Resisting the Bad Boy

by Violet Duke

  It’d kill him, but he’d back off if she said the word.

  Before she could say anything at all, however, he thrust his hips against hers again in reminder—and promise—of what a ‘yes’ would entail. A rush of male satisfaction assailed him when she moaned and locked her legs around his waist. He wasn’t playing fair, but right now, it was hard to police himself. Not with her teeth raking across his neck every time he rocked against her. Not when every gorgeous sound coming out of her just made him even harder. Want her even more.

  His name fell from her lips then and he almost lost it. Raw and needy, the sound was pure sex-on-tape. And the look on her face as she said it cast a thick, lust-filled spell on him, had him growling in hunger by the time she finally pulled him in for a kiss—the first one he didn’t have to instigate.

  Christ, it was sweet.

  He loved sinking his fingers into her lush curves, sealing her tight against him as he drove deeper and harder against her core. Every quick, broken cry she couldn’t hold in was like a homing beacon, steering him as he nudged his erection higher, over the one spot that effectively scattered her breathing and compelled her to all but ride him as he did his best to simply hold on and take stock of what little control he had left.

  “Touch me,” she whispered.

  His restraint snapped.

  He slid a hand under the hem of her t-shirt, undid her bra and pushed the offensive thing out of his way. Plump and ripe, she filled his hand and then some. His lips broke away from hers on a groan as he skimmed her shirt up.

  And just stared.

  She was perfection. Softly rounded and feminine, just like the rest of her. Delicate. Sexy. He had to taste her.

  “Stop.”

  For one horrifying moment, he truly thought he wouldn’t be able to. Jaw clenched, eyes shut tight, somehow, he managed to inch back at the very last second with a ragged curse that blew hot and harsh across her skin.

  She cried out. The sensation making her arch and send her taut nipple grazing against lips.

  He wasn’t strong enough. A better man could’ve fought the temptation but not him. He lashed his tongue out, dragged it over the sensitive peak awaiting him. Once. Twice.

  She asked you to stop. He yanked himself back, panting, appalled at his lack of restraint. Even amidst his self-flogging, his mind still tornadoed with images of taking her right there on the counter, over and over until stopping was the last thing either of them would be capable of, until they burned through whatever this was building between them. And then started all over again.

  Holy shit. He curled his hands into fists and kept his eyes off her naked breasts, away from everything he couldn’t have, so goddamn close he could taste it.

  Did taste it…for three mind-bending seconds.

  “I…” she began, crossing an arm over her chest.

  “No need to explain,” he cut in, voice strained. “I told you to tell me if you wanted to stop.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, trying like hell to punch out some space for his raging hard-on. “I better go up and get changed for dinner.”

  A tiny, trembling hand on his arm prevented his escape. “I’m so sorry, Connor. I’m not trying to be a tease or anything, I swear. I just need to stick to something when I say I will. Especially this something.”

  “Forget about it,” his voice gentled. “Don’t apologize for saying no, Abby. You can always, always say no.”

  Her hand fell away. And something in her silence made him study her face closely. “Honey? Are you okay?”

  “That’s just it. Just because I can doesn’t mean I always did. Which is why I need to stick to these two weeks.” She shook her head sadly. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  No, he was starting to get that he didn’t understand anything fully when it came to Abby, when it came to what was clearly more than just the game of wits and stamina he’d thought it to be. “Then why don’t you explain it to me, sweetheart.”

  “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT, you know,” she teased with a rueful shrug, trying to make light of the situation, knowing that she now had Connor’s undivided attention. “I’ve never had a problem sticking to my guns until now. That’s why I made that stupid wager with you. Because I got cocky with an undefeated record that’s spanned nearly twelve years.”

  Abby gazed at him, at the concern she saw etched in his beautiful features. For so many years now, she’d watched him from afar, always knowing whenever he was really concerned about something, because his eyes would go from its normally intense pale blue to the softest gray. Until now, she’d ever only seen him look like that around Beth and Brian.

  She’d never wanted those gray eyes aimed her way.

  Too late now.

  “You joke about my being such a nice girl. But I wasn’t always. In high school, I was the furthest thing from it.”

  At his disbelieving expression, she scoffed. “Believe me, it’s true. Till my sophomore year, I was just me. Just Abby. But then I met a guy…” She exhaled softly. “An older, popular, incredibly hot guy who looked at me in ways no one ever had before. And he was exciting. Not because he was some cliché rebel without a clue, either; he was actually top of the senior class, an all-star athlete. Your basic high school stud, really…who had it bad for corrupting good little girls.”

  Feeling Connor tense, she looked away, afraid of what she’d see in his expression. “Seemed everyone but me knew how much he got off on finding the most pristine girls and turning them into playthings that would do anything he asked.”

  “That was me my junior year. At first, it was only a little dominant play here and there. Nothing major. Kind of fun, in fact. But then a month or so in, he started pushing me past my comfort zone a little at a time.” She fiddled with her pan of spanakopita. “The first was when he asked me to flash his friends, to ‘show them how hot his girl was.’ He’d seemed so matter-of-fact about it, and I’d felt so young and silly for not wanting to. When I looked over and saw him looking so disappointed by my hesitation, I shut out that voice in my head yelling no and yanked my top and bra without thinking. He spent the rest of the night treating me like a princess.”

  “From then, his requests started to get more…intense. In the beginning, I did say no. A lot. But he’d always be so sweet and cajoling that somehow, I found myself saying no less and less each time.”

  Blinking slowly, she met Connor’s gaze head-on, “I’m not saying this was all his fault, because it wasn’t. Yes, I felt pressured by the thought of losing him but part of me felt okay going with it as long as it was under the pretense of ‘him making me do it.’ That became the easy button for me to push to do every depraved thing he wanted me to do.”

  “The first time he had me do something for a bigger crowd was with a bunch of his teammates. All their girlfriends were there too. After a few beers, the guys wanted us girls to strip…and we did, one by one. I was the last to go. By the time the last of my clothes was tossed out of my reach, a full blown game of musical chairs with sex partners was going on, and I was immediately yanked down to my knees by two massive linebackers.”

  “My boyfriend came to my rescue, pulled me on the side and told me how he didn’t want to share me with any of his friends. I was so thankful. He told me if I just gave him a blowjob in front of everyone, that’d get them off my back. So I did.” She swallowed the acrid taste in her mouth at the memory. “I even remember feeling so special to be the one girl whose guy wouldn’t share her.” She laughed bitterly at herself. “I didn’t know it was all part of his long con.”

  “After that night, for a while, everything was great. Fairytale-like. I was totally smitten. And a part of me did this whole ‘told-you-it-wasn’t-a-big-deal’ thing. That’s why I was blindsided by the party at his friend’s house a few weeks later—basically a huge orgy.” Abby watched the muscle tick in Connor’s cheek and tamped down her mortification. “He said the same thing as last time, that all I’d have to do was ‘perform,’ no big deal. But then befor
e I knew what was happening, all my clothes were off and he’d kissed me up onto the center of the dining table with everyone surrounding it, guys and girls. And video cameras.”

  She didn’t realize she was shaking until she felt Connor squeeze her hand. “I still remember the big crystal chandelier above that dining table. There I was naked in front of dozens of kids, half of whom didn’t even go to my school. And all I could do was stare at that chandelier. Half hoping it would fall from the ceiling so I could stop. Get up and go home. But it didn’t. It kept right on hanging there, twinkling at me…while I masturbated for them all.”

  Something dark and vicious crossed Connor’s face. Along with pity. Stifling, drowning shame almost prevented her from going on. But she continued, wanting, needing him to understand. “I can still hear them yelling, egging me on. But I just couldn’t come. So that’s when the requests started rolling in. Folks were demanding I eat out some of the girls or suck off the guys. I was drunk, and a little high off pot, but I still knew for certain that I didn’t want to. I’d had enough.”

  Though she’d replayed that night hundreds of times in her head, the next part still slammed her like a wrecking ball each time. “When I started crying and grabbing my clothes to leave, my boyfriend just wrapped his arms around me and began ‘comforting’ me. Telling me how he’d never been more turned on in his life, how sexy I was. And then he busted out the big guns and told me he loved me. Loved me. That’s all it took. Three little words and I was crawling back on that table, heading over to a group of kids going at it on the other end. The cheering all around got so loud…” She shut her eyes.

  “It was so loud I didn’t hear my parents barge in.”

  Knife-cutting humiliation and remorse sliced through her fresh like it did every time she saw their devastated faces in her mind. Connor’s face right now was a close third. “Apparently, some girl from the party had called my house, told my parents where I was and that I was in trouble. I never found out who, never got to thank her from putting a halt to something I would’ve regretted more than having my folks see me like that. As the free entertainment at a high school sex party.” She trudged through the rest, didn’t bother glossing over how stupid she’d really been. “My parents threw a jacket on me and rushed me out to their car so fast, I almost didn’t see my boyfriend in all the chaos. But he made sure I did. He winked and blew me a kiss goodbye, then reached over and started fingering a drunk girl beside him, right there in front of me. And I actually cried over that, over him the entire ride home.”

  “I would’ve killed him,” Connor snarled, enraged. “Still could if you give me his name. That guy was a sick, twisted psychopath who took advantage of you, broke you, practically brainwashed you. For chrissakes, you were what, only seventeen?”

  “Sixteen. And yeah, that’s what my folks kept telling me.” Hot tears welled in her eyes. “To this day, I still can’t believe I put them through that.” Her voice broke. “After how hard they worked to give me a great childhood, that’s how I repaid them. I didn’t have a sad home life or tragic backstory; my own selfish idiocy was the sole reason I’d turned into a teenage slut.”

  “Don’t ever call yourself that!”

  She jumped, never having heard such a hard edge to his voice before. “But I was. A slut for him, at least. It’s okay. I don’t make excuses for it. I’m not proud of who I was then and my not sweeping it under a rug is what has made me who I am today. Like you said, I could’ve said no at any point. It was on me that I didn’t.” When he started to object, she held up a hand. “Don’t try to convince me otherwise. My body, my decisions. And as you can see,” she waved her hands over herself. “I turned out just fine. From porn star to professor.”

  “That’s not funny,” he bit out.

  “Yeah, my mom doesn’t like that joke either. Whenever I make a crack like that she always scolds me and tells me I should let go of the past. Let go more, period—she seems to think I overcorrected a bit with my life. But I don’t. I like who I am now. If guys call me a goodie-goodie stuck-up tease, so be it. I know who I am.”

  “And who is that, Abby?” asked Connor softly.

  “I’m the nice girl by choice—my wish, my reality.”

  His eyes hardened. “So now I’m the new asshole corrupting that reality.”

  Her brows shot up in alarm. “What?! No!”

  “Is that what the sexual inquisition was about the other day?” Now he sounded downright livid. “All that threesome talk? Is that what you think of me? You think I’m like that monster who tortured you in high school?!”

  “Of course not!” she gasped. “I asked you all that because I was genuinely curious. What happened when I was sixteen was less about the sex and more about the control. The control I gave up over my own life.” When he looked unconvinced, she grabbed his wrist. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Are you? You tell me guys basically call you frigid but here you were the other day asking me about every raunchy thing I’ve ever done. I know you weren’t just teasing me, either; you’re just not built like that. So what the hell, Abby? Do you see me the way you saw that guy? Do you feel like you have to be a slutty plaything for me? Because it’s not true. Not at all. I’d hate to have any woman be like that for me.”

  “I know that, Connor, I swear. I wasn’t planning on losing myself with you, or for you. All that talk wasn’t specific to you. I’d have had the same questions for any guy whose sexual history differed from mine. In fact, I make sure of it so we both know what we’re getting into. I’m not repeating the mistakes I made back then; I know the difference between identity and fantasy now. Whether or not I like your fantasies, I’m not changing my identity. Not for you or for any guy.”

  “Stop talking about being with other guys!” he exploded.

  She eyed him warily.

  “What if I’d wanted the threesomes, Abby? What then?”

  “I would’ve considered it seriously and decided if it was something I really wanted.”

  “So consider it now. Humor me.” His scowl was fierce.

  She shoved a ruthless lid on her embarrassment, trying desperately to show she really did want a logical discussion about this. Heck, she’d had it with each of the three other guys she’d dated seriously in the past. Just…in a far more hypothetical manner, since their fantasy sexcapades didn’t come close to Connor’s real life history. “I’d be too jealous to share you with another woman,” she confessed. “So I’d have said no to that.”

  A low grunt was his only response.

  “As for you and another guy.” She bit her lip. “I admit the thought of it is a little hot. But…” How was she supposed to explain it? How was she supposed to tell him that she couldn’t even remotely consider a threesome if true emotions were involved…something that was fast becoming the case with Connor. “I feel like I’d lose the connection of being with you, just the two of us. So no, I wouldn’t want that either.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  She smiled at his clipped, audibly relieved response. There, that wasn’t so bad. “Then it’s settled—no threesomes. See? Mature and rational. I know when I brought it up the other day we were goofing around but this was what I wanted. This control right here? I gave him this when I was sixteen. That’s what I hated the most about it all. So now, I keep that control secured tight. Live by it, rise and fall by it.”

  His expression softened. “That’s what you meant when you said you need the two weeks you asked for? For control?”

  “Yes. Back then, I felt like I didn’t know my own mind, and that the few times I did, I didn’t stand up for what I wanted, good or bad. If I’d wanted to be a slut, I wouldn’t have hated myself so much. But that wasn’t the case. I was weak, every bit the mindless plaything he’d turned me into. Too scared to admit to him what I did and didn’t want, and foolish enough to convince myself that his wants were mine. I’m never going back to that. Now, every decision in my life is mine. I take a good look at
my wishes, whatever they may be, and work hard to make them my reality. That’s how I came back from that, by taking 100% ownership of my life.”

  She slid a hand along his cheek. “And that’s what I have to do here. With us. This past week, I haven’t been totally honest with myself on what I truly want. I hid from it. The truth is, you are most definitely a wish I want to become my reality. Even if it’s only going to be a short reality.”

  That last part made him flinch.

  “I’m entering with my eyes wide open,” she reassured him. “Telling you my sordid past simply reminded me how being scared to admit to and hold true to what I really want never got me anywhere good. You’re what I want, Connor. What I’ve wanted for a while if I’m being perfectly honest.”

  She felt his heart rate pick up under her palm.

  “Dammit, Abby. You can’t offer yourself up to me on a silver platter after telling me everything you just did.”

  “I know. So that’s why we should just eat, talk, watch a movie. Do everything we’ve been doing. For tonight.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be just like your other one-month women.” She smothered her body’s immediate objection to that statement and held his gaze. “I’m not resisting what I want anymore.”

  That one, her body didn’t have any complaints over, seeing as how it was the absolute truth.

  Resisting Connor Sullivan was no longer an option.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AS FAR AS MORNING AFTER big declarations go, Abby decided this one was going fairly smoothly. Probably because they were both on their laptops pretending they weren’t sitting six feet from each other.

  But after the third mumbled apology when their hands collided reaching for someone on the table, she got pissed. Shoot, if she only had another three weeks with the man, this was not how she was going to spend it.

  She grabbed her phone and started texting.

  >> Were the white panties the only one you saw?