Copyright © 2014 Eden Butler
Edited by Sharon Browning
CLAIMING SERENITY
PROLOUGE
Two Days Ago…
It was the too large, manly foot resting on her chin that woke her.
Layla sprawled over a flattened pillow, a crick pinching her neck, head pounding something fierce and an anonymous male foot resting right against her chin.
Shit, she thought, trying to decipher the smells of the room. There was a chance, but only a slight one, that Walter, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, had somehow convinced her to come back to his apartment for what was a continuous cycle of “We Need To Talk” chats. Those had been lasting a good month now. But she would never be in Walter’s bed and she had to believe he would be too proper, too gentlemanly, to fall asleep with his foot slapped against her face. Besides, the room did not smell like Walter. It smelled, in fact, of stinky male—soiled socks and athletic gear that had not been tended to in quite a while. Layla knew the stench. Her father’s constant flow of rugby players on the university squad he coached made that particular smell familiar. Stinky, male and very familiar.
With that idea in her thundering head, and the throb aching behind her eyes growing worse, Layla tried to hold onto the sparse flashes of memory that replayed the previous night’s disconnected events.
A fight with Walter. Her screaming over his judgmental opinions about her friends and then… sitting on the tailgate of someone’s pickup?
There had been liquor, the cotton ball texture of her mouth told her that much, Patrón was a possible culprit and then…
Oh, Sweet baby Jesus in Heaven please, please no.
Donovan.
Donovan the Demon.
Donovan who Layla hated with the intensity of eleventy billion suns.
Dear Lord, she prayed, if you make this not my reality, I promise to stop drinking. Much. I promise to never, ever to say the F word, ever in my life again. I promise to stop cheating on my Chemistry exams. I promise to…
The low grunt from under the covers and the movement of that offending foot from her face, stopped Layla cold.
Please, please, please. Thank you. Your friend, Layla, she hurried to finish.
The lump under the covers didn’t do more than roll on its side and after keeping still and silent for a full minute, Layla was able to take a shaky inventory of herself. She pulled up the worn chenille blanket and surveyed underneath.
Fuck, fuck fuckity fuck!
She was completely and utterly naked and the realization had her head pounding double time. Naked, except for her shoes. Or, one of her shoes. Layla lifted her foot from underneath the blanket, away from the snoring lump, and spotted one of her black Jimmy sandals. The other rested next to her discarded clothes on the floor. Eyes moving around the room, all vestiges that she did not do something immensely stupid vanished. She knew the room. Less than two months before she snuck in there and situated a large bucket of oil-based fluorescent green paint onto the top of the open door. It had been one prank among dozens she’d visited on Donovan Donley since their unspoken prank war began. She’d finished up by slicking his bathroom floor with butter and only felt mild shame over the sprained ankle Donovan had suffered in the process.
The giant shit should have never stolen my puppy.
Escape from her mortification and that lump grunting under the covers was forefront on her mind. The sooner she could begin her walk of utter humiliating shame, the faster she could ignore that she ever let him touch her. Oh God. She let Donovan Donley touch her. Or did she? Layla squeezed her scratchy eyes shut, trying desperately to focus on the pickup and the laughing—she remembered there had been a lot of laughing and flirting? No. She would never flirt with him. Arrogant, bullheaded, humiliating bastard that he was. Never.
She had to know what had happened. The whole being naked bit didn’t give her much hope that they passed out before anything truly nefarious could take place, but maybe they had, maybe they’d both been too drunk to finish the deed. Maybe… there were no maybes about it, not when Layla slithered a bit unsteadily from the bed and her foot brushed against something cold on the floor. Condom wrapper. An open condom wrapper.
She took a moment, her throbbing, pulsing head held in her hands, to let reality settle in. She had sex with Donovan. Something she vowed to God and Buddha and Santa Claus that she would never do. Donovan, who tortured her all through high school. Donovan, who Layla only managed to escape when she and her parents went to Ireland for six months so her father could scout new recruits for the squad. Donovan Freaking Donley, who had only given her a reprieve from his constant bullying because he didn’t want her father to find out how much he pestered her.
That had changed when one of her friends, Autumn, began dating Donovan’s best friend, Declan. Then their paths converged and one snarky comment from Layla about how Donovan only managed to get on the university squad because of his father’s deep pockets had stirred the smoldering fires of contempt.
The war had begun anew.
But unlike high school, Layla wouldn’t simply take his shit. She wasn’t a skinny, nervous kid anymore. She wouldn’t sit back and let Donovan ruin her college experience. She retaliated, oh, buddy had she retaliated.
God, what had she been thinking? Well, she told herself, you weren’t, you drunk slut.
The Donovan lump on the bed grunted in his sleep, he may have farted, Layla couldn’t tell from the low mumble of his voice and his bare feet sliding against the mattress. It wouldn’t surprise her, disgusting cretin that he was. But she didn’t want to face him, to see that smug, satisfied grin when he woke up. She moved as quickly as her pounding head would let her, darting around his disgustingly grungy room to sift through her wrinkled clothes and make quiet attempts to dress before he noticed that she was awake.
God hates me, she thought when she realized her bra was right next to where she believed his head was. She couldn’t leave it. That bra was ridiculously expensive and Layla knew better than to leave evidence of their night together. That would give the Demon way too much satisfaction.
Sighing, Layla padded to the edge of the bed, right to where she spotted the red strap of her bra sticking out from under the blanket and gave it a gentle tug. She almost had it, allowed herself to believe that this little effort would be easier than she thought, until the end stretched as it caught underneath Donovan’s head when he rolled onto his back. The blanket slid off his face and Layla yelped, surprised that his eyes were open and staring straight up at her. She released the bra and the elastic popped, slapping him right on his nose.
“Ow.” Donovan brushed the offending garment aside and then his gaze landed on Layla’s shocked face, just inches from the mattress. A yawn, then a swipe of his large fingers over his eyes and Donovan smiled. Oh, she wanted to slap that stupid grin off his face. “Morning.”
“Don’t you ‘morning’ me, Donley.” She shoved his head out of the way to grab her bra.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Layla could give him a list and a quick retort, one itched the tip of her tongue, but then Donovan sat up and the blanket fell from his naked body. Thought, logical excuses, reasons why she hated Donovan flitted from her mind. He didn’t face her when he left the bed, when he stretched and Layla got a clear view of Donovan’s wide, strong back. There were faint scratch marks down the center of his back, over his shoulders that she suspected weren’t there before last night. Her eyes slipped lower, down the slope of his spine to his muscular ass. Layla’s breath became ragged, disjointed and for the life of her, she couldn’t make her eyes move away from the hard, tempting planes of his delicious ass.
His shaggy blonde hair was mussed from sleep and Donovan ran his fingers through those thick curls before he popped his large neck. He had predictable, tribal tattoos on his shoulder, God, doesn’t every guy over the age of seventeen, and when he turned, lifted his arms over his head in yet another stretch, she spotted the Irish flag on his left pec and the looping scroll of Never Again underneath it.
Layla lowered her gaze to the smooth contours of his tight stomach and the sharp indentions below his hips then to the stiffening…
“Like what you see?”
She snorted out a rheumy laugh before she turned to finish dressing, aware again of the pounding in her head. “Not remotely.” She blinked twice, tried to expunge the provocative image from her mind, and was annoyed when it wasn’t burned out completely. Her back stiffened when Donovan slipped his finger underneath her bra strap, helping her pull it over her shoulder.
“That’s not what you said last night.”
“I most certainly did not,” she said, giving his ribs a jab with an elbow and stepping away from his meddlesome fingers.
“Oh I remember a lot of things you said last night, princess.” Donovan jerked back, ducked out of the way when Layla threw her shoe at his face. “What’s the matter? Embarrassed now?” This time, when she slung her other shoe at him, he caught it.
“This is a freaking nightmare.” As she slipped her shirt over her head, it got caught on her earring and when Donovan tried to help her, she slapped his hand away. “For once in your life, please, do me a favor.” He sat on the bed, still naked, and Layla’s attention returned to his lap, to the thick, veiny, stop it, idiot. Focus. The posters on the wall were all of half-naked, hopelessly PhotoShopped women and Layla concentrated on a particularly busty brunette licking a melting ice cream cone. “Would you mind getting dressed?”
His laugh was light, highly amused and Layla forced herself to sift through the discarded clothes and dirty sneakers to retrieve her purse. Donovan cleared his throat, now wearing a pair of plaid boxers and a worn Cavanagh Rugby t-shirt. Begrudgingly, Layla’s eyes shot to his boxers and the tented arch of the thin material. Hey, idiot, stop looking! When he offered another salacious grin, she threw her purse at him and it dropped to the floor.
“How in God’s name did this,” she waved flippantly between the two of them, “happen?” If she hadn’t known the arrogant jackass better, she’d have said Donovan was annoyed that the details were foggy for her. His narrow blue eyes sharpened, cut to her face as though he was trying to sort out if she was just messing with him and then Donovan frowned, pulling his full lips into a severe line.
“What do you mean? We talked about this. We talked for two hours straight.” He leaned back on his bed, thick, corded forearms behind him before that frown twisted into a contemptuous smile. “I mean, we talked between you licking on my neck and me biting your ear until you almost came—”
“Ew, ew, oh God… ew!” She decided right then that she didn’t want to know the details. And when a shudder ran across her shoulders, Layla turned, headed toward the door, but stopped short when she remembered her purse.
Donovan snatched it from the floor and held it behind his back so that she couldn’t get to it. “Cut the shit, brat. Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy yourself. You rattled the fucking windows last night.”
“It’s not like I remember it, you jackass.” She pushed his chest, angry, when he lifted her purse above his head and out of her reach. “I can’t believe you’d take advantage of me like that, Donovan. That’s low even for you.”
He dropped his arm, and his face paled, as though he couldn’t believe what she claimed he did to her. “Take advantage? Bullshit, Layla, you had your hands down my pants before we even made it through the door. I tried to say no, but you…”
“Don’t you dare put this on me.” She punched his shoulder until he dropped her purse. But as she denied wanting him, or God forbid, touching him, small flashes of memory cluttered her less than clear thoughts.
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.