Rescuing the Bad Boy Read online

  “That’s it, baby.” He pushed into her again, deeper than before, and like flint to stone, she sparked.

  Throwing her head back, she gripped his naked shoulders with the ends of her short nails and let out a raspy, “Donny.”

  “Come for me, Scampi.” He continued winding her, so tight her hips lifted to meet his incessant thrusts.

  Tingling. She was tingling everywhere.

  “I…” She started to argue she couldn’t “come” on demand. But before she made the admission, he plunged into her again, and her body clutched, clamping down on him. Hands clasping him tightly, mouth falling open in stunned awe, a ragged moan escaped her throat.

  Sparks flashed behind her eyelids as her toes curled, and Donny continued pumping into her, causing aftershocks to radiate through her limbs. He lost himself a moment later, his groans drowning out hers, his slick-with-sweat chest brushing against her sensitive nipples. One of his hands gripped her hip; the other held the back of the couch.

  Sofie’s mind spun, her orgasm ebbing and leaving behind a pleasant sinking feeling.

  Amazing.

  Making love to Donny Pate was an incomparable high. As the sounds of her thundering heart and his broken breaths filled her ears, she became aware of the sensations in her body. The blood rushing through her veins, the pain-to-pleasure pulse between her legs, the happiness lifting her chest.

  No matter what happened after tonight, she’d never, ever forget this moment. She opened her eyes to take in the man who’d yet to give her his weight. He held himself away from her and blew out a long, low breath. Their bodies barely touched, except for where they were joined.

  She didn’t want him to get up—not yet. She wanted him closer. Wanted to wrap her arms around him and kiss him. Snuggle into him and talk about how good it felt to be with him like this.

  Donny didn’t look interested in cuddling or kissing. Heavy lids narrowed over diamond-hard eyes.

  “Forget to tell me something, Scampi?” His voice was low. Cold.

  Her blood froze, chilled by his tone. No way could he know this was her first time…

  Could he?

  No. There was no way he could know.

  “Scampi,” he repeated sternly.

  She couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t. Speechless, she shook her head.

  Elbows locked, he hovered over her, face growing angry in the silent seconds passing where she said nothing. She lost his warmth when he drew out of her, her body cooling when she lost contact.

  The skirt of her dress was rucked up over her hips, her top taken to her waist, her panties… She had no idea where her panties were.

  Oh God, I am one of those girls.

  Donny stood, shadows slashing across his chest in the moonlit room, and pulled on a T-shirt, then bent and reached for his jeans.

  Under his breath, he muttered, “A fucking virgin.”

  Every nerve ending in her body prickled. “H-how did you know?”

  He tugged on his jeans and growled, “You’re so tight, I nearly broke it off in there.”

  The insult hit the mark. She cringed.

  “Get dressed. I’m taking you to your car.”

  Dressed? No, she refused to accept tonight would end this badly.

  “Can we… can we try again?” she asked, covering her breasts with the top of her dress. She felt so exposed.

  He didn’t look at her, instead crossing the room and disposing of the condom in a small wastebasket.

  “I don’t do virgins,” he stated, facing her and zipping his fly.

  Okay. She took a deep breath and promised herself she wouldn’t cry even as her eyes stung and a lump formed in her throat. Another breath and she was able to rein in her frittering emotions.

  He couldn’t end things now. She wouldn’t let him. First of all, it wasn’t nice. And second, this wasn’t the way first times were supposed to go. He was supposed to be gentle and accommodating. She was supposed to tell him he made her feel like no other man had before. She would remember tonight always, and he was in the process of ruining those memories. She didn’t expect perfect. Awkward was acceptable, but this?

  This was awful.

  Even though she was freezing, she dropped the material of her dress and pushed out her breasts. Donny’s eyes flickered over her bared skin, but his expression was as placid as before.

  “Come on, baby.” She tried to purr, but her voice came out taut, nervous. Seduction wasn’t really her thing. The rest came out like a question. “Let’s try again?”

  He ripped his eyes away, snatched his discarded sweater from a nearby chair, and jammed his arms into the sleeves. Leaning over her on the sofa he’d tenderly laid her on moments ago, there wasn’t a tender thing about him when he rumbled, “I’m not anyone’s baby, Scampi.” He straightened, pulled the sweater over his head, and added, “There’s not going to be a second time. Ever. Get dressed.”

  Wow. That was a solid no. The post-coital hum in her body shut off like a switch.

  Dejected, embarrassed, and pissed off in a way she knew would devolve into sobbing the moment she shut her bedroom door at home, she finished dressing.

  The humiliation had engulfed her by the time she grabbed her coat and purse from the foyer. Donny snatched his leather coat from a hook on the wall and shrugged into it.

  Wordlessly, she followed him outside and climbed into his Jeep.

  More silence followed during the drive back to the restaurant. The restaurant she’d entered a few hours ago for a work party, determined to kiss Donny Pate before night’s end.

  Mission accomplished, she thought miserably, unable to dredge up even a humorless smile.

  He pulled into the Wharf’s parking lot, empty save for her compact car parked in the back. Snow had started to fall, the light flakes sticking to the windshield.

  Donny threw the Jeep into Park, then looked straight ahead, his face utterly expressionless. Walls up, shutters drawn.

  Closed down.

  But she hadn’t imagined the part where he’d been gentle tonight. The part when he’d met her eyes, asked if she wanted him. Asked if she was okay. Even his command of “come for me” had sounded a lot like “ladies first.”

  Determined to leave this night with something salvageable, she turned to say good-bye. Maybe tomorrow when she showed up at work, things would be different.

  “Donny, before I go—”

  His sensual mouth formed one word, piercing her already tender heart.

  “Out.”

  She blinked at his shadowed profile. Awful.

  “Can’t we—”

  He faced her, his gray eyes cold. His voice rose suddenly, echoing off the interior of the Jeep. “Scampi, get the hell out!”

  Reacting without thought, a primal urge lifted her hand. The slap cracked across Donny’s angled jaw, forcing his head to the side. Appalled, she felt her eyes widen as a shaking hand lifted to her lips. Never in her life has she delivered a physical blow to anyone. Violence—no matter how vindicated—wasn’t in her nature.

  Through the strands of black hair covering his face, his silver-blue eyes glowed with anger. Before she could get an apology out, his upper lip curled, and when he spoke, it was through a charred throat filled with gravel.

  “Get. The fuck. Out.”

  She obeyed and climbed out, feeling a mixture of rage, guilt, and shame. Squealing tires whirred in the gathering snow before Donny peeled from the lot, leaving her to walk to her car alone.

  Some first time.

  Sofie was wrong about the sobbing. It didn’t start in her bedroom, but right then, the icy wind freezing her tears to her damp cheeks. On the drive home, she vowed to make her first time her last, knowing it was a promise she wouldn’t keep.

  Then she vowed never to let Donny worm his way into her heart again.

  That was a promise she could.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Seven years later

  Donovan Pate balled his hand into a fist and gave the front pane
l of his 1980 Jeep a hard whack. The temperamental dashboard lights had been flickering since he’d crossed the Ohio border.

  “Come on, Trixie!” Never before had he raised a hand to his girl, but frustration had reached its peak. A seemingly never-ending drive to the last place on earth he wanted to return had a way of leeching his patience.

  The lights blinked one last time before coming on and staying on. Squirrelly electric only one of the many perks to owning a classic. His Jeep had earned her name shortly after he bought her—he never knew which part of her might act up next.

  He drove the main drag through downtown, shaking his head at the familiar sights. The local watering hole Salty Dog and Reggie’s Subs were both open, and each as unwelcome as every other inch of this place. When he left years ago, he’d sworn never to set foot in Evergreen Cove again.

  “Yet here we are,” he told Trixie.

  Donovan’s phone beeped, an incoming text from Evan Downey, one of his oldest—and only—friends, and the only person other than the lawyer who knew Donovan was in town.

  The text message read: The bad boy returns.

  Despite his friend intentionally being a douche, Donovan felt himself smile.

  At a stoplight, he keyed in: FU.

  Evan didn’t respond, but Donovan knew he was laughing. Could practically hear his easygoing chuckle now.

  The light turned green and his smile faded. Much as he missed his friend, he did not want to be here.

  He’d already driven past the library where his teenage, drunken, quick-to-fight self had accompanied his buddies, Evan and Asher, on their now infamous “Penis Bandit” excursion. The “artwork” may be gone from the red-brown brick building, but Evan had returned. Returned with his son, Lyon, fell in love with his late wife’s best friend, and was now engaged. Go figure.

  Asher Knight had managed to stay away. Good for him. Right about now, Ash was probably touring with his band, female groupies adhered to his side—and likely a few other body parts. Donovan kept up with him through text message mostly. Usually on the receiving end of photos he wished he’d never gotten. The guy saw a lot of drunken, topless girls in his line of work.

  Evan and Asher stopped visiting Evergreen Cove, but Donovan remained. Back then, he’d mostly hung out with the derelict kitchen staff from the Wharf, and his roommate, Connor McClain.

  Connor kept in touch periodically via e-mail. Or at least he had during his last stint in the service. Donovan hadn’t heard from him since then. He had no idea if his buddy was still deployed in Afghanistan, or if Evergreen Cove had also lured him back into her clutches.

  But Donovan wasn’t returning to the Cove permanently. No, he was only here because—irony of ironies—he now owned the mansion he once fled.

  The sun was down and March’s cool air was downright cold the closer he drove to the lake, making him regret taking Trixie’s top off. First time he’d ever regretted taking a girl’s top off, he thought with a grunt.

  He drove by Cup of Jo’s, eyed the CLOSED sign on the door. Just as well. He wasn’t ready to face Jo, or any other Evergreener who wasn’t expecting his presence back in town. Scott Torsett was enough.

  Passing the darkened windows of Fern’s Floral Shoppe, he parked along the curb next to Torsett & Torsett Law, his destination. He pulled the key from the ignition and glared at Trixie. If she knew what was good for her, she’d start right up when he came back out, no bitching.

  He may be bound and determined to vanquish his demons, to finish the unfinished business he’d left behind, but that didn’t mean he cared to be bent over the hood of his Jeep in the middle of Endless Avenue on a Tuesday night.

  The Cove wasn’t exactly a small town, but everyone who lived here had known of his grandmother; knew Pate Mansion. He couldn’t take a round of condolences from some overly friendly passerby. Not now. Not ever.

  One of many reasons he’d skipped the funeral.

  The law offices of Torsett & Torsett were decorated with burgundy and mahogany guest chairs, pine green carpet, and shiny brass light fixtures. Cliché. Ugly.

  An older woman, her fingers on the keyboard as she ticked something away on the screen, glanced up as he came in. “Help you?” she asked, eyes behind her thick lenses showing no signs of recognizing him.

  “Donovan Pate to see Scott Torsett.”

  She depressed a button on the phone on her desk. “Scottie, Donny’s here.”

  He cringed at his old nickname, hoping the woman wouldn’t start up a polite and needless conversation, or worse—

  “I’m so sorry about your grandmother,” she said. “She was an amazing woman.”

  Amazing. Sure, okay.

  He clamped his teeth together and offered a curt nod, then turned his back to her and watched the hallway for the guy who used to sit on his battered couch and smoke enough pot to make the entire neighborhood high. Scott stepped out of an office a second later wearing a streamlined dark suit, his former scraggly goatee shaved clean, his eyes clear, not glassy.

  It was a blast from the past in the weirdest way.

  “Holy shit, Donny. You look grown up.”

  “Donovan,” he corrected. He ditched the nickname when he’d ditched Evergreen Cove. After his father had died.

  Swear to God, Donny, you are a worthless waste of space. What’d I ever do to deserve a piece of shit like you for a son?

  Wasn’t any wonder why he’d skipped dear old Dad’s funeral, too.

  “Donovan, it is. Coffee?” Scott offered as they passed a carafe on a cart.

  His stomach had soured at the mention of his “amazing” grandmother, at the memory of his father’s words. Words often followed by fists. Donovan shook his head. He was only going to be in Scott’s office long enough to iron out the kink in the will, then he was out of here and heading straight to the House of Pain.

  He sat across from a big, antique desk wondering how the hell Scott had managed to get it through the narrow doorway, when Scott pulled a sheet of paper out of a folder and said, “Problem.”

  “Another?” Fan-fucking-tastic.

  “We didn’t know about this contract until Make It an Event put an ad in the paper announcing the dinner. Then we started digging.”

  Contract? Dinner?

  Donovan took the sheet of paper and read it over quickly. “A charity dinner.”

  “Yep. Your grandmother has been hosting these things at the mansion for the last few years, and this one was contracted with the event planning company before she died. It’s a binding contract, signed by your grandmother’s hand.” He clucked his tongue in an aw, shucks manner and added, “Hope you weren’t in a hurry to sell.”

  Right. Because what Donovan really wanted to do was stay in this town for… he skimmed the type searching for the date of the dinner. “Three months from now.”

  Scott folded his hands on his desk. “You’re stuck, buddy.”

  Donovan felt his lip curl. He wasn’t Scott’s “buddy,” and he refused to be “stuck.” He’d decided seven years ago, after his old man died, that neither his father nor his grandmother would have control over one single aspect of his life. Not ever again.

  He groused at the paper in his hand.

  Gertrude seemed to have gotten the last laugh.

  Last year when he received the call from Scott about the will, Donovan thanked him, then did nothing. He didn’t want the mansion or the trust. He didn’t need the mansion or the trust. Over the years, and thanks to a man in a very high place, he’d been able to carve out a nice living doing stonework and building custom fireplaces in the Hamptons.

  When Alessandre D’Paolo offered up his guesthouse, Donovan had looked at it as temporary digs. Aless lent him the garage where he stored his stones and worked on his designs, and where he was planning to repaint Trixie before he drove her here wearing nothing but primer gray. Donovan ended up living there by default. He liked his life in New York. He was able to keep busy, keep his head down, live honestly.

  Un
fortunately, Caroline, his grandmother’s chef-turned-Alessandre’s-chef, and Donovan’s one saving grace, also had a very big mouth. She’d mentioned the mansion inheritance, and the fact that Donovan was ignoring it, to her wealthy boss.

  The bed-and-breakfast kingpin pressed Donovan about his plans—Was he moving? Was he renovating? Was he going to sell it?

  He’d replied honestly, telling Alessandre, “I’m bulldozing it.”

  That’s when his friend’s face had gone ashen.

  Apparently, one man’s House of Pain was another man’s treasure, and Alessandre D’Paolo envisioned the mansion as his latest bed-and-breakfast acquirement.

  And it would be. Just as soon as Donovan disentangled himself from this contract.

  “This my copy?” he asked Scott, standing abruptly.

  “It is.”

  He turned to leave the room.

  “It’s only three months,” Scott called behind him. “Not an eternity.”

  “Still too long,” he answered, and shut the door behind him.

  Despite the late hour, the interior lights were on at Make It an Event, making it one of the only shops still lit on Endless Avenue.

  Endless. Like this trip.

  Donovan had driven a few blocks until he found the shop, realizing he’d overlooked it the first time he’d come through town. If the owner was in, he’d insist they talk about the contract now rather than wait. Shouldn’t be too much trouble to get the venue moved. In a wealthy town like Evergreen Cove, there were plenty of hoity-toity places to hold a charity dinner. He parked next to a meter he didn’t have to feed since it was after six p.m. and got out of Trixie, who had done him a solid and started up without complaint.

  He hadn’t known what to expect an event planning company to look like, but once he was inside, he concluded this wasn’t it. The shop wasn’t filled with frilly wedding shit, nor was it corporate and bland.

  What it was, was orderly.

  Clean white shelves lined with silver metal mesh trays and baskets were stacked with papers. Alongside those stood an army of black binders with neatly typed labels on their spines. The shelves and their implements made up the entire rear wall behind an equally neat desk. Save for the huge desk calendar covered in scribbly handwriting.