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Is he…touching himselfin there?
Danny burst through the apartment so quickly, his gaze intent on the door to his room. It was like the quiet, sedate man I’d met weeks ago had been transformed into a beast, and even though he just made me come—hard—I feel a wild pulsing between my legs. My mind is hooked on the image of him wrapping his big hand around his dick, stroking himself up and down. I want to rip that door open and demand that I’m the only one who gets to touch his cock, which is insane. After all, I meant what I said—what happened on the elevator was beautiful and strange and confusing, but we can’t let it change anything.
For one thing, we’re living together. If things went south, we’d be stuck with each other. Been there, done that. In my experience, it only leads to resentment. Fun, while you’re squeezing lemon juice into the gallon of milk he labeled with his name—not so fun when you forget what you did and drink some of it yourself.
I’m not going through that again, even if being the subject of Danny’s intense focus feels amazing. For another, I very much doubt any kind of relationship between us would work. He can’t function well around loud noises and bright lights, and the majority of my life—the part that matters most to me—takes place in a bar with a disco ball hanging from its ceiling.
Iama loud noise.
The voice in my head whispers that I’d be like a wrecking ball to his peace.
That he’d be an anchor pinning me down.
That I’m not his type at all, and he’s also not mine.
Still, the thought of him needing to do that because of me has me almost frantic. So it takes me a while to notice the record table, set up in its pink glory in the corner of the room, where his desk used to be. The reviews all suggested it would be a bitch to build, but it looks sturdy and strong. Then my focus shifts to the throw pillows arranged neatly on the couch. The squirrel, whom I’ve nicknamed Bob, smoking his pipe from his little patch of wall.
Danny did all of this for me.
For a second, the thought fills me with light, like I’m the prism hung up in the corner of the bar’s window, bright only at the times of day no one but me and Azalea are there. No one has ever really taken care of me before, other than Delia in one of her mother-hen moods. To my mother, I was a box in which she could stow her resentments. To my father, I was a friend. To every man I’ve ever been with, I’ve been a sturdy post they could link themselves to so they don’t get carried away by the breeze.
Then consternation floods in, becausehe did all of this for me—and he did it before the elevator. I can’t let him, or myself, think this is something it’s not. And yet…
And yet, every part of me is attuned to his room, to the possibility of what’s going on behind that door. The pervy part of me wants to creep up close to see if I can hear the sound of smacking flesh, of his hand moving over the hard dick I felt nudging at me earlier. He’s thinking of me while he’s doing it…hemustbe.
I’m also worried about what he did with his desk. He shouldn’t have displaced himself for me.
“This is bad,” I mutter to myself as I swing my way to my bedroom to grab a phone charger. I plug in the piece of shit phone, nearly tumbling a couple of times since I’m still not used to the crutches. “Really, really stupid.”
I shouldn’t have called him out on his hard-on. I should have just quietly enjoyed the sensation of it nudging at me. The feeling of liquid heat between my legs while he traced shapes on my thigh and cradled me against his hardness in the dark.
He said it had been a while for him, longer than a few months, so maybe he would’ve touched anyone that way. Maybe he regrets having his hands on me because he’s been saving his bone for this Daphne woman.
I want to growl at the thought, even though it’s my own mind that created it, my own mind that’s insisting he’d be much better off with someone like her—the kind of woman who probably thinks before she speaks. I don’t know much about Danny’s ex, other than that she’s some computer genius. According to Burke, Danny’s one too.
My subconscious doesn’t respond with any bright ideas for fixing the problems I’ve made for myself, so I do what I always do when I find myself thrown. I sink into work mode.
Using my crutches, I hobble over to the kitchen. Danny left my bottles of booze and mixers out on the counter, probably because he didn’t know where to stow them. Knowing him, he’s aware that they shouldn’t go over the refrigerator, where a lot of people put them, since fridges give off heat to keep their insides cool. It’s the kind of thing he would have looked up.
Trying not to fixate on the possibility of what’s happening behind that door, on the image of his big capable palm stroking his cock, I think about what drink might convince him he’s not just a beer man. I set out the things I need on the marble kitchen island and start pouring ingredients into my drink mixer.
A few minutes later, after I’ve finish making the drink and tasting it, he emerges from his room. I can see a puckered spot on his shirt where my hand fisted it, and it unleashes something inside of me—a memory of Danny telling me to hold onto him, followed by a memory of his fingers inside of me.
Maybe that’s what makes me continue with the trend of saying things I shouldn’t—or it might be my truculent nature that does it for me. “Did you just run in there to fuck your hand?”
His pupils dilate, and he lifts his eyebrows as he comes to a stop by the narrower side of the kitchen island, right next to me. He grips the edge of it. “What do you think?”
“I think you did. Did it feel good?” I ask.
“Not as good as you would have.”
I clear my throat and shove the glass at him across the island. The drink almost sloshes over the side, which is bad bartender etiquette, but I’m barely functional at the moment. I’ll forgive myself.
“A little early for alcohol isn’t it?”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“Maybe not, but it’s only 11:30 a.m.,” he says.
