Stormy Vows - Iris Johansen [54]
It was only as she was halfway up the stairs, her heart beating with a wild exhilaration and a singing happiness surging in her veins, that she realized what that ephemeral element was that was causing this breathtaking delight. She was in love with Michael Donovan.
Brenna stretched lazily, before adjusting the vinyl lounge chair to the recline position, not forgetting to remove her sunglasses, as she prepared to increase the already golden tan she had acquired in the past two weeks. Michael had teased her unmercifully when she had forgotten to take the glasses off, and it had resulted in her having owl-like rings about her eyes for two days before her tan had evened out again.
She smiled reminiscently, a glow of contentment warming her face as she thought about the last two weeks. It had been a lovely time. Each golden day had been added like charms on a bracelet that she hoped would encircle her for an eternity. She had grown to know Michael Donovan with an intimacy that she had never thought possible. Looking on him now with the eyes of love, she found him both more difficult and simple in nature than she had first imagined.
He had kept his promise about the ultimate intimacy, but she found him to be a compulsively physical person. He was constantly touching her, holding her hand and playing idly with her fingers as he talked, stroking the silky fall of her hair in the evenings while they sat on the couch in the living room and listened to music. There were light sweet kisses and casual embraces in abundance. All were carefully controlled and designed not to upset the delicate balance of their relationship. Even on the evenings they had guests, usually members of the cast or crew of various Donovan projects at the complex, he would absently knead her shoulders as she sat comfortably at his feet by his chair in the library, as they all engaged in one of the informal bull sessions that she soon discovered were a way of life at Donovan's home.
She loved it all. After a childhood deprived of cuddling and embraces, Donovan's casual fondling made her feel warmly treasured.
Donovan did the majority of his work at home, she found. He had both an editing and projection room at the house, and there was a constant flow of people from the complex in and out of the house at all hours of the day and evening. He sometimes spent a few hours in the morning at his executive office at the complex, but most of the time he worked at the house, and his workday seemed to span most of the hours of the day and evening. He was a workaholic, as Walters had told her, and he was passionately in love with the making of films.
To her delight, she discovered that this did not necessarily shut her out of his life. After the first few lonely days, he arbitrarily ordered her into the editing room, much to the amusement of the crew. While they worked and argued and generally ignored her presence, she curled up in a chair in the corner, watching in fascination or leafing idly through a book or script. On occasion, she would look up to find Donovan looking at her with an absent smile, that she met with a blissfully contented one of her own.
In the afternoons, she usually tried to spend time with Randy, or lazily sunbathed by the pool in a bikini, where Donovan joined her on occasion for a brief swim before he returned to work. These were the times she liked the best. When they would talk quietly, exchanging viewpoints and exploring each others minds and personalities, or just sitting in companionable silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun.
She was well aware that she owed a large measure of the mellow serenity of those days to the self-control that Donovan was exercising. Though the fact that Donovan was not used to restraining his sexual urges was painfully clear, and there were times she felt his patience was wearing dangerously thin, Donovan never made her consciously aware of the fires