Donovan's Forever Love (3 page)

Donovan looked over my shoulder toward the
opening in the north wall as I reached between us. With a flick of my wrist, I
unbuttoned his waistband and then slowly, carefully ran the zipper the full
length down its track. He stiffened but did not stop me as I reached inside and
found silk boxer shorts blocking my way in. I fumbled before finding the snap
that held them closed. Donovan had always been one for the finer things in
life, including made-to-fit underwear that did not need elastic to hold them
up.

Jerking on the snap, I pulled the boxers open
and pushed the silk out of my way. I was intent on reaching that which
Charlotte’s memories had made me so familiar with. Without the fabric to hold
it, his cock fell forward into my hand, long and thick, the head slightly
flared. It lay in one hand and twitched as I ran fingertips of the other from
end to end and back again.

“My turn,” he whispered and he flexed his
knees. For once I did not feel like giggling when someone touched my sides. He
ran his hands down my body to the hem of my dress and beyond. Once he reached
my knees, he stopped a moment before slowly retracing the path back up my legs.
On the return trip north, his hand slid under my dress and he lifted the
material until he reached my butt. Then he moved his hands around to the back
so he was again cupping my lower cheeks. Lifting me easily he whispered, “Wrap
your legs around me.”

I did as he ordered, wrapping my legs around
his waist and my arms around his neck. Then I began to kiss him again. His kiss
was addictive and I wondered how Charlotte had ever given him up. But I knew
how. While she had enjoyed her life with him, she saw no future in it. When he
informed her that he was a creature of the night and would never be able to see
a sunrise with her, no matter how much he loved her, she grew frightened. When
he offered to bring her fully into his world and make her a vampire as well,
she declined and broke off the affair. Within days, she moved home to New Bern
where she met and married my great grandfather within the year.

The head of Donovan’s cock rubbed against my
wet and ready clit, sending shock waves from what had become the center of my
existence throughout the rest of my body. When he began walking, I could stand
it no longer. I reached between us with one hand and slid my thong to the side.
Returning my arm to his shoulder, I leveraged myself up the necessary inches so
that when I dropped again, I sheathed him inside my hot, wet, wide open cunt.

“Mmmm,” I moaned as I wrapped myself tighter
around him.

Donovan’s groan echoed my own. “Oh my God in
heaven.”

Now, with each step, his cock eased in and
out of my cunt. We barely made it through the south wall of the garden and into
true darkness before Donovan growled deep in his chest. He turned and in two
steps had me leaning against the brick wall. Only the wall wasn’t hard against
my back. A layer of English ivy provided cushioning and protection from the
rough bricks.

It was dark, we were alone momentarily and
this erotic attraction between us had grown far beyond our control. But I
wasn’t afraid. At least not of being discovered. I was more afraid that Donovan
would fuck me and then disappear.

“Hang on, darling Jayne, we’re going for a
ride to the heavens,” Donovan whispered against my lips.

He pulled back and then slammed home. The
feeling was so intense, my head fell back and I wanted to howl. He set a fast
pace, but I was easily able to keep up with him. The hunger, the heat, the
erotic excitement of having sex again with this man sent my senses whirling out
into the night sky to dance among the stars.

It was only a few minutes before I cried out
with my orgasm, the sound muffled at once when Donovan covered my open lips
with his own. He shoved even deeper then, once, twice and then cried out
himself, my mouth swallowing his sound as he joined me in orgasmic bliss.

 
Sanity
returned slowly, but much sooner than I wanted, Donovan pulled from me, eased
me back to my feet and took a half step back. I remained leaning against the
ivy covered wall.

“Wow,” I breathed, my legs quivering beneath
me. I had heard of bone melting sex, even relived some of Charlotte’s more
adventurous sexcapades, but I personally had never, ever experienced the level
of intensity I had just survived.

“Wow, indeed,” Donovan said, putting his arms
against the wall just above my shoulders to balance himself.

He leaned down so we were forehead to
forehead, then rocked his chin forward and kissed me. The gentleness was a
stark contrast to the animalistic act we had just finished, but it melted my
heart as much as everything else this man had done since walking back into my
life the night before.
 

“Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you, did
I?” he asked.

Looking into his concerned expression, I
smiled. “I’m fine. Just fine. Better than fine. I’m amazingly terrific.”

He smiled back, looking relieved. Lifting his
head, he listened for a moment. “Someone’s coming in this direction.”

“No doubt looking for a bit of privacy for a
clandestine tryst,” I teased.

Donovan pulled a handkerchief from his
pocket. After wiping his cock and straightening his clothes, he turned his
attention to me. Kneeling, he lifted the hem of my dress with one hand, while
wiping my thighs and crotch dry with the handkerchief. Once he had readjusted
my thong, I felt his lips brush a kiss over my clit. I had to lock my knees to
keep from falling over as everything in me went weak. Then he dropped my dress
again.

Standing easily, he took my hand. I stepped
away from the wall, but stumbled on an exposed root. Pulling me close to his
side, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and led me away from the wall. “So,
I have only one question for you,” he said as we strolled through the statue
garden and back onto the open expanse of the South Lawn.

“And that is?” I asked, my heart thudding
with dread as well as excited anticipation.

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

Chapter Three

“We need to talk.” They were four words that would
send fear through any woman’s heart and I was no exception.

When the man saying them was tall, dark and
built like a Greek god with a face to match, the words took on an even more
ominous tone. Involuntarily, shivers of dread whispered through me at the
thought of losing this man who I had become addicted to. It had been exactly
three weeks since we had rediscovered each other and had our first mind-blowing,
up-against-a-brick-wall, coupling. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say,
but I could hardly run away. There was nowhere to run to. We were naked, post coital,
and sprawled across my queen-size bed. I couldn’t even cower under the covers
with the sheets and comforter in a heap on the floor. My clothes and his were
strewn across the room. There was nowhere to hide.

I closed my eyes, hoping he would think I was
asleep, but I knew better. He couldn’t see my face, but I never slept when he
was around. Not that I was afraid he might drain me of my bodily fluids, but
like a small child when company was visiting, I was afraid of missing a minute
of the action. Which may be one of the reasons why I was not looking forward to
whatever he had to say. No good could come of any conversation that started
with “we have to talk”.

My shoulders twitched when two cool fingers
brushed the hair away from my neck. Then his fingers began to trace a path down
the center of my spine. He started at my hairline and paused to circle each
vertebra before continuing further south. I raised my head to look at the
bedside table. The green numbers on my digital clock glowed with 4:47.

I swallowed hard. “You have to go.” My words
weren’t a question, but a statement of fact.

His leaving was the last thing I wanted, but
having a vampire as a lover, there were some things one just had to accept. And
one of them was that Donovan always left me an hour and ten minutes before
sunrise. I didn’t know where he went or what he did in that hour before his
body shut down for the day and had not yet asked. Though we had shared so much,
there were some things that remained his secret. Where he spent his days was
one of them, and though I had opened my life up completely to him, he remained
somewhat of a mystery.

It was enough that he was back in my life
after an eighty-year absence. These last weeks had felt very similar to the
nights my great-grandmother had spent loving this very same man.

Donovan brushing a kiss on my shoulder
brought me back to the present, though I was quite content to drowse in the
afterglow of our near nightly sexcapades. “I must leave in a little while, but
first we need to talk.” Donovan’s barely-there accent and more formal speech
patterns grew stronger after our sex play and tonight was no different.

His accent, like his electric blue eyes and
knowing smile, had the ability to transform me from a calm, competent woman of
the twenty-first century into a hormone driven sexual being who would do it
anywhere, anytime, under almost any condition, in ten seconds flat. Tonight was
no different. We had just spent the last four hours exploring each other’s
bodies and testing limits of joints and muscles to the point that my entire
being was the consistency of pudding. All he had to do was brush his fingers
over my skin for my cunt to begin to tingle and grow warm and wet in
preparation for his next visit there.

Unfortunately, Donovan’s fingers stopped
their downward path where my ass split into separate cheeks. He rubbed his palm
briskly up and then down the length of my spine before taking his hand from my
body. I wanted to protest the loss of his touch, until he smacked me with the
flat of his hand, first on my right cheek and then my left.

“Ouch, that hurt,” I squealed, rolling to
glare up at him through the dim light provided by a dozen votive candles placed
around the room. “Can’t we talk later?” I reached down and cupped his balls, while
rubbing my hand up and down his cock, which began to thicken and lengthen in
response.

I shifted closer, but before I could distract
him with a deep kiss, Donovan turned away, his hands disengaging his man parts
from my gentle clutches. “We need to talk now.” Donovan climbed from the bed
and was dressed in less than two minutes. And, as always, he looked impeccable.

Maybe it had something to do with being a
vampire or just the way he was, but I had the sneaking suspicion that if you
threw him into a mud puddle, he would rise spotless. He would also be smelling
like the sexy cologne he had specially concocted by a generations old perfumery
in France.

I had no such class or sophistication and no
money with which to buy the veneer needed to fake it. I was a small town girl
whose sole focus these days was to earn enough money to keep a roof over my
head, groceries in the cupboard and occasionally indulge in movie popcorn when
I went to a Saturday matinee.

I had a notion that Donovan would be ending
our affair tonight. I worked as a waitress until after midnight most evenings
and though the sex between us was as hot as the sun, like my ex-husband and the
few men I had dated as an adult, there was something Donovan was not happy
with. I wanted to say deal with it, but I couldn’t. I had been born a
people-pleaser and doubted I would be changing my entire makeup any time soon.

I was willing to do whatever it took to keep
him in my life and in my bed. Unlike Charlotte, who left him when he revealed
the truth of his life as a vampire before offering her marriage and
subsequently life by his side forever, I decided I was at least willing to
discuss it.

I slowly climbed from the bed and pulled on
the thigh length nightshirt hanging on a hook in the closet. Then I followed
Donovan to the living room. I ran my fingers through my straight auburn hair to
at least try and tame it, but there was little to be done without a comb and
curling iron to make it behave.

Donovan waited until I was seated in
Charlotte’s rocking chair before speaking. My apartment was furnished with
family castoffs, but Donovan didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t even care that
the dishes in the cupboard were seventy years old and probably collector’s
pieces while we ate off a card table with a table cloth I’d picked up at a yard
sale. Maybe it was being a man or maybe it was being old enough to know a time
where plates were carved from wood, but it just didn’t seem important to him. Or
maybe it was and I had been so blinded by lust not to see his disgust.

He paced the living room one time before
stopping before me. “I want you to quit your job.”

His statement was so completely unexpected it
took a few seconds for the words to cut through the sexual hangover that
clouded my thoughts.

“Quit my job? Why would I do that?” All at
once I felt like an underdressed coed called into the headmaster’s office.

He came and knelt before me. “You’re not
happy as a waitress. I know it, your boss knows it, hell even Ellie knows it
and she’s not the sharpest crayon in the box.” His words were as soft as his
touch as he began to rub cool fingertips up and down the outsides of my thighs.
“I come from the old school where it was a man’s job to provide for the women
in their lives. I want to take care of you.”

His hands on my legs distracted me so I could
not think of a reason to argue. Donovan was addicted to human contact. I knew
this from my own experiences with him as well as those of Charlotte who had
loved him eight decades before. Whenever I was within arm’s length, his hands
were on me in some way. He would rub my back or arm, hold my hand and rub his
thumb back and forth over my palm or caress any part of me he could reach.

What surprised me was my reaction to his
casual touches. I did not pull away from Donovan as I had with Adam, my
ex-husband. Instead I grew calmer and more relaxed while at the same time
sexually aroused and ready for whatever Donovan might want to engage in.

Surprisingly, this time his touch inflamed my
need to be independent and stand on my own two feet. “That’s all fine, well and
good, but here in the twenty-first century women are expected to earn their own
way in the world and not be dependent on a man.”

We both knew I was trying to be strong as I
spouted the arguments that women had been using for decades as their reasons to
wear pants, hold down jobs and depend only on themselves. We also both knew
that while women were equal to and superior to men in many things, thousands of
years of history dictated that men took financial care of women while women
kept their homes running smoothly, though in recent decades the sexual
revolution dictated otherwise.

But Donovan was of the very old school and he
wanted to take care of me. Was it because of his memories of Charlotte? Or his
addiction to sex with me? Or was there something else at play here? My brain had
a hard time processing my spinning thoughts and I didn’t answer him at once.

“Is being a waitress what you want to do with
your life? Is this the career you want?” His electric blue eyes stared deep
into mine, defying me to lie to him. As if I could.

After a few seconds where all I could think
about was getting him back in my bed, I had to look away. He saw too much. I
dropped my chin and stared at my hands which were folded in my lap. “No, I
don’t like being a waitress,” I admitted in a distracted whisper.

“So what do you want to do with your life? What
is your passion?”

I took a deep breath, held it for a few
seconds, and then blew it out again in a rush. I finally had to admit it out
loud, to myself as well as to this man who had led many, many different lives. “I
don’t know. I’ve never had a burning desire to have an all-consuming career
like some women these days.” Once I started talking, I couldn’t seem to shut up
again. “I’ve always just wanted a man to love and take care of. A man who would
love and take care of me. I’m not sophisticated or even very clever in some
things. I’m just me. I’m sorry I’m not good enough.”

Donovan watched me with an intent expression.
“It sounds like you’re expecting me to give you the boot.”

“Aren’t you? You’re a gorgeous, sexy,
philanthropic, bazillionaire businessman who probably gives away more money in
a year than I’ve earned in my entire life.”

Donovan smiled indulgently. “Darling Jayne, I
love you. You’re fresh and real and so hot that just thinking about you makes
me hard and aching. I don’t want you to change. I just want you to quit that
damn job that’s sucking away your soul. Then we could spend our entire nights
together and not just a few hours when you’re so tired you can barely see
straight.”

Before I could respond, the alarm on his
wristwatch began to chirp. This was the signal that he had to leave
immediately. “I have to go, but I’ll see you tonight. Get some sleep, you look
exhausted.”

He stood easily and then brushed a soft kiss
on the center of my forehead. He did that each morning as he left me. I wasn’t
sure if the kiss was some sort of vampire blessing or a kiss of protection,
like the ones my mother had given me each night when she tucked me into bed.

I leaned my head back against the back of the
rocking chair and listened as Donovan slipped his feet into his shoes, gathered
his things, and let himself out. I heard the door open and then close behind
him. I knew without checking that he had locked the door on his way out. He
always did.

Taking a deep breath to gather my strength, I
pushed out of the rocker and shuffled to the bedroom. It took a moment to
restore some order to the bed, but finally I crawled under the covers. As I
settled, I realized Donovan was right. I wasn’t happy working. I had not been
in a long time. I had been working solely to pay the bills. I was in survivor’s
mode and any job would do as long as it paid money. But none of them really
made me happy. So, what job would?

As I positioned Donovan’s pillow so I could
hug it close and smell the residual cologne he had left behind, I sent the
question out to the universe, hoping it would send me back an answer by the
time I woke up.

Donovan was right about something else, too. I
was exhausted.

****

I woke up about noon, no closer to answering
Donovan’s question about what I wanted to do with my life than I had been the
moment he left. As I took a long, hot shower, I flipped through some of the
nearly one hundred jobs I had held since high school and, in looking back,
tried to pick the ones I had enjoyed the most.

Face painting had been fun, until a little
boy threw up on me because he had eaten too much. Being a clown at birthday
parties was fun, but it was part-time, a day job, and required me to have at
least one or two other part-time gigs to maintain this living one step above
poverty lifestyle. The times I had worked in an office had been interesting,
but I would have preferred to work for one person and not a dozen. While all my
jobs had good and bad aspects to them, there weren’t many that I could see
myself doing for the next fifty or sixty years.

My cell phone rang as I left the bathroom
wrapped in one of my few indulgences—an oversized Egyptian cotton bath sheet. I
answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

Five minutes later, I hung up with a sigh. Well,
that took care of whether or not I would be quitting my job. The restaurant
owner’s sister-in-law needed a job and I was low man on the totem pole. So, I
was unemployed. Again.