Chapter Sixteen
The sound of Ella’s husky whisper saying those incredibly sexy words to him was what fantasies were made of.
Seriously. His fantasies consisted of almost nothing but Ella. He realized how pathetic that was, and he’d tried to change it many times, but his brain had a mind of its own. No matter what he started out forcing himself to think about, by the time the solo encounter had reached critical mass and his mental pictures were beyond his conscious control, they’d always reverted straight back to the same thing.
She was, quite literally, his dream girl.
And now, here he was, in her living room. Sitting on her couch while she straddled him. Naked. And whispered naughty words in that incredible voice of hers, which was basically the auditory embodiment of Spanish Fly.
As it was, there was no time for that. He just leaned forward and pressed her to him as he crushed his lips against hers, moving them in a frantic, passionate rhythm, to a beat that thrummed through his veins.
He pushed his tongue hungrily into her mouth and explored its hot, wet depths with sweeping strokes. Every movement, every point of contact with her tongue, stoked the fire burning in his belly just a little bit more until he simply couldn’t take it one more minute.
He pushed off from his sitting position, her waist gripped firmly in his strong hands, and rolled to the side. When he’d set her down gently on the couch, he sprang to his feet and undressed quickly, in a feat of speed and agility that nearly matched her own.
She grinned and returned the slow clap he’d given her. “Wow, forget about the Russian judge. You even impressed the German.”
He grinned. “And that wasn’t even a small indication of the lengths to which I’m going to push my athleticism tonight.”
“Mmm…” she purred. “That’s what I like to hear.”
He reached down and pulled his wallet from his jeans, which were laying on a pile on the floor. He opened it and grabbed a condom, tore the package with his teeth, and rolled the condom onto his erection.
As he did this, a random thought popped into his head. Why use a condom? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Ell got pregnant. Staying here in Valentine Bay, being with my dream girl, having a family…shit, I could think of a worse life.
He shook his head to clear the crazy idea away. He had a high-powered, elite job. He was doing everything in his power to keep his security clearance. That was the whole reason he was here.
Wasn’t it?
He couldn’t handle that line of thinking at the moment, so he bent down and did the one thing he knew would scramble his brains so thoroughly he wouldn’t have to think about anything anymore.
He touched Ella. And kissed her, and stroked her, and held her to him. Her skin was the most powerful intoxicant known to man. Every time he brushed his fingers against her, or smelled her sweet fragrance, or even felt her heat radiating against him, his mind took off like a rocket into space.
Ella slid her fingers lightly down his belly and gripped his erection in her hand. Hmm, his mind was not the only thing that could take off like a rocket around her, he mused.
She positioned him at her entrance, her legs spread wide and her eyes staring straight into his. God, she was so beautiful. In one sense, he was amazed that he was about to be inside her…but in another way, it felt completely right. Almost like it was fated.
He held her gaze as he pushed himself into her. The connection he felt solidifying between them was so powerful that it almost felt like a physical cord wrapping itself around them, threading in and out of their intertwined bodies and binding them together.
He pulled backward and thrust forward, then did it again, and again.
Time slowed down and everything became crystal clear. His senses were heightened. He could hear the blood rushing through his veins. He could see a drop of sweat dripping from his cheek and falling onto hers, as if the entire thing were happening in slow motion.
As her body’s warmth embraced him again and again, and the pleasure her inner walls gave him welled up and intensified, he wished they could just stay this way forever. Here, wrapped up in each other both physically and mentally. This was the happiest he’d been in the last five years. No contest.
Ella dug her fingernails into the skin of his back, drawing a sharp sensation to the surface. In any other scenario, he would’ve called it “pain.” He would’ve run from it. But in this instance, it was just one more layer of intensity and he leaned right into it, welcoming any sensation she gave him.
Her body tensed up suddenly, clenching around him and driving him straight over the edge. He knew that the sudden spasm of every muscle in her body could only mean she was coming, hurtling over the edge of ecstasy, and he closed his eyes and allowed himself to join her.
He let go of everything as he surrendered himself to orgasm—tension, guilt, worry about the future… Sure, they’d all probably flood back in later. Things like that always did. But for the moment, his mind was cleared of everything negative, filled only with pleasure, and with thoughts of Ella. It was heaven.
Later, as they relaxed on the couch, Donovan holding her to him as she curled up against his shoulder, she looked up at him and laid her palm flat against his chest.
“Okay. Don’t think I’m getting all weird or anything, but I just have to know. Does this change things between us? I mean…I know it’s not going to magically transform your plans. But, I mean, I’d still like to believe that we’re friends. That this wasn’t just, like, a meaningless booty call.”
He was silent. Her question was like a gut punch. How could she think that? How in the world could that have ever entered her mind?
“Sorry to make it weird,” she mumbled, clearly misinterpreting his silence for discomfort.
He took her chin in his hand and lifted it so that she was looking straight into his eyes. “Listen to me, Ell. I don’t pretend to know what the future holds for us. Hell, I’m pretty foggy on what it even holds for me at the moment. But you need to know something. ‘Meaningless’ is not a word that could ever apply to you, no matter what the circumstances. There is no universe where that could ever be true.”
Her eyes filled, just a little, making them look like shimmering diamonds. “Damn. Well, okay. I just expected you to tell me not to worry or something. What you said was a lot better.”
He laughed, then said, “How about this? To prove I don’t think of you as just a sex object, I’m about to invite you to just about the least sexy thing I can imagine. Do you want to come to dinner at my grandmother’s house tomorrow?”