Saving the Cake(8)

“It was right,” I said with feeling. “I’m glad you stood up for her.” I was a good few seconds before I realized I was smiling at him, and caught myself.





Chapter 8


Assembling the cake took a full hour, with Donovan helping to lift each tier into place while I shuffled the support columns under it. I’ve always been paranoid about the potential for disaster with a wedding cake, even when it’s only three or four tiers. Five felt like a house of cards made of glass, in a hurricane.


Eventually, we had it together and we stepped back and looked at it. And it was perfect: modern and traditional and impressive and understated. It felt right. We turned the lights down, except for the one over the cake’s table and stood there, just looking at it.

I squeezed Donovan’s hand and it was only then I realized I’d grabbed it in my excitement. I turned to look at him, panicked, and he gazed back at me. My heart was suddenly racing again and, this time, I couldn’t look away. Maybe it was the relief of having the cake finished on time, but…I’d taken a chance, letting him into my house in the first place. I’d taken another when I’d let him stay to help. I’d taken a third following his crazy suggestion of combining the two styles. What if I went just a little further? What if I dared to hope?

He sidled around, not letting go of my hand. God, he was close enough to touch. Close enough to touch me.

“You have a little flour on your nose,” he said.

I put my free hand instinctively to my face. “What? Where?”

“There.”

“Where?”

He reached down and brushed the tip of my nose with his thumb. “There,” he said softly. Those gorgeous slate-gray eyes stared down into mine and—

He leaned down and touched his lips to mine. Before I even knew what was happening, my mouth was opening to him, my eyes closing.

That first press of his lips was hungry and demanding. It was a shock…but what shocked me even more was how I responded. A swell of emotions rippled outward from deep inside me, taking possession of my body. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been wanting this, waiting for this. Needing this. He was the one doing the kissing, but I was so eager for him, after all our dancing about, that I just sucked him in, letting myself go completely. My arms circled his body, hands running over the strong muscles of his back.

His tongue was exploring my mouth as his hands stroked through my hair. His chest pressed up against my breasts, squeezing them gently between us, and I swore I could feel his heart thumping. We kissed fast and then slow, then noisy and open-mouthed. Both of us were panting by the time we finally broke to stare at each other.

“God,” I managed. “Are we—Are you sure?”

He looked at me as if I was crazy. “Woman, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Then he had his hands on my waist and was kissing me again and this time we were moving back, our legs brushing. The room was almost silent: just the sound of our panting and the whisper of my nylon-clad legs against the soft fabric of his pants.

I felt something hard against my ass. The edge of one of the counters. Even given what was happening, I was still paranoid enough that I had to glance across the room to check we weren’t anywhere near the cake. When I looked back at Donovan, he was looking at me with an intensity I’d never seen before—not even in my ex-husband.

“Lift your arms above your head,” he said, his voice a low growl.

My head was spinning. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to take your sweater off.”

Hearing him say it—hearing him say anything, in that sexy low voice—sent a deep wave of heat through me, one that rippled down and down until I felt it turn into slick, hot moisture between my thighs. I lifted my arms high above my head. He grabbed the hem of my sweater and there was a warm, claustrophobic instant as it slid off, the angora soft against my cheeks. Then I was in my black bra, up against the counter in my kitchen. I slowly lowered my arms, very aware of the fullness of my curves.

But he was gazing down at my breasts, feasting on them like a starving man at a banquet. “You’re beautiful,” he told me, and he said it as if it wasn’t opinion: it was fact. “You’re just as beautiful as I dreamed. No. Better.”

“Dreamed?” I asked, my breath catching.

“I dreamed about you, last night.”

Then his head was pressing into my neck, laying kisses down the soft skin there, little explosions of warmth that made me arch and strain, my toes dancing in my shoes. He kissed lower and lower, down to my collarbone, down to the upper slopes of my breasts, and my breath began to tremble and shudder in my chest. My eyes fluttered closed. He kissed down over the softness of my breasts, right where the skin met the cups of my bra and then—

I drew in a huge, shuddering gasp as his hands squeezed my breasts, palms hot through the thin fabric of my bra. His thumbs glided over the skin as he lifted and rubbed, squeezing with just the right amount of urgent roughness. And then he was crouching, kissing down below my bra, lips leaving a scorching trail over my stomach. I squirmed—it’s my least favorite part of me—but he kissed so slowly, so reverently, that the embarrassment melted away. And then his hands were trailing down my back, over my ass, tracing the shape of my legs as he crouched low.