I cut off her words with a kiss so forceful that she falls backward, taking me with her so we’re sprawled together on the couch, still locked at the mouth. I’ve wanted to taste her like this all day, and I’m not about to waste a moment alone. Shifting most of my weight to one elbow, I slide my other hand into her hair and drink in the way she digs her fingers into the muscles of my back and matches my desire beat for beat. Kiss for kiss. I could stay here forever, and she’s giving me a compelling reason to do just that as she moves her hands up to my hair.
“I’m not complaining,” she says after a while, gently pushing me back to break the kiss. Her words come out breathless, and her eyes are hazy. “But we should talk.”
I would much rather continue what I’ve started, so I pepper kisses along her jaw and down to her neck. “We’ve been talking for hours.”
Gasping when I reach her collarbone, she pulls me up to bring my mouth back to hers. “About us,” she clarifies in between kisses. “And also about how you weigh a million pounds.”
Chuckling, I tuck my arm beneath her and pull her against my body so I can maneuver us both, twisting until she’s on top of me instead of the other way around. Then I kiss her again, relishing how good she feels against me.
“Derek,” she says on a groan and lifts her head, giving me a warning look that carries plenty of heat.
I sigh. As much as we both seem to want to stay in this bubble, she’s right. Our time is quickly coming to a close. “I love you,” I say, needing that to color everything that comes after.
Donovan runs her hand through my hair. “I love you too.”
“And I want to believe that it isn’t a fleeting love.” That thought sobers me. I still can’t make her any promises after such a short time of knowing her, no matter how much I want to.
Smiling softly, she brushes her fingers over my cheek and nods. “Same. But I know who I am and what my fears are.”
“And I know what my life is like,” I reply. “If this is going to last, we need to give it time.”
She drops her head onto my shoulder and presses her hand over my heart. “I have river tours most weeks until mid-September, so we won’t have any way to communicate except on weekends. Even then, I’ll have day trips to run.”
“You work too hard.”
She snorts. “Look who’s talking, Superman.”
Brushing my fingers through her hair and pushing it out of her face, I consider our options. There aren’t many. “We’ll talk when we can. And maybe Janie can work on consolidating my schedule so I have a betterchance of visiting you when you do have a weekend free. Private jets were made for moments like these.”
She lifts her head to roll her eyes at me. “I still don’t understand how I fell for you, Derek Riley. Not when you say things like that.” But then she kisses me, and any fears that might have crept up from her comments are smothered by her lips. “What are you going to do about your mom?”
“Wait.” I shrug. “Hank is friends with a private investigator who might be able to look deeper than we can, but it’s going to take time.”
“Time.” Donovan sighs and rests her chin on my chest. “Before I met you, I couldn’t care less about time passing, but now it feels like I’m stuck desperately waiting for time to pass so I can get to something good.”
I know how she feels, and yet I’m also wishing time could fully stop for a while so I don’t have to say goodbye to her. There’s already a hole forming in my heart where she exists, and leaving it empty for the next few months is going to hurt in a way I’ve never experienced before. I’m not sure I’ll be able to endure it.
Donovan laughs softly and reaches up, brushing her fingers beneath my eye. They come away wet. “Who’d have thought Derek Riley was a crier?”
“I wasn’t until you,” I admit, blinking away more tears. “You broke me, Donovan Tate.”
She shakes her head. “I want to think I set you free. The same way you did to me.”
If anything, I trapped her in a public life she actively stayed away from, and now I worry she’ll never escape it again. No matter how many times she tells me she’s okay with being thrust back into fame because of me, I need to try to fix this. I need to figure out how my mom is pulling strings so I can take that power away. For the sake of my friends, for Donovan, forme.
One way or another, I’m going to end this, and then I might finally be free.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Derek
“Ifyoucouldtakea vacation anywhere, where would you go?”
Hunter looks up at my question, his eyebrows low, and he glances around the plane as if checking to make sure it’s him I’m talking to. Janie is locked in on her computer with headphones blocking out any sounds—she’s a nervous flier—so it’s just us. He still seems confused as he stares at me. “What?”
Yes, this question is out of the blue, but I badly need a distraction from the fact that Moab is slowly getting farther away as the jet I chartered takes us back to Los Angeles. “Anything in the world. What would you do?”
Donovan asked me the same thing as we were saying goodbye at the airport, and I didn’t have an answer for her. The conversation that followed is still on repeatin my head.
