It wasn’t like I had the answers, but at least I could reaffirm him. “Exactly because of that.”
He looked up from the credit card slip he’d just signed and studied me. “Sabrina, I think you did the right thing coming to Harvard. I’m sure your dad will do just fine with your sister. He seems to have done a great job with you.”
I chuckled dismissively. “You don’t even know me.”
“Sure I do. I know that you’re strong. That you’re resilient. That you’re smart—probably smarter than both Brett and me. You’re obviously beautiful.” He reached over to tug my ponytail. “And I know that you’re coming to my party on Saturday with me.”
The butterflies were back, though they were flying now as though they had pebbles for wings. This was everything I’d wanted, everything I’d hoped for. A date with Weston King. And all the murky, confusing feelings going on inside right now were probably just related to going to The Keep for the first time since Theo.
Yeah, that had to be it.
So. Smile. Nod. “I guess you do know me after all.”
But how could he when I was only just starting to figure me out for myself?
Chapter 5
Audrey: Dad won’t make stuffing if you aren’t here.
Me: Then make the stuffing yourself.
I moved my eyes from the chat box in the corner of my computer screen back to the Excel spreadsheet I was working on for Statistics. It was early Thursday afternoon, two days before Weston’s party, one day after he’d invited me to go with him, and I was still vacillating between so many emotions about it that all I felt now was anxious. My sister’s efforts to try and get me to buy a last minute flight home for Thanksgiving were not helping.
Another message popped up.
Audrey: But I don’t know hoowwww!!!!
Like a true teenager, my sister was as dramatic in her chats as she was in any conversation.
Me: You’re 13. Stove Top is cinch.
Audrey: But who’s going to put olives on their fingers and make olive monsters with me?
A notification showed up on the top of my laptop saying I had a new item in the Academic Portal.
Me: Put olives on Bambi.
Okay, Bambi was the dog. But seriously. I had homework to do. And homework to follow up on.
I clicked over to the Academic Portal and found that the new addition was to my Intro to Business Ethics folder. My corporate strategy and ethics awareness assignment that Donovan had said would be up this week. I opened up the scores and grades document and waited for it to load.
Audrey: Very funny. Come hommmmmeeee!!!!
Me: Aren’t you in class right now or something?
I hit return and then froze. There, on my screen where my A should be there was a big fat F.
No way.
Not possible.
I’d never gotten an F in my life.
I opened up the remarks for details. Student’s conclusions disregard the corporation’s economic responsibilities to its stockholders. Student speaks of moral high ground with poetic sentiment without considering how suggested actions will be funded. The student does not have a firm grasp of the concept of corporate strategy.
Goddamn, Donovan.
All I could see was red. I understood the concept of corporate strategy. It was Donovan who couldn’t understand the concept of an opposing opinion.
And this wasn’t just my pride hurt. This counted for more than half the class grade. I wouldn’t be able to get higher than a D if this wasn’t changed and my scholarship required a B average.
No. Whatever beef Donovan had with me, he couldn’t fuck with my grades.
Within a couple of minutes I’d looked up Velasquez’s office hours and found that he should be available for another hour. The weather was great for November—there hadn’t been any recent snow. I could make it if I hurried. If he looked over it, I was certain he’d see that my paper deserved to be re-graded and that Donovan was a fucking asshole.
The chat window dinged again.
Audrey: It’s study period.
Me: I have to talk to you later, Audrey.
I closed my laptop and headed across campus to fight for my grade.
Thirty-five minutes later, I stood outside Velasquez’s office. I’d tried to calm myself down on the walk over so that I could present all my points rationally to my teacher, but instead, I’d just gotten more worked up. The paper had been fifteen pages long. I should have gotten a C just for turning in the required length. As for my disregard to shareholders—I’d attached a detailed financial plan. If my math had been wrong, that should account for a point or two, but not entire letter grades.
It was obvious this wasn’t about my work—this was about Donovan. Why was he doing this to me? Part of me wondered if I should be going to The Keep instead, if it should be his door I should be banging on.
No. I wasn’t playing games. Velasquez would fix my grade and if Donovan got in trouble for giving me a bad score then he deserved it.
The door was closed, but I could see the light on through the frosted glass. I knocked and bounced my hip impatiently while I waited for my professor to respond.
“It’s open.”
I turned the knob and stepped into the office. It was the size of a shoebox, lined with mismatched library-style bookcases, so cramped that the door wouldn’t open all the way, and I had to shut it behind me to see Velasquez’s desk.
Then, fuck, it was Donovan sitting behind it in his place.
Goddammit all to hell.
The son of a bitch didn’t even look up from his laptop. “How can I help you, Sabrina?”
My hands were shaking. I stuffed them into my coat pockets. I couldn’t talk to Donovan. Not like this. Not when he’d already written me off. “Where’s Velasquez?”
“You have to schedule an appointment to see him.” His dress shirt was crisp white and his muscles bulged tightly against the fabric.
I’m not looking at him. “I’d like to do that then.”
“You can schedule online through the portal.”
Jesus. Of course.
I put my hand on the doorknob, ready to leave.
“He’s here on Fridays at three,” Donovan said to my back.
I did a mental scan of my schedule. “I have class then.”
“Then you’ll have to skip class. Or you’ll have to talk to me.” Finally, he looked up at me—caught me, caged me with those sharp, piercing eyes. “What can I help you with, Sabrina?”
I didn’t want to talk to him. And I didn’t want to leave.
“My grade,” I said.
He cocked his head, as if he had no idea what I meant, that asshole motherfucker. “What about it?”
Anger gave me courage. I pulled my hands out of my pockets and stepped toward him. “It’s not fair, and you know it. I understand that you don’t agree with my conclusions, but my reasoning was fair and sound, and I referenced many credible and reliable sources—”
He nodded to the chair facing the desk. “Sit down, Sabrina. You’re awfully worked up.”
He didn’t even ask me to sit. He told me. It was patronizing and infuriating. “I’d like to stand.” I was getting hot, though. I unbuckled my pea coat and threw it on the chair instead. “My paper was not ‘F’ work.”
He nodded and ticked his jaw a couple times as though considering. After a beat, he said, “I care to differ.”
“This is not subjective!” I yelled.
“It is, actually.” His tone remained composed, in perfect contrast to mine. “Unfortunately, for you, it’s my opinion that matters.”
God, the calmer he was the more worked up I got. He was goading me on purpose. I should leave. I knew I should leave.
I started for my coat then stopped. “Why are you doing this?”
“It’s sad, really.” Donovan shut his laptop and pushed it aside. Then he clapped his hands together silently as if praying and pointed them at me. “You showed such promise at the begin
ning of the term, Sabrina. But this last month you’ve become a different person. You’ve arrived late to class. You’re disengaged. You’re disruptive. The work you’re turning in—this paper—is less than acceptable. It’s a shame you’re letting the events of one night stain the rest of your life.”
His last sentence was heavy and weighted with subtext.
“Are you—?” I was incredulous. Was he really blaming this on what happened with Theo? “Oh, and you’re a perfect example of how not to let a tragedy stain the rest of your life.”
His brows furrowed. “What did you say?”
Besides, I hadn’t changed because of Theo. I’d changed because of him. Not that I was telling him that. “My changes in behavior have not translated into a change in the standard of my work.”
“As your teacher, that’s for me to decide, and I’ve decided that it has.” His subtext said case closed. Especially when he leaned back in his chair and rested his feet on the desk, crossed at the ankles.
Weeks of bottled up emotion rattled through me. Every cell in my body vibrated with rage and want and horror and shame.
“Fuck you,” I said in as clear and as controlled a tone as I could manage. I’d leave. I’d talk to Velasquez. I’d report the fuck out of Donovan. I had a solid case. This wasn’t even anything to worry about. I’d get it worked out.
I grabbed my coat off the chair and spun once again to leave.
“Don’t you mean fuckwaffle?”
I’d had the door open, was this close to walking out, but I shut it again because I had to know. “Is that why you’re doing this? Because of Weston?” Was he jealous?
For half a second, I thought I’d hit onto something. His expression tightened and a strange prick of heat blossomed in my belly at the idea of Donovan jealous. Because of me.
But then he laughed, coldly. “No. I was just teasing you. Can’t take being on the other side of the joke?”
Is that what this was to him? A joke?
“This is serious!” I was so mad I dropped my coat and pushed his fucking feet off the desk. “This is my scholarship!”
In an instant he was up and around the desk in front of me. “I told you before how you could fix your grades if you’re that concerned about it.”
He was referring to his come-on in his room. When he’d suggested he could help me with my virginity. It was another way he could trivialize my situation, but it was also a chance to play with my emotions. I hated how it felt like a carrot dangling. How he played that card as if he knew that somewhere deep down I wanted him.
It pissed me off to a new level. I slapped him so hard my palm burned.
Donovan rubbed his cheek, and his eyes sparked. “Is this how you fought off Theo?” he asked, evenly.
“No,” I said tentatively.
Something shifted between us.
“Fight me like you fought him.”
I could have said no. It was such a strange, twisted request, but I was mad and ready to fight. And after weeks of the thoughts I’d had, weeks of pent-up desire and need, I didn’t want to say no.
And was it really a strange, twisted request if somewhere on a gut level I understood the impetus behind it?
Without further urging, I shoved both arms against Donovan’s chest as forcefully as I could. He pushed my hands away, but it felt good. Both to shove and be shoved. Like being able to pick up a heavy weight and the relief after you put it down.
Donovan nodded, encouraging me to come at him again.
I shoved him once more, but he grabbed my arm and wrapped it around my back. He tried for my other arm. I kneed him in his side then pushed against his face while he was bent over. He was too strong for me, and he captured my wrist easily.
He held me like this for a second as we caught our breath, all the while his eyes glued to mine. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked carefully.
Why wasn’t I frightened? I was trapped by a man I didn’t have any reason to trust, and I’d been in a similar situation and been violated. I should have been scared out of my mind.
But instead of feeling scared, I felt empowered.
And turned on.
Just like in all those fantasies I’d had.
“No,” I said. “Don’t stop.”
I wriggled against his hold to reinforce my request, using my entire body to fight him. Before I’d been keeping back. Now, I struggled with all I had.
Donovan fought harder too, but only with enough strength to just overcome me. He wrapped his arm around my waist, sliding my shirt up so he touched bare skin. I elbowed him in the ribs. His knee grazed against my inner thigh. Could he tell how wet I was through my leggings?
When he had me captured again, one arm behind me, one across my chest, he suddenly pushed me back until I was pinned against a bookshelf.
I gazed down to where his lower body met mine. Pressed hard at my belly was the firm bulge of his erection.
I’d long forgotten why I’d come here.
When I looked up again, his eyes were waiting. “I could smell you on his fingers.”
I barely had time to wish his mouth was on mine before it was.
There was nothing tentative or easy about the way that Donovan Kincaid kissed. The pressure of his lips was firm and intent. His tongue was thick as it dipped inside, tasting me in long licks. He dropped my arms and with one hand held my face at my chin, sort of cradling it, and it felt sweet, but also like it was meant to hold me in place. So he could kiss me how he wanted. So he could suck my top lip until it was fat. So he could nip along my neck while I wriggled against him.
My knees could barely hold me. I couldn’t breathe because I wanted him so much. I threw one arm around his neck, needing to hold on to something. Needing to hold on to him. His kiss got deeper as if he liked the way I clutched on to him. Then meaner—pulling roughly at my lip with his teeth while pinching my nipple with his fingers—as if he wished he didn’t like it like he did.
His lips never left mine, but I was very aware as his hand slid down my side and under the band of my leggings, under my panties, past the hood of skin to find my clit.
My breath hitched, and he slipped deeper, through the soft curls, burrowing inside me.
“Was this how he did it?” he said, pulling away. I don’t know if he wanted to watch the reaction to his question or to what he was doing.
“Yes.” It was mechanically the same. Two fingers stroking my sensitive inner walls.
But it was also nothing at all the same. I was so wet. And it felt so good. So fucking good. Like kindling catching on fire, spreading heat, growing hotter. Burning. Blazing. “Donovan,” I moaned.
“Say it again,” he growled.
“Donovan.” I’d said it so many times in the dark, in my head. It felt new to say it out loud in this way but comfortable, like finding a pair of jeans that seemed to have been perfectly tailored.
His lip turned up, the closest thing to a smile that I’d ever seen him give. Damn, his face was really striking. I’d never seen it this close up. Not pretty but captivating. He was only twenty-two and yet he already had lines starting at his eyes. His thick brows and the deep line in his chin gave him a rugged appeal, and the way he studied me while he rubbed and kneaded me below was intense and committed and…god, what he was doing to me…I closed my eyes as the pleasure built toward a climax.
“Did you touch him?” he asked, suddenly withdrawing his hand.
I opened my eyes. “No.”
“Touch me.” It was the same way he’d told me to sit when I’d first arrived. Then it had pissed me off to be ordered around. Now I was so eager, my hands were shaking.
Donovan caressed my face and kissed along my forehead while I worked to get his black trousers open. When I got his pants and boxer briefs worked down to the top of his muscular thighs, his cock fell out, long and thick and hard. His tip was purple and stretched tight, and all of a sudden I knew that this was going to be it. This was going to happen. This was going to be ins
ide me because there was a cyclone of want blustering at the core of me, begging me to have him. But also, it had to happen because I had a very real fear that whatever this strange, complicated thing was that was going on with Donovan might never happen again if it didn’t happen now.
I skimmed my palm across his crown, reverently, then drew my fingers closed around him and pulled down.
He hissed, and my stomach flipped.
Donovan brought his hand to join mine—the one slick with my wetness—and together we stroked up, down. Up. Down.
Up.
He pulled his hand away, but I kept working him, even though I could feel his eyes on me, watching me. Asking me.
I didn’t look up. Because I didn’t want to be asked, and I didn’t want this to stop. And that made me an awful person and an awful woman and probably someone who needed to schedule an appointment with a campus psychiatrist as soon as possible, but so be it. This was my consent. I was touching him.
He seemed to understand because then he was pulling out his wallet, tearing open a condom, pushing my hand away and rolling it over his erection. Or maybe he was never asking my permission, after all.
I shimmied my leggings and panties down to my knees. Donovan lifted me and they fell to my ankles. I widened my knees, giving him room. He lined his head at my entrance and, without any hesitation, drove inside.
It hurt at first. A lot.
I was too tight and too dry, even as wet as I was. Donovan was persistent, though, pushing and nudging until I opened up for him and he could slide all the way in. Tears fell down my cheeks and my nails dug into his back. Fluid trickled past where we were joined and down my leg. I felt tense and wound up and unbridled.
But then there was Donovan’s mouth, kissing me, centering me. He was just as demanding as before. Greedy and impatient like his cock. But as I gave in to his lips, my body relaxed, and soon there was no more pain, just pleasure coiling inside me, tightening and expanding.
He noticed when I gave in. I could feel his attack change. He hitched me up higher so the angle of his pelvis was better against mine and ground into me repeatedly with deep, merciless jabs. I tried to speak, to say his name, but all that came out was grunts and groans and incoherent syllables.
Need you Now (Top Shelf Romance Book 2) Page 5