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“Start small,” I tell Rory, and I swear I see smoke flaring from Rory’s nostrils.
“He is so not worth this. This is a charity fuck, Danny-boy, because guess what, tonight I’m feeling charitable. Or at least Iwas.”
“Don’t listen to him,” I murmur softly to Danny, taking his hand in mine and smiling up at him. I don’t think Danny’s even listening to Rory; he zoned out at some point when he noticed the existence of my breasts. “He’s being a dickhead because he’s been served everything on a silver platter to him from birth, and right now you’re denying him what he wants.”
“Do you really want me? Honestly?” Danny asks, his eyes flicking back toward my face.
“If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be in my bed,” I tell him with the ghost of a smile. “But I don’t want things to change between us.”
“It won’t,” Danny says, somehow sounding certain. “Because let’s be real: our friendship has always been rocky. Mired in unrequited love. One-way pining. Attraction. Revelations. So the fact you’re giving me… this, yourself… I don’t think it could change a single thing I’ve ever felt for you in secret, Jessa.”
He brings his lips to mine in an unexpected kiss. I drag his head down toward me, chasing his mouth and moaning against it. His lips are cool and gentle in a way that makes me writhe for more. I’m engulfed by the scent of clean, warm skin and the familiar synthetic fruit of Danny’s conditioner. As he nuzzles my neck, it’s enough to make me smile up at the ceiling. He smells like goodness and good memories.
It’s like it’s only the two of us in this calm little pocket of salvation, breathing in each other.
“Well done,” Rory says with a sarcasm that wouldn’t be clear if I wasn’t a studious follower of his speech patterns by now. “Now strip.”
Danny’s fingers freeze on the pillows beside my head, and we meet each other’s eyes. He swallows, his gaze drifting down to my scarlet lace bra and the gemstone shining between the cups.
He shakes his head slightly, as though not to get carried away and consumed by desire. Looking uncertain, he extends his hand and hauls me upright, the better to inch his fingers across the clasp of my bra.
“No,” Rory says, sounding amused. “Not her.You.”
Danny’s head swivels around. “What?”
“I want to see how hard you are for my future wife.”
Lust spears me at Rory’s casually thrown words, ripping me so completely from belly to breast. Desire oozes past my body, pumping through my heart, until all I know is that I need hot mouths and tongues to seal me shut again.
Danny says nothing but he blows out a quiet, tense breath. “Okay,” he whispers, more to himself than to Rory, like he’s psyching himself up. Just as he’s about to undo a shirt button, he points out, “But no one else is naked?”
“All the better for you to be first,” Rory answers, as quick as a shot.
There’s a faint scowl on Danny’s face, like he’s fully aware that Rory wants to do this just to humiliate him further. “Great,” he says, fiddling with the top button on his collar as he glares daggers at Rory. “Anything for you, your lordship.”
Despite the bitter sarcasm, Rory looks quite pleased with this honorific.
Button after button pops out beneath Danny’s fumbling fingers. At the penultimate button, he’s wearing a look of such intense concentration that beads of perspiration begin to bloom at his temple. I help him out with the last two, and with a dramatic, Superman-style flair, Danny pulls his shirt wide open, his lean, pale body glittering lightly with sweat.
There are no marks on him anymore. It’s the first thing I notice when he discards his shirt, balling it between his hands and flinging it to the side.
No plum bruises smashed across his arms. No ancient mustard marks limning the frail bones beneath. No earth tones smeared across his back. No footprints, no blows nor strikes, nothing but a healed, hale, male body.
I reach out unconsciously for him, my fingers trailing down the flat of his stomach. Under my touch, he quivers, ticklish. I smile, my hand trailing, trailing… Light brown hair directs, like the shaft of an arrow, below the waist of his jeans. My hand drops to the big gold button keeping things decent, keeping things together for Danny.
But I want skin. I want to feel another’s body against me, especially after I’d been so cruelly denied Luke.
Rory must be able to read my thoughts, because he says, “I saidstrip. Not stop halfway.”
Danny ignores him, capturing my exploring hand in his. He holds me steady as I pop the button, as I pull down the golden zipper, this hiss of metal the only sound in the room. With tentative hands, he slides his jeans down past his hips, letting them pool around his ankles.
The first thing I notice is his eyebrow-raisingly hard bulge. The second is the colorful packaging it comes in, bright decorative cartoon shields patterned across electric blue boxers, the unmistakable logo of Captain Starstrike.
I suppress a giggle but Danny’s not laughing. On the contrary, I’ve rarely seen him look at me so seriously. He kneels onto the bed with an intense look on his face as he moves toward me.
For a long moment, we just stare at each other. Danny licks his lips, his hair falling around his ears. Slowly, I bring him closer to me, taking his hands in mine and inviting him to touch.
He pauses just before his hands land on my body, like there’s a strange force-field around me. It’s as though he knows that to touch would be to alter everything we’ve shared, would be to add a new dimension to the current relationship we enjoy.
