flared like lightning across her chest. This wasn't about a slow-burning longing anymore. This was need.
As she sat beside Damien at the now quiet balcony, her fingers trembled slightly against her champagne glass. Her body was close to his, and he didn't move away. His warmth seeped into her skin, and the scent of his cologne curled around her like a tether. But it wasn't enough. Not tonight.
Not when that woman—the woman who had shattered her family, taken her father, and left her mother in tears for years—was just a few steps away in the same glittering room.
She didn't want to remember that night. The screaming. The shattered photo frame. The silence that followed her father's betrayal. But seeing Sepharina here, so poised, so perfect, made it impossible not to. And knowing Damien had once been hers—was still hers on paper—burned like acid down her throat.
Celeste glanced at him, studying the sharp line of his jaw, the quiet tension in his posture, and the faint crease between his brows. He looked tired, distant, like a man pulling away from the world bit by bit. And yet when she touched his hand, he leaned in—just slightly, but he leaned. She caught that. She clung to it.
"Damien," she said softly, brushing her thumb across his knuckles, drawing him back to her. His head turned to meet her gaze. "I need to get out of here. Will you come with me?"
He looked surprised for a moment, but then he nodded, and she stood without waiting. She needed distance from the chandeliers, from the gold-trimmed ghosts of her past. She needed to breathe, but most of all—she needed to feel him.
In the waiting car, silence stretched between them. Damien glanced at her once, twice, as if trying to decipher the storm she carried inside. She didn't speak. She didn't need to. Her hand reached for his again, firmer this time, as though anchoring herself to him was the only way to stay above water.
When they reached his penthouse—a lavish place he rarely invited anyone to—Celeste didn't hesitate. She tugged Damien inside, closed the door behind them, and leaned against it. Her chest rose and fell with the rhythm of adrenaline, of fear, of determination.
He looked at her with confusion shadowed in his eyes. "Celeste, are you okay?"
She stepped forward, eyes fierce, voice steady despite the chaos inside her. "No. I'm not. I saw someone tonight who shouldn't exist in the same space as me. I saw the reason I grew up watching my mother cry herself to sleep. The reason I don't trust easily."
Damien's expression softened, but before he could speak, she closed the distance between them.
"And I know you didn't choose to hurt me," she whispered. "But I need something from you tonight, Damien. Not out of pity. Not out of confusion. But because I need to know I'm not the only one feeling this."
Her hands framed his face, and when he didn't pull away, she kissed him—slow, deep, raw. It wasn't about seduction. It was about grounding herself in something real. She needed this connection to overwrite the one seared in her childhood memories.
Damien's hands found her waist, uncertain at first, then surer. The kiss deepened, hunger replacing hesitation. The world outside her small apartment ceased to exist. There was no gala, no Sepharina, no haunting pasts—just lips and hands and breath.
They broke apart only to breathe, and Damien rested his forehead against hers. "Celeste," he murmured, voice hoarse, "you don't have to do this because of her."
She looked up at him with eyes blazing. "This isn't about her. It's about me. About us. I want to take something back for myself. I want to choose this—you."
Damien didn't say another word. He wrapped her into him, lips trailing down her jaw, and her arms held him tighter.
She wasn't going to let that woman have any more power. Not over her past, not over her peace, and certainly not over the man who was looking at her like she mattered more than anything else.
For the first time in years, Celeste chose herself. And in that choice, she claimed Damien—not as property, but as a presence. A promise.
And this time, no one was taking him away.
The night was silent again, but only on the outside. Inside Celeste, a storm surged—one she didn't try to calm.
She didn't say anything to Damien about the woman from earlier. She didn't whisper that she knew who Sepharina was. That she'd seen her with her father. That all the missing pieces finally fell into place like a cruel cosmic joke.
No. Celeste Moreau had learned better.
She wouldn't run this time. Wouldn't cry in the dark or crumble into regret. If Sepharina thought she could just waltz in and step over her again—this time through Damien—then she had another thing coming.
Celeste was done watching people walk away with the people she loved.
Tonight, she wasn't going to beg or plead. She would show.
And Damien would feel.
Inside the dim penthouse Damien had booked for the gala night, Celeste stood, watching him loosen his tie, oblivious to the storm brewing behind her soft gaze.
"You okay now?" he asked gently, looking at her face.
"I am now," she said, walking towards him, her eyes unwavering.
He didn't question it. Maybe part of him sensed the shift in her. Maybe he liked it—needed it. Maybe he needed her to pull him under this time.
She stood before him, heart pacing a rhythm that screamed urgency and need.
Celeste leaned in, her hands smoothing over his chest as her lips brushed his neck. "Damien," she whispered, "I want you to remember… who you belong to tonight."
His breath hitched. "Celeste…"
She kissed him—slow, possessive, determined. Her fingers curled into his collar, dragging him closer.
His hands found her waist, hesitant at first, but she took control. She wanted to. Needed to. This wasn't about control—it was about claiming what she already felt was hers.
They tumbled into the bedroom like a crash of waves. Damien's shirt was unbuttoned halfway when Celeste stopped him. "Let me," she whispered. One by one, she peeled it open—leaving kisses across his skin as she went. Tracing her name in every spot she claimed.
Her touch was fire and anchor. Damien groaned her name like it was the only prayer he'd ever known.
But she wasn't finished.
Celeste tugged him down to the bed, straddling him. She looked him straight in the eye—dark and unblinking. "You're mine, Damien Leclair," she said, voice husky and firm.
And he nodded, like he'd known it all along.
Her lips found his collarbone, biting just hard enough to leave a mark. His gasp only fueled her. She kissed over it, then down his chest, leaving small bruises with her mouth, her nails.
Marks.
Claims.
She made sure they'd show tomorrow. When his shirt collar loosened, when the tie slipped, when people looked at him and knew someone had loved him that night—not gently, but fiercely.
When Damien finally reversed their positions, pressing her down gently beneath him, Celeste met his eyes and whispered, "Don't hide from me. I want you to feel everything tonight."
And he did.
In every touch. Every breathless kiss. Every arch of her back. Every whisper of her name falling from his lips like a lifeline.
She held his face as he moved above her, kissed him through the tension in his shoulders, told him without saying it that he wasn't alone.
That she wasn't going anywhere.
And when it was over—when the world had melted into soft gasps and tangled limbs and the silence that followed after fire—Celeste stayed draped over him, leaving one final kiss over the bruise on his neck.
Just below his ear. Just enough to be seen.
"You're mine," she whispered again. Not a question. Not a tease. A vow.
And Damien didn't fight it.
He just pulled her closer.
Letting her stay.
The hours melted like candlewax.
Neither of them kept track of time, nor cared for it. The city beyond the tall windows glittered, a quiet witness to something far more intense than the flashing lights.
Their kisses deepened slowly—no rush, no pretense. Just a build-up of something that had been simmering since the day their lives collided. Damien's hands explored her with careful precision, never rushing, never assuming. And Celeste… she let go. For the first time, she just let go.
Every brush of his skin against hers made her limbs feel heavier, warmer. Her body responded to him like waves following the pull of the moon—natural, inevitable.
She didn't know how long it went on—hours, maybe. All she knew was the ache that came with being filled, over and over, and still not wanting it to end. Not out of lust, but something else. Something deeper.
Celeste could feel herself growing boneless beneath him. Her thighs trembled, her arms too tired to hold him close, yet she did. Still, somehow. Because she didn't want to let go. Not of this. Not of him.
And for once, exhaustion didn't feel like a weakness—it felt like surrender. The safe kind.
Damien shifted slightly, brushing damp strands of hair from her forehead. He was flushed, chest rising and falling against hers, eyes blown wide and warm.
Her voice came out a little dazed, breathless. "You're really good at this."
He chuckled softly, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "And you're… unreal."
His arms wrapped around her, pulling her close again, even though they both needed a breather. He didn't want space—not from her.
And then, without warning, he remembered something. A night from weeks ago.
He had been driving Celeste and her best friend Maya to a restaurant. They were tipsy and laughing, talking about relationships. Maya had said, "Celeste doesn't have any experience, you know. She acts tough but she's never—"
Celeste had smacked her on the arm and told her to shut up, blushing furiously. Damien hadn't said anything then, but he remembered. He remembered how surprised he'd been.
And now, lying here with her, feeling how her body moved with his, how she trembled in his arms, and how her gaze never once held fear—he understood.
She had given him something no one else had. Her firsts. Her trust.
His heart tightened.
Celeste was curled against him, her breathing slowing, lips pressed lazily to his chest like she didn't even realize she was doing it. Her hand was tracing mindless circles along his ribs. Her lashes fluttered as she blinked up at him sleepily.
"You okay?" she murmured.
He smiled. "Yeah," he whispered, brushing a kiss across her temple. "More than okay."
She hummed in reply, clearly too tired to form full words now.
And Damien just watched her.
Everything about her tonight—the way she touched him, the way she gave herself completely, even her teasing and the way she laughed—was intimate. But it wasn't the sex that made his chest ache with something real.
It was the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn't watching.
The way she held him like he needed saving too.
The way she trusted him enough to fall apart and let him put the pieces back together with trembling hands.
He remembered the scars on her back, faint but real. The ones she never spoke of.
He remembered the anxiety attack at the gala.
And now this.
This night that she didn't have to offer—but chose to.
The more he looked at her, the more his chest filled with something dangerous.
Something like love.
He kissed her again, slower this time, barely brushing her lips. Her eyes fluttered open for a second, and she smiled against him—soft, drowsy, content.
"You're staring," she mumbled.
"I know."
She didn't push him away. Just leaned further into him.
The night dragged on. The clock ticked softly somewhere in the background. But in their world, it was just heartbeats, shared warmth, and whispered words in the dark.
And Damien Leclair held her like he finally realized he wasn't letting go.