Claiming Serenity

by Eden Butler

  I like you, Layla, she remembered him saying.

  Then, though it horrified her, she clearly heard her own drunken voice saying, I like you too. Then the flashes zipped forward, until her hands, her mouth, slowed like stop motion, reminded her that she had wanted him, had touched him and had practically begged him to touch her.

  This isn’t right, we’re so fucking drunk.

  I don’t care. She’d taken his face, pulled his mouth to her. Let me have you, Donovan. Let me feel you, just one fucking time.

  But there was no way on earth that she’d ever admit remembering what she’d said, how she’d pleaded, not now, not ever. Layla lifted her chin, tried to keep hold of the crumbling remnants of her pride. “I have a boyfriend, Donovan.”

  His smile returned, but he didn’t seem amused and didn’t stop her when she jerked her purse from the floor. “God, Layla, can you give me just a small break? Everybody knows you’re only dating Walter because you don’t want your dad finding out you smoked weed on the rugby pitch.”

  “That is not true.” She’d been sure no one knew about that! Hell, she hadn’t even told her best friend Mollie that she’d sweet talked Walter into keeping his mouth shut. Of course, she had to listen to him lecture her for an hour on the dangers of gateway drugs and what had turned into a few pity dates ended up being six months later. Six months of her telling him she “wasn’t that kind of girl” anytime he tried to get frisky. It was exhausting keeping up the pretense that she was into him.

  “Whatever you have to tell yourself, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart! Her pounding head and wounded vanity seized on that word. How dare he use that endearment so easily, like it was comfortable! Layla found it callously offensive, hypocritical after the years and years of his tormenting her. “Don’t you call me that. I swear, this is low. This is way worse than kidnapping my Honey-pup or putting green hair dye in my shampoo.” When he laughed, Layla’s temper flared and she stomped toward the door. “This is below the belt, Donley and you freaking know it.”

  He stopped her, shut the door as she opened it and the sound made that insistent throbbing in her head intensify. Layla turned, ready to give him another elbow to the ribs before she noticed that the humor had left his face.

  “You think being with you was another prank? Are you stupid?”

  She pointed to herself. “Dean’s list three years running, absolutely not.”

  Donovan grunted as she dug her fingernails into his hand which rested on the doorknob and he yelped, but put his weight against the door to keep her from wrenching it open. “You were upset and we called a truce.” A breath and a small step back and Layla understood that Donovan was truly surprised that she couldn’t remember the details. “You really don’t remember that?”

  “No. I don’t remember anything,” she lied. Her head pounded, worked a fierce Congo beat between her eyes. Even digging her knuckles into the corners didn’t make that pounding throb ease. “Freaking Patrón.”

  When she pulled her fingers from her eyes, Donovan straightened from his lean against the door; the frown that had made a brief appearance on his face earlier returned, but was heavier, more severe. He actually looked like he was ashamed, like sleeping with her really had nothing to do with humiliating her. “Hey, look I’m sorry. I asked you a couple of times…”

  Layla couldn’t take his excuse, shook her head to shut him up even though that did the throbbing in her head no favors. She wanted him to feel shitty. She wanted him to feel as bad or even worse than she did. His expression sure made it seem like he did, but this was Donovan Donley, arch enemy and bane of Layla’s existence. They had never been friends. Hell, they had never been friendly. He was an idiot if he thought a bottle of tequila would erase years of loathing.

  “Donovan we have hated each other since seventh grade and you pulled my shorts down in front of the entire gym class because I tagged you out in dodge ball. You tortured me throughout high school. You told Liam O’Brien that I had body lice when he wanted to ask me to the sophomore winter formal. In what sane world would you ever think I’d want to do you?”

  That ‘I feel shitty’ expression left his face and back again was the familiar jackass that Layla had grown accustomed to. The tilt of his head, the smirk that screamed patronizing asshole, brought back the acquainted urge to scratch out his eyes. “Like I said, you started it. I’m a guy, right? That’s what we do.”

  “You’re a freaking pig.”

  “Yeah?” Donovan leaned against the door and Layla had nowhere to retreat. She suddenly felt like this revoltingly unkempt room was too small, too confining. “Well, oink, oink, baby, you gave this pig the ride of his life last night.”

  Tired of looking at him, smelling that thick male scent coming from his skin, his hair, Layla stood up straight, tall, despite her raging head and aching limbs, eager to let him know she wasn’t going to let him shake her. “I swear to God and all that is holy, if you tell anyone—and I mean anyone—about this…”

  “Who am I gonna tell? You think I want anyone knowing I was with the psycho who put a freaking pound of glitter in my AC vents?”

  One of my better pranks, she thought and grinned remembering the weeks and weeks Donovan walked around campus looking like he had motorboated a fairy. Glitter sticks to absolutely everything. But for months her friends had been telling her that all the pranking and bickering was a very long stretch of foreplay. If Donovan ran his mouth about last night, they would find out and tease her to insanity. No way was she going to let those bitches think they were right.

  One arched eyebrow at him and she knew he understood just who it was that he shouldn’t talk to—his best friend.

  “Please,” he said. “Declan would kick my ass and I don’t want your dad benching me right when my ankle heals just because I defiled his precious angel.” When he saw Layla wince, Donovan sighed, held up his hands as though he was tired of arguing with her. “Let’s just agree to never mention this for the rest of our lives.”

  “As if I would.”

  “Fine.” Donovan moved her out of the way to open the door wide. “Then why don’t you leave?”

  “I’m already gone, dickhead.” And she meant to leave, right then. She meant to leave him and his nasty little apartment and never think about this God-forsaken night again. But then Donovan worked his jaw as if he might say something else, and the pull of their animosity, the constant thread that always had them bickering, arguing, attacking, made her hesitate.

  Donovan’s chest was large and as his breath came out hard, heavy, anger clear and present with each exhale. Layla couldn’t help staring at that chest, at its size, its firmness. Another niggling flash of the previous night came to her—his skin glowing in the lamp light, the curves of his back, his arms as he worked that strong body over her. She blinked again, three quick flutters she hoped would drive the faded memories out of her head, but when she looked up at his scowling frown, Layla knew she had to cover for that hesitancy. She couldn’t have him thinking she was staring him down, worse yet, that she really did like what she saw.

  “Just… um just so we’re clear, no one can know. Especially Declan. He can’t keep his mouth shut and if Autumn knows, then everyone else will.”

  “We’re clear, princess.”

  She hated being called that. It was an insult the way Donovan said it and nothing similar to when her father called her princess, like he had since she was a baby. Her dad told her she always reminded him of Cinderella. Donovan said it like she was Cruella DeVille. “Would you stop…”

  “I thought you were leaving.”

  “I am, you huge Neanderthal.”

  She was almost across the threshold when he added, “And don’t you go telling that rent-a-cop boyfriend of yours either. He’s got a big mouth too, and I don’t want Coach to find out.”

  She stopped in her tracks and turned on him. “Do you really think I’m that stupid?” He shrugged, implying that she might be, which only fueled the
simmering fire of her temper. She stepped back into the room, getting right up into his face. “God, I hate you so much. You’re such an asshole.”

  “Yeah, and you’re a bitchy little brat. And for the record, your smell like a brewery.”

  “Bastard!”

  “Lush!”

  Layla wanted to claw his eyes out, but instead she was caught still, struck stupid by the quick exhale Donovan released and the way his lips quivered in an exaggerated snarl. She wanted to insult him again, ignore how thick the air had become, how his sharp blue eyes burned as they trailed over her cheeks to her mouth, how they felt like licks of pleasure across her skin, but before she could level even the slightest insult at him, Donovan grabbed her arm and pushed her up against the door until it clicked closed.

  “You’re disgusting,” she told him, but her voice carried no venom.

  “And you’re a complete and utter bitch.”

  She wanted to hit him. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted Donovan to do something, anything but glare at her the way he was. And then, before she could think which she wanted more, Layla got her wish.

  His mouth was controlling, consuming, teeth against her bottom lip, opening her up to the invasion of his tongue. It was warm, thick and she felt it all over her body, with every thrust of his mouth on hers, with how tight his fingers pulled and squeezed her ass. Donovan wasn’t gentle, wasn’t sweet. This wasn’t a kiss that was meant to be tender. This was a full bodied, take control kiss and Layla had no idea why she wasn’t resisting, why she liked it so much. But she didn’t resist, and she did like it, so much. Too damn much.

  She moved her hand, curling her fingers into his t-shirt, let a low, soft moan work up her throat and she didn’t think about how much she hated him, how surely, kissing Donovan should repulse her, that the idea of Donovan doing anything remotely sexual had always repulsed her—hadn’t it? —but his tongue battled against hers, obliterating her thought. Caught in the fray, Donovan pushed his hands into Layla’s ass and that deliciously hard erection pressed against her. Layla was lost.

  For a moment.

  Her thoughts were warring, scattered telling her how stupid she was being, reminding her that she had a backbone, that she hated, hated Donovan and no matter how incredible his mouth and hands felt, she could pull away from him. Any minute now.

  And then Donovan destroyed the mood. “You want it again, don’t you, princess?” he said against her lips and just the sound of that overly confident voice had Layla pushing him back, arms straight, palms firm against his chest.

  He didn’t ask her why she stopped him, why she wouldn’t answer him. Instead he watched her drag the back of her hand across her mouth, moved his gaze to her eyes and instantly, she knew that the white flag that might have been raised between them had been lowered.

  She didn’t care how he made her feel. She didn’t care that the night before she, apparently, had given herself over completely to the one man she’d always professed to hate. This was Donovan Donley, a slight to all women with any good sense. Or a one year old Maltese puppy.

  “Don’t ever touch me again.”

  Donovan’s jaw moved again like he was trying to come up with something cruel, something angry to say. Instead he nodded once, straightened his shoulder before he opened the door. “Not a problem.”

  It didn’t happen, she told herself, bypassing the pizza boxes haphazardly scattered across the dingy, stinking carpet. It so did not happen. But as she left the apartment, looking up and down the cobblestone sidewalk, making certain none of those nosy, prying eyes watched her, she couldn’t help the shake that took over her hands or the wobble of her knees that had absolutely nothing to do with tequila consumption. Just didn’t happen. And part of her wondered, despite the anger, despite the outrage, despite what she knew she should be feeling, why what just didn’t happen had her smiling.

  “I have a confession to make.”

  Layla’s words broke the silence of the four girls sitting in a small booth at McKinney’s pub. All around them, other diners chatted and gossiped, glasses and flatware clinked while Layla and her friends sat down to their usual Saturday morning breakfast. She did not know what they expected, but by the way Autumn’s fork stopped just in front of her mouth and how Mollie and Sayo pulled their attention away from their phones, Layla knew her friends likely believed earth-shattering news was about to be delivered.

  “Well?” her best friend, Mollie, said when Layla swallowed back the cotton-feeling in her throat but still did not speak. She wanted to tell them what a stupid, misguided thing she’d done two days ago, but her friends looked mildly smug, as if they knew she’d been naked with that Donovan Demon. She couldn’t do it.

  “Um,” think idiot, think quick. “Um, I have never liked Walter. Like, at all. Not even a little. I don’t even think he’s remotely doable.”

  “Duh.” Mollie’s shoulders fell and she waved her hand, mimicking the head shake and eye roll Autumn and Sayo gave her at the declaration. Back to their plates, her friends stopped watching her as though disappointed that her news hadn’t been juicer. “You wanna tell us why you’ve wasted six months with him then?” Layla caught the look Autumn exchanged with Sayo as she spoke.

  These bitches know. They freakin know. “I smoked a blunt the night before last year’s book sale. He caught me. I didn’t want my dad finding out.” It had been a rash, stupid decision. But her father, Sean Mullens, was the University’s rugby coach and her mother, Meara, was an orthopedic surgeon at Cavanagh Memorial. People knew them. They knew them well. Her parents donated every year to St. Michael’s Christmas fund. They sent money to develop clean drinking water in Africa. They attended Mass almost every Sunday. They still held hands and kissed in public and were well liked by pretty much everyone. Layla had huge shadows to walk in. Sean and Meara Mullens would definitely not been okay with Layla out on her father’s pitch smoking a blunt. That night when she got caught, she had to think quickly, and with the way Walter smiled at her, she fell back on relying on her looks, something she hated doing but had worked in the past. She felt awful about it, but it had kept her secret—at a cost.

  She could see the brimming tide in her friends’ expression. She knew them well and by those calculating, narrow eyes and the way they glanced across the table at each other, Layla anticipated the storm of questions that surfaced between their paused breaths. “What” When the questions did come, they were meddling and all at once.

  “Where’d you get a blunt?”

  “Why on the pitch?”

  “Why the hell didn’t you share?”

  “Your dad would have killed you.”

  “But not her mom. God, that woman is a badass.”

  A tilt of her head and her friends sat back, but their smirks were infuriating, Mollie and Sayo’s at least. Autumn, however scowled at Layla like she’d wounded her deeply.

  “Seriously, why didn’t you share?”

  “What I’m saying,” Layla said, ignoring Autumn, “is that it’s finally over.”

  “When did this realization happen?” Sayo’s question was not unexpected and Layla found it funny that she asked “when” and not “why”. Walter was an uptight know-it-all who hadn’t bothered to get to know her friends. The Why of the break up was obvious and expected.

  “It was a couple of days ago.”

  Layla’s glass shook, dribbled water down the side when Mollie slapped her hand at the table surface in her surprise. “A couple of days? And you’re just telling us now? You’re just now telling me?”

  “Hey!” Mollie waved off Autumn’s protest and nudged Layla with an elbow. “I’m your ride or die girl, Layla. What the hell?”

  A quick snort and Layla glanced at her best friend, hoping her insulted glare would disappear. “You have been with Vaughn every waking moment you’re not in class. Autumn has been hitting the ice cream pints and listening to her Just Shoot Me music since Declan left for Ireland and Sayo—” Layla stopped talking when she caug
ht Sayo’s frown. They hadn’t seen much of their beautiful Japanese friend that semester. Her eight year old cousin’s cancer had returned and this time the prognosis wasn’t hopeful. “Anyway,” Layla continued, dismissing her small slip, “all of you have been busy.”

  “Honey, we’re never too busy for each other. You know that.” Autumn’s smile was warm and Layla appreciated how the redhead touched her arm to emphasize that she was being sincere.

  “Thanks, but Autumn, seriously?” Layla hid her small laugh with a sip of lemon water. “We won’t see you for at least a couple of days once Declan’s plane lands this afternoon. Much and many rounds of hey now going on, I suspect.”

  “That’s not true.” A quick blush moved across Autumn’s fair skin as though she didn’t want her friends to think too much about her and her boyfriend Declan reconnecting after nearly two weeks apart. “He and that brother of his are staying with my dad and Declan will have to play babysitter so I doubt there will be a lot of time for… hey now.”

  “Still can’t believe there are two Declans in the world. Seems unfair to all other men.” Mollie raised her glass of apple juice to Autumn as though saluting the redhead’s choice of boyfriends.

  They’d all been surprised the month before when Declan was called in by his birth father’s attorneys imploring him to settle some business with the estate in Ireland. That surprise turned to outright shock when Declan discovered not only did he have a half-brother, Quinn, but that the he was being asked to watch after him by the courts. Seems Quinn O’Malley was a spoiled, entitled hellion and the great country of Ireland was through with him. He was Declan’s problem now.

  Autumn shrugged, dismissing Mollie’s compliment. “Declan isn’t too eager to have Quinn here.”

  “I guess not, not after that Skype chat with him cursing Declan in the background,” Layla said remembering that conversation. They hadn’t had a good look at Declan’s younger brother, but could hear his thick Irish accent cursing Declan, America and anyone who tried to take his pint from him.