Only four more days and it would all be real, marriage, different college … baby on the way.
For now he just wanted to pretend he was home for the summer. Of course his newly invented reality would still include sex with Mary Elise. He sure didn't want to backtrack that far.>And he meant it.
She nodded. Spent.
"Come here." He opened his arms.
She smiled one of those gentle Mary Elise smiles he'd once thought whimsical. Now he knew they held more strength than most combat veterans.
"I'm not about to fall apart, Danny."
"I know. Come here, anyway."
She crawled up the hammock until she tucked in beside him. Her head fell to rest on his shoulder, over his heart that wasn't as numb as he'd thought.
Well, hell. He wasn't emotionally unavailable at all. His emotions were in total and complete working order. They'd just been in deep freeze from the moment he made the mistake of walking away from this woman.
Now he felt it all chum to life inside him. Her pain was his. His heart was hers.
He wouldn't have a second chance with his father, but his father had given him a second chance with Mary Elise. He only had to figure out how to win her back, how to be the man she deserved. Because no way in hell could he lose her again.
Chapter 15
Mary Elise flung her arm over her eyes, even though little light filtered from the moon into the cabin, and tugged the sheet higher. It inched down again.
God, Danny was a covers hog. Except she couldn't remember him going to sleep after they'd made love again.Hmm. She snuggled deeper under the sheet. Now there was a beautiful thought to savor, the way they'd come together after their discussion on the hammock.
At first she'd been worried he would stomp around, angry at Kent, or push her to talk. Instead he'd just let them both find escape from the roar of emotions through great sex. Awesome sex. Can't-imagine-it-ever-being-that-incredible-again sex.
Wrapped in her memories—if not that darned slippery sheet—Mary Elise mentally listed ways to torment Danny in turn later.
A warm tickle teased along her stomach, whisper thin and … smelling of strawberries?
Her eyes snapped open. Daniel stood over her. Gloriously n**ed and obviously very happy to see her. Sheet in one hand, jar of preserves in the other, he poured a thin stream of the warmed syrup onto her. Warm?
Danny grinned. "Wonders of the microwave."
Oh, my. Anticipation curled within her. Curious as to how far he would take this, she sank back, even arched into the flow.
He drizzled higher up her body, closer, until with perfect aim, he tipped one breast, then the other. Her ni**les tightened under the teasing torment of the heated liquid and Daniel's unrelenting gaze. Her hand drifted up, her body languid.
She swiped a finger through the sugary red thread, traced the hot length of him, tasted.
A growl tore from his throat. Daniel dropped the sheet and straddled her in a clean move. "Good morning."
And it was—for the first time in too long. She tore open a condom with lightning speed and sheathed him. "I sure do like the spin you put on breakfast in bed."
Daniel dipped a finger into the soupy preserves pooled in the hollow of her belly and drew a circle. Then again. Until she tuned in to the pattern of him swirling her initials against her oversensitized skin.
"I may not do romance well, 'Lise, but I do know about thorough, mathematical attention to detail."
"Details. I like your details."
"What else do you like? Maybe I could make a list of all the things I plan to do to you." He continued to write a veritable epistle on her body with bold fingers inking red strokes over her, all of her. "Or maybe you could make a list for me of everything you want, everything you need."
Playfulness lit his eyes, tinged with a deeper intensity, even an agenda of some kind. Just a byproduct of maturity? The old Danny blending with the new? Visions of him pulling the ring out of his pocket earlier edged into her mind with thoughts of the past and future.
The flicker of nerves tickling her stomach had nothing to do with syrup. While she might be finding her footing in regaining her sense of self, there was only so much a person could handle in a few short days.