Rescuing the Bad Boy (Second Chance #2)(71)

Now, she was clawing the sheets, eyes scrunched closed, helpless sounds eking from her throat along with each truncated, strangled breath. Donovan, as it turned out, was incredibly skilled at what he was doing. And what he was doing was drawing her to the very edge of a cliff she never would have voluntarily stood on.

Then he pushed her over.

“Oh, oh God!” she shouted, actually shouted. Her entire body tightened like a drawn bowstring, then released, every nerve ending pulsating, light bursting behind her eyelids. He moved up her body, pressing kisses to her thighs, her stomach, her ribs, breasts, and finally to her still-open mouth.

“Need to know if you’re good with no condom, Scampi.”

Lazily, she opened her eyes. He hovered over her, so close, his long hair tickled the sides of her face. His silver-blue eyes unerringly met hers and when his tongue came out to wet his lips her back arched again. Because his mouth: wow.

“Yes.” She wasn’t about to turn him down.

“You trust me.”

She did. “I trust you.”

“Open your legs and let me in,” he whispered against her mouth before capturing her lips with his.

She parted her knees and he worked the snap on his shorts, sliding down the zipper and freeing his length. Without undressing, he slid inside her and Sofie’s eyes rolled back into her head.

Oh-so-sensitive down there, each delicious slide echoed through her body, making her pant and plead as he stroked in and out slowly.

“Another,” he said, sounding pleased. “That’s what I like to hear.”

She opened her eyes but rather than find him grinning cockily, when he drove into her again, his mouth dropped open as his eyes squeezed closed.

“Tight. Jesus, Scampi.”

Every one of her limbs went rigid, froze solid. Her hands on his shoulders clutched, her fingers flinching. Pinching her eyes shut, she tried to push away the memory of a time he’d said something similar. And failed.

You’re so tight, I nearly broke it off in there.

She’d never forgotten how disgusted he’d sounded. How embarrassed she felt.

“Don’t,” she whispered, her voice as thin as the shield she raised to protect herself now.

His palm was on her face in the space of a heartbeat. “Scampi.” He stilled. “You need me to stop?”

She shook her head, eyes still shut.

“No. Don’t stop. It’s… it’s not a big deal,” she said, reassuring both of them. She opened her eyes. Forced a smile. “It’s nothing.”

“Lie.” His upper lip curled.

He flexed his hips and drove in to the hilt, then came down on his elbows and sifted his fingers into her hair. There was no escaping him. No escaping his piercing eyes. He brushed her hair from her forehead.

“Straight through, sweetheart.”

Dammit. Inhaling a breath she hoped was laced with courage, she spoke quickly. The truth this time.

“In the library. That night. You… said the same thing to me. I was humiliated,” she finished on a whisper, humiliated still.

His brows bent, pale eyes flooded with regret. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

His gaze was unwavering, his body embedded in hers.

“Want the truth?” he asked after a lengthy silence.

She bristled, but said, “Yeah.”

“You’re still tight.”

A new wave of shame covered her, but he wouldn’t let her look away this time.

The fingers he’d sifted into her hair anchored her in place.

“I had a lot of anger back then. So much, sometimes I shook with it.” His fingertips pressed into her scalp. “At times, I felt like I was falling apart.” His mouth closed over hers in a soft kiss. “Being inside you, Sofie, is like being held together.”

Lost in the moment, she drank in the honesty in his face. Took in the fact there was absolutely nothing between them—no barrier between Donovan’s body and her own.

“Difference was,” he continued, “back then, I didn’t know what to do with that feeling.” The pressure lessened on her head and he massaged gently. “Your sweetness wasn’t something I knew how to deal with.”

“I hate being sweet. It’s a nice way to say I’m weak.”

“No, Scampi.” He eased out of her body oh-so-slowly, taking her breath with him. “Not true.” He stroked into her again, hard and thick, and grinned. “That was the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. And there isn’t a damn thing weak about you.”

Except for where he was concerned. There, she was weak. Like wet-paper-plate weak.

Tilting his hips, he drove into her again.

“You have a decision to make, Scampi.” He drew out, muddling her mind. “Slow and smooth or hard and fast?”

Given that the slow and smooth was making her feel all sorts of things she knew she shouldn’t, she said, “Hard and fast.”

His grin suggested he didn’t mind her request.

“You got it.”

He made good on both counts. And the second time he mentioned the word “tight,” it sounded a lot like a compliment to her.





Sofie woke with her hand over the words tattooed on Donovan’s ribs, her entire body sealed against his. Her left leg was thrown over his thigh, the bottom of her foot against the side of his foot, and her right cheek against his left shoulder.