Chapter Thirty-Four
As Donovan was just about to ring Ella’s doorbell, he felt strong and happy. He was clear and focused. For the first time in years, he knew exactly what he was doing, and that he was doing it for the right reasons.
Now all he needed to do was tell Ella.
He was picking her up for the alumni reunion, but he was as jittery as a high school kid ringing his prom date’s doorbell, getting ready to face down her father before whisking her off to that all-important high school dance.
He glanced down at his hands, which held a plastic clamshell container with flowers inside. Hell, he’d even bought her a wrist corsage. He’d taken that prom theme and run with it.
He was about to have a conversation that would change his whole life. The gravity of it suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks. What if she was freaked out by things getting too real? What if she looked at this as just a fling? What if she thought there was too much baggage between them to sustain a serious thing?
Just then, just as he was about to work himself up into a maelstrom of doubt, a butterfly—one of the largest and most colorful he’d ever seen—flew right up to him and landed on the plastic container that held the wrist corsage.
A wide grin broke out across his face. Damn. If that wasn’t a sign, he didn’t know what was. “Thanks, Mom,” he said quietly. “Glad to know you approve.” Then he reached out and pressed the doorbell, and just as suddenly as it had arrived, the butterfly lifted off and flew away.
The door swung open and Donovan’s eyes widened. God, she was beautiful. Every time he saw her, it was like a gut punch of awesome. “You look amazing,” he rasped.
She flushed and stepped into his arms. “Your words are nice to hear, but it’s that sandpaper in your voice that shows me how much you mean them,” she purred.
He kissed her long and hard, putting all of his heart behind it. Making it count. This would be the last kiss before he laid it all on the line, and so if it was going to be the last kiss ever, he damn well wanted it to be a good one.
She drew back, breathing hard. “Damn, Donovan. That was some kiss.”
He grasped her hands in his and looked into her eyes. “Yeah. It was.”
Wariness crept into her eyes. “You haven’t kissed me like that before. It was different.”
He nodded. “It was. Because I’m different.”
She swallowed hard. “Tell me what that means. Don’t dance around it. Rip off the Band-Aid.”
Fuck, she obviously thought he was about to break things off. That was the last thing he wanted. He’d had a whole speech planned. He’d practiced it in front of the mirror and everything. But, in the interest of “ripping off the Band-Aid” he cut right to the chase.
“Ella, I love you. I want to be with you. I see everything so damn clearly now. I’ve been chasing all the wrong things. I pursued my career because it was what I thought I should want, but now I realize that everything I want is right here in front of me. In Valentine Bay. In my arms right now, as a matter of fact. So, if you’ll have me, I want us to be together. Really together.”
Tears filled her eyes and one slipped down her cheek. “Are you saying that you’re staying here?”
He nodded. “I called Agent Flowers, the investigator in charge of my security clearance investigation, and explained the whole story. The drunken wedding at eighteen under what we thought were false identities, the clerical mix up that must’ve resulted in the data entry snafu, and the fact that even though I haven’t known that you’ve been my wife on paper all this time, the truth was, you were always my wife in my heart.”
“Oh, Donovan… This is…God, you have no idea how happy this makes me,” she whispered.
Ella grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him through the front door, a look of hunger in her eyes. He was immediately hard at that glimpse of intensity in her face. There was nothing quite so erotic as turning her on, and the fact that it happened so quickly… Damn. It was powerful.
He crushed his mouth to hers, parting her lips with his demanding tongue. He explored the depths of her, his tongue pressing against hers in a sexy tango as his hands moved up and down her body with wild desperation.
She pulled back, breathless. “I don’t… I mean I’m all dressed up for the reunion. I don’t want to ruin my hair and makeup. Not to mention my dress.”
He gave her the sexiest, most seductive half smile he could manage and trailed his fingertips down her bare arm. “How about this,” he said in a low and husky voice, “I’ll take you out of your dress very carefully. We can hang it up so it doesn’t get wrinkled. Then I will take you upstairs, strip you naked, and touch and kiss every inch of you. Aside from your face and hair. I’ll make a definite point of steering clear of those.”
He felt goose flesh rise on her arm as he spoke these words, and her eyes flared. Her lips parted a little further with each syllable, and her breath came a little bit faster. By the time he finished that little speech, she was nodding furiously. “Oh my God, yes. That sounds amazing. Damn, you’re a good problem solver.”
He laughed, and then grabbed her by the upper arms and spun her around, turned on by the sharp and surprised intake of breath at his motion. He took a step closer to her and then leaned forward so that she could feel his hot breath on her neck as he slowly, ever so slowly, pulled on the long zipper that ran down the back of her gown.
When he had entirely unzipped her, he placed his hands on her hips and rested them there for a moment, letting her feel the heavy power that they contained.
He loved this part. The buildup. Every movement, every word, every breath—all carefully designed to create more and more arousal in her, to let the pressure inside her become more and more intense until she was just about ready to explode. Only then would he make the moves that would release that pressure, give her sweet relief, send her crashing over the edge of ecstasy.
He was in control. He set the pace, he led the encounter. But he wasn’t selfish in taking his own pleasure and giving her none in return. Just the opposite, in fact. Everything he did was for her pleasure—that’s how he derived his own. He got more out of giving than getting, when it came to Ella.
When he saw that her shoulders and arms were pebbled with goose flesh, he knew it was time to move to the next level. He took her hand and turned her around to face him, then slowly, seductively, he tugged the rustling fabric of her ballgown down the length of her body.
With every inch that the soft, gorgeous textile traveled over her supple skin, a little bit more of her beauty was revealed. Her round, full breasts encased in a lacy bra. The taut expanse of her belly. The swell of her trim yet feminine hips, banded by a lacy thong that matched her bra. And finally, her long, gorgeous legs.
When he’d pulled the dress down so far that most of it was pooled on the floor and his hands were pressed against her shapely calves, he whispered, “Go ahead, love. Step out.”
She put her hand on his shoulder to balance herself and did as he’d instructed. He stood and laid the beautiful dress over the back of her couch, smoothing it down and then turning to her, a smile on his lips. “Good enough for you?” He asked, his voice so husky and raspy with desire that he barely even recognized the words himself.
“Yes,” she bit out. They stood that way for a moment, the tension between them building second by second, both of their chests heaving with rapid breaths. He couldn’t tear his eyes from her nearly naked flesh. She was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.
“I want you,” he groaned. “God, I want you so bad right now.”
He didn’t know if it was his words or the desperate sound of his groans that sparked playfulness in her eyes, but she cocked her hip and put her hand on her waist, then smiled and said mischievously, “Well, you’d better take me then. Don’t you think?”
He grinned and crossed to her in two fast steps, sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her down the hallway toward her bedroom. He wanted to kiss her then. He wanted that more than almost anything he’d ever wanted in his life—but he’d made a promise.
He’d told her that he would protect her hair and makeup for the reunion, and he took protecting her damn seriously, whether that was protecting her from a threat or protecting the way she wanted to present herself to others. Not to mention, he was through breaking promises. From now on, he was going to be there. He was going to honor every commitment. That started right now.
He sat her down on the edge of her bed. He started to take a step back. He wanted to take a moment to admire every curve and flat plane of her gorgeous body there in her bedroom. Before he could move out of arms reach, though, her hand shot forward and her fingers hooked into his belt loops. She pulled him back over to her, a wicked little smile touching her perfect lips.
“Not so fast, mister,” she growled. “I’m going to have my way with you first.”
With fast, determined fingers, she undid his belt buckle and unfastened his pants, then slid both them and his boxer briefs over his bulging erection and down around his legs.
She trailed her fingertips over his balls and up and down his shaft, sending electric zaps shooting through his body that almost knocked him backwards off of his feet. God, he’d never felt anything in his life as powerful as Ella’s fingers on him—unless it was her mouth, or her body.
Ella was a force of nature beyond compare. Now that he’d fully experienced her touch, knew what it was to have that in his life, he had a hard time wrapping his head around how he’d ever lived without it. It felt good knowing that he’d never have to again.
“Fuck, yes. That feels amazing. Insane.”
She looked up to meet his eyes, that same wicked smile still on her lips. It made his cock twitch. It was such a turn on that she knew exactly how sexy she was, she knew exactly what she was doing to him. And that she liked it.
Never breaking eye contact, she extended her pink tongue out from between those wickedly smiling lips and ran it slowly around the head of his dick. The sensation that bolted through him as soon as her hot, wet tongue touched that sensitive flesh was enough to make him lightheaded. He squeezed his eyes shut and actually saw stars behind the darkness of those closed lids.
He didn’t keep his eyes shut for long, though. He forced them open because he wanted to see exactly what she was doing to him. He wanted to watch that sexy tongue circle his dick. He wanted to see exactly what it looked like when she wrapped her hot lips around his shaft and swallowed him into the pleasurable abyss of her mouth.
He put his hand to the side of her face and traced his fingertips gently along her hairline. He wanted to bury his hands in the beautiful mass of her auburn curls, close his fingers into fists and thrust himself into her. But he resisted that urge. A small smile touched his lips at the thought of how frivolous the idea seemed of keeping her hair and makeup perfectly in place, now, in this moment when erotic lust was flooding his mind and carrying him away to another dimension. But, a promise was a promise.
“My God,” he breathed. “You are, without question, the most gorgeous woman to ever walk this earth. How did I get so lucky?”
Instead of answering, she just moved her head forward, taking him deeper into her mouth. She applied gentle suction once he was entirely inside. He could feel the tip of his dick hitting the back of her throat, feel the gentle massage it applied as she swallowed.
He threw his head back and groaned as he looked at the ceiling, drinking in sensation after sensation as her mouth worked on his cock. Being buried inside the warm velvet cushion of her mouth as her tongue swirled around and around his shaft was almost more than he could take.
Then, she took it to the next level when she pulled her head back until he was almost completely out of her mouth and then plunged it forward again. When he was buried inside her entirely for the second time, she paused and held him there, sucking in a gentle rhythm until his cock was twitching and ready to explode.
Then, oh so slowly, she pulled her head back again, and then plunged forward again, and then back again, and then forward. She repeated this same cycle over and over until his eyes crossed and his heart was beating so fast it felt like it would explode right out of his chest.
He forced his eyes to stay open and glued to her face. The sight of her beautiful features, contorted in ecstasy as she gave him such immeasurable pleasure…it was indescribable. He wanted to commit every moment of it to memory, never to be forgotten.
Not to mention the fact that her eyes were still wide open and cast upward, connecting with his in an unbroken exchange of energy that was, in its own way, the most powerful form of communication he’d ever shared with anyone.
When it finally reached the point that he knew he’d never be able to let this continue and also stay in control enough so that he didn’t climax and end the whole encounter, that was the first time that he managed to summon up the resolve to reach down and hold her shoulders firmly in place as he stepped back. He’d known that he was going to have to do it, but he kept putting off the moment until he absolutely couldn’t put it off any longer.
He thought he might be addicted to the pleasure that her mouth gave him. After all, the main hallmark of addiction was that you kept coming back for more of something—that you just couldn’t get enough of it. That was certainly true of everything about Ella. There was nothing in the world that would keep him away from her now, nothing that would hold him back from being with her, from devoting every part of his life to her. He was hers, now, unreservedly and completely.
And he was lucky enough that she was his. She felt the same way. God, really, what had he done to deserve someone so spectacular?
As quickly as he could manage, he stepped out of his pants and boxer briefs, shoes, jacket and shirt. He laid them over the chair that stood in the corner of her room in as orderly a pile as he could manage with eyes that were crossing with lust and fingers that were trembling with arousal.
His lust fogged brain didn’t leave him so senseless that he forgot about a condom, though. He knew he needed one of those, so he made sure to get one out of his wallet as he was laying his pants across the chair and tossed it onto her nightstand so that it would be ready when he was.
When he was completely naked, he turned back to face her. He saw that she’d leaned back and was relaxing, reclined on her bent elbows. Her legs were crossed and she was watching him with an amused little smile.
He returned the grin. “What?” he asked with a smile in his voice.
She shrugged. “Oh, nothing. Just enjoying the show.”
As she said those words, her eyes traveled up and down his naked body, pausing when they reached his erection. They lingered there as she slowly licked her lips, reminding him of when he’d been buried in her hot mouth just moments before.
God, she was sexy.
He crossed to her into quick strides and dropped to his knees in one swift motion. With no waiting, no words, he planted his hands on her knees and pushed them forcefully apart. She gasped, her eyes widening.
“Oh, yes. Donovan, yes. Please,” she whimpered.
He smiled. Now he had her in the exact same position she’d had him just moments before, and it felt damn good.
He met her eyes. “Please, what?” he teased.
Her beautiful breasts, covered so scantily by the little bra she wore, rose and fell heavily as she heaved in one ragged breath after another. “Please…touch me,” she finally breathed.
He grinned. He extended one index finger and poked her knee. One little tap, and then he withdrew. “There. I touched you,” he said, and then winked.
She let her head fall back as a long and tortured groan escaped from her throat. When she looked back up and her eyes met his again, there was a desperate fire burning in them that made his cock jump.
“Not like that,” she moaned.
“Like what, then?”
“You know!” she spit out, then grabbed one of her pillows and beaned him upside the head with it.
He swatted the pillow away and laughed. “How can I know if you don’t tell me?” he said, and trailed one fingertip up one of her inner thighs and then down the other. She shivered and he saw her nipples harden and protrude, even below the stiff lace of her bra. He whispered, “If you don’t tell me what you want me to do, how will I ever know?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re evil,” she growled.
He grinned. “I’ve been called worse.”
The blush that he loved so much, that he found so unspeakably adorable, spread across her face and body, making the skin across her chest blotchy with arousal. Her lids dropped to half-mast and she took a deep breath. In a voice so low that it was hard to tell if he actually heard it or it was just his imagination, she whispered, “I want you to kiss me. You know. Down there.”
She cast her eyes between her legs as she said it to indicate where she was talking about, and he winked at her again. “All you had to do was ask.”