by Anthology
And there it was. Now it wasn’t just an offered opportunity. Now he was actually asking me out and all I had to say was yes.
….
“No,” I said quietly. “I mean, that’s terribly kind of you, but I’m not—I don’t really—“ I couldn’t put it into words. I’m not ready? I can’t trust anyone again, after being cheated on? I stared at him desperately, begging him to understand that it wasn’t him. “I have leftovers to finish,” I said at last.
He still had his arms crossed. “Leftovers?”
“Leftovers.”
“I love leftovers. Maybe I could eat with you.”
I couldn’t look him in the eye, but avoiding his gaze left my eyes skittering over that broad chest, with diversions down his muscled arms and across his toned waist. I gulped and pulled my eyes back up to his face and said, a little breathlessly, “I don’t think I have enough to offer you.”
The words hung in the air.
“I mean, the leftovers,” I said.
“I know what you meant.” His voice was soft and yet very firm. “And I don’t agree with you.” He took a deep breath and then let it out with a tiny sigh. “But okay.”
I showed him out. When I closed the front door, I leaned my back against it and closed my eyes, then began to bang my head lightly against the wood.
Chapter 7
I sat there the next morning waiting for Donovan to arrive. I mean, not waiting for him to arrive. I wasn’t sitting there like a love-sick puppy, watching the clock, pricking up my ears at every tiny sound in the hope that it’d be him.
Okay. Maybe a little bit. I only changed my sweater twice and my skirt once, before settling on deep red for the top and black for the bottom. And I’d put my hair up three different ways before finally just letting it hang loose in soft waves.
The day before, I’d been paralyzed by fear—the fear of making the wrong choice. Now, I was frozen again…but this time, it wasn’t just the cake that had me knotted up. I didn’t do one night stands. I wasn’t that kind of woman.
I bit my lip. What if he really was interested and not just being polite? What if I did have a chance with a guy like him, however small? Wasn’t it worth just a little bit of risk…just once?
At that moment, I heard his knock at the door upstairs. I charged up there and then stood for a couple of seconds by the door, getting my breath back and composing myself. I didn’t want to look…keen.
“Oh. Hello.” As if I’d only just remembered that he was coming over.
He just smiled at me, with a smile that said he saw straight through me. I felt my stomach do a backflip, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.
Downstairs, I told him the problem. It didn’t feel weird, now, sharing things with him. Every time I talked to him, I was reminded of how much I’d missed having someone around. I stared at the two designs I’d pinned to the wall. “The problem is: should it be ultra-modern, because she’s a hairdresser and that means this wedding’s very different? Or should it be ultra-traditional, to try to neutralize the fact she’s a hairdresser. I mean, I think the queen probably wants to forget that part as much as possible. Pretend that this is a normal royal wedding and she’s got…you know. Breeding and things.”
“Do you think that matters? What the queen wants?”
I looked at him, horrified. “She’s the queen!”
“But it’s their wedding.”
“But she’s the queen!”
“But the cake’s not for her. It’s for them.”
“But she’s the—“ I sighed. “This is useless. You’re American—you wouldn’t understand. I’ll call you when I’m baking for the president.”
“Why don’t you just combine the two?”
“What?” And then, because I couldn’t think of any other response, “What?”
“Combine the two. Modern and fancy.”
“Modern and traditional.”
“Whatever.”
“That’s insane,” I told him. “That would never work.”
“Isn’t that pretty much what the queen’s probably thinking about the couple?” he asked. “Isn’t he all fancy—“
“Traditional,”
“…and she’s modern?”
I wanted to dismiss it. It was a ridiculous idea. But, now that he said it, there was something to it. A traditional design was much too stuffy for a hairdresser. A modern design was much too clean and simple for a prince. But put them together….
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll give it a try.”
I looked up into his eyes, and he was smiling at me.
“Why did you get into trouble, anyway?” I asked, when we stopped to grab a sandwich for lunch.
He shook his head ruefully. He was back in a shirt, today, and had politely declined my offer of an apron. “The head of the network was making a speech at some awards dinner and I was meant to introduce him,” he said. “I made a joke about him instead. Went down well with the audience…not so well with him.”
“Why? You must have known you’d get into trouble for it.”
He sighed. “I know. I’m an asshole. And also….”
I waited.
“The week before, the network had let one of our female news anchors go. Sweet lady, been with us for years. She wasn’t happy about it and the press caught on that it was down to her age—they wanted someone younger. ‘Course, she couldn’t badmouth the network to the press or she’d never work again. But I knew that decision went all the way up to the network head, and it damn well was because of her age. He’s an asshole, like that. So when I had to announce him….” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t going to get her her job back. I guess I love a hopeless cause. It was stupid.”
“It was right,” I said with feeling. “I’m glad you stood up for her.” I was a good few seconds before I realized I was smiling at him, and caught myself.
Chapter 8
Assembling the cake took a full hour, with Donovan helping to lift each tier into place while I shuffled the support columns under it. I’ve always been paranoid about the potential for disaster with a wedding cake, even when it’s only three or four tiers. Five felt like a house of cards made of glass, in a hurricane.
Eventually, we had it together and we stepped back and looked at it. And it was perfect: modern and traditional and impressive and understated. It felt right. We turned the lights down, except for the one over the cake’s table and stood there, just looking at it.
I squeezed Donovan’s hand and it was only then I realized I’d grabbed it in my excitement. I turned to look at him, panicked, and he gazed back at me. My heart was suddenly racing again and, this time, I couldn’t look away. Maybe it was the relief of having the cake finished on time, but…I’d taken a chance, letting him into my house in the first place. I’d taken another when I’d let him stay to help. I’d taken a third following his crazy suggestion of combining the two styles. What if I went just a little further? What if I dared to hope?
He sidled around, not letting go of my hand. God, he was close enough to touch. Close enough to touch me.
“You have a little flour on your nose,” he said.
I put my free hand instinctively to my face. “What? Where?”
“There.”
“Where?”
He reached down and brushed the tip of my nose with his thumb. “There,” he said softly. Those gorgeous slate-gray eyes stared down into mine and—
He leaned down and touched his lips to mine. Before I even knew what was happening, my mouth was opening to him, my eyes closing.
That first press of his lips was hungry and demanding. It was a shock…but what shocked me even more was how I responded. A swell of emotions rippled outward from deep inside me, taking possession of my body. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been wanting this, waiting for this. Needing this. He was the one doing the kissing, but I was so eager for him, after all our dancing about, that I just sucked him in, letting myse
lf go completely. My arms circled his body, hands running over the strong muscles of his back.
His tongue was exploring my mouth as his hands stroked through my hair. His chest pressed up against my breasts, squeezing them gently between us, and I swore I could feel his heart thumping. We kissed fast and then slow, then noisy and open-mouthed. Both of us were panting by the time we finally broke to stare at each other.
“God,” I managed. “Are we—Are you sure?”
He looked at me as if I was crazy. “Woman, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Then he had his hands on my waist and was kissing me again and this time we were moving back, our legs brushing. The room was almost silent: just the sound of our panting and the whisper of my nylon-clad legs against the soft fabric of his pants.
I felt something hard against my ass. The edge of one of the counters. Even given what was happening, I was still paranoid enough that I had to glance across the room to check we weren’t anywhere near the cake. When I looked back at Donovan, he was looking at me with an intensity I’d never seen before—not even in my ex-husband.
“Lift your arms above your head,” he said, his voice a low growl.
My head was spinning. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to take your sweater off.”
Hearing him say it—hearing him say anything, in that sexy low voice—sent a deep wave of heat through me, one that rippled down and down until I felt it turn into slick, hot moisture between my thighs. I lifted my arms high above my head. He grabbed the hem of my sweater and there was a warm, claustrophobic instant as it slid off, the angora soft against my cheeks. Then I was in my black bra, up against the counter in my kitchen. I slowly lowered my arms, very aware of the fullness of my curves.
But he was gazing down at my breasts, feasting on them like a starving man at a banquet. “You’re beautiful,” he told me, and he said it as if it wasn’t opinion: it was fact. “You’re just as beautiful as I dreamed. No. Better.”
“Dreamed?” I asked, my breath catching.
“I dreamed about you, last night.”
Then his head was pressing into my neck, laying kisses down the soft skin there, little explosions of warmth that made me arch and strain, my toes dancing in my shoes. He kissed lower and lower, down to my collarbone, down to the upper slopes of my breasts, and my breath began to tremble and shudder in my chest. My eyes fluttered closed. He kissed down over the softness of my breasts, right where the skin met the cups of my bra and then—
I drew in a huge, shuddering gasp as his hands squeezed my breasts, palms hot through the thin fabric of my bra. His thumbs glided over the skin as he lifted and rubbed, squeezing with just the right amount of urgent roughness. And then he was crouching, kissing down below my bra, lips leaving a scorching trail over my stomach. I squirmed—it’s my least favorite part of me—but he kissed so slowly, so reverently, that the embarrassment melted away. And then his hands were trailing down my back, over my ass, tracing the shape of my legs as he crouched low.
I opened my eyes as I felt him start to lift my long skirt up my legs. There was a sudden feeling of the mood changing, a this is serious, now moment. Sweater off was one thing. Skirt off meant….
But stopping him wasn’t even remotely an option. Stopping myself wasn’t an option.
He lifted my skirt higher and higher, bunching it around my thighs, my hips. I was wearing pantyhose, not anything sexy like stockings, but he didn’t seem to care. His hands skimmed over the curves of my ass again and again and then, as he kissed me, he suddenly scooped me up and lifted me so that I was sitting on the edge of the counter.
I sat there panting against his lips. It had all happened so quickly that I’d barely had a chance to touch him. Now I went to work on his shirt, button after button coming free under my shaking fingers, more of that delicious chest visible with each one. I raced to the bottom, desperate to get to the point where—there!—I spread the two halves apart and took in his body, marveling at his broad shoulders and sculpted pecs. I smoothed my hands down over his abs, feeling every ridge, every valley, just as I’d longed to do the day before. Then I was pushing the cloth down his arms, helping him to free it from his wrists, and then he was between my legs, the bulge at his groin butting up against the softness between my thighs, and I caught my breath.
I looked down at myself. My skirt was bunched around my waist, my legs gleaming in their pantyhose in the dim light.
“I want you,” he said. I was just reaching for his shoulders again as he said it, wanting to run my hands over the muscles there, and I was so lost in the moment that it took me a second to process what he’d said. Realization swept over me like a dark, hot wave. This wasn’t just going to be kissing.
“I want you right now,” he told me. His hands were on the outside of my thighs. I was going to have to figure out a way to lift up and roll my pantyhose down off my legs so that I could—
He gripped the waistband of my pantyhose and ripped. Nylon stretched and then shredded and then I was bare down to my thighs, my skin throbbing at its sudden unveiling. I could feel how wet I was. When he cupped my groin through the thin fabric, I groaned. And then he was ripped my panties away, too, the waistband snapping with a crack of breaking threads, and I was completely exposed to him.
Before I had time to speak, he pulled me to the very edge of the counter. And then, crouching again, he lowered his mouth between my thighs.
I drew in my breath and my thighs instinctively closed. I wanted it—God, I wanted it—but it had been so long since someone had done that to me. It didn’t matter. My knees closed uselessly on his wide shoulders and his lips were already brushing against my wet folds. Then his tongue was seeking out my hidden bud, teasing it—and my legs went limp. He slid an arm under each one, lifting me, opening me to him.
He was talented and assured. He knew exactly how to go from the safer zones—the soft skin on the inside of my thighs—all the way inward to my throbbing core, teasing me and teasing me until I was ready to explode before pulling back to the edge again to bring me slowly back down. He knew just how to rub and strum and when to thrust deep with his tongue so that I’d grab his head in my hands, fingers knitted into his hair. I sat there on the edge, shuddering and bucking, my hands braced either side of me for support except when I had to clutch at him, and it went on and on, stopping only when I told him breathlessly that I couldn’t take anymore.
He rose to his feet, then, and leaned forwards, finally stripping my bra off me to leave me naked, save for the shreds of my underwear and my heels. He pushed me back on the counter and then climbed up himself, a knee between my thighs, and we scooched back together until he were both lying on the counter with him on top. He stroked my breasts again, caressing them slowly and firmly, staring into my eyes to watch my reaction as he teased each nipple to straining, aching hardness. Then his mouth came down on my soft flesh and I arched my back, grinding my groin against him, trapping his leg between my thighs for friction as he licked and sucked. He slid a hand down my body and then his fingers were entering me, finding me wet and ready for him, stroking slowly in and out as his tongue bathed my nipples.
I grabbed his shoulders at last, wrenching him up. “Please!” I hissed. And reached down for his belt. We unfastened it together, pushing his pants and shorts down his thighs. For the first time, I saw the hardness that I’d only felt before, and I gasped—he was just as long and thickly gorgeous as I’d imagined him. I parted my thighs for him, feet squeaking on the polished marble and then—
I groaned at the first wonderful entrance of him, hard and hot inside me, moving easily on my wetness, opening me and—God—filling me. Short thrusts, at first, as if he was worried about hurting me. Then longer and longer, but there was no pain, just that glorious sensation of being utterly his. He lowered himself atop me, braced on his forearms, and began to move faster. My world reduced down to two things: those gray eyes gazing down into mine and the liquid, silken
friction of him inside me, stretching me, taking me higher and higher. It was nothing like the sex I’d had with my ex. It was more intense, more real, every sensation magnified: the glassy smoothness of the marble beneath us, heated by our bodies; the echo of our moans around the large room; the feel of his lips as he bent his head to kiss me, our mouths touching together and breaking apart what felt like a thousand times.
I wrapped my legs around him, locking my ankles behind his ass, and urged him on and on. The heat inside me boiled higher and higher, consuming me from the inside, until it exploded in a glorious white explosion. My whole body tensed, my back arching and my breasts pillowing against his chest as I cried out with my climax. A moment later, his pants turned to grunts and he buried himself within me, clutching at my shoulders as if to lock himself in place, and I felt the liquid heat of him inside me.
Afterwards, he rolled over so that I could lie with my head on his chest.
Then we tried it with me on my back and his head on my chest.
Finally we decided that a marble countertop just isn’t that comfortable, and moved to the bed.
Chapter 9
There should have been guilt. There should have been fear and dread and maybe even tears. But when I woke up the next morning, I just felt…good. Free. I’d taken a chance and nothing bad had happened. I still had no idea how or if this was going to work, especially since he’d be going back to LA in just a few days, but—for the moment—the part of me that was constantly worrying had finally decided to go on holiday.
I put on a robe and—doing my best to be sexy—my heels and nothing else, and went down to the kitchen to make coffee—because he was an American, after all. He found me down there a few minutes later, coming up behind me and nuzzling my neck until I giggled. It felt good to giggle. I couldn’t remember the last time I had.
“What time are they coming to collect it?” he asked.
“Not until four,” I said. “And it’s only—oh, gosh, it’s eleven. Still, we have five hours.”