Shane (Damage Control #4)
Page 25
I’m still dressed in my soft sweater, yoga pants and Ugg boots I had put on for a quiet evening at home. So not sexy. Any other time I’d be embarrassed out of my mind, but I couldn’t care less right now. The Cassie I used to be wouldn’t have set foot out of her apartment without the shield of make-up and her armor of sexy dress and high heels.
This Cassie is a different girl.
Shane pulls my sweater over my head, practically tears off my blouse. He puts his hands on my breasts, eyes darkening.
“Perfect,” he breathes, and slowly, reverently he strokes my nipples and massages my breasts until I can’t remember my own name. “Like this.”
I’m desperate to feel him against me, in me. I crawl into his lap, brush kisses all over his face. “Please,” I whisper. “Please, Shane.”
He shushes me again. Calm, calmer than he’s ever been. “We have time. I love you,” he says it again, as if trying to make me understand. “I love you.”
And as he guides himself into me, steadying me as he fills me, as he gasps out my name and rocks into me—making love to me, showing me everything those three words mean, I wonder how I ever doubted him.
He told me from the start he didn’t play games. And he never has.
***
Seth and Manon are puttering around in the kitchen, making dinner. Shane’s sprawled on the sofa, in sweats and a dark sweater, fast asleep. His head is propped on the backrest, his chin-length hair fanning around his face.
He looks peaceful.
He also looks thin and exhausted, his jaw bruised and swollen. I lift my hand to stroke the hair off his forehead and stop myself. He needs his rest.
Carefully I sit down beside him. His drawing pad is propped against the side of the sofa and I pick it up. I flip it open, not sure what to expect, searching for something I don’t even know.
I flip through the drawings, nightmare after nightmare, a figure writhing at the center, torn apart on every page by faceless monsters and clawed hands. It’s so painful I think about closing the pad and going out for some fresh air, to clear my head.
But there is something I need to check. The nightmare doesn’t change much. The monsters move around the page, their limbs grow longer or shorter, the blood spreading from the figure lying in the center drips down one side or pours down the other.
Then, suddenly, there’s a change. The figure isn’t caught at the center anymore. He has moved to one side, away from the monsters. I check the date on top.
A few weeks back.
The next drawings are similar. Shane’s figure moves along the sides, looking on. Safe. Free. It makes me smile and I steal a glance at him.
He has shifted on his side, curled up, one arm thrown beside his head. My heart melts into a puddle of goo. All I want is to curl beside him and kiss his face.
Instead I flip more pages. The drawings darken, swallowing the shapes, then lighten up again as another figure appears across from Shane’s. It’s clearly a girl. I mean, she has boobs and all.
I put a hand over my mouth as I turn the next page, and the next, because the girl and the boy approach each other with each new drawing, until they are standing side by side.
On the last one, Shane has written “The future.”
Oh gosh… I close the pad before I start bawling again and set it down. I guess I’ve found what I was looking for.
Then I give in and curl beside Shane, sliding my arms around him, and he hums as he pulls me to his side.
When I look up, he’s still asleep but he’s smiling.
Note from the author:
These are drawings I made while writing Shane. They aren't his drawings, so there's no reason to compare them. I am only placing them here in case you wanted to see them. I hope you enjoyed Shane's story and are looking forward to Ocean's, which is the next book.
Acknowledgments
This has been an amazing journey, and I have so many people I would like to thank for their help, advice, support and friendship.
Without the help of my wonderful editor this story wouldn’t be readable. Any remaining errors in the text are my fault as I tend to change things last minute.
Huge thanks to Nathalie Aynié for the constant help and support, and for the brainstorming sessions. She rocks bears in tutus!
Also huge thanks to Kia Zi Shiru for her support and help, and to 5 Times Formatting for the great formatting.
I also want to thank very much my author friends J.A. Beard and Jade West, and my PA Tracy Smith Comeford for their support.
Huge thanks to two ladies: to Leah Joslin who has co-written with me the openings of Parts I, II, and III of this book and discussed with me loads of aspects of my stories—and to Kerry Fletcher who is head of my street team and does wonders. Thank you for also to both for leading my readers group and making Facebook such a fun place to be.
Also hugs to Lilian Flesher, Emma Parrott, Catherine Bibby, Amy Beth, Lisa Anderson and Erin Beth Zehm for their enthusiasm and friendship. I am sure I am forgetting loads of people who have been amazingly nice to me.
Many thanks to my great reader and review teams for their amazing energy and commitment—love you ladies!—and to all the bloggers and reviewers who send me messages asking to feature my books and spread the word. I owe you.
Can’t forget my amazing support group Dragon Authors for always being there for me.
Finally I want to thank my readers. Your messages, emails and Facebook posts telling me how much you like my stories motivate me, keep me writing and put a smile on my face. You are all amazing and I love you all.
AUTHOR BIO
Jo Raven is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, best known for her series Inked Brotherhood and Damage Control. She writes edgy, contemporary New Adult romance with sexy bad boys and strong-willed heroines. She writes about MMA fighters and tattoo artists, dark pasts that bleed into the present, loyalty and raw emotion. Add to that breathtaking suspense, super-hot sex scenes and a happy ending, and you have a Jo Raven original story.
Find all my books here ▶ http://joraven.com/books
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REVIEW TIME!
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What comes next?
▶ OCEAN (Damage Control #5)
Let me state upfront that I started out a normal kid—playing video games, skinning my knees and vying for my parents’ attention.
Until I got my wish and then wished I fucking hadn’t. I got their attention all right, and everything went to hell. I tried to protect my younger brother from the fallout. Lied to him about how bad things were.
But it wasn’t enough. And when the accident happened, he blamed me, like everyone else.
I’m guilty of many things. He’s right about that, at least. So damn guilty I’m sure everyone knows and will call me out on it.
Except they don’t. Nobody does, except my brother.
Not even Kayla, sexy and sweet and coolest girl ever, who keeps buying me coffee and trying to read my future. But my future isn’t in the goddamn cards, or even in my hands. I don’t see a future. I deny fate, but fate has me pinned like a moth and won’t let me walk away.
Won’t let me escape.
And yeah… you know you’re losing grip when the girl you want reads your palm and you’re scared to hell of what she’ll see and of the pain you can tell is coming.
On Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28677113-ocean
Table of Contents
Front Page
Part
I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Part II
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part III
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Acknowledgments
Author Bio