Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SHILOH
Red and white. Blood on ice.
Blood on Donovan’s face. On his full lips, across his cheekbone.
On his knuckles.
I thought he was sweet, soft… but there’s a violence in him that’s making something inside me sing. That something inside me recognizes.
And I realize if I stay standing in this stadium watching him, I’m going to do something ridiculous… like throw myself out there on the ice so I can lick the taste of copper from his tongue.
It doesn’t help that he looks at me across the distance, and the second our eyes connect, I can see that almost feral part of him staring out at me.
I’m not going to make smart decisions if I stay here.
I’m not going to make smart decisions anyway. I’d half convinced myself that the best course of action was for me to break up with him and go back to stalking him from a distance, but looking at him now…
That was never an option. I knew that, but it’s so obvious now it almost aches.
There’s never been anyone for me except Donovan, and right now, as blood sluices down his cheek and he stares at me like his world is falling apart… I need to prove that to myself.
I’ve never wanted anyone like this.
I’m reluctant when I step out of the arena. I want to stay, want to watch him… want him to know that I’m watching him…
But the game is nearly over. I know he’ll have to deal with all the bullshit after, but I’m not sure I can corner him here and get what I want. I need time and a place where people can’t see us.
I’m going to corner him to get what I want if I don’t walk out of the building, and then everyone will know that Donovan Myers has a feral boyfriend who can’t control himself.
I make my way to his car and pull out the copy of the key he gave me—because apparently waiting out in the cold for him to be finished with a game is weird—and jump inside.
I don’t bother turning anything on, though. I sit in the darkness and welcome the chill for the first time since moving to Boston. It’s barely doing anything to quell the heat beating beneath my skin.
I’ve never seen him like that. Perfectly contained violence, bloody and gorgeous and fierce.
I’ve never seen Donovan act like he could stand beside me when I’m killing someone, but whatever version of him I saw there on the ice… there’s something vicious that I recognize.
I adore soft Donovan.
I want to fuck violent Donovan until I can’t walk.
I need both versions of him beneath me.
I’m not sure how long I sit in the car, but the silence doesn’t do a damn thing to quell the need growing inside me.
By the time people start to spill out into the parking garage, I feel like I’m about to crawl out of my skin…
and by the time I see Donovan heading toward me, I’m wondering if I can get away with pouncing on him as soon as he opens the car door.
“Shiloh?” He’s taken aback, even though I’m not trying to hide this time. My eyes sweep around the parking area, and I let out a frustrated grunt when I realize there are too many people around us.
People who could see.
And Donovan can’t actually be seen doing what I want to do.
“Drive,” I say, the response more clipped than I mean it to be. His eyes widen, and I can see the worry slide across his expression for a second before he nods.
“My place?”
We could go to his place… It’s not that much further.
But…
He wanted more of me. And my place is closer, which means I could see Donovan spread out on my sheets, next to the art I have drying in my room.
“No, mine.”
I can’t tell if it’s worry or curiosity that flickers through his expression before he puts his car into drive and listens as I quietly give him my address.
I have to turn my head after that, focusing on the soft snowfall outside my window. If I look too hard at Donovan, I’m going to fixate on the cut on his lips, the carefully bandaged wound on his cheek.
I’m pretty sure if he got into a wreck with my lips wrapped around his dick, that would be just as bad as getting caught kissing a man in the parking garage.
By the time we get back to my apartment, I can feel the sting of where my fingernails sliced little half-moon circles into my palms. The sight of blood on my skin doesn’t help.
I don’t know if anything is going to help.
“I thought you lived in the dorms,” Donovan says, and I shake my head slightly. I never said that… I never really told him anything about me, though.
This is the first time I’ve ever let anyone close to me.
And it’s shocking how much I want it.
I take his hand as way of answer and lead him into the building, pulling him down the hallway toward my apartment.
“Shiloh… listen,” he starts as I pull out my keys to unlock my door. “I know I was pushing the other day, and I’m sorry, I just want—”
He doesn’t finish his sentence. As soon as he steps through the door, I close it behind us and shove him against the wood.
Just like I imagined that first night when I thought about killing him, I nearly have to climb up his body to press my mouth to his.
There’s a moment where he’s still beneath my touch, but when my bloody palms take either side of his face and I yank him closer, he parts his lips and lets me lick into his mouth to taste the copper on his tongue.
I groan as soon as the flavor floods my tastebuds, a sweet reminder of our first kiss, more intense now than it was then.
“Loh,” he murmurs against my mouth when he pulls back, but I don’t want to hear it.
Not now. I grab his hand and half drag him down the hallway to my bedroom.
He doesn’t have time to look around at the paintings hanging or the messy scraps of sketches, because I shove him as hard as I can so his knees catch against the back of the bed and send him tumbling to the mattress.
Some part of me is aware that Donovan is letting this happen, that if he wanted to, he could easily overpower me… and something about that knowledge makes this even more appealing as I strip my shirt over my head and crawl after him.
“I guess you don’t want to talk?” he asks innocently. I roll my eyes and start working the buttons of his shirt open.
“No, Donovan. I want to get you naked, and then I want to ride you until you can’t see straight. Do you think we can manage that?”
I’m close enough to watch his pupils blow wide at my words, and the low hum of satisfaction that spills from my throat is accented by his groan when I raise up long enough to strip out of the rest of my clothes, tossing them to the ground before nudging him to follow suit.
I can see all the places on Donovan where he was hit—soft bruises that might be from practice more than his fight… but a few droplets of blood streak across his chest, and I don’t know if they’re from the cuts he got earlier or my bleeding palms.
Whatever it is, it’s enough to remind me that we’re here in this room because I couldn’t wait. Because I need him. Now.
He lets me climb back on top of him, and his body arches up when I drop my mouth to his throat and feather kisses across his skin before my teeth find that same spot I bit him the first time and clamp down again hard enough that I can taste it when I break the skin.
I don’t stop there, though. I drop to his pecs and bite until I leave marks, to his collarbone, the side of his neck.
I want to see the impressions of my teeth everywhere I look.
I need to make Donovan bleed. It’s the first time I’ve ever really wanted to see blood without wanting to create—the only thing I want to paint with the crimson is our bodies.
I want to make us art.
My mouth works that spot on his skin for a few more seconds before I ghost my lips up, relishing his thundering pulse as I kiss my way along his skin.
“You want to know me?” I murmur the question against his mouth, and he lets out a low groan when I lick the cut along his lower lip.
When I pull back, his face is smeared with crimson, painted red from my kiss and his earlier fight.
His eyes are wide when he looks up at me, when he really looks at me, and he nods.
Nearly imperceptible, but there. He doesn’t say yes, but his hands grab my hips, nails biting into my skin as he drags me against him so I can feel how hard he is.
Donovan wants this just as much as I do.
“What if it scares you, Donovan?” I ask, dropping my bloody fingers to his cock and stroking him. He stares down the length of his body—sees the crimson painting his pale skin—and turns his gaze back up to mine.
“I want you, Shiloh. Just like this.”
Just like this.
I groan and lean to the side, grabbing a bottle of lube from the bedside table. I notice when he realizes I haven’t grabbed condoms, but I can’t do it.
Not tonight.
“Nothing between us,” I whisper, and I’m treated to red spilling across his cheeks again before he nods, his breath coming in soft pants of desire.
“Nothing.”
Fuck, I wish that were true… but for now, I’m going to give him all of me in the only way I can.
I’m going to show him how much I want to tear him apart.
I scoop up the lube and dump a generous amount into his hands, rising on my knees so there’s space between my body and his. When Donovan’s eyes widen, I tilt my head and arch a brow.
“Open me up.”
I feel his cock jerk between us. The knowledge that just my words and the prospect of touching me is enough to make his body react makes me bold.
I swivel my hips so my ass is in the air and ready for him, then bring my hand to his throat.
I’m slow and deliberate about it, closing one digit at a time.
I can feel his ragged breathing beneath my palm, the thundering of his heart.
I’m holding all of Donovan beneath my fingers with a hand that has killed, and he’s looking at me like he’s about to blow before we’ve even started.
“Open me up, Donovan. I want you to have all of me.”
All the pieces I can give.