Renovation (A Golden Beach Novel) Page 16

  Lena grinned. “I can’t. Michael’s picking me up in a few minutes for a weekend trip.”

  She worked to keep her face from falling. “You patched things up?” When her friend nodded with a bright smile on her face, she couldn’t help but grin. “Where are you going?”

  “Vegas.”

  “What? Wow.” All she could think about was how rapidly things had escalated between Lena and Michael. From a tumultuous sexual relationship, to a breakup, and now to Vegas. “Have fun. Don’t come back married.”

  Lena cast a glance over her shoulder as she headed off to her room. “Ha, wouldn’t that be ridiculous?”

  As she hummed along with the music and poured herself another glass of wine, she pondered Lena’s words. The idea that maybe she was the one making a big deal out of nothing, and might be causing more damage by discounting Donovan’s feelings, caused guilt to work its way into her head. Her experiences in the past had been so screwed up, now she wasn’t able to recognize the difference between good and bad relationships. A loud pounding on her door startled her as she danced across the living room.

  Turning down the music, she padded cautiously to the door, expecting to see Michael. Donovan stood staring at her, desperation in his eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” A mixture of lust and grief at the nearness of him shot through her.

  “It’s been days, sweetheart. You’ve had your space. I need to know what’s going on.”

  She took his roughly calloused hand in her own small one and pulled him to the couch.

  “I’m sorry. I over-reacted.” She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes.

  His chest visibly relaxed and a smile spread across his full lips.

  “Sweetheart, I did, too. I may not have said it very well, but the idea of you with anyone else . . . it kills me. When that asshole came to see me and told me he wasn’t giving up on you, it took everything in me not to pound in his face.”

  “What? Blake came to see you?” This was news to her. Blake knew she wasn’t interested in a relationship with him—that she was with Donovan.

  “While you were at Grace’s wedding. The douche showed up at the station, talking crap about how you loved him more than anything in college and that you were going to go back to him. That it was just a matter of time.”

  A guilty flush burned her cheeks and she dropped her eyes, examining the fibers of the couch closely. Why would Blake do something like that?

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Valerie.” His hand cupped her cheek and pulled her face up so she had to look at him. “What did he mean, you loved him more than anything?”

  “Blake and I dated when I was in college . . . for a long time.” The words were heavy in her throat.

  “It was serious?”

  She nodded, working to free the words she knew she needed to say.

  “I loved him. We were planning to get married after he graduated, before medical school.”

  His jaw flexed and tensed as he ground his teeth back and forth. His heavy sigh sent a lump straight to her throat.

  “I was three years behind him and planned to finish my teaching program after we got married. Then he … he just left. No word. Nothing. I was crushed. I dropped out of school and fell apart, really.”

  “I . . . Well shit. And you didn’t realize he was here to try and win you back?”

  “I told him I’m not interested. I told him that I’m with you.”

  He leaned close to her, giving her a chance to take in his delicious scent. “I only want you, Donovan.” She closed the distance between their lips and an arc of electricity passed between them as their skin touched.

  “I know. I know,” he murmured against her.

  Chapter 19

  “Sweetheart, why is most of your stuff in boxes?” Donovan looked around Valerie’s room, noting the unusually untidy state of the small space. Their kiss in the living room had ended with them falling into her bed.

  “I’m moving.”

  A cold lump formed in his gut. “Moving? Where to?”

  “I don’t know yet. Probably back home.”

  “Why the fuck would you do that?”

  She snuggled into his body, squirming against him, the feel of her nakedness sending a jolt of lust through him.

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? Lena is leaving for Japan in a few months. My rent won’t be controlled anymore and I can’t afford to stay here on my new salary.”

  “Move in with me.” The words left his lips before he could stop them. He winced as he prepared himself for her rebuff. As her body tensed against him, he knew it was coming.

  “Really?”

  “Why not? I love the idea of waking up in bed with you next to me.”

  She rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows.

  “We’ve only been dating a few months.”

  “Four,” he countered, the feeling he was grasping for straws inescapable.

  “I don’t know.”

  He watched as Valerie twirled a lock of hair around her finger.

  “I’ve got a spare bedroom. Rent’s cheap. I’m gone twenty-four hours at a time, so you’d get your space.”

  God, I’m begging. How the mighty have fallen.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind sharing space with a girl?” she teased as she peeked up at him through long, dark-blond lashes. “I’ll leave bobby pins everywhere and make you watch girly shows.”

  “Can’t wait. Who says I don’t like girly shows?” Excitement started to build in his chest.

  “All right. Let’s try it. But I’m going to take you up on the spare room. I want my own room to escape to when your snoring is too loud.”

  “I do not snore.”

  “It’s like a buzz saw, hotshot.”

  He nuzzled into her neck, kissing and licking at the velvety softness of her.

  “When?”

  “When what?” she asked through a laugh.

  “When do I get you all to myself every damn day?”

  “Mmm, I like the sound of that. I’m not sure. When do you want me?”

  She rolled onto her side to face him, her golden hair spilling across the pillow.

  “Tomorrow.”

  She shook her head and his mood deflated. “I have to wait until Lena gets back.”

  “When is she back?”

  “Sunday, but she’s gone on jobs for most of the next few weeks. Let’s wait until things calm down for her. I can’t just leave her without any notice.”

  He worked to control the pout he could feel turning down his lips. “Fine, two weeks from today, so that’s July first.”

  “I’ll put it in my calendar.”

  Joy filled him and he wrapped her in his arms, pulling her atop him. He sealed his lips to hers and sighed as she moaned against him. Her silken hair curtained their faces as their kiss deepened. She stilled as his erection pressed against her.

  “Condom?” Her breathy whisper sent shivers down his spine.

  “I only had the one. I wasn’t expecting to get lucky twice.”

  He watched her eyes darken as she bit her lip in indecision. Honestly, he was probably just as unsure as she was. He hadn’t gone bareback since his high school sweetheart, and that had been a long time ago. The idea never seemed appealing with the kind of girls he took home.

  He rested his hands on her hips and bit back a groan as she shifted against him. “Are you on the pill?”

  Her eyes went wide. “Yes.”

  “I’m clean. I had a physical last month. You?”

  She nodded and ground herself against him again, sending shockwaves up and down his body. She whimpered slightly when he moved his hands up her torso to palm each of
her beautiful breasts. They were perfect. He could spend hours getting lost in her, feeling her skin, tasting her.

  Then the warmth of her body disappeared from his for one terrible moment, until she sank down on him, taking him completely.

  “Good God almighty, sweetheart. Give a man some warning.”

  He reveled in the feeling of her body against his. Her hair brushed his chest as she moved, tickling slightly and heightening the sensations. He felt the words I love you, bubble up and worked to reel them back in. I love you.

  She shifted her body, circling her hips, and thankfully, all thoughts flew from his mind. No amount of concentration was going to be able to keep his release at bay. He just hoped she’d follow on his heels. As his body tensed in preparation for the tidal wave of pleasure about to hit him, he watched her eyes darken. Her breathing became erratic and she threw her head back on a groan.

  She was right there with him and the sound of her, the feel of her, hit him and swept him over the edge.

  They lay together in the calm afterglow, Donovan’s fingers tracing patterns on Valerie’s back. He tensed with an intake of breath, clearly working up to saying something.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about you brother dying?” he murmured against the top of her head as she rested against his chest.

  Her heart stuttered. She hadn’t expected that. “We . . . I don’t like to talk about Simon.”

  His fingers continued their soothing strokes along her spine. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Klipper. He was one of the responders.”

  She tried to keep the tension in her shoulders under control. “So, you know everything. You know it was my fault.”

  He pressed a lingering kiss on the top of her head and pulled her tight to him.

  “It was an accident. The only fault lies with the driver of that car. That asshole was speeding and then fled the scene.”

  Tightness built in her chest, the kind that accompanied sobbing. She took a shaky breath. “If I hadn’t been so busy on the phone with my stupid boyfriend, I would have kept Simon safe. He wouldn’t have run out into the street. Say what you want, but it was my fault.”

  He pulled her astride his hips and fixed his gaze to her eyes. “It wasn’t your fault, but I get the feeling of guilt you have. I know the struggle of if only. I can come up with hundreds of if only situations that would end with John being alive today.”

  She felt the all-too-familiar sting of tears as she watched his face while he spoke of John. “Tell me.”

  He closed his eyes tight and took a breath. “Oh, sweetheart. I can’t go back there.”

  She paused for a moment and decided to take the first step to opening the ugly parts. “I remember Simon laughing, calling for me to play with him. I stood on the porch, fighting with my boyfriend. We’d been dating just a few weeks. God, I can’t even remember his name.” Her voice caught in her throat, but she pressed on, willing herself to relive the moment.

  “The next thing I heard was the squeal of tires and a sickening thud. By the time I turned around, the car was racing off and Simon was laying there, still and bloody. I didn’t even hang up the phone. I just dropped it to the ground and started screaming for the neighbors. Simon’s shoe had been thrown across the road. I remember seeing it and needing it to be on his foot, where it belonged. But when I picked it up, my fingers wouldn’t work. I couldn’t get the damn thing on.

  “I think I went into shock after that. I only remember flashes. The fire truck, ambulance, police wanting my statement. My parents coming home. The hurt on their faces.” Her lower lip trembled and a tear escaped as she blinked. “He died three months later after countless surgeries. He had a traumatic brain injury and had to be on a ventilator. Eventually, his organs started shutting down and my parents had to make the decision to let him go. It was the most horrible time in my life.”

  Tears began to fall freely as she finally relinquished her demons. He wiped them from her cheeks and pulled her against his chest. He rocked her back and forth, not saying a word, letting her mourn in her own way. After several minutes, she took a deep breath and her heartbeat steadied.

  “My turn?”

  She nodded, her face pressed to the warmth of his skin.

  “It’s not pretty.”

  “Neither was mine.”

  “The fire was in a big, old abandoned barn. It was one used for farming crops rather than milking cows. There was a lot of crap left over in the structure. Shit we didn’t know about. Fertilizer, chemicals, all kinds of explosive and flammable stuff. John was my lieutenant. He taught me so much. I went in behind him, the smoke was thick and black, but we both wore our SCBA gear—that’s a breathing apparatus.”

  She nodded in understanding.

  “We’d completed the wall search, looking for bodies, survivors. The whole place was empty. That’s when we heard it, the creaking of the floorboards under us. There was a fucking trap door under our feet. John opened the door and down the stairs was a basement, a good sixteen-by-sixteen room, lined in burning wood planks. John noticed the stockpile of fertilizer and pesticides, but the fire was already eating its way across the walls. He pushed me back and yelled for me to go. I got out. He didn’t. He died in a rush of flames. They tell me his neck broke from the force of the explosion, that he didn’t feel any pain. I hope to God that’s true.”

  She sat up on her knees next to him. His face was tortured, eyes trained on the ceiling, his body tense. This was a big step. This was bigger than moving in, bigger than being exclusive. This was stuff neither one of them spoke about.

  She swept her hair over one shoulder and kissed him. She poured everything she had into the kiss, gave herself over, tried to tell him how important this moment was to her. He tangled his hands in her hair and melted into her.

  The walls were finally starting to come down for both of them.

  Chapter 20

  Valerie zipped up the last of her clothes in the giant suitcase. She grinned, remembering the astronomical fee she’d had to pay for this behemoth when she’d first arrived in the UK with Grace. A year’s worth of belongings fit in this sucker, but that meant it definitely breached the airline’s weight limit.

  “Is that everything?” Lena asked.

  Valerie looked around the room. All of her clothes, her bedspread, and knickknacks were gone. The room was bare, only containing the furniture that was there when she’d moved in.

  “You sure you’re ready to move in with him?”

  Panic gnawed at her gut. She’d asked herself the same question repeatedly over the last two weeks. Donovan seemed eager and excited, like a kid at Christmas. She was nervous. What if he got tired of her? What if she got annoyed with him? Where was she supposed to sleep, her room or his?

  “Wow, calm down. You’re white as a sheet.”

  A wave of dizziness forced her to sit on the bare bed.

  “I’m okay. It’s just scary. I’ve never lived with a man before. What if it goes wrong?”

  Her heart hammered in her chest, threatening to burst with panic.

  “If it goes wrong, you move on. If it doesn’t, you stay.”

  Lena’s words were so simple, but the idea of it going wrong, of leaving, made her heart ache and her throat burn with the promise of tears.

  “I think I love him, L.” It was just a whisper, barely audible, but Lena’s eyebrows shot up and a smirk crossed her lips.

  “Took you long enough.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Your face gets sickeningly happy when you talk about him, think about him, see him—which is basically all the time.”

  A hot blush filled Valerie’s cheeks and she covered her face, laughing. The laughter turned to uncontrollable hysterics, all of her pent-up fe
elings exploding. Lena joined in and they laughed together until tears streamed down their cheeks.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Donovan stood in the doorframe, a bemused expression on his face.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes and giggled until she had herself under control.

  “Just one last laugh-until-you-pee moment. She’s all yours, Miller.” Lena grabbed a box and nodded at Valerie. “Your car or his?”

  “Mine. Keys are on the table.”

  At the sound of the front door closing, he was on her, his hands in her hair, lips at her neck.

  “I can’t believe I get to see you every fucking day. How am I going to get anything done when you’re always there? My beautiful distraction.”

  A thrill ran through her, straight to her core. She sighed into him, melting at his words, his delicious scent, and the feeling of his hands as they roamed her body.

  “I’ll be working, too, you know. Once I get school figured out, I’ll have plenty to distract me.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll be the one distracting you.”

  “Promise?”

  His lips turned up in a smile, she felt it as he kissed his way toward her mouth.

  “Oh yeah, sweetheart.”

  The front door opened and closed forcefully, shaking the walls and jolting the two of them apart.

  “I’m back. Remove yourselves from each other before I have to get a crowbar,” Lena called and walked into the room with one hand over her eyes.

  Valerie laughed. She couldn’t help it. Lena was being such a good sport about everything. Since her Vegas trip with Michael, she seemed to be in a great place. As if on cue, Michael’s voice floated in from the living room.

  “Baby, you got any beer?”