Rachel still wasn't persuaded.
"Then what happened?" she challenged, the tilt of her chin defiant. "What happened to make me different? Why am I different?"
I took another deep breath, preparing myself. But the thing is that the truth was so obvious and so non-obvious all at once, that there was no sense in speaking in anything but real words. So I went for it.
"The difference is that I fell in love with you," I rumbled, eyes blazing as they met her. "Maybe at first, it was just casual, but as we got to know one another, I fell in love and it felt right," I added tensely. "It felt right for you to take my sperm, it felt right for you to drink it, to feel it deep inside, to spray repeatedly in that beautiful cunt. It felt right, and it is right," I growled insistently. "There's only one sweet pussy who gets it, and that's yours."
The brunette was silent then.
"So that's dangerous to you?" she asked. "Seeding me with your semen?"
I pulled away from her for a moment, looking at her hard.
"Of course," I ground out. "Didn't you hear me? I haven't played it fast and loose with any other woman over the course of thirty years. You, baby girl, have gotten all the goodness, all the male jism that you need, and sweetheart, I have plenty more."
But Rachel frowned then.
"So the danger is that you didn't use birth control with me, whereas you did with other women?" she asked slowly. "It wasn't that you fell in love with me?"
I huffed impatiently. God, what is it with women? What is it with words and special phrasings and complicated sentences, all of it impossible to disentangle?
"No of course, I love you," I reaffirmed, eyes intent. "That's part of what's new because in thirty years, baby, I've never fallen in love. Sure, I've fucked, I've drilled, hell, I've even dated. But love? Naw, never."
The brunette turned her face away.
"I see," was all Rachel said. "I see."
I wanted to shake that curvy frame, to take those shoulders and rattle the female until her teeth chattered.
"What's wrong?" I ground out. "Spit it out sweetheart."
Those brown eyes turned to look at me then, impossibly beautiful, wide and pained.
"Well, I guess, it's just not what I was hoping to hear," she began.
Not what she was hoping to hear? A billionaire alpha has just confessed his love for you, and that's not what you're hoping to hear? What the fuck? Did she want my soul, my brain, my liver, and kidneys too? Hell, take it all.
"Well what do you want then, sweetheart?"
The brunette bit her lip for a moment.
"I guess I just want to hear that it's real," she said. "None of this ‘I'm getting over bad habits,' ‘I have a thing for anonymous fucks,' and ‘You're so lucky that I never used birth control with you.' I just want to hear what every woman does," she shrugged, looking off into the corner. "You know, that this is real, that you're coming to me with an open heart."
I goggled at her, eyes practically crossing. I mean, what the fuck, hadn't I just bared my soul? Hadn't I just done all that? What the hell, did she want me to walk on coals with bare feet before she'd believe? And reading my mind, Rachel sighed then.
"The thing is, Donovan," she said quietly. "You make it sound like I'm so lucky to have you. That you were looking for something else entirely, that you actually want sleek, slinky girls with no faces, and it's only by some random stroke of luck that I landed you. That your ‘regular self' still prefers strange pussy, still prefers going on-line to meet your desires."
I cut her off then.
"I haven't been on-line since I met you," I bit out harshly. "That profile might be deactivated for all I know."
"I know," the brunette nodded softly. "Me too. I haven't been on Discreet Encounters since I met you either. But this is just weird, don't you get it? You've been a tomcat for thirty years, and what's the likelihood that I've really changed you, so to say? How could two weeks with me suddenly reform Donovan Jones, renowned asshole and international playboy?"
That stopped me short. The little girl was smart, much more than I gave her credit for, and her insights only made my chest swell with pride. Because Rachel was no pushover. Even if she was eighteen, the brunette wasn't some airhead who'd believe anything and everything she was told. My baby has a brain on those shoulders, and it's a big brain too, one that's intelligent, with a nuanced understanding of tricky situations. So inhaling deeply, I turned her chin towards mine, looking into the big browns, seizing them with my deep blue.
"Honey, I can't prove it, you're right," I ground out insistently. Shit, so much rode on this, I had to persuade the female to give me another chance, to at least keep the door open and not slam it shut. "I can't prove anything, not right now, right here," I acknowledged. "But with time, you'll see. I'm a changed man, and baby, you did that to me. Everything about you has changed me," I said, my voice almost breaking with need. "And I want it this way. I want to be a better man, a new man, just for you. The old Donovan was an asshole sure, and the new Donovan will probably still be an asshole. But honey, I'm your asshole. I'm yours, if you want it," I said again, chest tight, eyes intense. "Just let me try, baby, let me try."
The female cocked her head at me, that sweet pout so close and yet so far. Oh god, what if Rachel said no? What if Rachel was one and done already, and I was too late?
But instead, she nodded somberly, just a small gesture with her chin.
"Okay," the brunette said softly, the sweet breeze of her breath like the most fragrant perfume. "Okay, we'll try. Together."
And with that, I swept her into my arms, her curvy form pressed close to my broad chest. Because that was all I needed to hear. Despite my garbled explanation that didn't come out too good, despite the fact that I'd been condescending even as I desperately wanted to win her over, it had worked. The brunette was giving me another chance to catch the brass ring. And as an alpha who capitalizes on every opportunity? I was gonna make the woman mine … for keeps.
EPILOGUE
Rachel
"Oh," I moaned lustily, creaming around his fingers. "Oh, oh."
Because Donovan and I were re-living our first encounter. Oh yeah, we were in a public place, the opera this time, and Donovan was touching me from behind, slowly stroking my wet folds before worming his fingers into my vaginal passage.
"Unnh!" I shrieked. "Unnh!"
"Shhh," he rasped behind me. "We don't want to ruin the performance for our fellow concertgoers."
And fortunately, the soprano's voice rose right then to cover my ecstatic shrieks, the cries that I couldn't help but let out. I almost keeled over, but the ledge saved me, hands gripping with white knuckles, shivering with ecstasy.
Because oh yeah, the Billionaires Club keeps a box at the opera, one for members to use whenever they want. And right now, Donovan and I were dressed in formalwear, my alpha impossibly handsome in a tux, that huge form dark and imposing, the perfectly-cut material emphasizing his broad shoulders and long legs.
And I was clad in an evening gown to match, a perfectly normal, sexy red column with a sweetheart neckline and a slit up one leg. But oh yeah, that slit. What the rest of the audience couldn't see was how Donovan worked that thigh high slit because what seemed reasonable when I was standing up gave my lover perfect access to my pussy in the confines of the box. Oh yeah, he had that slit pulled open all the way to my waist, the folds of the fabric obscenely draped around my hips as those fingers pushed hotly into my vaginal canal.
"Unnh god!" I moaned again, head dropping just as the music crescendoed, boobs almost popping out my cleavage. Oh fuck, it felt so good and I didn't even care if I gave the audience an eyeful of breastflesh now, I was beyond the point of no return, absolutely soaring in heaven. "Ohhh!"
But Donovan chuckled nastily.
"Naw baby girl, I've only got three fingers in, and we agreed fisting this time, remember? So open wider sweetheart, Daddy's still got two digits to go."
And my entire body shivered with his words, cream running from my hole, literally gushing around his hand. Because this is the new "us." Donovan wants danger in his life, I get it, and somehow, some way, I am the embodiment of that danger. The difference is that the alpha's got a partner now, and the danger runs ten times deeper, ten times more hazardous. Because no, Donovan still never uses protection, he's still creaming into me again and again, giving me multiple doses of that semen. But it's different this time, because I'm on board and aware.