I also wasn’t going to let him play the martyr. "How differently could you have handled him? Not sent him to jail? He belonged in jail! That was a good thing you did when you helped Liz Stein send him away. Think of all the other women you saved from him."
"There were other ways I could have gotten rid of him." He was dark and dangerous as he held my eyes. His stare, piercing and void, let me know he meant murder.
I slapped him. Because that was dumb. Because I didn’t want him to be a murderer. Because I was wound up with energy and adrenaline and anger—at him and Theo and everyone—and I needed to hit someone.
Then, with my palm still burning, I wrapped my hand around his neck, dug my nails into his skin, and kissed him.
His mouth responded, but I was the one driving the kiss, raging and greedy. I bit his tongue and clawed at his skin. I pressed my body against him, writhing like a feral cat.
Despite his responsiveness, it wasn’t long before he put his hands on my hips and pushed me away.
My rage flamed higher, and I slapped him again. And again. He grabbed my wrist the third time so I beat at his chest with my other fist, fighting him much like I did that day he took my virginity in his office.
He seized this wrist too, circled them both with his large palms and stared sternly into my face.
"Is this what you need?" He twisted my arms behind my back and pulled me against him where I could feel he was hard. My heart rate spiked, my mouth watered. "Is it?"
Yes, I screamed silently. Didn’t I always? I needed Donovan to erase everything that had happened earlier. I needed him to re-create it with his face and his body and his mouth and his words, so that when the nightmares came—which they would because they always did—I would have better memories to replace them with.
That was how we did it. That was how he saved me from this darkness. Every time.
I didn't need to tell him, though. He’d already gotten into character. His eyes had clouded and now he was hungrily studying the bare skin at the neckline of my robe.
"Where did he touch you?"
I swallowed back a sudden surge of shame and tugged my arm where he had my hands bound. He got the hint and brought one around between us so I could show rather than tell. Guiding our hands to his mouth, I put one of his fingers and one of mine between his lips. He sucked on them, getting them nice and wet.
“Undo my robe,” I told him.
He tugged the knot free then I laced my hand back in his and brought his wet finger to my chest. Together, we traced the path that Theo had drawn along my torso.
I watched Donovan's eyes as he drew along my skin, saw the weight of his lids as he fought to keep them open, as though it was unbearable knowing that Theo had seen this part of me, had touched me like this.
"And the blood?" It was almost a whisper.
"He nicked me when he cut my sweater open.” But I didn’t want sympathy. I didn’t want that pitying look in his eyes. It wasn’t what I needed right now. “Believe me, I'd rather have had the knife than his slimy-ass fingers."
Donovan’s jaw twitched, his expression hardening. He wrenched my arm behind my back again, and spun me so that I was backed up against the couch. He needed this too. I could feel it in the way he kicked my legs apart, making room for himself between my thighs. I could feel it in the steel of his erection pressed up against my belly.
“Where else did he touch you?” he asked with a growl. He let go of my hands and pushed tighter against me so they were trapped between my ass and the couch. “Here?”
He opened my robe more and groped my breast, squeezing it until I whimpered.
I shook my head.
He lowered his touch past the waistband of my pants and reached inside my panties to finger my hole. I was tight and mostly dry, but I grew wet immediately. “Did he fucking dare to touch you here?”
“No.” My knees buckled from the sudden wave of pleasure. “No,” I said more forcefully, twisting my hips to push away his hand because that was the game, but also because the sensation was already too much. “He didn’t touch me anywhere else.”
“Good. Because you aren’t his to touch.”
Warmth shot through my body, electric pulses ran down to my pussy like lights along a runway triggered by his possessive words. Roughly, he pulled my robe from my shoulders, down my arms, and flipped me around so that I was facing the sofa. He gathered the silk material at my wrists and twisted it until my hands were trapped inside the bundle.
Then he pulled my leggings and panties down together. I struggled as he did, instinctively, because that was also the game. His knuckles knocked against me and into me as he maneuvered my clothes down my legs. There would be marks tomorrow — marks I could focus on instead of the ones that Theo had left. I’d wear them like badges. I hoped they were dark.
I struggled more to make sure they were.
I'd never taken off my boots and Donovan didn’t now, so my pants stayed chained around my ankles. With one hand pressing on my restrained wrists at my lower back, he used his other hand to work on getting his cock out. I could hear the zip of his slacks, the familiar rustle of his clothing as he fought for freedom.
I wanted to watch, but I didn't look back. The angle was too awkward. Instead, I closed my eyes and pictured him undoing his slacks, tugging down his boxer briefs just far enough to release his erection, then fisting his hot throbbing cock before notching his firm crown at my pussy and shoving inside.
My eyes flew open, and I screamed at the delicious invasion. He’d gone in to the hilt then pulled out right away to the tip, not giving me any time to adjust or stretch. He plowed in again at full force. It was uncomfortable and painful, and incredibly amazing all at once. There was anger in his thrusts. There was cruelty. As though he were mad at me for what had happened tonight. As though he were taking his anger at Theo out on me, and this, this was what I needed. This scouring. This primal fucking. This savage violation. This exorcism. It declared me as his, and his alone. It left absolutely no room for anyone else to possess me.
There was also pleasure. He always made sure that I felt the beauty in our filthiness, and this time was no different. He wrapped his arm around my hip and massaged my clit in progressively aggressive strokes, the approach so deliberate and contrary to the frenetic tempo of his fucking.
I was mindless, able to only concentrate on the space between this thrust and the next. I focused on what was ahead of me. The fireplace, the place I’d stared at while Theo had me pinned on the couch earlier in the night.
Then a sudden flashback burst into my head, like lightning, striking me just as forcefully. I was sitting—my sweater open, my skin exposed—and Theo’s hand was at my throat, pressing into my pulse point.
"My neck," I said breathlessly. "Put your hand on my neck."
And the thing about Donovan? The thing that made him fit me so perfectly? Was that a demand like that from me never made him ask why. He just did it and he understood without an explanation.
He circled his palm around my thin neck and squeezed, ever so lightly.
Though it wasn't exactly the same way Theo had touched me, the pressure was similar, and it was just the push I needed to fall over the edge. I lost myself, spinning in a rush of euphoria and joy. I gasped, lifting my chin up as I went rigid, a flower turning up into the sun after a devastating rain.