Or was it just that she’d been hoping he’d come for her? In the darkness of the luxurious hotel bedroom, Raven had lain in the soft bed and waited. She’d waited for him, even as she told herself that she was afraid of him, afraid of what Jake Novak would want to do to her. She could still hear and even feel the slaps against her buttocks, delivered by Jake with just the precise amount of force needed to spark that odd combination of pain and pleasure that Raven hadn’t even known existed. She knew now, though. She knew and she couldn’t forget any of it. Raven thought about what she would say if he came into her room wearing nothing but his jeans, shirt off, rippling muscles and bare skin glimmering in the light coming in from the doorway. Would she pretend not to want him, would she be able to muster enough sarcasm and brittle self-righteousness to keep him at bay? Or would her cheap defenses crumble away, no match for the need she had to feel his bare skin against her own—nothing left but to allow him to do with her whatever he wanted, to become his fully and without reservations.
