So I ran.
Adrenaline surged through my veins as I took off around the coffee table and slipped past the sofa. He was right behind me as I darted across the open space. There were two routes out of the main room—one that seemed to lead to the kitchen and the other that went up to the second level. I headed toward the stairs.
He followed practically on my heels as I rounded the corner after the first flight. He lunged for me then, and his hand grabbed my hip sending a thrill through me, and I fell.
He had me, but I tried to pull away, my fingers clawing at the carpet of the step above me. I couldn’t get a good grip, and his other arm came around my waist, twisting me to my back as he dragged me down two stairs so that he could hold me beneath him.
“You can’t run from me,” he said cruelly, pinning my hands above my head.
“Fuck you,” I spat. I didn’t know how I was so certain that he knew this was a game, but I was. Just as I was certain that he knew that part of it was real too.
“Don’t worry, you will.”
With one knee bent on the stair next to me, he held my wrists with just one of his hands so that he could start pushing my dress up.
My pussy throbbed with anticipation. He was so close to touching me there, and it couldn’t come fast enough.
But this game required that I give it my best fight.
I wrestled again, just like I had in college when we’d sparred in his office. This time I tried to go down, but he grabbed my hair and yanked so hard I cried out as I fell forcefully back on the stairs.
Automatically his hand came down to cover my mouth. Clamped over it tightly. Exactly the same way Theo had covered my mouth when he’d tried to rape me.
The physical recollection of Theo’s attack was so vivid, so close to the surface of my mind, that it was hard to differentiate between Donovan and the memory. My heart raced like I was actually being raped, my throat tightened, but everywhere we touched I was on fire, burning with need and arousal. My panties were soaked. My nipples were painfully erect.
Donovan stilled, and I worried that he’d stop. Especially when he lowered his hand from my mouth. I was already preparing all the things to say to get him to go on.
“How much do you want me to hurt you?” he asked.
God, I almost came. He knew. Knew that this was edgy, that this brought up difficult memories, but he knew I still wanted to play.
“Do you want me to tell you to stop?” I’d never tell him to stop. I was sure I’d take whatever he wanted to give me.
He lowered himself over me so that I could feel his erection, hot and hard against my pelvis. “I want you to beg me to stop.”
A shiver ran down my body.
“Safe word, then.” I’d never used a safe word. Never even thought about safe words. In all my fantasies, they’d never been necessary, and it wasn’t like I’d ever thought I’d play these games for real.
I knew the concept though. I just needed to pick a word—any word—the first that came to mind, that wouldn’t normally come up in a sexual situation. But, put on the spot, it was weird what things my brain came up with. Maybe it was because the scene brought up so much from the past. Maybe that’s why my mind finally settled on what it did.
“MADAR,” I said, firmly.
His jaw flexed, but other than that slight change of expression, he didn’t move.
“Donovan?”
He stayed frozen. “Why did you choose that?”
Of course he didn’t know how the MADAR Foundation had taken away my Harvard scholarship. He might not have even ever heard of the foundation. He’d been born with wealth and privilege and didn’t need the services of such an organization.
There was no way I was going to explain right now. “It’s a long story. It’s the reason I couldn’t come back to Harvard. It’s a word that means ‘end’ for me.” All that mattered was that I wouldn’t say it without meaning to.
He continued to look down on me strangely, making no move to continue.
“Just. Go on.”
Still he didn’t move, as though he were lost in thought or busy analyzing my safe word choice.
I wriggled underneath him. “Please, Donovan!”
Abruptly he was in motion. He clamped his hand back over my mouth, harder and tighter than he did before. “If you can’t talk, you snap.” His tone was cruel and cold now. “Snap now to show me you understand, but as soon as you do, this starts. Got it?”
I didn’t even hesitate. I just snapped.
Immediately, he was back where we left off. He pushed his hand up under my dress, reaching up toward my pussy. I gripped my thighs together, trying to deny him access, but he managed to get where he wanted easily enough. Once he had the front panel of my panties in his fist, he twisted hard and pulled, causing the waistband of my thong to cut painfully into my back and then break. He tossed the ruined panties over his shoulder.
Holy shit.
It had been so primal and raw to witness, I’d stopped fighting for a moment, awestruck and turned on. But then I started fighting even harder, because as arousing as it was to see his strength, it was also exactly the right amount of frightening.
I kicked. I bucked. I twisted and scratched. All my squirming only helped him—my dress gathered up around my waist, baring my pussy to him completely. His eyes glinted in the dimly lit stairway, like an animal. Like all he could see was this target, this prize that wasn’t a being or a person at all but just a thing to dominate and fuck.
And in every way that it was vile and wrong, I loved it. In every way that it meant I was sick and shameful, I embraced it.
I made one last attempt at escape when he loosened his grip to undo his pants. But I only managed to scoot up one stair before he pounced on me with his entire body. I’d have bruises in the morning, I was sure. Marks I welcomed and longed for. The next time he went to work his zipper down, he was smarter. He put his knee on my chest, pinning me down. It hurt. I couldn’t breathe. I felt lightheaded like I’d pass out.
As soon as he moved his knee off of me, I sucked in air in desperate gulps. But I didn’t have long to recover. His cock was out now—massive and threatening—and I felt a sudden flash of the fear I sometimes felt in my nightmares, the ones where Donovan didn’t stop my assault, and I was forced to face Theo’s terrible excuse for a dick. Those were the worst dreams. The ones that woke me in a cold sweat. The ones that I had to erase with fantasies of Donovan fucking me and claiming me instead.
Just like he was about to do now.
I was so scared and turned on I couldn’t even explain myself anymore.
“You want this,” Donovan taunted in the same menacing ways Theo had taunted me. He rubbed his crown along the skin at the top of my folds. “Girls like you always want it.”
I did want it. In all the ways I hadn’t wanted Theo, I wanted Donovan now. Even though I meant to fight him until the very end.
I hit him. I scratched. I heard my dress tear. I bent my knees and clamped them together, denying him entry to my hole, but he dug his fingers into my knees, pulling them apart. The next time he tried, he wedged his thigh between my legs, and then settled his body in the space he created while he once again gathered my wrists in his hands.
“Now fucking hold still,” he growled, angry and aroused. With my wrists secure, he used his other hand to notch his cock at my hole and then pushed in bluntly.
I was so wet, so turned on, so high on the enactment of a fantasy I’d had for years, that I came instantly, the intensity of it taking my breath away. He shoved in again as the strength of my orgasm tried to push him out. He continued to thrust with belligerent determination, fighting against my body’s tightening around him.
As soon as I thought I was done, I came again, my body shuddering as the second climax rippled over me.
“Jesus Christ,” he swore in awe. He forced himself inside me once more, plunging in deeper and with more aggression than he ever had.
He worked up a
pace that was uneven and unrelenting and too frenzied to call rhythmic. I lay almost completely still, letting him invade me in whatever way he wanted. I was delirious and dazed and already wrecked, but I was still so sensitive and aroused that he brought me to orgasm twice more before he slowed and then stilled, emptying himself into me with a long grunt.
He fell on top of me with a thud, as though all of his energy had been exhausted. The weight of him felt heavy and welcome, like a thick winter blanket, and in the comfort of that moment I thought that if this had been what had happened that night, if this had been the outcome—if Donovan had tried to rape me, if he’d succeeded—would I have loved it like this? Would that have changed everything about what happened then?
What did that mean about me? Did it mean I wanted to be raped? I was sure there was a difference. Sure there was a reason why the fantasy wasn’t the same as the reality, but in my euphoric cum-drunk bliss, I couldn’t sort it out in my mind.
As long as Donovan was lying on top of me, I didn’t feel like I had to. I was satisfied. Protected. I was vulnerable, but only to him.
But he didn’t stay there long. After a few minutes, he rolled onto his back next to me and lay there staring at the ceiling until he caught his breath.
“Sabrina?” he asked eventually, turning on his side with a sense of urgency in his energy.
He was checking in, and I knew what he needed to hear. “I’m all right.”
Except, I realized, that there were tears streaming down my face. I’d cried a bit through our struggle, but these were fresh. As soon as I recognized them, they fell faster, quickly turning into rivers.
Wordlessly, Donovan sat up and quickly scooped me up in his arms, cradling me as the weeping turned into sobs. He let me cry like that, running his hand through my hair, smoothing the tangles he’d created, neither trying to shush me nor question me.
I couldn’t have explained if he’d asked, but I did know it had to do with Theo. Partly I was still confused. Confused about what was wrong with me that I wanted Donovan to reenact this terrible thing that happened to me. Why I liked it when he was rough and mean and animalistic. Why it turned me on so goddamn much.
And partly it was that I was actually remembering Theo. My body remembered him in ways my head didn’t. My fear remembered him. My panic remembered him. And as much as I didn’t want to think of him while I was with Donovan, I had. How could I not? I’d nurtured and groomed this fantasy over many years, and it had come to grow independent of that night. But the roots were still entangled with that other thing—the thing that Theo had planted with his assault.
But I didn’t know how to tell that to Donovan.
I had to tell him something, though. So when I calmed enough to get out words, I said, “I wanted that. I did. I’m not crying because I didn’t want it.”
“I know.” He kept strumming his hand through my hair.
I lifted my chin from his chest to look at him. “How do you know that?”
He let out a soft breath and met my eyes. “Because it’s what I’ve always recognized in you.”
“Because it’s in you too?” It was almost a whisper. Almost like I hoped it more than I believed it could be true.
He wiped several tears from my cheek before answering. “Yes. Because it’s in me too.”
We were quiet again, me cradled in his lap, my head tucked under his chin. I rubbed absently at his cheek, knowing I needed to start to think about pulling myself together. We didn’t have the kind of relationship where I could stay. We didn’t have the type of relationship where he would hold me.
We didn’t have a relationship at all.
But we were both naked and bare right now, even though we still had most of our clothes on. I was already raw. How much more vulnerable could I be?
“I don’t want to leave,” I said.
Not even a beat passed. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay.”
Twenty-Eight
Donovan led me upstairs and into a master bedroom with hardwood floors and an entire wall of windows. The king-size bed faced the view which overlooked the city and, in the near distance, Central Park. There was a fireplace on the far wall, and a gray headboard behind the bed, but the rest of the design was white, clean lines like the main room below.
The bedroom wasn’t our destination, however. I was led next to the en suite where he started a shower for me. While I undressed, he pulled towels from a linen closet and set them on the counter.
“Take as long as you like,” he said when I was naked and steam began filling the room.
I wanted to ask him to stay. There was a part of me that thought I needed him to help me recover from whatever it was that was going on inside of me. And from the searching way he looked at me, I had a feeling there was a part of him that wanted to stay too. Or wondered if he should.
But I didn’t ask. Because I didn’t know what was going on in his head at the moment, and there was a possibility that he needed time alone. He usually did after we had sex, after all.
And maybe I needed time alone too.
Honestly, I didn’t know what I needed. But I knew I didn’t want to go home yet, and I was grateful that he’d given me some time before he kicked me out, even if it was time spent without him.
I lost track of time in the shower. I lost track of thoughts. I didn’t worry about sorting out my brain or my emotions. I just turned the water as hot as I could stand it and stood under the rain showerhead and let it pour over me until I felt like I could move again. Then I used some of Donovan’s shampoo and body wash, cleaned up quickly, and got out smelling like him, which made me smile unexpectedly with every inhale.
After drying off, I realized that my dress and bra were missing. Donovan must have taken them out with him when he’d left. I squeezed the water from my hair as best I could and, with a towel wrapped around myself, left the bathroom to look for him and/or my dress.
I found him first, in the bedroom looking out the window, one arm braced against the glass, a tumbler of scotch in the other, and as soon as I saw him, the breath left my lungs. He’d changed out of his suit, and now he was wearing a pair of dark sweats that hung loosely around his hips, and nothing else. His feet and chest were bare, and I couldn’t stop staring at the toned ridges of his abs, at the dips and curves of his biceps, at the sharp V lines that disappeared beneath the waistband of his pants.
It was a relaxed version of Donovan. As relaxed as he ever got, I suspected. And there was something so sensual about it. Something so inviting and intimate and alluring.
It did strange things to my body to see him like that. Made my blood hot like I was still in the shower, made me shiver as if I’d been out in the cold.
He turned when I opened the door and studied me as I studied him. I was probably the one who should speak, should thank him for the shower and all that, but I’d lost thoughts of everything but the way my heart felt racing in my chest like it did.
So he was the one to talk first. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to get you dirty again.”
Goose bumps erupted along my arms. “I’ve never seen you with your shirt off.” I sounded like a lust-driven teenager. Felt like one too.
He didn’t seem to mind. “If I’d known it would elicit such a reaction, I would have stripped sooner,” he said with a smirk.
“Would you really?” I had the distinct feeling he liked the power it gave him to be dressed when I was not. Or maybe that was just me.
“Probably not.” As I’d thought. He pointed to a small tray on the ottoman in the sitting area. “I brought some cheese and grapes. What can I get you to drink? Wine? Gin?”
I gaped for two seconds. I’d expected to come out of the shower and be sent home. This hospitable side of Donovan surprised me. Elated me. How long did this mean I could stay?
With a glance at the tumbler already in his hand, I said, “Scotch, please.”
If
he was startled by my choice, he didn’t let on. He simply smiled. “Scotch it is.”
He set his own drink down on his nightstand, but I stopped him before he disappeared out of the room. “Where did you put my dress?”
“I hung it up. You can get it later.”
So he really wasn’t kicking me out…yet.
When he left the room, I was the one that was smiling.
Spotting his discarded clothes draped on the back of a chair by the fireplace, I exchanged my towel for his dress shirt. I rolled the sleeves up and grabbed the tray of cheese and grapes and scanned the room for my seating choices. The chairs faced the fireplace. Eating on someone else’s sheets was tacky.
I ended up choosing the floor at the bottom of the bed. The area rug extended far enough that I wasn’t sitting on hard floor, and this was the best way to enjoy the view.
Donovan returned a few minutes later and seemed mildly surprised to find me where he did. He handed me my drink, his brow raised.
“Thank you,” I said, taking it from him. Without him pressing, I rushed to explain my choice. “I wanted to look out the windows.”
Apparently that wasn’t the cause for the brow raise. “I offered food and drink. I didn’t offer clothes.” Though the way he looked at me now, his gaze searing as it traveled down my bare thighs, I didn’t think he really minded all that much.
“You’re dressed,” I challenged before bringing a grape to my mouth.
His eyes flicked from my own to my lips. “My house, my rules.”
“I guess you’re going to have to enforce them then. Because I’m kind of comfortable as I am.”
His jaw ticked, but he didn’t push further. Instead, he retrieved his drink and took a seat next to me, stretching his long legs out in front of him.
God, those legs. Those arms. That body. Just sitting next to him made me crazy with desire. Made my pussy pulse with want and—
“We didn’t use a condom.” It hadn’t occurred to me until just then. Quickly, gears shifted from lust to panic.
Dirty Filthy Rich Men Page 24
