Читать книгу Ultimate Romance Collection - Rebecca Winters, Amalie Berlin - Страница 72

Fifteen

Swan had just poured a glass of wine to enjoy while sitting on the patio when she heard the knock at her door.

She knew Candy had gone out to dinner with her family and Jamila had mentioned she would just stay in tonight and chill. Swan had invited Jamila to join her so maybe her cousin had changed her mind.

Her cousin.

That was taking a lot of getting used to but Swan knew her parents would want a family connection for them. Jamila was the only family Swan had and she appreciated their friendship more than ever.

She reached the door and glanced through the peephole. Her heart nearly stopped.

Was it really David? She blinked and looked again and saw it was really him. Back in Key West. And he was standing in front of her door looking like he always did, sexy as hell.

Drawing in a deep breath, she removed the security lock and opened the door. “David? I thought you’d left the island.”

“I had but I returned today. May I come in?”

She nodded and stepped aside. The moment he passed her, she caught a whiff of his masculine scent, the same one she was convinced still lingered in her bedroom.

Swan closed the door and stood to face him. He was standing in the middle of her living room wearing a pair of shorts and a sleeveless shirt with a huge picture of a dolphin. Flipper. Her gaze moved beyond the shirt to his face to find his laser-blue eyes staring at her.

She cleared her throat. “I was about to sit out back and drink a glass of wine while enjoying the view. Would you like to have a beer and join me?”

She could tell he was surprised by her invitation. She hadn’t bothered to ask why he was there.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

Moments later, they were sitting side by side on a bench that overlooked the beach. They had been sipping their drinks for a few moments when he said, “I told you that night two weeks ago that we needed to talk, Swan. I think we still do.”

Yes, they did. She would let him go first. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“I want you to do more than just listen, Swan. I want you to engage by asking questions, giving me feedback, and I would like to be able to do the same with you.”

“Okay, that seems fair because I do have some questions for you.”

“Ask away.”

She took another sip of her drink. “You didn’t tell me you were a SEAL and I’d—”

“I couldn’t tell you I was a SEAL, Swan,” he interrupted to say. “That’s why I lied and said I was no longer in the military.”

“Yes, I know that now. I want to tell you, because of what happened to my father, I had made up my mind never to get serious about a military man...especially not a SEAL.”

“Oh, I see.”

She wouldn’t tell him yet that she’d changed her mind about that. “Is your mother’s birthday really next month and do you have four brothers?”

“Yes. Everything I told you about my family is true. I never lied to you about anything pertaining to them. I just omitted some details and couldn’t elaborate on certain things.”

She then put her wineglass down and turned toward him. “Why did you sleep with me, David, when I was just an assignment to you?”

* * *

Flipper knew this was the time of reckoning and what he told her would have an impact on their relationship for the rest of their days. He needed her to understand.

“You were supposed to be an assignment, Swan. But honestly, I don’t think you ever were. From the moment I walked into your shop and saw you, a part of me knew I had to fight hard to be objective and do the job I’d been sent here to do.”

He paused. “I tried to keep my attraction to you out of the picture but found it harder and harder to do. Each time I saw you while getting to know you, I fell deeper under your spell. It was hard pretending with you.”

He decided to be totally honest with her. “Just so you know, that day you invited me to your place for dinner wasn’t my first time there. I’d been to your home without you knowing anything about it. But at the time, it was just a house I was checking out as part of an investigation. The day you invited me to dinner, I saw it through another pair of eyes. Yours. And for me, it then became your home.”

She drew in a deep breath. “You invaded my privacy by letting yourself into my home, but that’s not why I’m upset. I accept that you had a job to do and I was your assignment but...”

“But what?”

“You still haven’t fully answered my question, David. Why did you make love to me?”

David frowned, realizing that he hadn’t answered her question. His teammates often teased him about beating around the bush, sometimes providing too much context instead of just sticking with the facts.

“The reason I made love to you, Swan, was because I desired you. Everything about you turned me on. Your looks, your scent, your walk...and then after our first kiss, it was your taste. Fighting my desire for you was no longer an option, although I tried being honorable enough not to seduce you.”

“But then I seduced you,” she said quietly.

He smiled. “No, I think that night we seduced each other. Everything we did was mutual.”

“Yes, it was.” She took another sip of her wine. “I spoke with Godpop 2 today and he told me your assignment ended but you decided to stay. Why?”

Okay, no beating around the bush this time, Flipper decided. “The reason is that by then I had fallen in love with you. In all honesty, in my heart you stopped being an assignment the first time I made love to you. I crossed the line of what was honorable, and I knew why. Because I felt you here, Swan,” he said, pointing to his heart. “I felt you here in a way I’ve never felt before. No woman has ever been here, Swan. But during the one time you shouldn’t have, you got there anyway.”

“And now? How do you feel now?”

He placed his beer bottle aside and turned toward her. “Now you are still in my heart. Even more so. I love you so much I ache on the inside when I’m not with you. I love you so much I think of you even at times I shouldn’t.”

He reached out and took her hand in his. “Now I need to know, Swan, just how you feel about me.”

* * *

Swan felt the gentle tug on her hand and, surprising even herself, she moved to sit in his lap.

When he wrapped his arms around her, she felt comfort flow through her. She turned in his lap to look down at him. He’d given her answers to all her questions, now she intended to give him answers to his.

“I love you, David. I fought it at first. I didn’t know about you being present-day military, but I also had a problem...not with interracial dating...but with allowing anything to come of it. I saw how others saw my parents at times. Not as a beautiful couple in love but as an interracial couple in love. There should not have been a difference. I never wanted to deal with what they had to deal with in the name of love.”

She paused. “But then I moved beyond thinking that way after I fell in love with you. Then I realized how my parents must have felt, believing nothing mattered but their love. Even if the world was against them, as long as they had each other, that’s what truly counted.”

“So you do love me?” he asked her as if for clarity.

Swan didn’t have a problem clarifying anything for him or anyone else. “Yes, I love you, David Flipper Holloway.” And then she lowered her mouth to his.

Shivers of profound pleasure shot through every part of Swan’s body when David slid his tongue into her mouth. Sensations bombarded her as she concentrated on his taste, his scent and the way he pulled her tongue into his mouth to mate with his. And when she felt his hands inch upward and slide beneath her top, his touch made her purr.

Both his taste and his touch were awakening parts of her, making her feel alive in a way she hadn’t felt since the last time they’d been together. Here at her house. In her bed.

When his fingers touched her bare breasts, using his fingertips to draw circles around her nipples, she oozed deeper into the kiss, almost feeling like melted butter in his arms.

He slowly pulled his mouth from hers and looked at her. His blue eyes were sharp and filled with the same desire she felt. “Any reason why we can’t take this inside?”

She wrapped her arms around his waist. “No, there’s no reason.”

“Good.”

And then standing with her in his arms, he carried her into the house.

* * *

“Just so you know, David, I didn’t ask you all my questions,” Swan said when he placed her on the bed.

David glanced down at her. “You didn’t?”

“No, but I can wait. None are more earth-shattering than this is going to be. And I need this.”

He caressed the side of her face with his finger. “I need this, too. I know why I need it, tell me why you do.”

She met his gaze and held it while she said, “I love the feel of you inside of me. I’ve never felt anything so right before. So pleasurable.” She smiled. “Do you know I retired my sex toy?”

He chuckled. “That’s good to know.”

“Um, not too much information?”

“No. Nice to know what used to be my competition,” he said as he began removing her clothes. Lucky for him, she wasn’t wearing much. Just a top, shorts and a thong. Flipper had discovered outside earlier that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He’d noticed more than once that she liked her breasts being free and so did he.

She reached out and tugged at his T-shirt and he assisted by removing his own shorts. Then he rejoined her on the bed. Reaching out, he lifted her by the waist.

“Wrap your legs around me, Swan. I’m about to join our bodies, to make us one.”

As soon as her legs were settled around his waist, his shaft touched her core. She was wet and ready. Tilting her hips, he whispered the words, “I love you,” before thrusting hard into her.

“David!”

Arching her back off the bed, she provided the prefect position for his penetration to go deeper. They were a perfect fit. They always would be. Not just in lovemaking but in everything they did from here on out. They had become a team.

He began moving, slowly at first and then harder and deeper, over and over again. The only constant sounds in the room were their breathing and flesh slapping against flesh. The air surrounding them was filled with the aroma of sex.

He felt on fire, like his entire body was burning and the flames fueled his need, his desire and his love. She was looking up at him, holding his gaze, and he hoped Swan saw the depth of love in his eyes.

He clenched his jaw when he felt it, the stirring of pleasure in his groin. The feeling was slowly spreading through his body and when Swan gripped his shoulders and dug her fingers into his skin, he continued to thrust inside of her like his life depended on it.

And when she screamed out his name, he knew the same sensations that were taking him were taking her.

He drew in a sharp breath only moments before calling out her name. Multiple sensations tore into him, causing an explosion inside of him that had him bucking his body in an all-consuming orgasm. The sensations kept coming until he let go and his release shot deep inside of her.

He knew right then that he wanted her to have his baby. If not this time, another time. One day, he intended to make it happen.

Moments later, he slumped down beside her and wrapped his arms around her as he tried to get his breathing under control. After recovering from his explosive orgasm, when he was able to talk, he said, “I feel like I’ve been burned to a crisp.”

“Hmm, speaking of burning, do you know what I thought was hot?” she asked, drawing in deep breaths of air into her lungs.

“No, what?”

“You on that boat wearing nothing but swim trunks and that military belt around your waist. Now, that was hot.”

He grinned. “You liked that, huh?”

She smirked up at him when he straddled her body again. “I liked it.” Then her features became serious. “I still can’t believe you swam all that way to save me.”

He leaned in and brushed a kiss across her lips. “Believe it.”

He then pulled back and looked down at her. His expression was serious. “I’m a damn good swimmer. I’m known to be able to hold my breath underwater for long periods of time. Longer than what most would consider normal. But I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the boat, Swan. I told my friends I had to try even if I died trying because the woman I love was on that boat. That’s what kept me going. That’s what fueled every stroke I made into the ocean waters. And when my body felt tired, like I couldn’t possibly swim another lap, I would think of a life without you and for me that was unacceptable.”

He drew in a sharp breath. For a quick minute, he relived the feel of the cold water as he swam nonstop to the boat to save her, not knowing if he would make it in time. “I had to save you.”

“And then I rebuffed you. I refused to have that talk you wanted.”

“I understood. I had been listening to what Georgianna Martin was saying, the picture she painted. I told myself that once I talked to you and told you the truth that you would believe me. I was just giving you time to think about everything. I figured you would realize that I did care for you.”

She reached up and caressed the side of his face. “You never told me you cared.”

“I did. Our last night together, when you were asleep, I told you before I left that I loved you. I had planned to tell you the next day when we were together but that’s when you were taken.”

“And you came back,” she said.

“That was always my plan, Swan. I never intended to let you go. I love you that much. And just so you know, my entire family is rooting for me. I told them about you and they can’t wait to meet you. My brothers and I are giving Mom a party for her birthday next week. Will you go to Texas with me?”

When she hesitated, he added, “What I told you about them is true. My parents accept people for who they are and not how they look. Will you trust me about that?”

She met his gaze and nodded. “Yes, I will trust you and yes, I will go.”

A huge smile spread across his face. “I can’t wait to introduce you to everyone. And I’ve got the perfect thing for you to wear.” He quickly eased off the bed.

She pulled herself up. “What’s going on? You plan on dressing me that night?”

He glanced over his shoulder, chuckling as he pulled a small white box out of his shorts. “Something like that.”

He returned to the bed and pulled her up to stand her on her feet beside the bed. Then he got down on one knee and looked up at her. “I love you, Swan. I know we have a lot of things we still need to overcome. But I believe we will do so together. Forever. Will you marry me?”

He saw tears form in her eyes when she nodded. “Yes, I will marry you.”

He slid the ring on her finger and at that moment Flipper knew he was halfway to having his world complete.

He would get the other half the day she became his wife.