Champagne Kisses (13 page)

Diego helped her onto the horse’s broad back and behind Donovan’s equally expansive one. “Put your arms around me and hold on,” Donovan said in a way that caused Marissa’s triangle to tingle. She put her arms around him. “Tighter,” he commanded, and in Marissa’s mind he was issuing that command from another place. “Hold on to me and don’t let go,” he said, his tone low and warm, nodding at Diego as they left the corral and entered the open prairie. “I’ve got you.”

He began with a trot, continually reassuring Marissa that nothing would hurt them. Other times the ride was silent as both of them took in the beauty of the day and the beauty of their bodies’ proximity. “I’m going to let her have her head,” he finally announced over his shoulder.

“What’s that mean?”

“Hang on tight, baby, and find out! Giddyap!”

Marissa let out a squeal as the horse broke into a full gallop. She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched her thighs tightly against Donovan’s legs. Soon, however, a thrill rose inside her and she opened her eyes to see the land blurring around her. She could barely believe this was actually her life right now…that she was on a horse and she was having such fun! She whooped with delight, surprising herself.

Donovan laughed, enjoying her newfound pleasure. “Oh, so you’re liking this now?” he yelled into the wind.

“Amazingly, yes!”

“Ha! I knew you had a wild side!” Donovan spurred the horse on, even as he forced his focus on the strength of the rein and the direction of the horse. Otherwise, he’d get lost in the feel of Marissa’s thighs pressing against him, her breasts outlined against his back, her smell all around him. He hardened at the thought of her riding him the way she now rode Sauvignon, free and uninhibited, of them pressed together, skin to skin, of him raw and hard and hot inside her.
Son, you’ve got to saddle the filly before you can ride her, and you’ve got to ride her, make sure she fits, before you make her your own.

Chapter 19

A
fter several moments at this exhilarated pace, Donovan pulled the reins and slowed Sauvignon to a trot. They’d reached a thicket of fruit trees, their limbs hanging heavy with apples, pears, oranges and lemons. Donovan decided to give the horse a rest and, after helping Marissa dismount, he reached into the saddle for the blanket and bottles of water that Diego had packed. They picked fruit and after washing it with the water, sat on the blanket and shared family stories.

“Mmm, this is so good,” Marissa said, biting into a juicy red apple. “We only had citrus trees in our backyard. We drank so much lemonade as children that I thought I’d turn into the yellow fruit.”

“Ha! That reminds me of the time Dexter and I held a contest to see who could eat the most apples. Needless to say, that didn’t end well.”

“What happened?”

“You can’t guess? Apples are quite fibrous, which means—”

“Whoa! Too much information!”

“So you get the picture, huh?” Donovan’s eyes held a mischievous glint.

“Unfortunately.”

“Not only did we eat a bushel, they weren’t quite ripe. We spent the night exploding from both ends.”

“Ooh, Donovan, that is just nasty!” Marissa swatted at him. Donovan ducked. “Shut! Up!” She tried to maintain the frown but laughed so hard she doubled over. “Did you guys get in trouble?” she asked once she’d caught her breath.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? The night we went through was punishment enough!”

After wiping her eyes, she finished the apple. Spurts of laughter accompanied every bite. “You know I’m never going to look at one of these the same.”

“Yes, well, neither have I.”

Marissa reached for the bottle of water beside her and leaned back on her elbow. “It sounds like you guys had so much fun growing up.”

Donovan nodded. “We did.”

“Yours is a wonderful family.”

“Thank you. We’re blessed.”

“Tell me more about your grandparents, David and Mary. You said she was from New York?”

Donovan nodded, having just taken a big bite from the juicy apple, and wriggled his brows at Marissa as he wiped juice off his chin. “Harlem girl, born and bred. My grandfather had gone east to attend Howard University. On his first free weekend, which was his first weekend in D.C., he and some friends caught a train to New York.”

“That had to be pretty exciting for a man who’d been born and raised in this part of the world.”

“Grandpa always had aspirations,” Donovan explained. “Always had what Papa Dee calls the wanderlust to see places and do things. He’d gone south dozens of times but up until then, his seventeenth birthday, he’d never been farther east than Louisiana. He’d always had a fondness for New York though, ever since he was a boy and heard about things like the Harlem Renaissance with all of its prolific poets and writers, artists and activists. But what really drew him there was the music.”

“Like who?”

“Ah, man,” Donovan said, smiling as he recalled childhoods spent at Grandpa David and Grandma Mary’s house, listening to their “old” music and laughing at what looked to Donovan’s childhood eyes like outlandish dances. He probably wouldn’t have laughed so hard had he known there was a “running man” or a “cabbage patch” in his future. “Jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie…”

“Your grandfather saw Billie Holiday perform live?”

“That was his and my grandmother’s first date.”

“Wow.” Marissa shook her head in wonder. “All these years married and they met at a club.”

“Ha! The more things change the more they stay the same, huh? They tell it best, and it changes depending on the point of view—whether David’s or Mary’s—but the story goes that Grandpa and three of his buddies walked into Small’s Paradise Club and my grandfather sees my grandmother across the room, laughing with some of her friends. He said her smile stopped him in his tracks and he knew in that moment, that instant, that she was going to be his wife. That’s what he told his friends.”

Marissa’s eyes sparkled as she listened. At heart, she was a hopeful romantic albeit one for whom fairy tales were limited to romance novels and movie screens. “What’d they say?”

“What do you think? Laughed at him, dared him to approach her, especially with her looking so chic and urban in her navy blue suit with padded shoulders. It was one of the first times he’d beheld such a fine pair of legs in silky nylons. Grandpa was undeterred. He walked over, hat in hand, and she not only refused him but called him a country bumpkin straight out.”

“She didn’t! Your Grandma Mary?”

“She did.” Donovan was really laughing now. “But little did she know that Grandpa loves a challenge as much as he loves wine. Somehow he finagled her number and on that first date to see Billie Holiday, just a few months after her legendary appearance at Carnegie Hall, he brought along a bottle of Papa Drake’s Wines. All of this—” Donovan swept his hand across the land “—was still a vision in Papa Dee’s eye back then. It would be another five years before the first large plot of grapes were planted, and another ten before Drake Wines as we know it was born. But after that bottle of wine and the Holiday concert? For David, Jr., and Mary the rest, as they say, is history.”

As if on cue, Donovan stood, walked over to the saddle and pulled out his last treat…a bottle of wine. “The timing is coincidental,” he said, in answer to the quizzical, slightly worried, slightly wonder-filled look on Marissa’s face. “I’m not forgetting what you said about this being a professional relationship. Fortunately for us, drinking wine is a job requirement.” He produced a small corkscrew and two plastic cups and, after opening the bottle, walked back over to where Marissa sat on the blanket.

He held up his cup. “To a great assistant, whose help this week has been invaluable.”

“To your family, especially the elders,” Marissa replied, her tone more serious than Donovan’s lighthearted delivery. “Whose vision made this day and this moment.”

And, just like that, the moment shifted. Her words produced an awareness of who they were and where they were and what they both felt but continued to try and deny. Donovan’s eyes darkened as he drank in her countenance, the lips that she licked when nervous, like now. Her eyes searched his as well, noted how his breathing had increased. She broke the stare, and took a nervous sip of the wine. But Donovan wasn’t willing, or able, to let the moment go so quickly. He leaned over, slowly, as if dealing with a skittish mare that might bolt from sudden movement, and placed the lightest of kisses on her forehead.

“That was beautiful,” he said, his eyes traveling once more to her lips before looking back at her.

Donovan had her flustered, but Marissa hid it behind taking a keen interest in the wine bottle label, reading it as though later on its contents would be a test question. “Wow. The insides of my legs are throbbing.” With cup in hand, she gracefully rose to her knees before standing. It was true, her legs did hurt. But she stood less to get away from the pain in her thighs and more to get away from the burgeoning heat happening between them.

“You’ll want to take a hot shower tonight, or a good soak. The rooms are stocked with healing salts. You’ll want to use that, along with the tiger balm that is sold in the gift shop.”

Marissa declined a second glass of wine. After corking the remainder and cleaning up their mini-picnic area, Donovan hoisted her and then himself back into the saddle. The ride back was mostly quiet, each absorbed in their own thoughts and the beauty of the day. As he enjoyed the earth pounding beneath him and the sky overhead, Donovan did the math. Four days, after today that’s all he had left. Because the 4th was the following Friday, and because they weren’t working tomorrow, he had just four more days to convince Marissa that he was the one she didn’t even know she was waiting for.

Chapter 20

A
bout a mile out, Donovan pulled on the reins and slowed the pace. “Time to cool down, buddy.” When they reached the pond, he stopped and let the horse enjoy a nice long drink. Afterward, satisfied that the mare was sufficiently cool, he turned her toward the stables. Once there, Sauvignon came to a stop.
“Trabajo bueno,”
he told her. “Good job.”

Marissa sighed against his chest. “That. Was. Wonderful.”
And so is this.
Before she could stop herself, she squeezed Donovan’s lean waist, hugging him tight and pressing herself close against him. He smelled of wind and grass and…masculine goodness. He felt like strength and honor and truth. She didn’t want to let him go. But she knew that she should. He was her temporary boss, after all, and as beautiful as the scenery around her was, it was still an extension of the workplace. Wasn’t it?
So why is it that right now I don’t give a good gosh darn, I just want to jump this man’s bones?
Before losing her last ounce of discipline she quickly (yet reluctantly) pulled her arms from around his waist.

He immediately felt the absence of her touch. “I’ll dismount first, and then help you,” he told her, lithely swinging his leg in front of him and jumping down. He rubbed Sauvignon’s nose; loosened the cinch. He then turned to Marissa with arms upraised. Eyes locked. Hearts clenched. Marissa looked from his arms to the ground. There seemed to be quite a distance between them. “Trust me.” He reached up, placed his large hands around her small waist and pulled her toward him. He wasn’t expecting her to be so light, to feel so good, to smell so sweet, to fit so perfectly against him. He didn’t mean to brush her body with his as he lowered her to the ground. It just happened. Just like he didn’t mean to reach up and run a firm, thick finger against her baby-soft cheek, or have his head lower at the exact moment that hers tilted upward. Like the sun that shone or the air that lightly whipped around them, some things just naturally took place. Like the spark that ignited as soon as their lips touched. Both knew that what had just gotten started could not be stopped.

The kiss was many things at once: hot, soft, wet and long overdue. Donovan moved his head from side to side, softly rubbing his cushy lips against Marissa’s equally thick ones. Mutual sighs caused their breath to mingle. Their touching lips felt like coming home. His hands moved from her waist, wrapped themselves around her lithe body as he flicked his tongue between her slightly opened mouth. A moan escaped her as she opened to receive him, her tongue hurrying to make its acquaintance with his—dueling, swirling, searching. Of their own accord, her arms wrapped themselves around his neck, her hand pressing him closer, pushing him deeper. All thought had fled—of fear, doubt, propriety—replaced by pure, unchecked desire, raging stronger than the brush fire that had taken out half the back forty of the neighboring farm last year.

Through the haze of passion, Donovan heard a soft, neighing sound.
I know, Sauvignon, time to take off the saddle.
This was followed by a very wet nose nudging the back of his head.
Ha! Good idea, old girl.
Donovan heeded Sauvignon’s stellar advice and, with tongues still entwining, began walking Marissa backward toward the stable. They were two employees, temporary though they may be, making out in broad open daylight before God and everybody. His mother rarely visited the stables these days, but it would be just his luck for her to decide to try out the telescope Donald had gifted her with at Christmas.

They entered the barn, a cool respite from the blazing sun. It smelled of hay and sweet feed, horse sweat and leather. The thorough cleaning given just that morning prevented it from smelling of something less desirable. No matter. Donovan and Marissa were only aware of each other: the feel of her silky hair as he bunched it in his fingers, how his muscles rolled beneath her hand. He turned so that she was against the wall and lifted his head to look deep into her eyes before continuing the assault. The kiss changed in intensity the way the horse had changed speeds, quickly going from soft and languid to hard and urgent. Breathing intensified as nipples hardened and a shaft became engorged. He raised his head again, this time to rain kisses on her temples, cheeks and forehead. The absence from her mouth caused his mind to clear. Breathing heavily, he leaned his forehead against hers.