I was so wet, so turned on, so high on the enactment of a fantasy I’d had for years, that I came instantly, the intensity of it taking my breath away. He shoved in again as the strength of my orgasm tried to push him out. He continued to thrust with belligerent determination, fighting against my body’s tightening around him.
As soon as I thought I was done, I came again, my body shuddering as the second climax rippled over me.
“Jesus Christ,” he swore in awe. He forced himself inside me once more, plunging in deeper and with more aggression than he ever had.
He worked up a pace that was uneven and unrelenting and too frenzied to call rhythmic. I lay almost completely still, letting him invade me in whatever way he wanted. I was delirious and dazed and already wrecked, but I was still so sensitive and aroused that he brought me to orgasm twice more before he slowed and then stilled, emptying himself into me with a long grunt.
He fell on top of me with a thud, as though all of his energy had been exhausted. The weight of him felt heavy and welcome, like a thick winter blanket, and in the comfort of that moment I thought that if this had been what had happened that night, if this had been the outcome—if Donovan had tried to rape me, if he’d succeeded—would I have loved it like this? Would that have changed everything about what happened then?
What did that mean about me? Did it mean I wanted to be raped? I was sure there was a difference. Sure there was a reason why the fantasy wasn’t the same as the reality, but in my euphoric cum-drunk bliss, I couldn’t sort it out in my mind.
As long as Donovan was lying on top of me, I didn’t feel like I had to. I was satisfied. Protected. I was vulnerable, but only to him.
But he didn’t stay there long. After a few minutes, he rolled onto his back next to me and lay there staring at the ceiling until he caught his breath.
“Sabrina?” he asked eventually, turning on his side with a sense of urgency in his energy.
He was checking in, and I knew what he needed to hear. “I’m all right.”
Except, I realized, that there were tears streaming down my face. I’d cried a bit through our struggle, but these were fresh. As soon as I recognized them, they fell faster, quickly turning into rivers.
Wordlessly, Donovan sat up and quickly scooped me up in his arms, cradling me as the weeping turned into sobs. He let me cry like that, running his hand through my hair, smoothing the tangles he’d created, neither trying to shush me nor question me.
I couldn’t have explained if he’d asked, but I did know it had to do with Theo. Partly I was still confused. Confused about what was wrong with me that I wanted Donovan to reenact this terrible thing that happened to me. Why I liked it when he was rough and mean and animalistic. Why it turned me on so goddamn much.
And partly it was that I was actually remembering Theo. My body remembered him in ways my head didn’t. My fear remembered him. My panic remembered him. And as much as I didn’t want to think of him while I was with Donovan, I had. How could I not? I’d nurtured and groomed this fantasy over many years, and it had come to grow independent of that night. But the roots were still entangled with that other thing—the thing that Theo had planted with his assault.
But I didn’t know how to tell that to Donovan.
I had to tell him something, though. So when I calmed enough to get out words, I said, “I wanted that. I did. I’m not crying because I didn’t want it.”
“I know.” He kept strumming his hand through my hair.
I lifted my chin from his chest to look at him. “How do you know that?”
He let out a soft breath and met my eyes. “Because it’s what I’ve always recognized in you.”
“Because it’s in you too?” It was almost a whisper. Almost like I hoped it more than I believed it could be true.
He wiped several tears from my cheek before answering. “Yes. Because it’s in me too.”
We were quiet again, me cradled in his lap, my head tucked under his chin. I rubbed absently at his cheek, knowing I needed to start to think about pulling myself together. We didn’t have the kind of relationship where I could stay. We didn’t have the type of relationship where he would hold me.
We didn’t have a relationship at all.
But we were both naked and bare right now, even though we still had most of our clothes on. I was already raw. How much more vulnerable could I be?
“I don’t want to leave,” I said.
Not even a beat passed. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay.”
Chapter 28
Donovan led me upstairs and into a master bedroom with hardwood floors and an entire wall of windows. The king-size bed faced the view which overlooked the city and, in the near distance, Central Park. There was a fireplace on the far wall, and a gray headboard behind the bed, but the rest of the design was white, clean lines like the main room below.
The bedroom wasn’t our destination, however. I was led next to the en suite where he started a shower for me. While I undressed, he pulled towels from a linen closet and set them on the counter.
“Take as long as you like,” he said when I was naked and steam began filling the room.
I wanted to ask him to stay. There was a part of me that thought I needed him to help me recover from whatever it was that was going on inside of me. And from the searching way he looked at me, I had a feeling there was a part of him that wanted to stay too. Or wondered if he should.
But I didn’t ask. Because I didn’t know what was going on in his head at the moment, and there was a possibility that he needed time alone. He usually did after we had sex, after all.
And maybe I needed time alone too.
Honestly, I didn’t know what I needed. But I knew I didn’t want to go home yet, and I was grateful that he’d given me some time before he kicked me out, even if it was time spent without him.
I lost track of time in the shower. I lost track of thoughts. I didn’t worry about sorting out my brain or my emotions. I just turned the water as hot as I could stand it and stood under the rain showerhead and let it pour over me until I felt like I could move again. Then I used some of Donovan’s shampoo and body wash, cleaned up quickly, and got out smelling like him, which made me smile unexpectedly with every inhale.
After drying off, I realized that my dress and bra were missing. Donovan must have taken them out with him when he’d left. I squeezed the water from my hair as best I could and, with a towel wrapped around myself, left the bathroom to look for him and/or my dress.
I found him first, in the bedroom looking out the window, one arm braced against the glass, a tumbler of scotch in the other, and as soon as I saw him, the breath left my lungs. He’d changed out of his suit, and now he was wearing a pair of dark sweats that hung loosely around his hips, and nothing else. His feet and chest were bare, and I couldn’t stop staring at the toned ridges of his abs, at the dips and curves of his biceps, at the sharp V lines that disappeared beneath the waistband of his pants.
It was a relaxed version of Donovan. As relaxed as he ever got, I suspected. And there was something so sensual about it. Something so inviting and intimate and alluring.
It did strange things to my body to see him like that. Made my blood hot like I was still in the shower, made me shiver as if I’d been out in the cold.