Mine at Last (17 page)

“Your next date? Who says this date is over with yet?” he asked, nibbling her back. She giggled. “I have the morning and afternoon off and a whole drawerful of condoms. I suggest we get started right now.” He deepened his voice and whispered in her ear. He started kissing her neck.

She rolled over to face him and looked down the length of his body. He was already hard and ready for her. She rolled back over, opened the drawer and pulled out a small foil packet. As she pulled and rolled back over, several connected condoms trailed. She held up ten in total.

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about, exuberance and a woman who is assertive.” She chuckled. “What?” he asked, smiling.

She shook her head. “Nothing, it’s just the Pennington sisters gave me a book called
Dominatrix 101
. Curiously, I flipped through and read the part about being assertive in bed. It was very enlightening.”

“Oh, so you want to be a domme now, huh? I guess that means you’re gonna need a personal sub.”

“Wait, what do you know about dommes and submissives?”

“I’m an E.R. doctor. I’ve seen just about everything in one form or another over the years. Believe me, there are some positions and situations the unlearned and untrained should not attempt without strong lube and a definite exit strategy.”

They laughed. They laid face-to-face staring at each other. She swallowed hard. “I fantasized about being here with you.”

He half smiled. “I dreamed about you.”

They didn’t speak again for a few minutes. She reached out and touched his face. “So many times I wanted to just reach out and touch you, but I couldn’t.”

He took her hand and kissed her palm. “You’re here now.”

She nodded. “Two weeks.”

He frowned. “That’s not enough time.”

She smiled, touched by his words. “We both know what this is.”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said as he kissed her hand again. “I remember you,” he said softly.

“What?”

“From high school, I remember you, quiet, unassuming, shy. I was a senior and you were a junior. You were in my sister’s class. I think you purposely tried to fade into the background.”

“Yeah, I guess I did. That was me, wallpaper.”

“You were only there for junior and senior year. You didn’t even go to your prom or graduation. What happened after that? Where did you go?”

“You heard the stories.”

“About your father?” he asked, then nodded.

She nodded slowly, then looked away. “Yes. He embezzled money from his job and ran away with another woman. He got caught and he went to prison. My mom and I had to pick up the pieces. The house, the cars, everything was gone. When the kids at school found out what happened...”

“Let me guess, you were humiliated,” he surmised. “You didn’t do anything. Your father did.”

“Yeah, but you know high school. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t one of the cool kids, so it was easier to just fade into the background and let everything I dreamed about disappear.”

“What did you dream about?”

“You,” she said, looking at him.

He smiled and nodded. “Tell me about your mother. She died at Key West Medical Center, right?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure how you knew that, but yes, my mother died there. She died the week before I graduated. I took her to the E.R. for help with a bad pain in her head and stomach. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a bad night. There was a huge storm with rain, lightning and thunder. The winds nearly swept us off our feet, but I got her there. I just knew they would help her. I was wrong. She never came out.”

“Did the doctors tell you what happened?”

“Only that she died. We waited in the E.R. for hours. No one would help her because her illness wasn’t severe enough. They gave her some kind of antacid prescription and sent her home. I brought her back an hour later. She died waiting.”

“That should never have happened.”

“No, and now I make sure it doesn’t.”

He nodded, recognizing she didn’t want to go any further. Just then, his cell phone rang. He frowned. “Give me a minute,” he said, then got up and grabbed his cell phone from the dresser. He began discussing a medical case with someone.

Shauna got up and went into the bathroom. There was a toothbrush, comb, brush, washcloth and towel on the counter. She closed the door and turned on the shower. There were two separate showerheads, one in front at the top like a sprinkling waterfall and one at the back. She turned them both on. After brushing her teeth, she stepped into the shower and let the warm water pour down the front and back of her body. She just stayed like that for a while thinking about the past few weeks. Being in Key West made her think about the past too much. She poured shower gel on the washcloth and began lathering. She stepped back under the streams of pulsating water, then felt a rush of cool air.

She turned as Dominik stepped in behind her. His eyes were focused and hungry. He went to her and kissed her hard, sealing her body against the shower tiles. The kiss was insane for both of them. They pressed and pushed and grabbed and caressed. Feeding off each other’s appetite, they were insatiable in their need.

He dragged his mouth down her body, kissing, licking and suckling her breasts as he stroked the rest of her. He dipped down farther, putting her leg on his shoulder, and ate until she screamed his name again. Quivering and breathless, she dug her nails into his back and shoulders.

Still wanting more, they were fervent and frantic in intent. They both needed this release. It was passion and power gone amok. She pushed him back against the opposite wall and began kissing his body. She dropped to her knees and opened to him.

His long, hard penis stood out at her. He pressed a condom he’d been holding into her hand. She ripped it open and covered him. He picked her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist. She held tight to the nape of his neck as he entered her in one thrust. Her body tensed, then he began moving up into her. The water poured down over them. He thrust in and out over and over again. She held on tight, taking every inch of him.

She felt her body tense again. She held on tighter. He pushed faster, harder, and she demanded more and more. Then in a brilliant blast of red-hot rapture, they climaxed. Jerking spasms shot through them as he held her still and the streams of warm water flowed around them. They stayed like that awhile, neither moving nor wanting to move. Then he released and slowly eased her up to stand on the tile floor. But they still held on tight to each other.

An hour later they lay on the bed, eating breakfast, drinking tea and reading the newspaper. He peeked over his newspaper. “I like this.”

“What?” she asked.

“Lying naked in bed with you on a Saturday morning,” he said.

“You do, huh?” she said. He nodded. “Well, you can’t get too used to this. You know this date is gonna have to end sometime.”

“Not necessarily. It can go on for as long as we want.”

“Reality check, I’ll be leaving your fair city in two weeks.”

“Two weeks,” he said. “So soon.”

She nodded. “It may be even sooner than that. I finished the first two boxes and looked through the others. It shouldn’t take long to do them. The first two were the most detailed. I’ll have everything I need to make a determination soon.”

“And when it’s done, then what?”

“I move on to the next job.”

“Which is where?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. I have two large clients—Relso Health Care and the Cura Medical Group. Cura wants me to check out a few centers on the West Coast. They’re thinking of expanding and want my input. But I’m not sure I want to go west for seven weeks. Plus, the constant traveling is getting tiresome. I have a condo in Maryland, but I haven’t been home in over a month.”

“You can always turn them both down and stay here.”

“My job is on the road.”

“Change jobs,” he said simply. “You obviously know a tremendous amount about the operation and management of hospitals, clinics and medical centers. Your knowledge and experience are invaluable. You can get a job helping in any hospital or medical center. Imagine turning one of them around from the inside.”

“I thought about it and I’ve been offered a number of very nice positions, but I’ve never accepted.”

“Think about it. Maybe it’s time to come home to stay.”

“Home is where the heart is,” she said, reciting the platitude.

“Where is your heart now, Shauna?”

She smiled. “Right now, it’s here with you.” She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell him that her silly high school crush was love and always had been. That every man she ever dated paled in comparison to her dream of him. And that now that dream paled to him. “Want to know a secret?” she asked. He nodded. “I had a huge crush on you in high school.”

“I guess that makes us even,” he said.

“How so?” she questioned.

“I have a crush on you right now.”

She blushed and right then, she felt the love she’d always wanted from him. Whether it was real or just for the moment didn’t matter. Right now she was with Dominik Coles and she was loved. “I still want to see that sunset you said was so phenomenal from up here.”

He smiled. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? I promise you will see the sunset and much more.”

“Careful, I might get too used to hanging around.”

“Want to hear a secret?” he asked, just like she had moments ago. She nodded. “That’s the whole idea.”

Shauna didn’t respond. She just smiled and went back to reading her newspaper article, although she had no idea what it was about. She read and reread the same sentence over and over again but couldn’t discern the meaning if her life depended on it. Her mind was too wrapped up in doing what she wasn’t supposed to be doing—feeling. She’d vowed she could take the emotion out of this physical attraction. She knew it was impossible when she agreed.

She had been in love with Dominik Coles the moment she spotted him in the eleventh grade. Nothing had ever changed. She’d had boyfriends and brief relationships, but there was always Dominik in her heart. Nothing changed. Nothing ever would.

Chapter 15

The next week went by almost as fast as their first weekend together. They worked and did their jobs, but every free second they found they spent together. They watched movies, ate romantic dinners, went dancing and even took a boat out to Cutter Island, his family’s vacation getaway just twenty miles away from Key West. It was six and a half miles of pure paradise and Shauna was amazed at how beautiful the island was. And the fact that Dominik’s family actually owned it was totally incredible.

They left early from work midweek, grabbed a picnic dinner from Nikita’s Café and headed out to Cutter Island. They stayed all afternoon swimming in the waterfall pond, walking, running and playing on the beach, sunning out on the tree-house deck and making love in the sweet grass beside the stream. When evening came, they lay out in a huge, freestanding hammock beneath the stars in each other’s arms and witnessed the awesome beauty of the heavens above. A billion stars shone down on them. “This is paradise,” Shauna said, snuggling close beside Dominik with just a colorful scarf draped around her hips.

“Now that you’re here, it is. I can’t imagine spending my nights any other way except with you in my arms,” Dominik said as he stroked her arm and kissed her forehead.

“You really need to stop saying stuff like that. It’s going to be hard enough leaving here next week.” She felt his body tense.

“Don’t go,” he said.

“I have to.”

“No, you don’t. Stay here with me.” He turned to face her. “I love you, Shauna. Marry me and stay with me,” he said softly.

“Dominik,” she said, quickly standing up and walking away from him, “please don’t do this to me.”

“Do what?” he asked, standing up, too. “Shauna, I love you and I know you love me. You can’t deny that any more than I can. We can get married right now if you want. I’ll set the GPS on the boat. Pick an island—Jamaica, Saint Kitts, St. Maarten, St. Lucia or Antigua. We’ll stay a few days, get our license and then marry.”

Her heart thundered as her mind scattered in a million different directions. For so long she had wanted to hear those words come from his mouth. She was near tears and breathless at the wishful excitement of it all. But... “Dominik, please, I do love you, so much and for so long I can’t even say. But this is my fantasy. How can you possibly be certain you love me after just two weeks together?”

“First of all, this isn’t just your fantasy—this is our fantasy. And second, a few weeks, a few days or a few hours, sometimes that’s all it takes to start a lifetime together. My cousin told me that a few days ago. And you know what? He’s right—time doesn’t matter when it comes to love. I love you, Shauna, and you and I will be married, of that I am certain.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as tears fell down her cheeks. She was so deliriously happy that she couldn’t speak. Maybe, just maybe she’d have that fantasy after all. And if not, at least this was her fantasy for right now. They made love again. This time it was slow and sensual. This was by far the most incredible day of her life.

The next day, Shauna didn’t seen Dominik all morning. She assumed as usual he was busy in meetings and in the E.R. They’d always kept their distance at work even though she was sure they weren’t fooling anyone.

She called Pearl, who was still away. Shauna had been trying to get in touch with her for the past few days, but her cell phone’s message kept coming on and all text messages bounced and failed. She was starting to get concerned when Pearl finally returned her call. “Pearl, hey, how are you?” Shauna asked, relieved to hear her voice. “I was really starting to get worried about you.”

“Hi, I’m hanging in there. My friend had a little bit of a relapse and I decided to stay awhile longer. I’m sorry we haven’t spent more time together.”

“No problem, I’ll make sure to come back to visit more.”

“How’s work going?” Pearl asked.

“Actually, I’m almost done. I just have a few more things to wrap up. I hope I’m gonna see you before I leave.”