Still Into You: A Novel (Better Than Series Book 3) (14 page)

Davis hangs up with Charlie and says, “Jules isn’t answering her phone.  I’m going to walk down there and tell her to call Charlie.  He’ll be here soon.  I’ll find out about Donovan, too.  Okay?”

I answer, “Yes. Absolutely. Go tell Jules and come back and tell me how Donnie’s doing.  I bet the doctor will be back soon.  I’m fine.  I’m sure of it.  I bet I’ll be dressed and ready to go by the time you get back.”  I wave Davis out of the room.

Davis turns in the doorway and adds, “Your brother said to tell you he loves you.”  Davis eyebrows almost hit his hairline.  Charlie doesn’t say stuff like that often, so it’s something big.  Charlie.  My “brother.”  It puts a big smile on my face.  My first smile since this ordeal began.

***

The doctor comes back.  There IS a reason for the passing out and the nosebleed.  It’s shocking news. Unexpected, unbelievable, SCARY news.  I make the doctor promise not to say anything to Davis.  I want to break it to him myself – at home.

              By the time Davis is back.  I’m sitting on the edge of the exam table, fully dressed with my discharge papers in hand.  I tell him everything is fine.  Just a fluke nosebleed.  I start pummeling him with questions about Donovan, because I want to know. And I want to deflect his attention from me.  He tells me we can talk about it in the car.

“Ready to leave?” he asks. 

I reply happily, “Never more.  Let’s go home.”

“Yeeeessssss.  I miss my bed.”  Davis stretches and rubs his back.  “Hotel beds suck.”

“That’s all you miss?” I tease.

“THAT we’ll talk about at home. In bed.” Davis teases back as he wraps an arm my waist, cupping my hip.  He looks down at me and kisses me softly and slowly in a non-verbal “Hello.”  The emergency room noise floats away.  I can see nothing.  Hear nothing but him.

And the little voice in my back of my head asking how I’m going to break the news.

Chapter 20-Present:  Driving Home

“So, Donnie’s out of surgery.  Fortunate son of a bitch, I’ve got to say.  The bullet somehow missed any major arteries.  Narrowly.  He’s going to have a fucked up shoulder, though.  Maybe permanently.  But he’s alive.  I don’t know how Posey Garrett does it.  She’s a strong woman.” 

I sigh with relief as Davis catches me up about Donnie.  “We can visit him tomorrow?” I ask. 

Davis nods his head affirmatively, “Yes, Posey thought that would be fine. Jules was going to stay with her a bit longer, then go home.  Charlie got there just as I was leaving.  He was going to come see you, but I told him to take his pregnant wife home and call you tomorrow.  There’s just too much going on.”

“Oh my God! I have to call my parents!  Your parents!”  I wonder if they know by now.  Davis tells me he already called his parents, but only to assure them we were both fine before any of it was reported in the news.

As I start to dial my parents, I question Davis, “Do you think it will make the news soon?”  My phone chirps and the text answers my question.  “Never mind,” I say. It’s a heads-up from Kathleen.  Being a member of the media, she has the inside track on how the news will be reported.  I read it aloud to Davis.

Prepare yourselves.  The headlines tomorrow will read something like this:

“Connelly-Brandon ‘Fake-Up’ All An Act to Catch Alleged Rapist Ireland.”

“‘Fake-Up,’ huh? Clever,” is all Davis says.

              My mother answers on the first ring and I spend the rest of our drive home, right up until we get through our front door, explaining (apologizing) about the faux separation and the sting.  Only when I agree to call first thing in the morning and visit soon does my mother agree to end the call.

              I do have to call her in the morning.  I will have told Davis by then and I’ll need to tell my folks soon after.

After I say good-bye for the third time to her, she yells out, loud enough for Davis to hear, “Take care of her, Davis!”

Davis yells at the phone in my hand, because he heard her from a few feet away, “I will, Diane.”

“I love you both.”

Davis and I reply in unison, “We love you.”

Only then does she hang up.

Chapter 21-Present:  So Into You

“Ugh, I feel so gross. If it’s okay with you I’m going to go wash off and change.” The only thing I’m wearing that’s my own is my underwear, since it and my bra were all I was wearing when Donnie and Davis rescued me.  The hospital gave me a pair of scrubs and footie socks to wear home.  My bra is the lone object in the personal possessions bag I’m holding, along with my discharge papers.  I hope my phone is somewhere in this condo, because I can’t for the life of me remember where it is.  I should probably ask Davis to call it.

Before I can even do that, I look around the condo and release an anguished moan.  The place is wrecked.  The police have been here, I can tell.   There are bloodstains from Donnie and Randall that are partially cleaned up, but the sofa and furniture are in disarray.  There are also wrappers and remnants of medical supplies on the floor, I guess from the EMTs working on them both.

Davis comes up behind me, wraps his arms around me and tells me evenly, “I think that’s a brilliant idea.  It’s been a long night.  The sun will be up soon.  You go take a shower or bath, whatever you want.  I’ll clean up in here and when you’re done, I’ll put you to bed.”

“
Put
me to bed?” I ask as I lean back into his embrace.

“You need to rest. You’ve been through a huge trauma. You look whipped.”

I reply sarcastically, “Thanks.”

“Sorry. It’s true. You look tired…” I wonder if he already knows.  How could he

know?  He doesn’t know.  I’m just messing with my own head.

“Sorry I was crabby. I
am
tired. And we both have to give more complete

statements to the police tomorrow.”

Davis spins me around to face him.  “Ugh… I was avoiding talking about that.”

Davis kisses me and then spins me back around to face the bedroom.  He says, “Go!” and then smacks me on the bottom. 

I jump and shoot him a smile over my shoulder, “Yes, Sir.”

As I shut the bedroom door, Davis adds, “I’ll be in soon”

***

I walk directly to the tub and turn on the water for a bath.  Standing in a shower feels like too much work.  Stripping the hospital scrubs and my panties off and cramming them into the laundry hamper, I stand buck naked in front of the vanity mirror.  The reflection is of my whole body from the top of my head to my hipbones.  I stare at myself disbelieving.  How do I tell him?  How do I tell Davis the news I received at the hospital?  I run my hands down the sides of my waist and then wrap them slowly around myself, stopping briefly over my belly.
I’m struck by the perfect idea.  I think I might have just what I need to tell him without saying a word . Oh man, I hope I didn’t throw them all out.  Still completely naked, I scramble around in the drawers of the vanity. 

Got it!

I follow the directions and then walk away from the vanity.  Sinking into the tub,

now almost overflowing with warm, comforting water, I let my mind drift.

***

Knock, knock, knock! 

I startle and sit bolt upright in the tub.  Water pours out everywhere, sloshing

tidalwave-esque over the sides, flooding the bathroom floor.

“Hey, Lizard.  Are you okay?”  Davis’ concerned voice carries easily thorough

the bathroom door.

“Uh, yeah.” My voice sounds groggy.

“Then why is the door locked?  Why have you been in there so long?”

“It hasn’t been that long,” is what I’m about to say, but then I raise a hand in front

of my face and see it is really pruny.  
 

After a moment, I realize Davis is waiting for me to answer, “I, umm, I’ll be right

out.  I fell asleep in the tub.”

“Okay,” Davis says.  I hear him walking away from the door. His voice is less loud so I know he’s walked back into our bedroom. “Just maybe don’t lock the door when you’re in the tub.  Especially when you’re so tired.”

I reply, “K,” and then get out of the tub.

The bedroom is completely dark, except for Davis’ bedside light, when I open the door from the bathroom.  I walk, wrapped in a towel into the closet under the pretext of getting into my PJs.  I’m really there to deliver something to Davis’ sock drawer. I write the information Davis will need in the future on the corner of the discharge paperwork and place it with the object from the bathroom in the drawer. 

“Come to bed, Lizard Baby.  I need some sleep and so do you.”

I increase my speed, throw off the towel and rake on my old favorite sleepwear, my Hello Kitty PJ pants and a black tank top.

“I know.”  I walk nonchalantly into the bedroom and produce a partially manufactured yawn.  “I’m here.”  Sliding into bed and skootching right up next to him, I kiss Davis’ chest.  He kisses the top of my head, then reaches over and shuts off his light.

“I’ll see YOU in the morning.”  He husks into my ear.  He’s not talking about
seeing
me.

I yawn and move in closer, “Not if I see YOU first.” 

***

I can’t sleep.  I get up two times and use the bathroom.  When I come back to bed each time, I snuggle back into Davis’ side, but the sleep still won’t come.  I just keep replaying the whole evening and the weeks preceding over and over in a loop in my mind.  I know I can breathe easier now, even though there will be another trial and even bigger changes ahead for us.  I just can’t seem to settle down.  And it’s not like I’m having a panic attack.  It doesn’t feel like that.  In fact, I’m calm.  I just have so much to process.

Davis’ voice breaks the silence in the darkness, “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to wake you up.” I turn my head to look up at him.  I can’t see him well in the blackness.

Davis sits up and I move with him.  He flips his bedside light on.  There he is. My gorgeous green-eyed husband. “You didn’t.  I never fell asleep. I couldn’t. I just wanted to hold you and listen to you breathe.  You’re so restless.  Are you okay?”

I sit up more and shift to face him, looking at his chest and arms as he leans against our headboard. “I can’t turn my mind off.”

Davis sighs, reaches out and takes my hand. “I completely understand,” he says.  Then he rubs my knuckles with his thumb and all the questions I want to ask him – what happened to him while we were apart, what will happen with Randall, WHY he was dating Suzette – all fall away.  Instead I’m filled with need, in my heart and in the deepest most intimate places of my body.

In an unspoken signal, as soon as I look up from the place where he’s touching me and our eyes meet, we are both up on our knees and locked in an embrace.  Meeting each other again in the middle of our bed.  Our sanctuary.

“Oh my God, I missed you.  I missed you so much,” Davis tells me between kisses.

Our lips cannot be stopped.  I want to kiss and taste every inch of him. “Mavis, Baby… I missed YOU.”

We stop kissing and our foreheads touch.  Our breathing rough and ragged.  I begin to chatter frantically, “Davis, we should talk.  I need to know things.  I… I need to tell you something…”

Davis chuckles, “That’s it. No more. As much as I love your chatter, I don’t want to talk right now.  I just want you.  ONLY you.  That’s all I need.”

“But that’s what…” and then Davis’ mouth covers mine.  There is no way I can argue further.  The buzz, the zap, the feeling I had the first time I met him and every time I’m near him overtakes any rational thought.  We are the equivalent of atoms that are physically unable to resist each other. 

Davis’ tongue parts my lips powerfully.  He runs his tongue under my upper lip and then bites it gently.  I nip back. Then I stroke his tongue with mine.  I swear we are trying to touch every part of each other, as we come together and part briefly, only to allow a tank top, pair of boxer briefs or panties to fly off our bodies.

Completely naked, facing each other, Davis kisses down my neck, across my collar bone.  On of his hands comes up to cup a breast and scrape his deliciously rough thumb across by rock hard nipple.  I moan and push into his thumb, trying to feel more.  My own hands slide across his lats and down to his waist.  My thumbs circle, brushing forward to explore the deep V that leads down to his ever-hardening cock.

Davis takes the opposite nipple into his mouth with pulsing suckles.  My hands slide up his body and into his dark silky hair, pulling it closer to me, begging him to possess me.  He moves from my breast and kisses down my stomach to one of my hipbones and then stops suddenly when he’s about to move lower.

“What’s this?” he points to the place his lips just left, slightly to the right of my hip and down a bit.

I’d almost forgotten.  The tattoo.  The one I got right after our “fake-up” began. The one that says my favorite thing.

Have Fun.

I act like I don’t know what he’s talking about and tease him, “What?”

His finger brushing over it he asks, “Is this a tattoo?”

“Yes,” I say with a “duh!” in my tone.  “It’s a tattoo.  And, sort of… directions, all in one.”

Davis reads the tattoo out loud and then looks up at me from his low angle.  “HAVE FUN?  Well, all I can say to that is, ‘Yes, Ma’am! Your wish is my command.’”  Before I can say a word or tease him further, Davis has scooped me up under my knees, laid me flat on my back and has begun to attend to the place at the apex of my thighs.  He exhales a hot, needy breath right over my clit and then licks it lightly, increasing the pressure and frequency each time.  I’m already aching for release, poised on the edge, so it doesn’t take long before I feel the ramping up and flooding, vibrating release.  Practically indecipherable, “Oh, oh, ooooooh my God” repeatedly escapes my quivering lips.   My fingers claw at Davis’s shoulders and hair.

I’m panting, coming off the high of my eye-clenching orgasm, just as I feel Davis

move up over me and plunge his greedy cock deep into me.  It pushes all the air out of me in an “Oof.” 

“Jesus, Biz… Lizard.  How is it possible that you feel better than I ever

remember?” he asks.

I can only answer honestly, “Because I’m still so into you.  Everything about you. 

Ever since I met you.  I only feel this way because of you.  Always will.”

Davis thrusts into me and I match him with each one.  He comes with a satisfied

growl and I join him, coming for the second time tonight.