Chapter 5
chapter
five
Kathryn
I’ve never known Donovan to be a liar. Until all the shit happened with Mona, he’d been the best human I’d ever known. He’d been right by my side after my parents’ terrible divorce and my mom, my sister and I had moved to Saddle Creek permanently.
There’s nothing but earnestness in his expression. Had I misjudged him all this time? Blamed him for something he didn’t do himself and didn’t even know was happening?
“She wasn’t a nice person,” I say. I get up and go to the refrigerator, just to do something. I grab a can of diet soda. “You want anything to drink?”
“I’ll take one of those too,” he says from right behind me.
I hand him his can and then lean against the counter to open mine. I take a slow swallow, enjoying the way the carbonation burns my throat.
“I wish you had told me. Why didn’t you?”
I lift a shoulder in a shrug. I hate the fact that my eyes are welling up. “I thought you knew.”
“You thought I was okay with it? Okay with her treating you like that?”
“I guess. Everything she said about you—about us—made sense.”
He steps closer and thumbs away my tears. “KitKat, I would never have been okay with anyone being mean to you. In fact, if you have a list of other offenders, I’d like it so I can go and properly kick their asses.”
I give him a watery laugh. “My life has been pretty boring. Just me and lots and lots of schooling.”
“And now you’re a bad ass engineer.”
“Now I’m a bad ass engineer.”
His molten chocolate eyes search my face, landing on my lips. “Remember our first kiss, KitKat?”
Every moment of every day since. “Barely.” I take another sip from my soda. “It was a long time ago.”
Somehow he steps even closer to me. He leans around me and sets his drink on the counter. Then he tucks a strand of my shoulder-length brown hair behind my ear.
“It has been several years. But I still remember everything about it. The way that you looked up at me.”
Much like the way I’m looking up at him now. Probably more so since he’s so very tall and big now.
“How I took off your glasses so they wouldn’t get in the way.”
He does this again, pulling off my glasses and setting them on the counter.
My heart is pounding so loudly, I swear I can feel it in my fingertips. And yes, I realize that doesn’t make sense.
“That first touch of your soft, soft lips.” He rubs his thumb against my bottom lip. “The taste of your cherry lip balm. That little noise you made when our tongues touched.”
“We didn’t know what we were doing.”
“I think we did pretty well. It’s still the best kiss I’ve ever had.”
I roll my eyes. “Come on, Donovan. I’m not that dumb. I’ve seen all the pictures of you with the models and actresses. You’ve probably had hundreds of kisses since then.”
“Maybe. But none of them were with my favorite person.”
I should walk away. Skirt under his arm and go back to the table. But I’m trapped between his very hard body and the cabinetry behind me. Those impossibly large arms are bracketing my body, and he smells so good I really want to lean forward and lick his neck.
Being this close to him is altering my brain chemistry. I think there are warning alarms going off, but I’m still not walking away. My curiosity demands I see where he’s going with this. Because I’m pretty sure Donovan Jewel, star quarterback of the Austin Armadillos and my childhood best friend, is flirting with me.
“I have a confession to make about that kiss,” he says.
“It wasn’t really your first kiss?”
He grins. “No. It was. But it wasn’t really about wanting to practice. It was just because I wanted you to be my first kiss. And I really wanted to kiss you. That day, in that moment. You looked so damn pretty in that yellow sundress you had on.”
“How do you remember that?”
His head tilts. “Yellow’s my favorite color.”
Somehow I doubt that.
“I’m glad you were my first kiss, KitKat. It meant something to me.”
“I’m glad you were my first too.”
“I went home that night and jacked off to memories of that kiss. In fact, I still do that. It’s a favorite in my yank bank.”
I suck in a breath because did he really just say that? “I think it’s spank bank.”
“Semantics.”
He gives me a sexy smile and if my panties weren’t soaked before, they totally are now. What is happening?
“Why were things so different when I came back at the end of the summer? Before everything with Mona?”
I wasn’t too keen on admitting any of this, but we were clearing the air, as it were. “Because you came home a man. You’d grown several inches. Gotten broad shouldered and really muscular.” I stare into his beautiful brown eyes and say the words I’ve hidden from him for more than a decade. “I already had a crush on you when you were just my tall, lanky best friend. But when you came home, you were ridiculously hot. It scrambled my brain. I didn’t even know how to look at you anymore. And I knew then—more than ever—we didn’t make sense together.”
“How can you say we didn’t make sense? I had every intention of asking you to be my girlfriend.”
“But I saw you making out with Mona in her car. I knew if she was your type, then I never stood a chance.”
“What you saw was her kissing me. You must’ve turned away before you could see me push her away. But the next time I talked to you, you were different. Then things just got worse from there.”
“Yeah, I overheard her in the locker room at school telling everyone she’d popped your cherry.”
“I don’t want to talk about Mona anymore. She means nothing to me.”
He bends slightly, grabs me by the hips and effortlessly lifts me to sit on the counter top. I’m pretty sure I squeak, but I pretend to be cool, like big, professional football players pick me up and set me on furniture all the time.
“Now, let’s go back to something you said a minute ago.” His hands wrap around my hips, those fingers digging slightly into my ass. “Tell me more about this crush you had on me.”