On the left side of his guest suite is his large bed with a masculine burgundy-and-black comforter lying parallel to a long dresser with a flat screen atop. On the right side of his place is a little kitchenette outfitted with black granite counters and mini stainless-steel appliances. A two-person table is under the front window and a full bathroom is toward the back. His place is neat and tidy with fresh paint and new carpet.
Donovan says nothing but goes to sit on the edge of his bed, watching me intently as I take it all in. I step up to the long six-drawer dresser and trail my fingers along the wood top. “You made this?” I turn to him and ask with awe in my voice, because the quality of this work looks to be that of a craftsman.
“Yep. Do you like my work?” Donovan says with reserved pride.
“Yeah. This is beautiful, Donovan. You could start your own business, if you wanted.”
“I thought of that, but then my hobby that I use to escape from the stress and pressures of life would become a job with deadlines and demands and stress and pressures of its own. Right now, I’m content with its current role and purpose in my life. Maybe that will change in the future.”
I turn back to the dresser to continue my inspection. Photos line the dresser top—a three-dimensional album of his life. I walk down the line of pictures, examining each one like it’s a Chapter before me. Some photos I recognize as his parents and cousins. Some are from his sports days in his uniform of the season. I come to one picture clearly of his parents and what looks like a five- or six-year-old Donovan holding an infant. “Who’s this baby you’re holding?” I bring the photo over to where Donovan is seated on the bed.
“The baby is me,” he points out, “and the little boy holding me is Dillon.” I sit down next to him and wait for him to continue. “Dillon was my older brother. He died from a drug overdose about seven years ago.” I blanch at the new information, but sit silently. Donovan inhales deeply, releasing a slow, cleansing breath, and continues. “Dillon was five years older than me and a little on the wild side. My parents were busy running the business and the triplex and didn’t recognize the signs when Dillon started using. By the time I was a teenager, he was in and out of the house because he couldn’t hold down a job or pay his bills. He put my parents through hell, and they finally gave him an ultimatum that he needed to get help and go to rehab or move out for good.
“The weekend of his twentieth birthday, I found him dead from a drug overdose. It was the end of our family as we knew it, and changed everything. About six months after his death, my dad decided to sell the business and start fresh in a new home without the negative association attached to it. When we moved here we were able to heal and move forward in our lives.” Donovan stares at the photo, holding the picture in his hands.
I cover his hand with mine, pulling him back to the present with me. Never having lost a family member to death before or even attended a funeral, I’m not sure what to say. I just sit next to him, my presence letting him know I’m here for him.
Donovan lifts his head, and in his damp eyes, I see for the first time fear and pain. It tears at my heart.
“I’m responsible for his death,” he confesses. “Dillon was making noise in his room in the middle of the night and it woke me up. I went over to his room and banged on his door telling him to keep it down—he was keeping me up. I had no idea that he was choking at the time on his own vomit and dying right then and there.” Donovan grabs my hand and squeezes it like he’s holding on for life. “I could have saved him. He would be alive today, if I just went in and checked on him.”
I cup his face in my hands and fix my eyes on his, hoping to instill the healing truth straight to his soul. “You are not responsible for his death, Donovan. Dillon did that all on his own. He made the choice to do drugs. He knew the negative consequences of his decisions and the risks involved, but he chose to do the drugs anyway. And you were only a teenager at the time, not a paramedic or a doctor. Even if you walked in and found him choking on his own vomit, if that was what he was doing when you heard him, he may have died anyway.” I drop my hands and cover his. “Your parents don’t blame you do they?”
Donovan picks one of my hands up and kisses the palm before interlacing his fingers in mine. “They don’t know that I heard him in the middle of the night. They think I just found him in the morning.”
What a burden to bear for so long. He has been walking around for the past seven years harboring guilt for letting his brother die right under his nose. No wonder he’s made the choice to become a cop—to try to save the world, because he didn’t save his brother. Donovan has allocated himself to public servitude as penance for his guilt and actions at the age of fifteen. He believes he can right in the world that which he has done wrong with his brother.
“Oh my God, Donovan, you have to let this guilt go or it’s going to eat you alive from the inside. You did nothing wrong. It was not your responsibility to save your brother. There are probably people and circumstances with each step along the way that we can assign blame for action or inaction with regard to Dillon’s drug use and overdose. How about the person who got him started on the drugs in the first place, or your parents for ignoring the signs? Think of the guilt they must feel for that.”
I shift my body to face Donovan squarely. My eyes soften in sadness. “Situations and points in time in our life make us the people we are today. I like the man sitting before me and I don’t think you would be the same man you are today, if it weren’t for the actions of your brother and the way you turned his tragedy into your career path. I respect and honor your decisions to try to do good and make a difference in humanity. You know that I understand that, with my uncle’s situation and the motivation I have to help others. But the guilt and responsibility of Dillon’s death is not yours to shoulder.”
He scans my face with tightness in his troubled eyes and a turned-down mouth. “I was worried you would lose respect for me once you learned of my secret and maybe even decide to move on,” Donovan admits. “I was planning to tell you on our trip to Mammoth but then you opened up about your traumatic childhood and I didn’t want to nullify your experience with mine. I didn’t want it to become a competition of whose childhood was the worst or invalidate the pain you hold. I needed you to know at that moment that I was there for you to help you through your pain and to only provide you with pleasure and happiness from that point forward. Because that’s what you deserve, Kenna, to be treated only with love and tenderness—to be placed on a pedestal and doted on for the rest of your life. You are a special person, not only to me but to the world. And I’m falling for you in a very big way.”
How could he think I would move on because of this secret? If anyone should be running, it’s him. I’m damaged goods. I’ve built walls around me so high I’m starting to wither from the constant shadow cast on my being. But Donovan has already helped me break through some of my walls and I’m being drawn toward the sliver of steady light streaming in that is him. We are both injured souls from our pasts. Maybe together we can help heal each other and walk hand in hand toward the happiness we both deserve.
“Donovan, I’m falling for you, too,” I declare with certainty. “And it scares me, but your honesty and trust with your secret make me feel like we are both starting at an equally vulnerable place and only good things can come from this point forward.”
Donovan gives me a half smile, zeroing in on my lips. We lean toward each other with electrifying passion, pouring our unrestricted feelings into a kiss that never ends. He guides our bodies down to his bed and adjusts his torso over mine. The intensity of the kiss increases and we are all lips and tongue and teeth everywhere.
He drops his mouth to my neck and grazes his teeth on my ear. “I have needed this, I have needed you, and I didn’t even know it until you came into my life.” Donovan crushes his mouth to mine, forcing a moan deep from my throat. He teases my tongue with his and lets out a guttural growl as his hands wander down my shoulder to my waist and back up to my breast. I arch my breast into his palm, begging for more of his touch. I hitch my leg over his, digging my hip into his side, his hardened length growing against my thigh. I whimper from the tightening and pulling in my groin and grab at fistfuls of his shirt, trying to pull him closer to my body.
Donovan responds to my need for him to be closer by dropping his chest on mine with the support of one elbow and moving his hand from my breast to my hip and thigh hitched over his leg. He cups my ass and pulls it closer to his side, grinding me on his leg. The sensation from the friction of my jeans over my underwear is building and I moan and whimper louder and more frequently into his mouth. Donovan releases his grip on my ass and pulls me by the waist flat on top of him. His erection is now pressing firmly against the spot where the sensation is building under my panties. Both of Donovan’s hands are now cupping my ass and helping me rock against him. The friction builds the intensity between my legs. I know this feeling. I’ve brought myself to this point on my own and I know what will follow if we continue down this path, the closeness, the heat, the rocking, the building of pleasure all leading to one final outcome my body is craving.
I betray my body, reaching behind me, taking a hold of Donovan’s hands, pulling them off me and up next to our heads, interlacing our fingers. I slow the kissing and steady the rocking. I pull my face back slightly and we smile at each other, basking in the afterglow of such passion. I think we both know how amazing it’s going to be when I surrender to him. But after hearing his confession I now want to wait—to make it special. This is different than with any of the other guys I’ve ever been with, and I want my first time with Donovan to be magical. This is going to be more than amazing sex. I can see that now. This is going to be the merging of our bodies, our minds, and our souls.
I look in to his half-hooded eyes and drop my lips to just a fraction above his. He opens his lips and I mimic the action of kissing him but don’t actually touch his lips. The magnetic or electric pull between us is palpable. The further I pull back it wanes, but hovering my lips just over his builds in sensation. It’s like two magnets coming close together. I love this feeling—the building in intensity with each swipe of my lips close to his but not touching.
Donovan pulls his hands from mine and grabs the sides of my head, pulling me into him, crashing his mouth on mine, and detonating an explosive kiss that sends me reeling into outer space. Without breaking our kiss, he rolls me over onto my back, taking back control. I submit to him because I trust him. He must sense this because he slows the kiss and stops by laying his forehead to mine as we catch our breath. He pulls his lips back from mine and swipes away the hair from my face, planting gentle kisses all over my lips, jaw, and neck. We have just shared in something liberating for both our souls and we can now walk hand in hand toward that healing light.
“It’s getting late. Do you want some dessert?” Donovan raises his eyebrows at me and rolls over on to his side, pulling me with him.
I tuck my hand under my head and prop my head up while my other hand traces doodles on his shoulder. “I’m no longer hungry. You’re sweet enough.” I smile and I lean in for a peck.
“Well, unless you’re planning to spend the night with me”—Donovan pauses, tilting his head a little, ghosting a smile—“then we better call it a night. I’ve been up almost twenty-four hours with little less than a two-hour nap today.”
I lay stock-still. I forgot he worked last night and just got off this morning. “I better go.” I sit up on his bed. “Will I see you before you go back to work?”
Donovan follows me to a seated position. “I’ve got training all this week on both Tuesday and Wednesday but I can come by your work for lunch tomorrow, if you’re free?”
“Of course.”
“And…I was thinking…” Donovan picks at a piece of my hair and plays with it, acting ill at ease. “…If you were interested you might like to come with me to work next Saturday for a ride-along and see what my job is like.” He drops my lock of hair and looks hopefully into my eyes.
I blink at him, perplexed at his behavior. “I don’t know what a ride-along is.”
“You just come with me to work and ride around with me in the police car while I do my job. Any citizen is permitted to do it and some charities offer the opportunity for a lot of donation money.” Donovan begins to retract his offer, reading into my expression and hesitation. “But if you’re not interested, that’s okay, too.”
“No, I’m definitely interested,” I say quickly, “but is it safe for me?”
He takes my hand in his. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I will be right by your side protecting you the entire night.”
I decide to jump in with both feet. “Okay, then let’s do it. I’ll ask if I can adjust my schedule on Saturday to get off a little earlier.”
Striding past a dark-tiled fountain with seagulls preening on the ledge, I pull open one of the heavy glass doors and step into the Santa Monica Police Department. I guess I watched too many cop shows, because I pictured something like the DMV—old and outdated—but this building resembles a modern library or office building. The lobby is open and airy with floor-to-ceiling glass flooding in the remaining light of the day. To my right is a flight of floating stairs made of blond wood that ascends to the second level, and the decor is all glass, metal, and stone, with an ultra-sleek modern design. The lobby is vacant. No cops or criminals in handcuffs like on TV, only pamphlets and doors leading to the interior of the building.