The minute he’d entered the lobby Starbucks, though, any hope he’d had of getting caffeinated vanished. His best friend Ella appeared at his side and grabbed his arm, dragging him right back out through the glass door before it even had a chance to close behind him.
“Damn, Ell. Take it down a notch. I’m paying the price for last night,” he groaned.
“Believe me, we both might be,” she said, her tone flat and fatalistic.
He paused for a second, trying to make sense of her mysterious words, but the effort was too much for his pounding head. “I give up. What’s the answer?”
“The what?”
“The answer. To your riddle. I’m not exactly up for problem solving.”
Ella glanced furtively around the crowded lobby like they were on some kind of spy mission and then tugged at the hemline of his polo shirt. She led him over to a small couch in a relatively secluded corner. The high back and armrests not only fit in with the modern style of the hotel but also provided a bit of privacy.
Despite the full body ache that engulfed him, he felt a stirring in his jeans. Damn. It always turned him on when Ella touched him. She did it casually a hundred times a day—pulling his shirt, slapping his arm, nudging him with her elbow. She clearly had no idea how much the feeling of her fingers brushing over his skin affected him.
Even in his depleted state, he still felt a nearly overwhelming urge to tangle his fingers in her reddish-brown curls and kiss her, to throw her up against the wall and crush his lips to hers, plunge his tongue into her soft mouth, let his hands roam over her soft and feminine curves…
God. The fantasy filled his mind so suddenly, so fully, and in such vivid detail that it seemed almost more like memory than imagination. But that was impossible.
“Hello? Hello? Earth to Donovan.”
Ella snapped her fingers in front of his face and waved her hands back and forth to get his attention.
Yeah, fuck, he needed to snap out of it. He could never let his guard down and show how he really felt about her. She’d been burned by too many people in her life. He was her best friend, the one person she could count on. She told him that all the time. He cared about her way too much to risk losing her, but especially too much to risk hurting her. He had to keep those feelings locked down tight, so deep in the vault he’d never run the risk of them bleeding out around the door.
“Sorry, Ell. God. Last night is killing me. Slowly and painfully. What do you need?”
“It’s about last night, actually. What do you remember, Donovan?” She covered her face with her hands, and he felt the first flicker of protective worry spark to life in his chest. What the fuck had happened?
He clamped a strong hand over her shoulder, and when he spoke there was barely-controlled rage bubbling just below the surface of every single word. “What’s wrong, Ella? Did somebody hurt you? Who was it? I’ll kill the motherfucker.”
She pulled her hands away from her face and her gaze snapped up to meet his. “What? No, what are you talking about?”
His muscles relaxed reflexively at her confusion at the question. Damn. He’d been ready to go to war to protect her, and he hadn’t even known what the threat was. That was no surprise to him, though. He didn’t know what he’d do without her; she was the best thing in his life.
When it came down to it, he would do anything to make sure she was safe and happy—including hold back his own feelings for her. That was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, and the most painful sacrifice he’d ever had to make, but if it meant Ella continuing to feel safe and happy with him, then it was a no-brainer.
His mind snapped back to the moment. “Then what are you talking about?”
She threw her hands up in frustration. “Dammit! Trying to have an important conversation when we both have hangover brain is as hard as ….as…um…”
Donovan smiled. God, she was adorable when she was annoyed. “As hard as trying to think of an analogy for that conversation?”
She laughed, and his heart squeezed. Her laughter was the other thing that made him want to grab her up in his arms and kiss her all night, coming in second only to her touch. Well, then there was also her smile. And her eyes. And her…okay, well, maybe it was just her. All of her.
Another fantasy filled his mind, so vivid he was transported.
She was facing away from him, her skirt shoved up around her waist and her panties pushed to the side. His jeans and boxer briefs were bunched around his thighs and his fingers were buried in the creamy flesh of her hips as he drove into her again and again, and, oh God, her moans were more intoxicating than the alcohol running through his veins…
She sat up straighter and took a deep breath, snapping him out of his fantasy and back to the conversation. “Okay. Come on, Ella. Get your thoughts together,” she admonished herself before continuing, “So, here’s the thing, Donovan. Gen and I were in line for coffee and she kept referencing something that happened last night. Do you remember anything…unusual?”
Donovan cast his mind back into the gaping hole of memory that was the night before, but all he came back with was an empty hook. He shrugged. “I remember going to the club with everybody. I remember being stoked that our IDs worked. I remember shots. Lots of shots. Then…”
Ella nodded. “Exactly. Then…?”
Donovan closed his eyes, working hard to force his brain to concentrate. Little by little, flashes of memory lit up his mind. A small church. Flowers. A withered old man with a bored monotone saying, “You may now kiss the bride.”
His eyes flew open. “I think we got…”
She finished the sentence with him, their voices mingling as they said, “Married.”
*
Ella’s head spun, and it wasn’t from the hangover this time.
Married.
It was true. It had happened. She was married to Donovan Valentine.
“What are we going to do?” she whispered.
He cracked a half-smile. “Honeymoon?”
She couldn’t help but chuckle. That was one of her favorite things about Donovan, one of the things that made her love him, even if she could never tell him how she really felt. No matter how dire the circumstances, or how strange, he could always crack a joke that would make her smile. And just like that, she would feel comforted and protected, and know that everything would be all right because Donovan was there, and he’d always have her back.
“There’s that smile I like to see,” he said, and slid his arm around her shoulder. She couldn’t resist, so she gave into the tempting comfort of his friendly embrace and let herself melt into his shoulder.
The warmth of him against her cheek triggered an image in her mind…well, more than an image, really. More like a full-blown movie. Not to put too fine a point on it, but a porno, if she was being honest.
She was pressed face-first up against a wall, Donovan’s hands roaming all over her bare ass and then up to cup her breasts as he thrust himself into her again and again.
The fantasy was so vivid it caused a painful-but-also-pleasant tightening between her legs, and she gasped, sitting up suddenly, cheeks blazing.
“What’s wrong?” Donovan asked, his deep brown eyes melting with concern. “Are you in pain? Is it the hangover?”
“Um, yeah. The hangover,” she mumbled.
It was not the hangover.
She’d always had a crush-bordering-on-full-blown-love thing for Donovan, but she’d never indulged in sex daydreams about him. It just felt weird, somehow. Invasive or something.
Or maybe her subconscious was just trying to protect her from falling even further, resulting in inevitable future heartbreak when he didn’t return those feelings. Because, realistically, there was no way he returned those feelings. She was brutally honest with herself about that.
They were from different worlds. He was the football captain, class president, descendent of the founding family, most popular guy in school…hottest guy in school. She was just some a
rtsy outsider, hanging with the theater kids and marking time.
They had only become best friends as kids because a whim of fate had decreed that they’d live next door to each other, and they’d only stayed best friends as teenagers because…well, apparently Ella’s fairy godmother was working overtime, because on paper, that shit made no sense. Ella couldn’t explain it. She was just grateful for it.
“So, back to the main question. What do we do now?” she said, hoping to distract herself before any more X-rated film clips starring her and her best friend could take over the movie screen of her mind.
Donovan thought for a minute, then smiled and shook his head. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I didn’t think about this.”
“What?”
“Ell, we’re in the clear. We’re totally in the clear!”
“How?”
“Dude, what did we bring to Vegas? The most important thing?”
She cast her mind around, looking for clues to follow his train of thought, but between the headache, the sudden floods of lust hormones, and the head-spinning details of their fricking wedding the previous night coming into focus, it was useless. She shrugged. “Yeah, I got nothin’.”
He grabbed her but the shoulders and smiled broadly. “Fake IDs, Ell! We weren’t using our own licenses.”
Her head was spinning too hard to nail down the details. “Dammit, Donovan. I know what you’re trying to get at should be super freaking obvious, but I’m just not up to snuff this morning.”
He laughed, then dug in her messenger bag, which she’d plopped onto the bench seat between them. He pulled out her wallet and opened it, then retrieved his own wallet from his back pocket.
He held them up for her to see, the IDs visible through their plastic windows. “Don’t ya get it, Ella? We didn’t get married. Gerard Blumenthal and Jennifer Lawson did.”
It hit her then. There wouldn’t be any official paperwork filed in their own names that would indicate that the two of them were married. They’d undergone the drunken ceremony while posing as their over-twenty-one alter egos. As far as the government was concerned, last night had never happened.
They weren’t married. He wasn’t her husband. She wasn’t his wife.
“Wow. That’s a big relief,” she said, but for some reason, she’d never been less relieved about anything in her life.
Stop being stupid, Ella, she chided herself harshly. You can’t be upset about losing something you never had!
So why was there a huge lump of grief sitting like a rock in her stomach, more painful than anything she’d ever felt since she’d sat on the front porch when she was eight years old and watched her father drive away for the last time?
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s like last night was…just a dream. Not real. It never happened.”
Was that a note of wistfulness in his voice, or was she just imagining hearing one because she wanted it to be there so badly?
“Woo! There’s the happy couple!” Genevieve stumbled up to them, coffee cups in hand.
“Well, it’s not entirely erased from human history, I guess,” Ella joked, standing and taking her coffee.
Genevieve handed a steaming cup to Donovan. “I got one for the groom, too. I thought you might be too exhausted to stand in line after, you know, the wedding night.”
Ella cringed at Gen’s trilling laughter. It was going to be a good long time before she would be able to laugh about this. Donovan seemed to be taking it good-naturedly, though. “Real funny, Genevieve. But we didn’t actually tie the knot last night.”
“You did! I was there!”
He shook his head. “Fake IDs.”
“Oh,” Gen pouted. “That sucks. I wanted you to be married. You guys would make the best couple.”
“Gen, stop. You’re drunk.” Ella laughed to cover her nervousness at how close the topic was hitting to home, emotionally.
Gen shrugged. “True. Anyway, losers. We’re meeting for breakfast in twenty, then packing up and heading to the airport. See you at the buffet.”
After Genevieve had gone, Ella turned to Donovan and opened her mouth to say something, but found that, for the first time in their entire friendship, she didn’t know what to say. The one thing they’d never been with each other was awkward, but that’s exactly how she felt.
True to his track record of always stepping up to the plate and taking care of her, though, Donovan broke the tension. With a broad smile, he put his hand out for her to take. “Shall we, Mrs. Blumenthal?”
She laughed and tucked her hand into his. “Absolutely, Mr. Blumenthal.”
As they crossed the lobby, Ella glanced surreptitiously at his chiseled profile. It sparked butterflies, but they were the same ones she always felt. She could handle that. Of course she could. She always had.
The important thing was that he was still in her life. That he was still her best friend.
Her Donovan.
Don’t miss the rest of Ella and Donovan’s story in Protecting My Heart, which picks up 15 years later. It’s the first book in the new Valentine Bay series, and it releases February 14!
Excerpt:
Whisper of Love
Spring 2018
Allison & Kade’s story in
Whisper of Love (A Whisper Lake Romance, #1)
Unedited Excerpt
Chapter 1
“Are you looking at porn!?”
“What? No!” Kade’s brow furrowed as his eyes remained glued to the device he was clutching in his hands.
The grunts and groans she’d heard in the hall that had caused her to go where no man dared to go—a teenage boy’s bedroom—were silenced now. In the dark room the only thing she could see through the small crack in the door was her nephew’s face that was illuminated by the screen of the iPad he was holding. It was too bad he didn’t wear glasses so she could have seen the reflection of what he was watching in them.
“Give it to me.” Allison Walsh did her best to sound as authoritative as possible as she leaned into the door with her shoulder pushing it open. The task was made more difficult due to an enormous pile of laundry halting its path. After putting her back into it, she was finally able to move inside the darkened room.
The first thing that hit her was the overwhelming, pungent smell. The combination of dirty socks, rotten food, and a distinctive funk that, in her experience, was uniquely teen-boy aroma. Lifting her hand to cover her mouth, she instantly regretted the fact that she’d let the room checks slip over the last few months.
That’s not the only thing you’ve let slip, her inner—somewhat judgmental—voice chimed in.
Shaking off that truth she pushed ahead into the funk cloud and expertly navigated through the minefield of dirty laundry, pizza boxes and general debris that covered his floor. When she reached the bed, she snatched her nephew’s iPad out of his hands.
“Hey! What are you doing!?” he shouted angrily.
“You’ll get it back when your room is clean and the yard is mowed, K-man.”
“Don’t call me that,” her nephew shot back as he sat up on his bed and extended his hands to her like he was Oliver asking for ‘some mo’ please, except in a much more belligerent and rude manor. “You can’t take that, I need it for schoolwork.”
Shit. Ali’s mind raced as she searched her nephew’s light green irises for any hint of deception. Was he lying? Was he telling the truth? She had no idea.
Over the past year since she’d become legally responsible for her then pre-teen twin nephews she still hadn’t developed any kind of parent radar skills. She was officially in over her head and since the boys had both officially become teenagers the week before, she knew she hadn’t even hit the hard part yet.
With no clue as to whether he actually needed the device for scholastic reasons, she looked down to see if she could at least figure out what he’d been watching. It didn’t take much detective work since the YouTube video was still playing. It was an MMA fight that she’d seen at least a doze
n times, which for her was a dozen times too many.
“This is not schoolwork.”
“Yes, it is! I have to write an essay on who my hero is.”
No. Not that. Not him.
Of course she knew that her nephew looked up to the man that he was named after. His godfather who happened to be a MMA fighter who got more press for his extra-curricular behavior than he did for his profession. Kade Donovan had been the reigning Bad Boy of MMA for nearly ten years, which was not an easy title to hold. That line of work didn’t normally attract choir boys. To stand out as trouble was quite a feat.
Hoping she could guide him in a different direction, she suggested, “Why don’t you write it on—”
“I already emailed him questions and told him I was! I’m writing it on Uncle Kade!” he screamed as he pulled the iPad from her hand.
“He’s not your uncle.” She knew that she was being petty by pointing that out but it was better than what she wanted to say which was, “He’s not your uncle, he’s an asshole who showed up at your dad’s, his best friend’s funeral drunk with a stripper and then when he found out that he was as legally responsible for both of you as I was he disappeared, leaving me to raise you and your brother alone.”
So yeah, petty wasn’t so bad.
Knowing that she wasn’t going to get anything accomplished by staying and fighting with her nephew and also knowing that if she didn’t start dinner now she wouldn’t have it done before he left for practice, she decided a strategic retreat was the best move.
If there was one thing she had learned over the past year, it was to pick her battles. As much as she wished her nephew being rude was one of the fights she could take on, it wasn’t. Not vandalizing property, or getting in fights in school, drinking, or stealing—all of which he’d done—were much higher on her list of priorities. At this point she was just trying to get him to eighteen alive and without a juvenile record.
“Clean your room,” she instructed as she made her way back through the mess, even though she knew it was a pointless request.
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