by Katee Robert
“Arrogant.”
“Realistic.” He stroked her nipples with his thumbs, watching her face. “You know you’re craving it. I bet you’ve been touching yourself remembering that night. Coming with my name on your lips just like you did then.”
Her fingers dug into his biceps. “I hate you more than a little bit right now.” She arched, pressing herself more firmly into his hands. “But I don’t really care.”
“Say yes.”
“Yes.” It was barely more than a whisper, but it might as well have been a yell with how the word reverberated through him.
Daniel spun her around, keeping a hold on her hip to make sure she didn’t stumble, and shoved down her yoga pants. He reached between her legs from behind with one hand. “Christ, do you ever wear anything other than yoga pants?”
“Not when I’m lounging around the house, you jackass.”
He delivered a stinging slap to her ass—more to get her attention than anything else. “When did you get so mouthy?”
“Right around the time you got so damn bossy.” She braced her hands on the counter. “Now take me before I change my mind.”
Daniel stroked a hand down her spine and palmed her ass. He undid his belt and jeans with his other hand. “How many times?”
“What?”
He pushed his jeans down and notched his cock at her entrance. “How many times have you fantasized about this?”
“Since we last had sex or since I was eighteen?”
The words hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. He sheathed himself to the hilt, using his hold on her hips to pull her back onto his cock. “Both.”
She squirmed, breathing hard, but he wasn’t about to let her move until he was damn well ready. Hope muttered a curse that made him smile despite everything. “A dozen times to the former, impossible to count to the latter.”
He felt like crowing with a victory he sure as fuck didn’t deserve. So he started moving, sliding out of her almost completely before slamming home again. “I’ve thought about you, too, darling. Over and over again, palming my cock and imagining it was your tight little pussy wrapped around it instead. It doesn’t fucking compare. Nothing—no one—compares to you.” He reached around to rub on either side of her clit, his mouth against her ear, his chest pressed against her back. “You want to know why you couldn’t stop thinking about me?”
“No.” She shoved back against him, taking him deeper.
He licked the shell of her ear. “It’s because this pussy is mine, darling. It always has been. It always will be.”
“I…hate…you.”
Daniel hitched her higher, running his free hand up to cup her left breast, pinching her nipple lightly. “Doesn’t change a fucking thing. Now be a good girl and come for me.”
He pressed three fingers hard against her clit and that was all it took. She cried out, her pussy spasming around him and her entire body shaking. He leaned back to grab her hips, pounding into her, chasing his own orgasm. Pressure built in the base of his spine, and though he tried to fight it off as long as he could, it was just too fucking good. He came so hard his knees buckled. “Holy shit.”
And then there was nothing to do but lean against the counter, covering her, and relearn how to breathe.
Hope didn’t give him much opportunity. She ducked out from beneath his arms and yanked her pants back into place. “You…I can’t…God, I hate you.”
He turned his head to watch her snatch up her shirt. “You’re welcome for the orgasm.”
“Don’t start that crap with me. I agreed to sex. I did not agree to you doing the equivalent of peeing on my foot. I am not yours, Daniel. I haven’t been for a long time and I never will be again.”
…
Hope was so furious, she could barely think straight. How dare he? And she’d walked right into it, which was the most unforgivable part of the whole mess. She shoved out the front door, making it a whole three steps before Ollie rushed around the side of the house, barking happily. The dog ran circles around her, making it impossible to take a step without worrying about stepping on her.
Good lord. The dog was attempting to herd her back into the house.
She propped her hands on her hips and glared. “I know what you’re doing, and I don’t appreciate it any more than I appreciate what he’s doing.”
“Careful there—you’re going to hurt her feelings, and I’ve never seen a canine that can mope quite as effectively as Ollie.”
Deep down, she’d known that he’d follow her out here. She needed time to wind down, and Daniel wasn’t going to give it to her. He’d just keep pushing and prodding and steamrolling until she either caved or exploded. Right now, the latter was looking pretty damn attractive.
She spun to face him. The fact that he looked rumpled and sexy only made her crazier. It would be so incredibly easy to stop fighting and let him steamroll her. He wasn’t saying anything she didn’t want to hear. But that was the problem—she no longer trusted Daniel Rodriguez. A baby. A catastrophic leg injury. Both were world-altering events, and he’d dropped her like a hot potato after the first one. Who was to say he wouldn’t do the same thing after the other the second he stopped to think too hard about it? “You sicced your dog on me.”
“Sicced, huh?” He made a show of looking at the deliriously happy dog, which only made her want to stomp her foot like a toddler. Daniel raised his eyebrows. “Are you feeling threatened? Because Ollie here looks pretty fucking threatening right now.”
“Shut up.” He didn’t get to surprise her in the kitchen with mind-blowing sex, lay claim to her vagina, and then turn around and poke fun at her. “I need space.”
It was clearer than ever that this wasn’t working out. She’d shown up here expecting… She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. When she’d driven from Dallas, she’d been convinced he would say all the right things and then she could go back to her life, well assured that he’d be supportive in the way she envisioned. That they would be partners—long-distance partners.
Apparently that had been her delusions talking.
The truth was that Daniel wasn’t the only one to blame for things going south so quickly. She was too keyed up, and it was making her emotions flip-flop faster than even she could follow. If she’d told him to back off sexually, he would have. She was the one who’d made the first move. So the blame for that, at least, lay firmly in her court. Hope held up a hand. “Space, Daniel. Respect it or I’m getting in my car right now.”
He stopped in the middle of walking toward her. “You don’t get to throw that threat around whenever it pleases you.”
“Wrong. We aren’t dating, and we sure as hell aren’t married. I might be having your baby, but that doesn’t mean I’m yours.” She hated the way his mouth tightened with each word, but she needed to make this as cut-and-dried as she could. She’d been back in Devil’s Falls all of a weekend and it was more clear than ever why they wouldn’t work.
“That’s where you’re wrong, darling.” He leaned against the post of his front porch, looking for all the world like he wasn’t worried she’d leave. Like she was a sure thing. “You never stopped being mine.”
It was too much. She’d tried so incredibly hard to let go of the past and move on, but being back here and having him make claims on her he had no business making… She couldn’t do it anymore. “If I was really yours, you wouldn’t have left me in that hospital alone, Daniel. You would have been there when I woke up. You would have been at my side when we buried my brother. You wouldn’t have stared right through me as if I wasn’t there. You would have, I don’t know, returned a single phone call instead of letting me twist in the wind. I’d lost so much, and then you went and made sure that I lost everything.”
It hurt to say, like she was traveling back in time to that terrified eighteen-year-old girl who’d woken up an only chi
ld and watched her college track scholarship disappear before her eyes. She’d clung to the fact that at least she still had Daniel…except then she didn’t have him, either.
He flinched. “Darling—”
“Do not call me that.”
They stood there, staring at each other across a distance that should be easily crossable. If only he would take the first step, if only he’d been willing to bend just a little. He wouldn’t, though. Nothing had really changed.
Daniel straightened. “It was a mistake.”
“I know this was a mistake.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Back then, I made a mistake. Fuck, I made more than one. We went out that night and I knew I was the designated driver, and I still had two beers.”
Her eyes went wide. Surely he doesn’t still blame himself for that? “I don’t know how things are for you now, but back then two beers wasn’t even enough for you to catch a buzz.”
“I blew a point-oh-nine.”
“That doesn’t mean you were drunk.” She’d known he wasn’t drunk. In all the scenarios that had played out in her head over the years, she’d always comforted herself with the knowledge that Daniel had to know that that car crash was beyond his control. “It was raining like crazy and that truck lost control. You were trying to avoid a head-on collision.”
“Instead, I rolled the car, killed John, and crippled you.”
She jerked back, biting down on her instinctive response to that. This moment wasn’t about her. It was about him and the guilt that had been poisoning him for far too long. “No one could have done better. Everyone knows that.” Everyone except, apparently, Daniel.
But he wasn’t listening. He stared off into the distance. “How could I face you, Hope? We all loved John, but he was your big brother. He’d always suspected I wasn’t good enough for you, and that night I proved him right.”
“You’re rewriting history. Don’t you dare put the memory of John between us.” She drew herself up. “He might have been your best friend, but he was my brother. He wouldn’t have blamed you for the crash any more than I did. You made your intentions to marry me after I got through college pretty damn clear. He thought we were great together.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. “There’s no way you don’t blame me for that. It’s impossible.”
“Well, then pigs are flying, because I don’t. I never have.” She waited a beat, silently debating just letting this go. But it was like lancing a wound—it was time to get it all out there. “I blame you for abandoning me afterward.”
“I couldn’t face you.” He shook his head. “I might not have taken off like Adam did, but it was everything I could do to go to the funeral. It was bad putting John in the ground, but it was almost worse seeing you in that chair, looking like you had one foot in the grave. I just…I thought you’d be better without me in your life.”
He’d been mourning, the same way she had. The difference was that he’d only seen what he’d lost, rather than what was still left. Mainly her. Because of her leg, apparently. “If you couldn’t handle the thought of being with a cripple, then just say it. It’s fine—you didn’t sign on for that when we started dating. But don’t try to pretty it up like you were doing me a favor.” Suddenly exhausted, she wobbled over to drop onto the step next to where he stood.
He sank down next to her. “I don’t think you’re a cripple.”
“You literally just said that.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Bully for you.” She didn’t really want to talk about her injury. It was just another opportunity for him to wallow in decade-old guilt instead of focusing on the current issues. “My point, which we’ve stampeded away from, is that you are the one who ended us. Not me. So you don’t get to just decide that you’re picking back up where we left off. That’s not how it works.”
“Do you still love me, darling?”
Her breath stilled in her lungs, and her eyes went wide. The world tilted crazily around her like it had last time she had the misfortune of being on a carnival ride. She hadn’t liked the experience any more then than she did now. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
His smile was the very definition of smug. “I thought so.”
God, the man was just infuriating. She threw up her hands, torn between strangling him and strangling herself. “Have you been listening to a single thing I’ve been saying?”
“Yeah. I did you wrong—in more than one way. I know I can’t make up for that shit, or ever really lay it to rest because it’s always going to occupy space between us, but I can start by doing right by you from here on out.”
He kept saying that. Do right by you. It was like he thought this baby represented a chance to balance out his karmic debt. Which was all well and good for him, but she wasn’t a debt and she didn’t want to be with a man who saw her as his burden to bear. “I swear to God, if you propose to me, I’m going to punch you in the face.”
Daniel stood and offered her his hand. “I lose my head around you. What we had…it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. So forgive the fuck out of me if I’m more than willing to play dirty to get you to stay. I know I’m screwing up, but I’m trying my damnedest.”
All she wanted to do was walk away. It hurt being with him, like a knife twisting in her stomach over and over again. But there was more than her to think about now. It didn’t matter how complicated their history was—her baby would know his or her father. Daniel will be a good father. She’d always known that, and apparently she was going to get a chance to see it in real time.
Hope inhaled deeply and took his hand. “Tone down the possessive crap—starting now.”
“I’ll try.”
It wasn’t much of a promise, but it wasn’t like she was an innocent in this, either. She’d known things between them were too intense, full of too much potential to blow up in her face, and she’d still had sex with him. More than once.
Truth be told, she kind of wanted to go there again.
And, damn it, he knew. Daniel’s smile made her stomach do a slow flip. “You’ve got that look in your eye, darling. I’ve been an asshole. Let me make it up to you.”
Even though she knew better, she followed him back into the house. “You’ve set a pretty high bar for yourself if you’re going to try to fix every fight we have with sex.”
“Believe me—I’m more than up for the challenge.”
Chapter Ten
Hope kept a hold of Daniel as he led her into his bedroom, feeling like she was in the middle of the storm and he was the only thing keeping her from being swept away. Ironic, since he was the one responsible for the storm in the first place. But with him looking over his shoulder at her with those dark eyes, and his calluses rubbing against the palm of her hand, she couldn’t think of a good reason to put a stop to this once and for all.
It’s too late. There’s no stopping it now, no matter what I do.
She touched her stomach with her free hand, wondering how so much could have changed and yet nothing at all. They’d barely crossed the threshold when he swept her into his arms. In the back of her mind, she knew it was because he wanted her to be careful with her knee, but her pride had nothing on the feeling of being this close to him. This is really happening. She couldn’t blame this on hormones getting the better of her, or on an impulse she had too little self-control to resist.
She was making the choice to have sex with Daniel Rodriguez.
He set her on her feet and stripped her shirt off. She could barely comprehend the way he looked at her, like he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He used to look at you like that. Yeah, before. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, silently demanding a kiss he seemed all too ready to deliver. His hands sifted through her hair to cup the back of her
head and his lips brushed against hers, teasing her mouth open. She opened for him. She was helpless to do anything else.
His skin was so damn warm beneath her hands. She cautiously slid them up his sides to his chest, not pushing him away, not pulling him closer, just relishing the ability to touch him to her heart’s delight. Daniel made a sound that was damn near a growl at her nails dragging over his skin, so she did it again.
“We’ll go slow this time.”
She barely had a chance to register the words when he toppled them back onto the bed, twisting just enough that she didn’t take his full weight. She could have told him it didn’t matter. She wanted everything he could give her, wanted to lose herself in the feel of him, wanted to just stop thinking for one fucking second and enjoy this.
Of course, he knew. He always knew. Daniel shifted to kiss along her jaw. “Turn off that beautiful brain of yours, darling. We’ll figure it out. I promise. But right now I’m more concerned with getting you out of these pants.”
Fear, cold and irrational, rose to close her throat. Taking off her pants meant baring her scar to him and being forced to witness that horrible guilt on his face. Then she wouldn’t be the only person thinking too much. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
He kissed her again, his hands going to the waistband of her pants and underwear, and she lifted her hips to allow him to slide them down her legs. His movement hitched when his fingers made contact with the top of her scar, but it was such a small hesitation, she wouldn’t have noticed it if every fiber of her being wasn’t focused on him. Daniel tossed the clothing aside, quickly followed by her bra. “Tell me about the tattoo. An anchor.”
“Its whole purpose is to remain in place, no matter how strong the currents or how fierce the storm.”
As usual, his dark eyes saw too much. “You always were strong, darling.”
She didn’t feel the least bit strong right now. She hadn’t since she walked back into his life. She felt like a leaf being thrown around by the wind, free-falling in one direction and then tossed to the side, then falling all over again until she wasn’t sure which way was up and which way was down. But she didn’t want to talk about that right now. She didn’t want to talk about anything. “Kiss me, Danny.”
