The White Chapel: Book 2 in the Steamy New Adult Contemporary Romance Series (The Chapel Series)

by Marilyn Cruise

  He stands up. “No thank you. I just came here to talk.”

  He looks so attractive in that turtle neck, his eyes sincere, gazing at me attentively.

  “I don’t exactly know how to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out,” he says.

  My insides turn to liquid. Is he going to confess? Wait…do I want him to confess? I do, but that will mean I have to confess, too, and I’m not quite ready to do that.

  “I wanted to see if we could formalize our engagement a little more,” he says. He looks down at my hand, and then I remember that I took the ring off.

  “Sorry, I…I was really angry with you.”

  “I don’t care about the ring, Scarlett.”

  I sigh inwardly. “What did you have in mind?” I narrow my eyes.

  “I need to come clean about something, and if you kill me, so be it, but I have to get it out. I’ve been…pursuing this other woman. It hasn’t been sexual, well, close to it, but…and…well, I just couldn’t stop thinking about her for some reason.” He glances at me from beneath his eyelashes, massaging the back of his neck.

  I press my lips together and breathe.

  “I met up with her today, but…then I realized…” He stares into my eyes like a man who’s about to give his life away. “I made a huge mistake. All I could think about was how I only want to be with you. You are all that I need, Scarlett. I’m really sorry I didn’t come clean before. But I wanted to be sure about…us before I did. That’s all.” He waits for my reply.

  I don’t know how to respond. I want to throw my arms around him, but at the same time, here I am being untruthful in return. Now would be the moment to say something. Now would be the moment to come clean like he has. But my father’s face flashes before me. If I tell Michael that I’m the stripper, will he feel differently about me? Will the deal be off? Tears fill my eyes.

  He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “I’m so sorry. I understand if you don’t…I can’t stop myself from smiling when I see you, Scarlett. I…can’t explain it, but no woman has ever made me this happy. I’m such an idiot for not having seen it before.”

  I turn away from him because when I look at him, I can’t manage a single sensible thought. What do I do? What do I say? I just need to talk with Anne. What would she tell me? There’s too much at risk here to lose it all. But I feel if I’m not honest with him…no. I can’t be. I almost feel as if I have to choose between Michael and my father, and I have come to a complete standstill.

  “Are you still upset with me?” he asks. “Well, of course you are.”

  “It’s not that.” I turn around again, but let my eyes wander to the flames that are slowly taking to the logs.

  “Then what is it?” he asks.

  “I just…I just…I have a confession, too,” I say.

  “Whatever you have to say, it won’t change how I feel about you,” he says.

  I almost believe him, but the words still have to be spoken, I have to come clean.

  “Unless…you don’t feel the same way about me,” he says with a nervous chuckle. “That would be embarrassing.”

  I shake my head. “It’s not that. I…I need to tell you this. For my own sake.” I close my eyes and a tear rolls down my cheek. “I want to be open.”

  He leans forward, the space between us now only a few inches. “We’re stronger than our issues, Scarlett. I’m sorry I lied, and that I pulled you into this deal. It is a significant amount of money, yes, but…you are more important. We are more important.”

  My heart is pounding something savage. I let out a sigh and open my eyes. “I…I…”

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than what I did,” he says.

  I laugh a little, but it is soon choked down by a single sob.

  “You can tell me whenever you’re ready. But what I wanted to ask, the reason I came here, is, I wanted to see if I could date you—for real.”

  My eyes startle to his. “For real as in…there is no deal?” I ask. Shit, that made it sound like I am just after his money.

  “No. We’d still have the deal, but I’d like to see if our relationship could actually lead somewhere other than in a pre-meditated divorce.” For a moment, he seems hesitant, shy even, and lets a slow breath hiss between his teeth.

  I look him in the eyes. “So like—you’d take me on a real date?”

  He nods.

  “And kiss me for real?” The atmosphere has changed around us now—it’s dangerously electric. I should confess now, but the words just won’t come out.

  He nods and takes my hands in his.

  “And…?” I ask.

  “And make love to you again. I hope you know those times were always real for me,” he says.

  His eyes are blazing and suddenly I notice how my body feels as if it has caught fire.

  Shivers dance across my skin, and I need some air, but the supply in the room has vanished. I turn slightly away from him so I’ll be able to maintain my composure, to get some distance from the charge that buzzes between us like a frenzied electrical storm.

  Then it dawns on me, like a revelation from heaven. Michael actually really cares about me. Me! The real me! Tears spring to my eyes, and I let out a whimper.

  He steps behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, burrowing his chin into my shoulder. His warm, firm chest presses against my back, and in an instant, my worries vanish.

  “I know it’s sudden. If it’s too soon—” he says, his breath burning in my neck.

  I turn around and hitch my arms around his back as my face rests against his chest. “It is sudden. But…I like where this is going.”

  Michael picks me up and swings me around. “One day without you is like a day from hell. When you left, I realized how much I need you in my life. Scarlett, you have completely hypnotized me like no other woman has. I want what we have to last forever.”

  I let out an uninhibited laugh. I’ve hypnotized him? It’s too soon, my mind reminds me. You haven’t known this man for more than a few weeks. It will never last. I push the thoughts aside. I feel too good in this moment to care.

  “I want to be with you, fucking your sweet pussy every day for the rest of my life, and when I’m not doing that, I want to be the man who earns your love by the way I treat you,” he says.

  How can I manage to keep a straight head when he says things like that? I melt in his arms and press my lips to his. His tongue quickly finds mine, and I pull on his back as he reaches his hand around to the nape of my neck, deepening the kiss.

  I can hardly contain the sheer elation I’m feeling inside. He wants to be with me! The real me—for real!

  I notice as we’re kissing, we’ve started to move toward the stairwell. Walking up it, our lips never parting, he tears my jacket off and throws it onto the floor. Slowly, we climb the stairs, the charge between us becoming more intense by the second. Walking backward, I kick my boots off and tug at his sweater.

  Halfway up the split stairs, he presses me against the wall, lifts me up, and grabs my behind, the swell of his erection massaging my clitoris. A low sigh comes from my throat as I feel the desire in me build. Slow and steady, he rocks me into the cold wall behind me, as his lips devour mine, as his hands tighten their grip around my ass. His scent inundates my nose with every breath, and his hair feels like silk between my fingers as I knit them between his tresses.

  He carries me up the stairs, and then stops right in front of my bathroom. I’m shaking uncontrollably from the cold and from the anticipation, but I don’t care one bit right now. All I want, all I need is him. Inside me. Now. He’s like a drug I need to survive, to sustain my life.

  “Ever since I saw you here in nothing but a towel, I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to get you naked and fuck you in the shower.” His voice is slurred, intoxicated, thick.

  Oh, my. I think I just came undone in my panties. “Have you now?” I kiss him, but it’s hard to because I can’t stop smiling.

  He pushes me
gently into the bathroom, and pulls my sweater over my head. I help him get out of his sweater and shirt, and as I run my fingers across his chest, I feel his warm, prickly skin beneath my fingertips.

  Never taking his eyes off me, he walks over to the shower and turns it on hot. Returning to me, he unbuttons my white shirt, tears it off, and unhitches my bra with one deft move. I take the straps and slowly slide them off my shoulders before letting the white, lacy thing drop to the floor. His eyes take me in for a moment and in the next instance he has his lips on my breast, tugging and sucking again and again.

  My body is buzzing with desire. I moan and let my head fall back as an electrical current runs from my breast to my clitoris, igniting it on fire.

  “Oh, Scarlett,” he says. “Don’t ever leave me again, you hear?”

  I’m breathless already, feeling my body prepare for the pleasure that is coming. When he releases my nipple, I slide my pants and socks off, and then I’m standing in nothing but my thong.

  His eyes scan me all the way down and then up, taking their own sweet time, the hunger in them making me even more heated by the second. I take a step closer to him and undo his belt and pants, the clang of the metallic buckle, and our labored breaths filling the air. I ease his pants and briefs off, running my fingers down his rigid thighs. I grab his erection and pull on it gently.

  He moans. “Stop, or I’ll come right now,” he says, pulling my hand away.

  Still in my thong, he pushes me into the steamy shower, the scalding water burning my skin. Thank goodness it’s still hot. They must just have turned the electricity off. It hurts for a moment, but then I relax into it as my body adjusts to the heat.

  He joins me, and water runs into his hair and drips into his face. I can’t help but stare at the sexy god in front of me, perfect skin glistening silky and wet, lips red, eyes scorching, claiming me with a wild, possessive stare.

  He places his hands on my hips, kissing a path down toward my belly button and I feel that heavy, aching, familiar desire pool in the deepest part of my abdomen. Oh, it’s already too much. I want him inside me—there. He keeps heading south, nipping all-too soft kisses on my sensitive skin, so I’m strung so high I can hardly contain myself.

  I shudder delightfully at the thought of his lips and his tongue pleasuring me until everything becomes so tight that I explode into it.

  Pressing me up against the cold tile wall, he pulls my thong off and throws them onto the shower floor. When his hot tongue spreads my folds, I moan and gasp loudly. “Oh Michael!” Damn his wicked, wicked tongue. How did he get so good at this? I’m in awe of how completely euphoric it feels, how it makes me want to cry and shout for joy at the same time.

  He starts sucking, and I feel the buildup come like a bolt of lightning from heaven. I tug at his wet hair, trying to find stability when my legs want nothing but to buckle underneath me.

  His tongue encircles me there, licking, twirling, pulling, driving me wild, and I tremble in utter pleasure before I come quickly and intensely, crying out because the feeling of utter ecstasy has to find its release somewhere. Oh…

  Michael stands up and picks me up. He holds my legs up, one in each arm, and I feel his firm biceps against the backs of my thighs. He pushes me forcefully up against the wet shower wall, pinning me against it as his lips crash to mine.

  He tears his lips away from mine and tugs on my earlobe with his teeth. “Can I fuck you now?” he whispers.

  I nod almost imperceptibly, my mind still in a fog from where he already took me.

  He lifts himself into me, filling me to the brim, every deep corner of my most intimate part throbbing with pleasure. It’s so tight. It’s so…oh…

  He starts to move, slowly, tauntingly, lifting me up, and guiding me back down around his thick, hard erection, each thrust deeper, each stroke rubbing my vagina, more agonizingly delicious than the previous one.

  His lips find mine again, the scent of me, the taste of his saliva, and my arousal, all there, stripping me of logic and thought, reducing me to a woman of pure emotion and unadulterated lust. Each languid stroke massages my insides, heightening my sensation, sending me higher and higher as his chest crushes me to the wall.

  Just when I think it can’t get any better, he speeds up even faster, each shove more forceful, sending me quickly into another orgasm, and then another one until it feels as if I will never come down. Each time he thrusts, I let out a grunt, a moan as the air spills out of my lungs, but I don’t care anymore about censoring the noises he brings out of me.

  “Oh!” I yell.

  “Say. My. Name. Scarlett.” His voice is demanding, his grip secure underneath my hips, his pounds relentless.

  I cannot move, only feel and experience the pleasure of his long, thick cock stroking me, slamming into me, in and out, in and out, his grunts unbelievably erotic as he crashes into me again. And again. And again.

  “Michael,” I shout, as I come, a thousand explosions detonating all at once.

  And he finally comes, yelling my name as he pours into me with three final, deeply penetrating, earth-shattering thrusts.

  I feel his chest rise and fall against my breasts, his panting breaths flutter against my cheek, and hear the sound of our labored breathing and the drops of the water beating down on his back. He holds me still for a few moments longer as we slow our breaths.

  I’m exhausted from so much pleasure. But I can’t help that I want more. He has brought me so high, I don’t know how to come down. Not even now after I have found my release. Many times.

  He pulls out of me and sets me ever so gently down onto the floor.

  “I hope I wasn’t too rough with you,” he says, stroking my cheek, kissing me tenderly. “I couldn’t help myself. I never want to hurt you, is what I mean.” He gets a worried look on his face.

  “Never,” I say with a smile, my entire body still trembling.

  “You are mine,” he says. “Now, for real.”

  4

  I pull the blankets and pillows off my bed and drag them downstairs where Michael helps me lay them in front of the still ablaze fireplace. He spoons behind me, and I lie nestled in his arms, completely relaxed, completely naked, and grinning from ear to ear. The fire crackles loudly as the heat of the flames warms us in this cold, dim house.

  “So you’re an Eagle Scout?” I ask.

  “My father loved taking me to scouts, and it was one of his dreams that I become an Eagle Scout one day. Unfortunately, he never saw the day when I finally did.”

  “How did you manage to pass it?” I’ve heard it’s a lot of work and a huge commitment.

  “Remember Harold from the last night?” he asks as he glides the tips of his fingers across my shoulder and lets it trace down my arm, leaving a trail of tingles.

  “Yes,” I say, remembering him and his less-than happy wife.

  He presses his soft, warm lips to my shoulder. “He’s my father’s brother, and also my godfather. So after my father passed, he took over the task of raising me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Harold was also an Eagle Scout, so it worked out well.”

  “Was your mother supportive?” I ask.

  “Well, she wasn’t against it, but she didn’t really take interest either. After my father passed, she completely changed.”

  “How so?” I ask.

  “She used to be carefree and happy, and would sing and dance at random. There was never a day where she didn’t make me laugh, and I felt like I had the perfect mother. But when Father passed, she retreated into herself and became an angry, bitter woman who was obsessed with keeping secrets and keeping up appearances.” He slides his hand underneath my arm and rests his hand on my stomach.

  “Why do you think it changed?” I ask.

  “I think she worried about losing what her family had built up for centuries. My father wasn’t good with money at all. He spent much of her fortune on lavish vacations and toys like airplanes and boats. She probably felt she nee
ded to maintain her European heritage and when he died, she became obsessed with building the Kovak Empire back up again.”

  “So you weren’t close to your mother?”

  “Not after my father passed. I was to blame for that, though. I pushed her away because she refused to honor my father’s memory,” he says.

  “That must have been very painful for you,” I say, hoping he doesn’t close up at my probing question.

  “It fed my anger for her, that’s for sure.”

  I feel we’re in too deep territory right now so I try to guide the conversation into a lighter direction. “So tell me what life was like for you as a young child,” I say.

  “I had a wonderful upbringing. Having relatives in Europe and here, I traveled a lot. I spent many summers in Romania with my mother’s family on their estate, until my parents separated when I was about twelve or thirteen. While they lived apart, they went to counseling for years, but they just couldn’t make it work.”

  “Why not?” I ask, hoping I’m not being too nosey. But who can blame me for asking when this is the first time he’s really opened up to me about personal things?

  “According to my father, my mother never truly loved him. My mother would say the marriage ended because my father was a dishonest man and because he swindled all her money. But in reality, they were just two individuals who had never really learned to love each other unconditionally.” He kisses the top of my head. “What about you? How was your childhood?”

  “Oh, amazing, I think. I mean, I wasn’t the most popular kid or anything, but I knew my parents loved me and that they loved each other. It’s just when my father lost his job, everything started falling apart. I felt like I had to grow up and take care of everyone around me. Make sure I wasn’t a problem or a burden, you know.”

  “Well, you do seem to put everything onto your shoulders,” he says.

  I feel my body go rigid.

  “I mean, just look at the way you’ve been trying to hold onto this house, and take care of your father…”

  “If not me, then there’s no one,” I interject.