Claiming Serenity

by Eden Butler

  Layla couldn’t think about that right now, would decide later if she should be thankful or insulted by that look. Wanting to defuse the situation, she took his hand, moved a gentle finger over his bloodied knuckles. “My dad will kill you if you can’t catch tomorrow at practice.”

  Still, he didn’t speak, even as his hard glare softened, replaced by a look that Layla couldn’t quite define. She had thought at first it was chagrin, but maybe it was amazement. Maybe it was guilt. She couldn’t be sure, but she let Donovan watch her, let him keep silent and focus on her as she examined his knuckles.

  They may have stayed there all night, her touching him, him staring at her like she was remarkable, possibly the devil made flesh, but Sayo interrupted them, touched Layla’s back as she spoke low and quiet to keep what she said from being heard by the dispersing crowd. “Get him home, Layla, before the real cops show up.” She nodded to the other players and they hurried the crowd along, moving with an unspoken, understood reaction to keep their squad mate from any real trouble. “Patch him up, make sure he gets home okay.”

  The look Sayo gave her was unusual; an unexpected comment on Layla’s role that night, on how she was changing. That look told Layla that Sayo was now alone, that she was now the only uncoupled friend among their group. It was a silent understanding that Layla thought she should deny and she meant to, wanted to. But Sayo kissed her cheek and left one long, close look before she walked away from them.

  In the dark, where only quiet keeps them company, Donovan finds who he truly is. With Layla and the easy slide of their skin moving together, there is truth. It is unbridled, the honest strike of his body against hers, the unguarded whimper of her pleasure mingling with his.

  He’d thought he didn’t love Layla. He was convinced she’d never love him. Her family was old money, blood deep in Cavanagh’s roots. His family came from nothing, were nothing. Then Sean Mullens befriend Donovan’s father, took him under his wing and told him that the Donley name wasn’t trash. Coach convinced Donovan’s father that he didn’t have to end up like Donovan’s grandfather. He could be more than the poor son of a drunk who liked to beat on his wife and son. Still, the deep pockets his father had worked hard to earn didn’t matter. In this town new money didn’t win you social standing. It didn’t keep those snobby noses out of the air, despite his mother’s fruitless efforts at pretending the Donley name wasn’t a blight on gossipy, flapping tongues. Donovan knew who he was. Now, so did Layla.

  But between those sheets dampened by their sweat, their two bodies collided, breaching past any veil of propriety that held them to politeness. No “thank yous”, no “pleases”, just “nows” and “harder” and “this is what I need”. They were not polite.

  They were real.

  They were raw.

  Until this night.

  He’d hit that asshole for trying to take her. Donovan had hit Walter because he didn’t like seeing his hands on her. Because that irrational urge to get Walter’s hands off Layla had been a revelation for Donovan. Not because he loved fucking her. Not because there was so much passion and fire between them. Seeing her out on that sidewalk, jerking Walter’s hands off her arm moved a thunder of realization straight through Donovan’s brain. He hated seeing someone else lay claim to her, even in such a pathetic way. He simply couldn’t let it pass. And then, as he beat on Walter, and as Layla held him back from doing more damage, Donovan found himself speechless, overcome with the knowledge that yes, he did love her. He fucking loved Layla right then. Right there, he knew he loved her, and that knowledge scared the hell out of him. He’d promised himself that he’d never let that happen. He swore he’d never let another woman crawl into his thoughts, live there like she belonged.

  Especially not Layla. Especially when Donovan knew she’d only reject him. Of course she would. A Donley would never be good enough for a Mullens and he knew, with frightening lucidity, that she’d end up devastating him.

  “Here,” she said, pushing back his sleeve to rest his hand in her lap. The room filled with the smell of rubbing alcohol and the metallic scent of blood. His blood; blood he’d spilled for her. “This is gonna sting a little.” In the low light of his room, her thick blonde hair caught and shone, white highlights and gold streaks among the strands that reminded him of spun silk. He noticed her lips moving, knew she was bitching at him for being so reckless, but just as he had on the street, Donovan couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.

  He’d been frozen by her presence, by the fierce, unsettling way he now knew he loved her. She fascinated him and it scared the hell out of him.

  Now, all he could think of was kissing her, thanking her for giving even the smallest shit if he lived or died. He wanted to touch her, to taste her, to tell her with his mouth and tongue and body that he was tired of their emotionless agreement. He knew she wouldn’t love him back, he knew that if he even hinted that he wanted more from her, she’d bolt. So, if he couldn’t have all of her, he’d try for what she would give him. If he couldn’t love her in the open, he’d put each hidden thought, each secret emotion into the way he touched her, the way he would make love to her.

  “…I don’t think you need any stitches, and you should be okay for practice, though you’re probably going to be stiff in the morning so make sure you hide it when Declan or my dad…” And then, those round, luscious lips stopped moving and Donovan blinked, caught by her low drawl of “What?”

  Donovan shook his head, not sure how to approach this. Not sure if he could touch her, love her like he wanted and keep what he felt from her. She stared a little too long at his face and then her eyes shifted to the left. “Your cheek is still bleeding.” He didn’t’ even feel the bite from the alcohol or feel the burn of the ointment as she rubbed it into his skin.

  That’s when Donovan stopped her, unable to keep from touching her. Her skin was cold as he pulled her hand from his face, overturning the bottle of alcohol in her lap when he reached for her. He would have her how he wanted, but it would be different from before. It would be soft and gentle and it would mean something, even if she never discovered what that something was. It would mean something to him.

  “Come here.”

  And she did. Layla let him kiss her, let him slide his fingers through her hair, pick her up and carry her to his bed. She didn’t argue. She didn’t fight him and for once, Donovan was grateful for the silence.

  Donovan couldn’t give her the fairytale. She was Cinderella, at least she wanted to be and though it was unrealistic, though she knew that any intelligent woman would balk at the notion of a Prince Charming, that small girl Layla had once been still wanted a happily ever after.

  But her cousin and his father had ripped from Donovan any princely inheritances, any ability to give Layla what she wanted. She knew this. It was forefront in her mind, but that did not stop her from taking what it was he could give her. His fingers fell to her skin and the touch wasn’t hurried, wasn’t eager. Donovan touched her like he wasn’t desperate for the sensation. His movements were slow, like their melding, their touching, was there for comfort, not need, were not the same anxious pulls and grabs that told Layla he needed release. And she returned those slow movements for once, letting him lead, letting him find what he wanted from her. It was not control. This wasn’t the bickering dance they’d been moving through for years. Donovan touched Layla like he loved her, like for one brief moment, she didn’t infuriate him. Like he thought she was precious.

  It was just one night. She’d only allow herself one night with him like this. She knew this would not last, that his reaction, his tenderness was just the expression of some primal need to claim her, to let her know he’d never try to do what Walter had. He was tempting her with something he’d never offer her beyond these walls.

  “Donovan…”

  “This body is perfect,” he said, kissing between her breasts, moving his fingers over her nipples, holding the heavy weight between his palms. “I’ve never seen someone m
ore perfect.”

  She couldn’t stop him, couldn’t ask him to be rough, to be harder with her, to stop distracting her from the truth she knew would come at the end of this. Not when he said things like that, not when he touched her like every trace meant something. It might not last, this new appreciation he praised on her body, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love it.

  “Sometimes when you leave, I sleep with my pillow under my chin.” He rolled over, pulling her leg up, slipping inside of her and closing his eyes like her body, the way she felt around him, was a sensation his body craved. “Sometimes I can still smell you on my clothes.” His thrusts were slow, calculated and Layla arched her back, digging her fingers into his skin as he drove into her deeper. “I like the way you smell, Layla. On my pillow, on my sheets, on my t-shirts. That scent settles me, makes the bullshit of my day more bearable.”

  She wanted to cry. This emotion his confessions, his slow, steady rhythm and those looks he gave her; those raw, overwhelming looks of respect, of awe, made her ache for what she would never have with him.

  “Donovan, go harder. Go deeper.”

  One thrust, two and he shook his head. “Not yet, baby. Not just yet.”

  And Layla stilled completely. In all the months they had been sneaking around, touching and feeling and fucking behind closed doors, he had never once called her that. It was always “brat,” a sarcastic “princess”, or “Layla”; sometimes he’d call her a “sexy motherfucker” which she pretended to hate. That filthy little endearment never failed to make her wet, but he had never been sweet. Not like this. Not once.

  She was too stunned to comment or do much more than to let him fill her, let him kiss her neck, hold her head, her shoulders as he moved inside her. She did not deny him anything that night; not her body, not her labored, weak breaths, not her loud voice screaming, moaning her gratitude as she came over and over, each orgasm harder, more powerful than the one before it.

  And Donovan watched her; even with her eyes slammed shut in orgasmic bliss and her voice amplified into the dark room, she could feel his eyes on her. She could hear the awed whisper of her name from his lips as he took his own release. It was soft, all of it and Donovan had never been soft with her like that.

  God, how she would miss this. From the very core of her being, she wished it wasn’t just make believe…

  Donovan was a whisper in the back of her mind. That small, persistent voice that called to her every night since she’d walked out of his apartment.

  Three weeks before.

  She would not go back. It was too dangerous. He was the spark that would inflict the worst damage—the blazing tinder that could ignite her completely and Layla could not allow that to happen.

  “Stay in bed with me. All day. You and me and this bed.”

  Three sentences. A great temptation followed by the sweetest, slowest kiss Layla had ever been given. It would have been easy for her to accept. It would have been a mind numbing indulgence that allowed Layla to forget that she was not Donovan’s. There were no promises. There were no emotions. There were no commitments. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—pretend that there ever would be.

  But he’d wanted her to stay. He’d wanted to stay bare, raw with her as he had been all night. He’d wanted her to be honest and open and real with him.

  That was not what she’d signed up for. It went against their guidelines, those loosely agreed-to arrangements they’d made to protect themselves from each other.

  She had to walk away.

  “Layla, move your ass. Come on, Mollie’s got two minutes on you!”

  She hated her best friend’s boyfriend. Vaughn Winchester, the psycho CrossFit Nazi that had her presently sweating so much she looked like she’d just stepped out of a hurricane. The entire studio smelled of sweat and defeat. People came here to have Vaughn mold them, stretch their muscles and strengthen their cores until the flab and pliable muscle became firm and brutish.

  All around them were men and women running through their fast intervals; swinging from rings attached the high ceiling, jumping like idiots from boxes elevated in different heights. All insane. All intensely competitive and Layla felt like a fraud, a fake among those driven, obsessive athletes trying to out-exhaust each other.

  Vaughn, lucky for Layla, decided he’d help her with her desire to forget the pressures that waited for her back in Cavanagh. She hated how he ran his studio like he was still in the Marines. She hated that Mollie didn’t join her in the quick rebuke of his orders. The big traitor followed Vaughn’s instruction with a damn smile on her face.

  When he got in Layla’s face, coming so close to her that she could smell the faint scent of cologne and, oh God, Mollie’s perfume, Layla decided to scream right back at him. “Bite me, Winchester!”

  “No flirting with my man.” Mollie seemed pleased with her small joke, smiling despite how red her cheeks had grown and the steady flow of sweat pouring down her temples. Layla wanted to kill them both.

  “Layla, use your body weight. Come on, three more reps.” Vaughn looked determined, looked fucking evil, staring at them both, stopwatch in his hand as she and Mollie jumped up and down on that ridiculously high plyo box.

  She swore she’d hear Vaughn’s grating, booming voice in her sleep that night. But she’d needed this. Three weeks and her muscles had turned to lead. Three weeks of exhausting herself to keep thoughts of Donovan’s body out of her head had worked, for the most part. After the first week of Vaughn’s torture, she could just manage to fall into her bed at night before she was out.

  Three weeks in, though, she was getting slow, slipping and had nearly bypassed the turn toward her house for the long road that led to Donovan’s apartment.

  “You’re off to… shit… today,” Mollie said, jumping higher and higher onto the plyo box two feet above them. “You okay?”

  Layla couldn’t reply. She wasn’t ignoring her best friend. She just didn’t think there was enough oxygen left in her lungs to allow her speak. Instead she nodded, sucking in a deep pocket of air as she lowered and then jumped, almost missing the box completely before Vaughn blew his annoying whistle and she and Mollie turned toward the kettle bells.

  This was good. Exertion, distraction, utter exhaustion. This would keep her mind off Donovan, off his touch, his skin, the messages he had left her, all the ones she hadn’t bothered to answer.

  What happened? Was Donovan’s way of asking why she hadn’t come to him, why she’d stayed away, but Layla caught the meaning behind his veiled worry. He wanted to know what had changed. He wanted to know why she wouldn’t speak to him.

  “Autumn wants a Potter marathon tonight.” Mollie gritted her teeth, swinging the bells, twisting her waist, her defined arms bunching tight as she breathed through her movements.

  “Where?”

  “Her place and…”

  “Numbers, Mollie…”

  “Ugh, I’m counting, Semper Fi…” Mollie rolled her eyes at her boyfriend when his fussing became too loud. Her rep finished, she set the bells down and collapsed on the mat with Layla following her a minute later. Even with her eyes closed and her mouth open, sucking up the hot air in the studio, Layla could feel Mollie’s stare. That and the suspiciously Marine-scented breath fogging against the side of Layla’s arm. “If you’re worried Donovan will make an appearance, then don’t. Autumn said he’s out of town this weekend.”

  “What?” Layla said, sitting up too quickly, acting too curious. Underneath her, Layla’s soaking yoga pants squeaked against the sweaty mat.

  Mollie’s smirk was ridiculous and it gave Layla the impression that her best friend expected her to drill for details. But she didn’t, couldn’t actually as the heat, the quick lift of her body off the mat and exertion got the better of her and her heartbeat refused to slow. “Shit. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “He’s a demon,” Mollie said, flipping her middle finger at her boyfriend as he passed by them. “God, you know what?” Mollie copied Layla,
sitting up with her hands in her hair and elbows on her knees. “Me too. Ugh.”

  And then the details of the night and the plans Donovan had made out of town were completely disregarded as Layla jogged after Mollie toward the bathroom and both girls hurled over the toilets.

  A good two minutes of Layla trying to block out the stench and sound of her and her friend’s exercise-induced spewing, and she finally found her voice. “Mollie?”

  “Yeah… ugh, oh God… what Layla?”

  “I fucking hate your man.”

  He waited for her outside of her Marketing class. Again. A quick glance down the hallway brought Donovan back to that day, months before, when he had taken her into an empty classroom to set her straight. That day, like only Layla could do, she had instead climbed right into his head, into his senses and he found himself tasting her, wanting to take her, right then.

  But that was before she’d left. That was before Donovan had let things get complicated, before he’d throttled her ex for touching her. Before Donovan forgot about no emotions. God, what a jackass he’d been.

  He leaned against the wall, surrounded by the damp heat from the furnaces in Marshall, the loud, thick crowd and the mingling reek of perfume and pine from the Christmas trees in the lobby. Donovan ignored the people that passed him. They were excited, anxious with Christmas break starting that afternoon, but he didn’t pay attention to the activity, to the quick smiles, the obvious winks he got. His eyes were on that door across the hall from him, on the activity behind it as he waited for Layla to walk through it.

  He was damn tired of her ignoring him. Even more tired that her avoiding him had unsettled him. He thought he didn’t need anyone. He thought he didn’t need Layla or any woman, for that matter. But things had changed… for him at least, and pride—and passion—had him determined not to let her toss him aside without an explanation.