Champagne Kisses (18 page)

Marissa turned to face him. “So you’re saying that practice will make perfect, your body to mine?” Donovan nodded. “Then, can we practice some more?”

“Right now?”

“We probably shouldn’t, huh? With your family waiting and all.”

Donovan began conversing with his body instead of words. He figured he could show her better than he could tell her and if they were late to the picnic, his family would understand.

Three hours later, Donovan and Marissa made their relationship official by showing up hand in hand at the Drakes’ party. Genevieve was the first to spot them, and she made a beeline over to where they’d parked.

“Donovan!” She hugged her son and then turned to Marissa. “I’m so glad to see you.” They hugged. “Dexter said he’d wanted to invite you, but I assured him that that hadn’t been necessary, that there was no way this one here—” she cocked her head toward Donovan
“—was letting you go.”

“Welcome to the world according to Genevieve,” Donovan said dryly. “Has Dad broken the seal on anything yet? Because this is going to be a strong liquor holiday, I can already tell.”

“Over by the grills, darling,” she replied, entwining her arm with Marissa’s. “You don’t mind if I steal Marissa for a while, do you? With Diamond away, I’ve been feeling outnumbered. I’d like to introduce her to Mama and Daddy, and then show her around the estate.”

“You might need rescuing,” he said to Marissa with a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got my phone on me. Call me if you need me.”

Marissa chuckled. “Will do.” Genevieve’s down-home sophistication reminded her of Yolanda. She already liked her immensely.

And with that, Marissa was whisked away. They started inside the estate, where David and Mary Drake were poring over a large jigsaw puzzle, barely begun. “A family tradition,” Genevieve explained, after introductions had ended. “Everyone who passes by this room will try and add a piece. By the end of the night, it will be all put together.”

After a tour of the house, the short version, they went back outside and over to three temperature-controlled tents that had been set up between the estate and Papa Dee’s Suite. Food stations were set up in each; between them, a floor had been erected for dancing. A long row of grills anchored the north side, all different shapes and sizes. “For the barbeque cook-off,” Genevieve explained. “The Drake men excuse themselves or else we’d win every year!”

Before the day was over, more than two hundred people, mostly residents from in and around Temecula, passed through the gates of Drake Wines Resort and Spa. Case after case of rich wine flowed, washing down ribs, chicken, seafood, pork and more side dishes than Marissa could have imagined. She’d arrived at the party feeling like Donovan’s new woman. She now felt like family.

* * *

“Oh, my goodness,” Marissa exclaimed as she and Donovan walked back into his house that evening. “Your family is crazy! That was so much fun!”

“It was pretty fun, wasn’t it? Until Papa Dee almost set himself on fire, demanding to hold a Roman candle like a sparkler. That man is a trip.”

“I appreciated what he said though. That a man who lived a century could do what he darn well pleased.”

“What about a man who’s only lived three decades?” Donovan asked, coming behind Marissa and wrapping his arms around her. “Can I do what I please, as well?”

“Depends,” she said, following his romantic lead and immediately turning around. It was like they couldn’t get enough of each other. After a day filled with furtive glances and suggestive innuendos whispered in each other’s ears, Marissa had a feeling this would be another long night. “What do you have in mind?”

“It starts with getting you out of these clothes,” Donovan said, even as he easily hoisted her up into his arms and began walking toward the staircase. “And into some water.”

“Sounds good so far,” Marissa cooed. She’d never been the bold, sensuous woman stating what she wanted and demanding her pleasure. That was a side Donovan had brought out, and one she could get used to. “Then what?”

They’d reached the top of the stairs. Donovan put Marissa down, then led them into the master suite and through to the en suite bath. “Then,” he said, unzipping her sundress before raising it over her head, taking a moment to kiss her blackberries masquerading as nipples into hardness and squeezing her booty, “I’m going to give you yet another bath…with my tongue.”

Further words ended as a kiss began, slow and languid, first with lips only touching in passing as their heads moved back and forth. Then Marissa’s timid tongue darted out to lick Donovan’s lips and the fire that had smoldered all day erupted, causing Donovan to crush her breasts against his chest and start his tongue on a journey to learn the secrets of her moist, cavernous mouth. They kissed hungrily, searching, and then with a reverence-filled lightness. When they stopped, Marissa looked at Donovan, her eyes glistening with threatening tears. “This feels scary,” she whispered in a raw, honest moment. “It’s almost taking my breath away.”

“That’s how love feels, baby,” Donovan said, taking a loose tendril of her hair and placing it behind her ear. “Like you can hardly breathe.” She helped him remove his shirt and then his pants. And then each of them tossed aside their underwear before stepping into a shower large enough to hose down a small army.

Donovan made sure the water was just right before he pulled Marissa into the rain shower, where the talking stopped and the kissing resumed. He reached for the liquid soap and loofah sponge and proceeded to sculpt Marissa’s body as if it were a Michelangelo masterpiece. He washed every inch of her, his lips and tongue following the sponge, until she was shivering at first from desire and then from the intensity of her release. Again she marveled at what she’d been missing, all of those years she’d gone wanting and unfulfilled without even knowing what was missing from her life. No wonder he’d looked at her strangely when she talked of taking or leaving sexual pleasure. Because at this moment, Marissa couldn’t imagine life without loving ever again.

She finally came back down to earth, still clinging to Donovan’s body. She loved the feel of him, how he was in shape and toned, but how he wasn’t so defined that his body resembled a cartoon character. She loved how there was meat on his bones, and how his thighs were thick and strong and powerful. After a second shower, the couple skinny-dipped in Donovan’s infinity pool. They made love under the stars and fell asleep in a hammock made for two. For Marissa it was paradise, and there was nowhere in the world she’d rather be.

* * *

After a leisurely Saturday that mostly alternated between love-making, movie watching and long conversations, a ravenous Marissa and Donovan awoke on Sunday and ambled into the kitchen for energy-replenishing food. While he scoured the fridge, she sat at the massive island in his kitchen, downing strong coffee to combat very little shut-eye and marveling at how quickly her life had changed. Anyone who’d told her two weeks ago that today she would have been in a half-naked man’s kitchen watching him fix eggs, well, she would have wondered what they were smoking.

She placed her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm as she watched him, a warm and fuzzy feeling going from her head to her toes. In an instant, she was transported back to childhood and the rare morning when her father would fix breakfast, the only meal he could prepare. She looked at the clock. It was just before ten. As hard as it was to pull herself away, she really wanted to go to church and felt that if she ate quickly, then left within the hour, she could get there in time for the sermon to begin.

The companionable silence continued as she watched Donovan add the vegetables he’d julienned into the egg mixture, along with a generous helping of cheese. That done, he placed the bread he’d buttered into the oven, then flipped a portion of the egg over to create an enviable omelet. A few minutes later, he winked at her. “Breakfast is served.”

They decided to keep it casual and eat at the island. Conversation was sparse in the beginning, as each worked to replenish the calories they’d burned off during last night’s aerobics. At one point, Marissa looked up to see Donovan watching her, something she’d observed several times in their two full days together.

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Watch me like that.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Sometimes it makes me feel like I’ve got a third eye growing in my forehead or something.”

“Ha! I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just find you intriguing, that’s all.”

“How so?” she asked around a forkful of omelet.

“Like the fact that before we were together, you’d never had an orgasm.”

“I never should have said anything.”

“No, baby. I’m glad you told me.” He paused and reached for her hand, rubbed her palm with his strong thumb. “It’s almost like you were a virgin and I was your first.” He reached over and wiped a crumb from the side of Marissa’s mouth, then outlined it with her finger, before delivering a light peck.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes but—”

“I know,” she said, before making her voice gruff in a poor replica of Donovan’s tone, “Doesn’t mean a Drake man is going to answer it.”

“Ask me anything, baby.”

“What happened with the woman you said you almost married, the one who hurt you?” Marissa noted Donovan’s immediate change of mood, how those eyes so intense and expressive became hooded and cold. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

“No, I want to. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.” He said that, but continued eating, so much so that Marissa thought that he’d decided against it after all. But finally he put down his fork and crossed his arms as he leaned back in his bar stool. “She became pregnant with my child and terminated the pregnancy without my consent.”

Marissa’s reaction was a startled gasp. “No!” she breathed. Having watched the pride on Donovan’s face whenever he talked about the Drakes, from their colorful past to their bright-looking future, she could only imagine how this had made him feel. “How did you find out?”

“We’d dated for five years, had known each other for longer than that. I knew Erica, her moods, her personality, her body. I’d noticed she was gaining weight, not a lot, not even enough for the average person to tell, but for whatever reason I noticed it. But when I commented about it, she brushed me off. I mentioned it to my mother and she’s the first one who brought up the fact that she might be pregnant. Erica assured me that she was not. But about two, three weeks later, she went out of town—” Donovan used air quotes “—and when she came back, she just wasn’t the same. She’d been gone about a week and the next time I saw her, that little extra weight I’d noticed was gone. I kept bugging her about it until she lost her temper and told me.”

“I’m sorry, Donovan.”

“Yeah, me, too. For me, it was the ultimate betrayal. Anybody who could do that to my seed could not be my wife.”

They were silent then, for a long time. When Marissa spoke, her statement was telling. “I love children,” she said.

A short time later, as Marissa drove to Blessed Assurance, she thought about Donovan and the baby he’d lost. She thought about the man that she’d gained, the one she no longer wished to run from. At the same time, she refused to consider a future with a threat constantly dangled over her head. If Steven McCain was at church today, she’d face her accuser. It was time to call his bluff, to put her past behind her once and for all.

Because of a special baptism, Marissa caught the entire church service. The music was great, the message uplifting and her spirit of hope was fortified. By the time they’d reached the benediction, she was more than ready for Steven. So much so, that when she saw Antonio, she walked right up.

“Hey, Antonio.”

“Hey, Marissa!”

“Where’s Steven?”

“I have no idea and could care even less,” Antonio said, with a frown. “After what happened with y’all a week ago, we had a falling out. I told him his actions were inappropriate. He told me to go to hell.”

“I’m sorry, Antonio.”

“It is what it is.”

“I don’t know what’s happened to Steven. He isn’t the same guy I used to know. I’m going to keep praying for him though. With God, all things are possible.”

“Well, that’s who’s going to have to help him. ’Cause I’m done.”

Little did Marissa know that shortly, she’d be done, too.

Chapter 27

I
t had only been two weeks since she’d last been there, but Monday morning found Marissa feeling out of sorts as she pulled into the Boss Construction parking lot, the place of her employ for the last several years. How was it that she could miss a place where she’d only spent two weeks while the place that had often served as her home away from home now seemed foreign? She looked over and found some comfort in seeing a familiar sight: a black Jeep Cherokee back in its spot. The honeymoon was over. Boss was back at work.

After greeting several of her coworkers she continued on to her work area, which was just beyond Jackson’s door. “Good morning,” she said to him, bypassing her desk area and walking straight through his opened door. “How does it feel to sit in that chair as a married man?”

“Same way it felt the day before I walked down the aisle,” Jackson replied, scrolling through what was undoubtedly hundreds of emails, looking for emergencies while leaving spam and other run-of-the-mill correspondence for Marissa to sort out later. “What about you?” he said at last, taking his eyes from the computer screen and leaning back in his chair. “Looks like life at the resort agreed with you?”

Marissa felt herself grow warm and hoped she wasn’t blushing. Was the satiated and satisfied way she felt written all over her face? “I don’t have to tell you how amazing that place is,” she replied, after gathering a batch of mail from his desk and sitting down just to buy time. “Seeing as how you built it and all.”

Jackson nodded. “So how was it working with Donovan?”

His question was asked casually but, knowing the Drakes the way Donovan had explained them, she thought that her love life might have been a topic of conversation between him and Diamond as soon as they landed at LAX and listened to voice mails. “It was fine,” was her accurate answer, however brief.