by Lucy Score
She skipped over to her fiancé and laid a kiss on him that was NC-17 at a minimum.
Before Donovan could suggest they take it somewhere else, preferably home, Eva appeared on the porch. Her hair was a wild auburn under the soft glow of the lights. Eyes bright, she grinned at him, and if there had been any questions before about being in love, the hot fist to his gut left no doubt. She was beautiful, she was glowing, and she was his.
Eva jogged down the path, arms open wide for him. She tripped over her own feet. He caught her before she face-planted on the sidewalk.
“Careful there,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face.
“Donovan! It was amazing! I said ‘cock’ repeatedly in front of everyone, and no one called me a perv. I signed a whole bunch of books. And my wineglass was never empty.” She hazarded a glance around before whispering, “It was magical.”
“It sounds like your first kidnapping was a positive experience,” he teased.
“They treated me like a real writer,” she said, eyes shining.
“Baby, you are a real writer.”
“You’re my crazy boyfriend. You’re supposed to say that. Oh!” Her eyes widened. “I almost forgot, I think everyone knows just what kind of weapon you’re packing if you know what I mean.” She patted him in the crotch and attempted to wink.
“Christ, Eva!” Donovan cringed.
“I didn’t mean to tell them. And I didn’t get really specific, but it’s kinda hard not to brag. I mean, you’re huge.”
Donovan clamped a hand over her mouth. “You are trouble with a capital T, Evangelina.”
“And I’m alllllll yours,” she said, spreading her arms wide.
The remaining Book Clubbers broke into spontaneous finger snaps around them.
“Eva, just a moment please.” Mrs. Nordemann trotted down the walk to them. She was dressed in her traditional black garb. Though, in a nod to the festivity of the occasion, her ankle-length black skirt had a smattering of rhinestones around the hem.
“Thank you again for inviting me tonight,” Eva gushed.
“Inviting. Kidnapping. Basically the same thing in Blue Moon,” Donovan said under his breath.
“Thank you for joining us. It was a real treat. I just wanted you to know how very proud I am of you,” Mrs. Nordemann said, patting Eva’s arm. “You’re a very talented young woman and so dedicated to your craft. I hope you know how much we all truly enjoy your work. And I hope you can take a moment to step back and really appreciate what you’ve built.”
Eva’s hazel eyes glittered with what looked like tears. Yep. That was a tear that just slid down Eva’s cheek. Awh, hell.
“That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” Eva sniffled. She wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“My dear, just because you haven’t heard the words from someone important doesn’t make them less true. I’m, of course, speaking of your mother who, one can only assume, is a real piece of shit.”
Donovan swiped a hand over his face. Mrs. Nordemann was throwing around swear words in her front yard. Fucking Uranus.
“Eva, I just hope you know how proud we all are of you. And maybe think about naming a character after me.” With a wiggle of her fingers, Mrs. Nordemann scurried back up onto her porch. “Enid, let’s open the tequila! I feel like celebrating.”
Donovan slid an arm around Eva’s waist and half carried, half dragged, her to his car.
“Come on, Ava Franklin. Let’s get you home to bed.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
To: Eva Merill
From: Bruce Oakleigh
Subject: Intensive private therapy
Hello, Eva!
Bruce Oakleigh, president of the Beautification Committee here. I spoke to the Berkowiczs this morning and they informed me that you’ve reached out for help in cementing your relationship with Donovan Cardona.
Rest assured that the Beautification Committee will not abandon you in your time of need. Given your current circumstances (i.e. your mother breaking into your home, the systemic blackmail, and what one can only assume would be a questionable knowledge of healthy relationships), we are tabling all other matching projects for the foreseeable future to help mold you into a healthy, stable significant other.
Please be prepared to meet promptly at 7 p.m. at the police station for your first session. Please bring the following: a box of tissues, an item that brings you comfort, Sheriff Cardona, and a list of your mother’s transgressions as you can best recollect.
Yours in matching success,
Bruce Oakleigh, President
P.S. The aforementioned mission has received the code name Project Lazy Parrot. Please reference Project Lazy Parrot in all correspondence.
--------
“Ellery had better be planning the most epic thank you in the history of gratitude,” Donovan muttered as he held open the door of the police station for Eva.
“Yeah, about that,” Eva winced, stepping inside. “I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want her to know that her former friends were planning to ruin her wedding.”
He sighed. “You’re a good friend.”
“I didn’t do it just for her.” She winked. “You’re the one who would have to get up in the middle of ‘does anyone here know any just cause’ to arrest a dozen people in a public spectacle.”
“A good friend and a thoughtful girlfriend,” Donovan amended.
“Just try to keep that in mind during the interrogation,” she reminded him. “Hi, Minnie. Heading out?”
Minnie slung her hand crocheted purse over her shoulder. “Mr. Murkle got it into his thick head that we need a date night tonight.”
Donovan coughed out the word “Uranus,” and Eva elbowed him in his muscled six-pack.
“That sounds like fun,” she said brightly.
“It would be if it were a date with someone else,” Minnie sighed. “How about you? You doing okay since your mama went all breaking and entering on you?”
Donovan snickered behind Eva, and she shot him a dirty look. “I’m just fine. Thanks, Minnie.”
“Well, you all have yourselves a good night while I try not to stab my no-good husband for slurping oysters too loud.”
They waved her off, and Donovan towed Eva into his office.
“Since the Oakleighs aren’t here yet…” he said, pulling Eva into his lap behind the desk.
The unspoken insinuation had her blood simmering. “You’re insatiable,” she accused, feeling him harden beneath her.
“You’re the one wearing a sexy sweater dress thing that you knew would drive me nuts,” he shot back, his big hands cupping her breasts through the soft gray fabric that she’d known would distract him from whatever Bruce had cooked up for them. She looped her arms around his neck.
“I thought we’d already reenacted the sex in the office fantasy,” she said lightly.
His hands skimmed around her waist and down to grip her hips and pull her tight against his arousal.
Eva let her eyelids flutter closed.
“I bet I could make you come like this,” he said, dragging her over the rigid line of his erection.
She whimpered and went instantaneously wet.
“I’d pull this down,” he said, hooking a finger in deep v of the dress.
Her breath quickened.
“And while you grind yourself against my dick, I’d have my face buried in your beautiful—”
“Well, here you two lovebirds are!” Bruce bustled in with Amethyst on his heels.
Donovan swore quietly under his breath, and Eva jumped out of his lap as if he were on fire. She had to make it look like she needed the Beautification Committee’s undivided attention so they wouldn’t have time to even think about wrecking Ellery’s wedding.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, her voice overly bright. “We were just… fighting.”
“We were?” Donovan frowned.
&n
bsp; She kicked him.
“Oh, right. We were. We were definitely fighting,” he nodded.
Bruce and Amethyst exchanged knowing glances.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Amethyst said, smiling smugly.
“You fucking owe me,” Donovan growled in Eva’s ear as he stood. He pulled her in front of him, effectively hiding the tent in his pants. At least she wasn’t the only one battling a raging case of lust in the moment.
“We’re eager to fix everything that’s wrong with Eva,” Donovan joked.
Eva reached behind her and palmed his hard-on through his pants, daring him to say more. He hissed out a breath and shut up.
“Well, now. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Bruce held his palms up. “This could take months. There are a lot of issues that need to be brought to the surface and dealt with.”
“Then I guess we’d better get started,” Eva sighed. “Shall we sit?”
They gathered around the cramped conference table in the corner of Donovan’s office. Donovan’s hand immediately clamped onto her thigh beneath the table. When he trailed his fingers higher up her thigh, drawing the hem of the dress with them, she squeezed her legs together.
“We’re so excited to have you two with us tonight,” Bruce said, rubbing his palms together. “Amethyst and I have been happily married for thirty-four years—”
“Thirty-three,” Amethyst corrected him.
Bruce frowned. “I’m quite certain it’s thirty-four, my pearl.”
Amethyst shook her head, her beehive wobbling precariously. “Thirty-three.”
“I have our marriage certificate in our fire safe,” Bruce said, his voice rising. “We can settle this easily.”
“I can’t believe you don’t remember how long we’ve been married,” Amethyst pouted. It was the only time Eva had witnessed the woman being disagreeable in any way.
“So far, I think it’s going really well,” Donovan whispered sarcastically as the Oakleighs’ bickering warmed up. Eva’s eyes widened as Amethyst shoved out of her chair. Bruce was quick to follow.
“How could you forget our wedding day?” Amethyst demanded.
“How could you accuse me of forgetting our wedding day when you’re clearly the one with a deficient memory on the topic?” Bruce argued, tugging at the sides of his beard with both hands.
“It’s Uranus,” Eva hissed at Donovan.
“Fucking Uranus.” He glanced toward the door. “You know, we could probably sneak out of here and break into Gia’s studio for some fun…”
“What kind of fun?” Eva asked, suddenly breathy.
“The hot, sweaty kind.”
“The naked hot sweaty kind, or does she have some evening power class you’re trying to con me into?”
“Would I do that to you?” Donovan asked, trailing a finger down the nape of her neck.
“You absolutely would.”
“Probably, but this time I swear it’s just sex.”
Eva glanced toward Bruce and Amethyst. They were running down a laundry list of complaints against the other. Apparently, Bruce was physically incapable of putting his underwear into the hamper while Amethyst preferred to stock butter pecan ice cream even though Bruce repeatedly reminded her that he preferred brownie batter.
“Let’s do it,” Eva decided. “Let’s go fool around in my sister’s yoga studio.”
They made it out of Donovan’s office and to the front door without the Oakleighs missing a beat in their argument that had apparently been brewing for thirty-three or thirty-four years. When Donovan closed the station door behind them, they were heatedly discussing Amethyst’s poor attitude toward Bruce’s mother’s gravy recipe.
“Who puts bacon in gravy?” Amethyst shouted.
They hustled down the block and ducked into the alley. Donovan already had Eva’s dress up around her waist by the time she found the hide-a-key for the back door behind a loose brick in the building wall.
“Does it still count as breaking and entering if we use a key?” Eva asked, slipping it into the lock and opening the door.
“We’re only trespassing now,” Donovan said. He yanked her back against him and she felt him hard and willing.
“Come on. Let’s go in the private studio so no one sees us through the windows,” she whispered, grabbing him by the belt buckle and dragging him down the hall. Gia’s private studio was a fifteen by fifteen room with a wall of mirrors and a little altar table that held battery-operated candles.
Eva pointed at the stack of mats in the back. “We’re going to need one of those.”
Donovan grinned and grabbed one. Eva set to turning on the candles, bathing the room in a soft, flickering glow.
They faced each other from opposite ends of the mat. Donovan’s eyes seemed to glow in the candlelight. Eva slipped out of her boots and gestured for him to do the same.
“I think it’s time we satisfied one of my fantasies.”
“Here?” he grinned, removing his belt.
“That hot yoga class? I started hallucinating that it was just you and me.” She worked the buttons free on his shirt and raked her nails over his chest.
“What did we do?”
“Everything,” she whispered. She brought his hands to her breasts and moaned when he squeezed.
“There’s only so much I can take, Eva,” he warned.
She palmed him through his pants and felt him twitch against her. “You seem pretty in control to me.”
And then he was dragging her to the ground. He fell on her, yanking her dress open to feed on her breasts. His tongue and lips on the sensitive flesh of her nipple sent a throbbing straight to her empty core. She spread her legs wide for him, and he settled between them. Without releasing her nipple, Donovan slid his free hand down to pull her underwear aside.
“You know these lacy see-through things drive me insane,” he murmured against her breast.
“You drive me insane,” Eva whispered, arching her back up so he could take more of her. He knew just how to touch, to suck, to drag out the pleasure. He released her breast, gave her nipple another lick with the flat of his tongue, and then moved on to the other one.
She cried out as his teeth grazed her. He drove two fingers into her, and she thought she was going to come apart then and there.
“Did you think about me doing this to you in that class? Did you want to know what it felt like to have me inside you? Because I think about it constantly. Every second of every day, I’m wishing I were inside you, making you come on my cock.”
His words had her tightening on his fingers. He crooked them, grazing just the right spot inside her.
“Donovan!” she hissed.
“You’re so precious,” he growled. “So perfect, and I can’t get enough of you.” He abandoned her breasts, the tips wet from his mouth, and withdrew his fingers from her.
“Please,” she begged. “Please, Donovan.”
Without preamble, he brought his head between her legs, swiped his tongue through her slit.
Her hips jacked up off the floor at the sudden, jagged rush of pleasure.
“That’s right, baby,” he murmured. His fingers were back, gliding into her, brushing across that spot.
Her breath caught, and she felt her body tense.
“I feel it, Eva. Let it happen. Let me make you come.” He lathed her aching nub with his tongue while his fingers worked pure magic in her. His hips pistoned against the mat as if to relieve the growing ache in his own cock.
Her moan was breathy. She didn’t have to tell him what was happening to her. He had a front row seat to the orgasm that swamped her like a storm. It carried her up and up until it broke and she was hurtling back toward the earth.
He groaned against her slick folds as she came, clenching around his fingers, shivering under him. Her body was alive and not nearly sated enough. Still trembling, Eva grabbed Donovan’s hair. “Sit up,” she demanded. He sa
t cross-legged on the mat, and she straddled him.
“I need you in me before I stop coming.” The blunt head of his cock grazed her and it set her off again... or still. She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter.
“Eva,” he rasped brokenly.
She gripped his shaft with her hand and guided it to her opening. She wanted to go slow, to savor, but the need wouldn’t allow for that. She lined him up and lowered herself onto him, overfull and aching. Impaled upon him.
“I can feel you still coming,” he groaned.
She opened her eyes and found him watching her. Her nipples grazed the hair of his chest as she lifted. She paused at the top and watched him as she lowered onto him. The cords of his neck stood out. His jaw was clenched. And those blue eyes had fire in them.
She shifted her hips, trying to take all of him. And with a look of sheer possession, he gripped her hips and slammed home.
Eva cried out softly. Gripping her hair, Donovan drew her down for a kiss. She began to ride, mimicking the thrusts of his tongue. He set the pace with his hands clamped on her hips, lifting and gripping. Eva watched him, watched his control slip millimeter by millimeter as the thrusts got harder and faster.
They were bound by intimacy, intensity. Joined by the need to fulfill.
He dipped his head and licked at her nipple. She hissed through her teeth and rocked into him. They balanced there, on the knife-edge of desire and ecstasy. His eyes. Those true-blue eyes were dark, half-blind with lust.
“You’re mine, Eva. Mine.” He gritted out the words as she dug her nails into his shoulders under his shirt.
“And you’re mine.” It was a promise whether he knew it or not. But it didn’t matter because she was quickening around him. The glorious build broke, and then she was fisting around him, drawing his own release out of him whether he was ready or not.
They collapsed, shuddering, in a sweat-slicked heap on top of the mat that smelled like lemons and eucalyptus.
Donovan heaved a sigh. “I think we can work more of your fantasies into our sex life,” he breathed, his lips moving against the skin of her neck.
