by Lucy Score
They helped her down, and Gia offered Ellery a drink from her water bottle while Eva picked cobwebs and dust bunnies out of her dark hair.
They were so busy whispering none of them noticed when the door opened.
“Aha!” Bobby shut the door behind her and crossed her arms. “Who wants to go first?”
“Hello, Bobby,” Ellery said coolly.
Eva tugged Gia out of the line of fire. They backed up against the conference table and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible.
“Hello, Ellery.”
The women stared each other down for nearly a full minute.
“Girl, what the hell?” Bobby broke first. “You knew the rules. Why didn’t you just tell us about Mason and let us do our thing?”
“I planned to!” Ellery said defensively. “I just got swept up in it. I mean we’d barely started dating, and then he was proposing and it was just magical. And I was so excited.”
“You should have told us.”
“I know. And you shouldn’t have kicked me out.”
“I know,” Bobby agreed.
“What’s happening?” Eva whispered to Gia.
“Shh,” her sister shushed her. “They’re communicating to solve their problem.”
“That’s weird,” Eva hissed back.
“Shut up.” Gia nudged her.
“I’m sorry,” Ellery said offering her hand to Bobby.
“I’m sorry, too,” Bobby said, shaking Ellery’s hand.
“See? That’s how grown-ups solve their problems,” Gia said smugly.
“What are you trying to say, smarty pants?”
“You’re asking everyone their advice on what you should do about Donovan. Why don’t you just go talk to him about it?”
“Shut up,” Eva sighed.
“Now, what are we going to do about this disaster with Eden and Davis?” Bobby asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Donovan stared through the open door of his office at the teenage tuba player sitting glumly in the cubicle cell. The kid had been caught red-handed with the empty vat of dish soap used in Monday’s fountain sabotage under his bed. To teach him a lesson, his parents reported him to Donovan and were refusing to pay the kid’s fifty-dollar bail.
It made Donovan’s life just a shade worse than it already was.
Instead of sleeping in his own bed tonight or finding a way to wrangle another overnight invitation from Eva, he’d be hitting the lumpy couch and listening to this kid recap the entire storyline of The Lord of the Rings.
Sometimes his job just plain sucked.
He picked up Eva’s book and found his place.
“Can I at least watch something on TV?” Tanbark whined.
The kid never had a chance at life. Not with a name like Tanbark.
“Man, you’re lucky you’re not in an actual cell. Do your homework if you’re bored,” Donovan told him.
Tanbark sighed heavily and pulled a book out of his backpack. “Are you any good at trig? My mom usually helps me with my homework.”
“Tanbark, you’re in jail. You can’t ask the jailer for help with your homework.”
“It’s my first time. I’m not clear on all the prison etiquette.”
Donovan silently cursed Tanbark’s parents.
“Just sit there and be quiet.”
Donovan picked up the book again. He was going to finish the damn sex scene this time if he had to lock his door and handcuff half the town. He kicked his feet up on his desk and paged through to find his spot.
Olive stared into Alexander’s eyes as he tugged her panties down her milky white thighs. Those sleek thighs quivered as Alexander trailed one hot fingertip over her skin, climbing higher and higher until—
Jeez, it was hot in here. Had Minnie cranked the thermostat again? Donovan tugged at his collar and wished he was at home in sweats and a t-shirt instead of the uniform he’d been in for thirteen hours straight.
Three orgasms on the page later, Donovan was sweating. He stopped and re-read, counting as he went. Yep. Olive had just screamed and whimpered her way through three mind-blowing orgasms.
Shit. Exactly how high were Eva’s expectations? Donovan wondered. He was no slouch in bed. Had never had a complaint, just the opposite if he were a bragger, which he wasn’t. But those were regular women. Women who didn’t write sex scenes for a living. What if he was too boring for Eva? How much excitement did she need to be impressed, and how far outside his comfort zone would he need to go?
Alexander used a vibrator on Olive. Would Eva want toys?
Despite regular handcuff jokes, he’d never felt the need or interest to delve into the world of toys and S&M and B&D and whatever the hell else had been in those books that Mrs. Nordemann had hosted book clubs and movie nights about.
He pulled up an incognito browser window and did a search for sex toys.
“What the hell is that for?” he wondered aloud, turning his head to the side.
“Is this what the townspeople pay you for?”
The figure in his open door scared the shit out of him. “Damn it, Tanbark. I told you—”
But it wasn’t a pudgy teenager. It was Eva. Donovan wasn’t sure which was worse.
He dropped the book and stabbed the button on his monitor to make it all go away. He stabbed a little too hard and the monitor flipped over backwards.
“I can explain!” He got to his feet, ready to give chase if Eva gave any indication that she was rabbiting.
But she was staring at him. And smiling.
It was moments like this, unexpected and spontaneous, when he realized just how much he wanted her.
“Hi,” she said shyly.
“Hey. What are you doing here?” Guilty as sin, he swiped a hand over the back of his head.
She looked over her shoulder and back again. “I wanted to talk.”
“I can explain about—” Donovan gestured at his now horizontal monitor.
“Don’t mind me.” Tanbark’s whiny voice piped up behind Eva. “I’m in prison. Are you any good at trigonometry?”
“Jesus Christ, kid,” Donovan groaned.
“First time in the big house?” Eva asked Tanbark with a grin.
The kid nodded. “Yeah. I thought it would be funny to put some soap in the park fountain. Only I got soap on my hands, and the whole bottle fell in.”
“And that’s a jail-able offense?” Eva asked, eyeing Donovan with amusement.
“Destruction of public property,” Donovan reminded her.
“Ah. I didn’t realize that carried jail time in Blue Moon.”
“Only when your parents try to teach you a lesson by turning you in and not paying your bail,” Donovan told her.
Her lips quirked. “What is bail for destruction of public property these days?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“I’ve got forty on me. Would that buy my friend here some freedom tonight?” Eva asked, digging into her purse.
“Sold,” Donovan breathed. “Let me get the form.”
Three minutes later, Donovan was shoving Tanbark out the door on his way home with instructions to never deface anyone’s property again. Eva waited in his office. When he returned, he found her sitting in his visitor’s chair holding her book.
“My, Sheriff. What interesting reading habits you have.”
“What kind of eventual fiancé would I be if I didn’t support your talents?”
She laughed and shook her head. “You keep bowling me over, Donovan. How can you be so sure about your feelings for me? Aren’t you the least bit concerned that this is your version of dumping a gallon of dish soap in a public fountain?”
“Eva.” Her name caught in his throat with the rawness of what he felt for her. “The feelings are real, and the sooner you accept that, the faster we can enjoy each other.” He sat on the edge of his desk, his legs stretching out on either side of her chair capturing her between the
m.
She chewed on her bottom lip, worrying a problem.
“Might as well spill it. What’s going on in that very imaginative brain of yours?”
“I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell you this, but since I haven’t signed the non-disclosure agreement, oh well. The Beautification Committee says we have to wait until I either get over my abandonment issues leftover from my mother on my own or until spring, when we’re up on the matchmaking docket, and then they will commit all committee resources to fixing me so I’m relationship-appropriate.”
“Is that so?” Donovan asked. He took her by the hands and drew her up out of her chair to stand between his legs.
“And Summer and Julia suggested that I not have sex with you until after Halloween so I can be sure that your feelings are real and not heavily influenced by some celestial bodies.”
“You’re lucky I’m a mature man intent on listening to your concerns and not making a good celestial body joke right now,” Donovan said, skimming his hands up her arms.
“From where I stand, I’m very lucky,” Eva breathed.
Donovan threaded his fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her face. “The first time I saw you, you wore this short gold dress and these glittery shoes that no woman should be able to walk in. Your hair was down, like this,” he said, smoothing her curls. “Your eyes were brighter than all the stars in the night sky. You were so happy for your sister. And you were laughing at something Beckett was saying.”
Her lips parted like she wanted to say something, but no words came.
“I was standing there, in the middle of the happiest day of someone else’s life. And it was like something punched me in the chest hard enough to knock the wind out of me,” he admitted. “I’ve never felt anything like that before in my life. It was New Year’s Eve, one of my best friend’s weddings, and I felt like my future had just started.”
“Wow.” Eva’s breath left her in a rush. “Do you have any idea how romantic you are? Also, do you mind if I take notes?”
“I’ll write it down for you,” he promised, tracing a thumb over her lower lip. “I tried to find you at midnight that night.”
Eva breathed in. “I was with Evan and Aurora under the cake table.”
“Lucky them,” Donovan said. “You went home, back to your life in South Carolina, and I kept waiting for the day that I wouldn’t think about you. For the time when I wouldn’t try to pump Gia and then Emma for information about you. I kept waiting to get over you.”
“Did it work?” Eva whispered.
He shook his head. “Not for a second. I’ve been thinking about you ever since I saw you that first time, Eva. Maybe the planets did have something to do with it. Something like fate. But the only thing that’s going to keep us apart is one little word from you. I’m sure, and I’m all the way in. I don’t care if you do or don’t have abandonment issues or some crazy quirks or you want to wait for a year. I want to know every piece of you, and I’ll be as patient as you need me to be.”
“Why do you have to be so perfect?” Eva sighed. “I’m not ready for perfect yet. I have work to do on myself.”
“I’m ready for you now. As is. No returns,” he promised.
She looked at him hard, turning it all over in her mind. Fire lighting those green eyes that grabbed at him and held him captive.
“Oh, hell,” she sighed out the words and dove for him. She pressed her lips to his in something close to violence.
Donovan welcomed the kiss as if he’d been waiting for it his entire life. Planets and fate and chaos be damned. This was the woman he was going to marry. The woman he was going to taste like this every day.
With her mouth eager against his and her fingers stumbling over the buttons on his shirt, Donovan nearly lost his mind. He could feel his heartbeat echoing in his aching cock.
“Baby, I’m trying to be a good guy here.” When she didn’t stop, he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Eva.”
She smiled up at him dreamily, just as she had in every one of the thousand fantasies he’d had about her. “You are a good guy, Donovan,” she said, her fingers toying with another button.
“You want to take things slow. I’m trying really, really hard to respect that. We haven’t even been out on a real date yet.”
She grinned. “Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Here? In a police station.” It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of taking her here on every flat surface his office provided. It was that he wanted this first time to be special, memorable, perfect.
“It sounds like something that would happen in one of my books.”
“Speaking of your books, exactly how high are your expectations here?” He couldn’t stop his hands from roaming her curves.
Her laugh sounded strangled. “I don’t think you know how to disappoint,” she told him.
“Are you one-hundred percent sure?”
She nodded, wide-eyed and honest. He cupped her chin in one hand. “It’s okay if you’re not ready. You’re worth the wait, Evangelina.”
She closed her eyes on her name. “God, Donovan. It’s like you keep taking potshots at my heart.”
“Join the club, beautiful.” He kissed her again, softly, sweetly. She purred against him, and pleasure pulsed between them.
She opened the last button on his shirt and freed it from his waistband. When Eva’s small hands spread over his chest, resting over where his heart hammered, Donovan knew love and lust and everything in between.
“I thought there’d be candles, wine. Maybe a fire,” he said, trailing kisses down her neck.
“I thought there’d be handcuffs.”
He lifted her up, and she gamely locked her legs around his waist.
His desk was too low, but the counter behind it… With no finesse, he shoved two weeks’ worth of files to the floor and settled her on the surface. He’d never be annoyed by paperwork that sat here again.
With one swift move, he shucked her sweater over her head and breathed a worshipful sigh over the curves of her breasts that spilled over her black bra. “I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he breathed.
“You’re about to get luckier,” Eva whispered. She levered herself up, and he made swift work of her boots and leggings.
“Oh, God. You’re not wearing underwear.” Blackness creeped in on the edges of his vision.
Her laugh was a sigh. “Is that a problem?”
“I wasn’t mentally prepared for—” He pressed her thighs apart and felt his world go black for just a second as every last ounce of blood left his head.
“Are you okay?” she asked. Her fingers danced over the skin of his chest, the flat of his abs, before finding his belt. “Why do you have so many clothes on?”
“I… I have no words…”
Reverently, Donovan ran his hands up her silky inner thighs. To torture them both, he let his fingers brush the damp strip of curls between her legs.
Her breath caught, and Eva’s wrestling match with his belt paused. “Oh, God. I’m not sure if I’m going to survive this,” she confessed.
“At least we’ll die together.”
Eva’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. Those full lips were swollen from their kisses. Donovan had never seen anything sexier in his entire life.
“You’ve just ruined me for every other woman on the face of the planet.”
She grinned. “We’re just getting started. I plan to ruin you for all generations past, present, and future.”
He took a breath, trying to find the air in the room that was suddenly in short supply. “I really want to take my time. Enjoy this…”
“But?” she asked.
“But I can’t guarantee I’ll stay in control once I’m inside you,” he murmured.
She shook her head slowly. “I really wish you’d let me take notes.”
“You can take them during the encore,” he promised. He cuppe
d her breasts through the black netting. “What kind of bra is this?”
“A lounge bra. It’s like a sexy version of a sports bra,” Eva said, closing her eyes as his hands worked their magic.
“Very sexy,” he agreed. Everything about her was. Those auburn curls. Her thickly lashed eyes. God, those lips. And her skin, ivory dusted with freckles.
“Your pants,” Eva said. “They need to come off.”
“They’re my last line of defense,” he told her.
“Yeah? Well they’re standing between me and my final frontier.” Eva cupped his rigid shaft through his uniform pants.
“God, Eva.” In a purely defensive move, he kissed her hard. Pouring himself into the kiss, branding her like she’d branded his heart. When she melted into him, he slowly slipped a finger between her slick folds. Swallowing her gasp, he plunged inside her.
All teasing, all sweetness evaporated.
She was fire in his hand. Clinging to his open shirt, Eva chanted his name as she began to ride his fingers.
He was lost watching her, swamped with the need to give her what she begged for. Her pleasure was his desire.
“Donovan!” She gasped his name in surprise, in wonder, in pleasure, as she came for him and Donovan knew he’d remember this moment for the rest of his life.
She was still quaking around his fingers when she reached for his fly. “Now,” she demanded.
Now was good. Donovan reached for his wallet in his back pocket. Freeing the condom, he flung the wallet to the floor.
While Eva shoved his pants and underwear down, he shredded the foil packet.
“Oh, boy,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide when she stared down at him.
That look—hungry and anxious—nearly pushed him over the edge. He’d never been this hard before in his life. With fingers coated in Eva’s arousal, Donovan rolled on the condom and guided himself to her opening. He’d just notched himself in place and was bracing for what could only be the most soul-shattering moment of his life to-date when Eva slapped a hand to his chest.
“Wait! There’s something you need to know!”
Donovan’s hands dug into her hips. “Baby. I’m going to literally die in the next four seconds if I’m not inside you.”