rough whisper against her ear. “All night long if that’s what’s required, but in return, you’re going to give me something.”
“What?” she asked, trying to pull free from his embrace.
He wasn’t hurting her, but his touch was crumbling the walls of her resolve, and that was the last thing she needed.
“All of you.”
Those were the exact words I wanted to say to Presley. This was supposed to be Kora and Donovan’s story, but I felt more and more of myself being inserted in there.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means, you can use me all you want, but you’ll be right there in the moment with me, Kora. I won’t have it any other way.”
“That didn’t stop you in the closet,” she snapped, her anger fueling her.
“Sweetheart, you were right there with me then, too. Don’t deny it. We both know better.”
Fine. She had been. But she damn sure wasn’t going to tell him that. She also wasn’t going to tell him that casual sex wasn’t her thing. She didn’t know how to deal with it. No matter what her brain wanted, she couldn’t shut her emotions down, and she feared she had already latched on to Donovan.
Which was stupid.
She’d already given her heart to one man; she definitely didn’t intend to give it to another. Sam had taken it and shattered it, leaving her in a million tiny pieces.
Donovan needed to make a stand, prove to this woman that living in the past wasn’t her only option. I flexed my fingers momentarily, staring at the page. Then it hit me.
“Stop thinking about him,” Donovan growled. “He’s not here with us.”
How the hell did he know what she was thinking? It made no sense.
Donovan’s arms fell from around her and she suddenly felt cold.
“Turn around.”
Hating that she was so quick to do as he instructed, Kora let her anger register on her face as she turned to face him, her back against the wall.
“I told you before, once I was inside your body, I wouldn’t be able to stop.”
“Sex? Is that what this is about?” Okay, so she knew it wasn’t, but she needed it to be. Donovan was trying to tell her different, but Kora didn’t want anything more. She couldn’t handle anything more. Especially not with a man she hadn’t even known for one day.
The next thing she knew, Donovan had taken her hand and was pulling her into the living room. He sat on the couch and tugged her arm until she fell down on top of him.
“Don’t move,” he ordered when she started to get up.
Her traitorous body relaxed.
But her anger reignited and this time … this time the tears followed.
All right. So, I hadn’t exactly expected that to happen, but I could work with it.
Crying women always made me nervous, but Donovan wasn’t like me. Not in that regard, anyway. He didn’t scare easily and he was used to being put in tough spots. A crying woman was probably the hardest spot to be in.
Donovan had known from the second he’d set eyes on this woman that she had a shitload of emotions bottled up inside. That was evident in the way she walked, the way she held herself. She didn’t take shit from anyone, but she hadn’t yet figured out how to let it all go.
And he’d also known when she’d propositioned him that she had intended to use him. Only Kora wasn’t the type. When they’d been in that storage closet, she’d given in to him completely and not just for the pleasure he could bring her.
Now, as she wept in his arms, her face buried in his neck, he sensed those walls she’d erected around her heart were beginning to crumble. She had no excuses anymore. She’d made it through the hard part, and it was time she took control once again, without all the animosity. Without the lies.
For a while, Donovan just held her, his arms around her, his hand gliding up and down her back. He didn’t move, didn’t try to get her to talk until she’d cried herself out.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
“For what?”
“For crying on your shoulder. Literally.”
Donovan smiled. “When’s the last time you cried?”
Kora shrugged and he knew that was the truth.
“Why did you let Sam off the hook?”
That was one of the questions I’d wanted to ask Gavin when he’d told me the story about his friend. I was pretty damn sure that the friend Gavin had been talking about was Presley. After she’d told me