Last Second Chance

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Stella sat in a hot bath, the heat simultaneously stinging and soothing her ravished skin. The pain was strangely satisfying. The burning ache she felt between her legs as well as on her wrists, ankles, and back was like nothing she’d ever experienced.

She’d lost her virginity to Nash. It had been quick and mostly painless. Maybe some discomfort, like a gynecological exam, but that’d been about it. She’d stared at herself in a mirror afterward, expecting to feel different. To feel something. Anything.

But nothing had changed. She hadn’t changed. She’d felt defective. It was such a monumental event—so she’d been told.

This experience had been totally different. Her shoulders seemed to remain taut, as if her spine had been tightened and screwed into place. Even her teeth-mark-marred breasts were proudly thrusting themselves forward.

She was changed all right. Finger-shaped bruises dotted her upper arms and lower back. Passion marks colored her neck and inner thighs. Merely glimpsing the bite marks on her hips turned her on so hard a breeze could’ve blown between her legs and sent her into the relentless spiral of a heaving orgasm.

She had been fucked. Possibly for the first time in her life. It felt like being switched on. From autopilot to manual.

She groaned as she stood in the tub and reached for a towel. Van Ransom had marked and claimed her. He owned her—mind, body, and soul.

And even more importantly, at some point while he’d been pounding the hell out of her, tearing orgasm after orgasm from her core, she’d been permanently altered. She’d been what he needed, been strong enough to give him everything. His gratitude had come in the form of whispered confessions and professions as he roared to a release and came inside her.

You’re so fucking perfect, he’d said more times than she could count. Stay with me, baby. Please. I need you. God, you’re so damn perfect.

She wasn’t. She knew that. But maybe she could be perfect for him. Be what he needed, because he was exactly what she needed. His words had given her renewed strength each time, strength to climb atop him and take even more. But they’d taken something too.

The fear. The fear of getting hurt, of failing, of disappointing. It was all…gone.

Which meant she had a horse to see. And sooner than later, she’d have to go home and face the people she’d spent her entire adult life avoiding. She’d gotten her answers from Van, now she needed them from someone else.