Rescuing the Bad Boy (Second Chance #2)(5)

Wow. That was a solid no. The post-coital hum in her body shut off like a switch.

Dejected, embarrassed, and pissed off in a way she knew would devolve into sobbing the moment she shut her bedroom door at home, she finished dressing.

The humiliation had engulfed her by the time she grabbed her coat and purse from the foyer. Donny snatched his leather coat from a hook on the wall and shrugged into it.

Wordlessly, she followed him outside and climbed into his Jeep.

More silence followed during the drive back to the restaurant. The restaurant she’d entered a few hours ago for a work party, determined to kiss Donny Pate before night’s end.

Mission accomplished, she thought miserably, unable to dredge up even a humorless smile.

He pulled into the Wharf’s parking lot, empty save for her compact car parked in the back. Snow had started to fall, the light flakes sticking to the windshield.

Donny threw the Jeep into Park, then looked straight ahead, his face utterly expressionless. Walls up, shutters drawn.

Closed down.

But she hadn’t imagined the part where he’d been gentle tonight. The part when he’d met her eyes, asked if she wanted him. Asked if she was okay. Even his command of “come for me” had sounded a lot like “ladies first.”

Determined to leave this night with something salvageable, she turned to say good-bye. Maybe tomorrow when she showed up at work, things would be different.

“Donny, before I go—”

His sensual mouth formed one word, piercing her already tender heart.

“Out.”

She blinked at his shadowed profile. Awful.

“Can’t we—”

He faced her, his gray eyes cold. His voice rose suddenly, echoing off the interior of the Jeep. “Scampi, get the hell out!”

Reacting without thought, a primal urge lifted her hand. The slap cracked across Donny’s angled jaw, forcing his head to the side. Appalled, she felt her eyes widen as a shaking hand lifted to her lips. Never in her life has she delivered a physical blow to anyone. Violence—no matter how vindicated—wasn’t in her nature.

Through the strands of black hair covering his face, his silver-blue eyes glowed with anger. Before she could get an apology out, his upper lip curled, and when he spoke, it was through a charred throat filled with gravel.

“Get. The f*ck. Out.”

She obeyed and climbed out, feeling a mixture of rage, guilt, and shame. Squealing tires whirred in the gathering snow before Donny peeled from the lot, leaving her to walk to her car alone.

Some first time.

Sofie was wrong about the sobbing. It didn’t start in her bedroom, but right then, the icy wind freezing her tears to her damp cheeks. On the drive home, she vowed to make her first time her last, knowing it was a promise she wouldn’t keep.

Then she vowed never to let Donny worm his way into her heart again.

That was a promise she could.





CHAPTER ONE




Seven years later

Donovan Pate balled his hand into a fist and gave the front panel of his 1980 Jeep a hard whack. The temperamental dashboard lights had been flickering since he’d crossed the Ohio border.

“Come on, Trixie!” Never before had he raised a hand to his girl, but frustration had reached its peak. A seemingly never-ending drive to the last place on earth he wanted to return had a way of leeching his patience.

The lights blinked one last time before coming on and staying on. Squirrelly electric only one of the many perks to owning a classic. His Jeep had earned her name shortly after he bought her—he never knew which part of her might act up next.

He drove the main drag through downtown, shaking his head at the familiar sights. The local watering hole Salty Dog and Reggie’s Subs were both open, and each as unwelcome as every other inch of this place. When he left years ago, he’d sworn never to set foot in Evergreen Cove again.

“Yet here we are,” he told Trixie.

Donovan’s phone beeped, an incoming text from Evan Downey, one of his oldest—and only—friends, and the only person other than the lawyer who knew Donovan was in town.

The text message read: The bad boy returns.

Despite his friend intentionally being a douche, Donovan felt himself smile.

At a stoplight, he keyed in: FU.

Evan didn’t respond, but Donovan knew he was laughing. Could practically hear his easygoing chuckle now.

The light turned green and his smile faded. Much as he missed his friend, he did not want to be here.

He’d already driven past the library where his teenage, drunken, quick-to-fight self had accompanied his buddies, Evan and Asher, on their now infamous “Penis Bandit” excursion. The “artwork” may be gone from the red-brown brick building, but Evan had returned. Returned with his son, Lyon, fell in love with his late wife’s best friend, and was now engaged. Go figure.

Asher Knight had managed to stay away. Good for him. Right about now, Ash was probably touring with his band, female groupies adhered to his side—and likely a few other body parts. Donovan kept up with him through text message mostly. Usually on the receiving end of photos he wished he’d never gotten. The guy saw a lot of drunken, topless girls in his line of work.

Evan and Asher stopped visiting Evergreen Cove, but Donovan remained. Back then, he’d mostly hung out with the derelict kitchen staff from the Wharf, and his roommate, Connor McClain.