Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

by Melanie George

  She leaned forward and kissed his nipple, lapping gently at it until it hardened. Then she drew the pebble into her mouth as he had with her, reveling in the way his body tensed. Raising her head, she pressed her mouth to his, her tongue slipping across the taut line of his hard-won control.

  With a groan, he parted his lips, and she stroked inside, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing closer, wanting to get closer still…wanting him inside, to be one with him in a way she had only dreamed about for a long time.

  Boldly, Savannah put her hand between them and discovered he was still erect. She unbuttoned his jeans. Her mouth still fused to his, she reached inside his boxers and found him silky and hot, flame hot. He moaned into her mouth as she began to stroke him.

  He tore his mouth from hers and tipped his head back, his expression one of rapt ecstasy as her hands glided over him. He had taught her so much all those years ago, things she had not forgotten, desires long suppressed and aching for this moment.

  Savannah pressed his erection against her moist cleft and began sliding back and forth. He stared at her with heavy-lidded eyes, passion turning them a dark, cobalt blue that burned with fire.

  Jaw clenched, he coiled an arm around her waist and used his free hand to drag her blouse off her shoulders and throw it off the bed.

  Her bra followed suit, then he leaned up and latched onto a nipple, sending a rush of sensation straight to the center of her.

  She rode him faster, wanting him inside, yet she was too frantic, too wild, another thundering climax looming over the next horizon as he took possession of her mouth and toyed with her nipples.

  Savannah cried into his mouth as her release spiraled through her, her entire body tensing with that sweet saturation, the pulses deep and fast.

  She fell against his chest, breathing hard, his hands kneading her flesh. Only with Donovan had she ever been this sexually explosive. And still she wanted him yet again.

  Savannah opened her eyes and found him staring down at her, hovering there like some Dionysian god, all dark and beautiful. He kneed her thighs apart, and she gazed up at the dark canopy above her with passion-glazed eyes, a sigh of rapture falling from her lips as his finger slid between her cleft and found her swollen nub, rubbing in circles until she was panting his name. How did he manage to excite her again so quickly? And so many times?

  The thought was obliterated as he flicked her nipple with the tip of his tongue, working his magic between her thighs, bringing Savannah to the brink of ecstasy time and again.

  With only their hot breath whispering in the darkness, he slid down her body and his mouth replaced his fingers. The first touch of his tongue upon the engorged pulse point made her hips buck wildly.

  She tossed her head back and forth. “Donovan,” she whimpered over and over.

  His fingers came up and circled her nipples, but he would not touch them. Savannah thrust her breasts into his palms, and still he tortured her, so that she finally clamped her hands over his and made him touch her.

  His forefingers flicked her nipples once, twice, three times before her entire body tensed, holding her on the brink for a heartbeat, before she began to convulse.

  In the next breath, he slid into her, her swollen tissue clenching around him as he began to pump, her body sighing into him with each thrust.

  He lifted her hips and wrapped her legs around his flanks, which brought him deep inside her. “Savannah…” Her name on his lips was the most glorious thing she had ever heard.

  He rocked her, his thrusts growing faster, his face racked with an expression that was near to anguish, sweat glistening on his brow as he forced himself to slow, easing out of her entirely in the next moment.

  A protest sprang to her lips, but then he began to massage the nub between her dewy folds with his hot, silky shaft as he sucked on her nipple.

  She cried out with another orgasm, her nails digging into his back as he drove into her again, his hands gripping her buttocks, pulling her tighter against his groin as he plunged into her.

  Suddenly, he snaked his arm behind her back and turned her over so that she was on her hands and knees. He grabbed hold of her hips and slid into her again, her sheath clenching his shaft as he stroked in and out of her.

  He reached his hand beneath her and began massaging her clitoris, her hair a silken jumble around her face, cascading over her shoulders and skimming the sheets, her nipples peeking through the dark veil each time he pumped.

  Mindless, she panted his name as he rocked inside her, until another shattering release washed over her and he finally found his own release.

  He dropped down beside her and they both lay there staring up at the ceiling, trying to catch their breath while the night breeze cooled their overheated bodies.

  Chapter Six

  Savannah lay in Donovan’s bed as still as a stone, wondering if she could just fade away.

  Did she have no restraint? No common decency? How could she do this to Jake when he had been nothing but good and kind to her?

  Well, she had no choice. She would have to go to him and tell him the truth, and whatever he decided to do, she would live with it. She doubted he would forgive her for this and she couldn’t blame him. She didn’t know if she could forgive herself.

  She felt Donovan’s head turn on the pillow but she could not look at him. She wanted to blame him, but she was as much—or perhaps more—at fault than he was. He had agreed to take her home, had walked her to his car without further protest. She had been the one to kiss him. She had seen to her own downfall.

  Savannah turned on her side, away from him. He laid a hand on her shoulder but said nothing, though she knew he wanted to.

  Was he feeling any regret for his actions? Or only a sense of satisfaction that he had managed to destroy her life again? How she could have fallen so far, so fast, she had yet to sort out.

  For a long time, she listened to the soft melody of a lark singing outside, waiting for the sound of Donovan’s steady breathing, to tell her he had drifted off to sleep.

  When he finally did, Savannah slipped from the bed and stood there in the darkened room, staring down at him. Once upon a time she would have given anything to remain like this, to stay in his arms forever.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then she moved away from the bed and out the door, down the long corridor toward the front of the house.

  On a chair by the front door she found Donovan’s discarded jacket. Inside the right pocket, she fished out the keys to his car.

  She walked down the steps and toward the Vanquish in a fog, wondering how she would explain her infidelity to the 150 guests who would be arriving that afternoon. How could she face Jake’s mother and grandmother? Or his sister, whom Savannah had become such good friends with?

  Like a robot, she turned the key in the ignition. The car’s engine turned over with barely a sound. She flicked on the lights and spewed up stones as she sped down the long tunnel of the driveway and back out onto the road, dreading the fast-approaching morning.

  Soon she was pulling into her narrow driveway, parking the car by the same clump of bushes Donovan had, to hide the car from view.

  What reason would she give her daughter when Jake called everything off? And, God, what was she going to tell her about Donovan? He was her father, after all. Savannah could no longer walk around with blinders on. She could not deny the man his daughter.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  Savannah nearly jumped a foot as she neared the back steps and almost ran smack into her brother, who was coming around the side of the house. He had a strange expression on his face, and concern rifled through Savannah.

  “What’s happened? What’s going on?”

  “That’s a question you have to answer. Where in the blue blazes have you been? I walked past your room a half hour ago and saw the door partially opened, but your bed looked as though you hadn’t slept in it. I’ve been frantic, looking around here. I though
t maybe you had decided to elope with old Jake.”

  Not even close, she thought despondently. “I was…out.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Out? Where could you have been at—” he checked his watch—“five-thirty in the morning?”

  Savannah closed her eyes. She had spent nearly six hours with Donovan. The morning was closing in much faster than she had thought. Marlene would be at the house at eight to do her nails and hair.

  “It’s a long story,” she said with a sigh as she moved past her brother and up the stairs. “Can we talk about it later?”

  “No. We’ll talk about it now.”

  With her hand on the doorknob, Savannah looked over her shoulder. “You’re not my father, Frank, as much as you like to act like it.”

  “Well, that’s gratitude. I raised you after mom died, protected you, fed you, did everything I could for you, and this is what I get?”

  He was right. He had always been there for her. And it was clear he had been terribly worried. “All right. Just promise me you won’t get angry or do anything foolish,” she added, knowing her brother’s temper.

  With her last bit of energy, she explained what had happened after Donovan had made his late-night appearance on her doorstep.

  She tried to play down some of the evening’s events, leaving out one event entirely as that was private and not for her brother’s ears.

  But no matter how calmly she endeavored to explain, Frank’s face changed from concerned to angry to enraged.

  “That lousy, motherfucking son of a bitch. I’ll kill him.”

  Savannah came down the steps and put her hands firmly on her brother’s shoulders. “Now, Frank, stop that kind of talk.”

  Frank looked her straight in the eyes and said, “He’s dead. Mark my words.”

  Alarm whipped through Savannah’s veins. “You, promised you wouldn’t get angry.”

  “I lied. Give me a ten-minute head start then call the cops. They’ll be scraping his carcass off the floor with a spatula.”

  He swung away from her and Savannah raced ahead of him to block his path. “I’m not going to let you do this.”

  “You’re going to stop me?”

  “I’m asking you to let me handle this. I’m not a little girl anymore, Frank. I know what to do.”

  His jaw tightened. “That bastard just decides to show up and ruin your life all over again? Well, I’m not going to let him, Savannah. Do you hear me? I couldn’t bear to see you go through what you went through last time. Not again, damn it. He deserves to pay for this.”

  Savannah’s heart lurched. Beneath his gruff exterior, her brother had a heart of gold. He had suffered right along with her when Donovan had left the first time.

  Frank was such a strong man, but her father used to always say that she could make him crumble, and for a man like Frank, that was never easy.

  He wore his masculinity like a badge. He did not like anything that threatened to break it down, and she had the power to do that to him.

  “Frank,” she said softly, “I’m stronger now—thanks to you. You have always been there for me and I will never forget that. Donovan doesn’t have the power to hurt me like he once did. The first time gave me a tougher armor. And don’t believe it was all him, this time. I played an active role.”

  She turned halfway from him and stared down the driveway, toward the spot where Donovan’s car was hidden. “Perhaps I had things of my own that I wanted to say. Perhaps I needed this time with him to let him go once and for all.”

  “And have you let him go?”

  Savannah wished with every fiber of her being that she could say yes, that she was completely and totally over Donovan, and that nothing he said or did mattered to her one way or the other.

  But something inside her couldn’t do it. Some speck of feeling yet remained. Perhaps it always would. She might always have to live with his owning a piece of her heart.

  She faced her brother. “If Jake will still have me, then I will marry him today as planned.” That didn’t answer his question, but it was the best she could do.

  “What do you mean, ‘if’ Jake will marry you?” A scowl drew his brows together. “Don’t tell me you’re even thinking about telling him what happened tonight?”

  “I have to. I can’t begin this marriage with lies and deceit between us.”

  “Bullshit. There’s nothing to tell him because nothing happened. Only you and I know what went on.”

  “And Donovan.”

  “That piece of shit won’t say a word. You can count on that.”

  “Stop talking like that.” She had never seen him quite so angry before.

  “He won’t ruin your future, Savannah. You will marry Jake today as scheduled. You can’t let one innocent mistake jeopardize your happiness—or Reese’s. If nothing else, think of your daughter.”

  Savannah had thought of no one else. What she had done tonight was something she would have warned Reese to never do. But she doubted Reese ever would: her daughter was smarter than her, had a well of common sense that Savannah had never possessed at that age. And apparently still didn’t possess.

  Deep down she felt that if she truly loved Jake as much as she wanted to, she wouldn’t have done anything with Donovan. Perhaps she had sabotaged herself. She’d had doubts about marrying Jake from the start, but she’d pushed them down, believing it was past time that she settled down—and time to put the past behind her.

  Reese deserved a home that consisted of a mother and father. Savannah knew she couldn’t have picked a better man to give her daughter that than Jake.

  “Go inside and get some sleep,” Frank said in a gruff but calmer tone. “You’ve got a long day ahead of you.”

  Savannah didn’t need anyone to tell her that, and she had much to sort out in only a few hours. “What are you going to do?”

  A muscle worked in his jaw. “I’m not going to go looking for Jerricho, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  That’s exactly what she was worried about. “Are you angry with me?”

  The tenseness seemed to leave his face. “How could I ever be angry with you?”

  Tears suddenly welled up in her eyes and she wrapped her arms around her brother’s neck. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah,” he murmured in a rough, loving tone, hugging her back. “You really did.” He took her gently by the arms and stepped back. “But don’t think it can’t be fixed. In a few days, this will all be an unfortunate memory and life will return to the way it’s always been.”

  She tried to summon up a smile as she kissed Frank on the cheek, wearily climbed the steps, and entered the cool, apple-scented kitchen.

  She leaned heavily against the closed door and wished time would stop until she could figure out how she could fix the mess she had made.

  Donovan stared out the window of his old bedroom. The first rays of the sun were just peeking over the treetops and reflecting off Crawfish Lake.

  He had always loved this place. Whenever his parents had been arguing, which had been frequently growing up, he would come here and hang out with his grandparents. When no one else understood him, they had.

  They had also loved Savannah, seen in her what he had, and they had embraced her. He could only be thankful that they hadn’t been around to see how badly he had screwed up his life.

  He sighed and leaned his head against the glass, his mind replaying every moment of the hours he and Savannah had spent together.

  God, how he had missed her. This was what he had refused to acknowledge all these years, because to do so had only brought legions of hurt.

  No matter where he had gone or whom he had been with, his heart and soul belonged in Mississippi, with the only woman he had ever truly loved.

  She had believed him to be asleep when she had risen from the bed in the middle of the night and taken off in his car. He hadn’t stopped her because she needed to do what was right for her.

  All ni
ght he had told himself that he would leave her alone. He’d go away again and let the past die once and for all. If she wanted to marry the doctor, then he had to stay out of it, no matter if he thought she was making an enormous mistake. No matter if he still loved her.

  No matter if he wanted her for his wife.

  Christ. He swung around and deliberately banged his head once against the wood frame, cursing his stupidity. He would call Nick to come and get him, then he’d pack up and head out. That was the plan. If he stayed, he would most likely do something stupid. Something Savannah might hate him for. Something that would feel damn good to him, though.

  The sound of the front door slamming brought Donovan’s head up and sparked his blood like a hot wire. Had Savannah returned? It had to be her; no one else knew where he was.

  Donovan reached down to grab his shirt off the floor. When he straightened, he found Frank Harper on the threshold, dressed in black from the tip of his shit-kicker boots to the Stetson riding his head. Not a good start to the day.

  The last time they had squared off, Donovan had broken Frank’s nose, which still sported a slight cant, and Frank had managed to blacken Donovan’s eye to the point where he couldn’t open it for a week.

  Donovan sat down on the edge of the windowsill and crossed his ankles. “I guess I don’t need to ask why you’re here.”

  Frank’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “I warned you ten years ago to stay away from my sister, you son of a bitch.”

  “Are you conveying Savannah’s request or your own?”

  “Savannah’s getting married today and I won’t let anyone—especially you—ruin it for her. I told you the last time we crossed paths back in Detroit what I’d do if you ever came near my sister again.” Frank put his hand behind his back and Donovan caught the glimmer of steel as Savannah’s brother leveled a gun at him. “Perhaps you’ll listen now.”

  “So you’re going to kill me? You think that’s a good idea?” Donavon asked calmly.

  “I should have done it a long time ago. I should never have given you the chance to walk back into my sister’s life.”