A Fool for You

So he met her gaze. “When I said you’re beautiful, I meant every inch of you. That includes this.” He stroked her thigh, down over the scar to her knee. There was nothing of her original skin there, some of it having been grafted from elsewhere during the surgery. “You’re beautiful here, too.”

“Danny—” His name was choked from her lips.

He stopped. “Am I hurting you?”

“No.”

He still didn’t take his hand away. “Do you want me to stop?”

It took her longer to respond this time. Hope shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

In the week she’d been back in town, he’d never heard her sound so unsure—not even when she was waving a box of pregnancy tests in his face. He kissed her thigh. “You don’t have to hide this from me, darling. Not anymore.” It hurt seeing it, but at the same time…it was part of her, and had been part of her for almost as long as she’d had an uninjured leg. If he couldn’t accept this, he had no business pushing her to stay.

When he looked at it like that, it was really no contest. “What do you do when it’s bothering you?”

“Daniel.”

He stopped and met her gaze. “What do you need from me?”

“We can have this conversation later. Right now, I want your mouth and hands on me and your cock buried deep inside me.”

There was no arguing with that. He didn’t want to. Hearing the words—the plea—out of her lips was enough to have him once again battling for control. You promised her you’d make love to her. Falling on her like a starving man isn’t going to cut it. He moved up to settle between her thighs. “Find something to hang on to, darling.”

Chapter Thirteen

Hope couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she was in bed with Daniel, feeling more naked than she ever had, or the fact that he was going to make love to her, or if her hormones had finally decided to revolt and just finish her off entirely.

Probably a combination of all three.

Daniel’s tongue on her clit slammed her back into the present. He kissed her there like he had every other part of her body on his journey south, like she was the most precious thing he’d ever come across. Like she was as beautiful as he kept claiming.

His hand drifted over her scar, and she tensed, but he didn’t stop what he was doing with his tongue, and it took a grand total of two seconds before she was too busy trying not to squirm to worry about his fingers stroking her jagged skin. She closed her eyes, but that only made the dual sensations more prominent. Hope hissed out a breath. “Danny, you don’t have to do this.”

“This is part of you.” He shifted, pressing a butterfly kiss to her knee, the most mangled part of her. There was no hesitation, and when she looked down her body at him, for once there was no guilt in his eyes. Just a slow appreciation that always seemed to show up when he had her naked. He’d looked at her like that when she was eighteen and, silly her, she’d been sure that would never happen again. Apparently she’d been wrong. He kissed her calf at the bottom of the incision they’d made for the knee replacement. “I said it before, and I’ll say it until our dying day—you’re beautiful, inside and out. You’re so damn strong, it humbles me. That car crash would have broken anyone else who went through what you did. I…” He paused, obviously struggling with the words. “You don’t need my validation, but I am so fucking proud of you. And I am so damn sorry that I missed out on the last thirteen years.”

He reached up and pressed his hand to her stomach just below her belly button. “I let my own head space get in the way of what needed to be done back then, and I promise I won’t do it again. I’m going to be here for you and our baby every step of the way.”

It was what she’d always wanted to hear from him. She wanted nothing more than to give in and relax and just believe, for one damn second, that he was telling the truth. There was no doubt he meant every word of it, but their past had left its mark on her, body and soul. She couldn’t help feeling that things, even as chaotic and insane as they were, were going too well and that the other shoe was about to drop.

“You don’t believe me.” He traced a circle around her belly button with his thumb, the light touch making her shiver. “It’s okay. I damaged your trust, and it’s going to take time to win it back.” He smiled, the expression showing one of the rare hints of the happy young man he used to be. “We have our entire lives ahead of us.”

“I…” There was nothing to say. He was trying. She was trying. Neither one of them could guarantee anything about the future or what it might look like. “Kiss me.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” He crawled up to brush his lips over hers, gentle and sweet and full of things she wasn’t ready to name. Except she already had, thirteen years ago. I guess I never really stopped loving Daniel Rodriguez. She pushed him onto his back and straddled him. It wasn’t a position she could hold indefinitely, but she could hold it long enough.

Hope reached between them and gripped his cock, squeezing until he inhaled sharply. There were too many things to say, none of them right, so she didn’t say anything at all. She guided him to her entrance and inside, sinking slowly, inch by inch, until he filled her completely. His hands on her hips urged her on, and she rode him, slowly, luxuriously, the building pleasure so sharp it almost hurt.

“Fuck, darling, this is as close to heaven as I’m ever going to get.”

She kissed him before he could say anything else, trying to draw out the feeling of weightlessness. It was no use. Being with Daniel, having his hands on her body, was just too good. Her orgasm swept over her, stealing any worries about the future, drowning her fears, and leaving only a wonderfully sated feeling in its wake.

He flipped them, pushing deeper yet, and kissed her. He maintained that contact even as his strokes became less smooth and his grip tightened on her. It was almost like he needed her to breathe, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was mutual. Hope clung to him as he came, a small part of her believing it couldn’t possibly get better than this.

But what if it could?

Daniel collapsed next to her and pulled her against his chest. She lay staring at the ceiling, a kernel of hope taking root in her chest. There were so many reasons why this would never work, but really, they only needed one for it to actually go the distance. She turned to face Daniel and ran her hand down his chest, needing to voice the realization she’d come across earlier. “I never stopped loving you. Not really.”

His eyes changed, sharpening like a wolf circling a fuzzy bunny. “I know.” He continued before she could process that he’d just Han Solo–ed her ass. “I’ve been holding a flame for you, too. I just never thought I’d get a chance—deserve a chance—to be with you again.”

That was the crux of the matter. He still blamed himself for everything that had happened. She wasn’t idiot enough to think that seven days were enough to change that. She had a decade of therapy under her belt and sometimes she was still caught by the random thought that maybe if she hadn’t had anything to drink, hadn’t been so wrapped up with the promise of a full night alone with Daniel, she would have convinced them not to drive back to Devil’s Falls that night. The guilt never lasted, but only because she’d had it pounded into her head time and time again that she couldn’t go back and change anything. That no one in their car had done anything wrong.

That the true fault lay with the other driver, the one who had veered into their lane.

Daniel hadn’t had the benefit of a neutral party telling him the same thing over and over again until he almost believed it. It would be a long, long time before she could make any headway with him—if ever. If she tried this thing with him for real, she’d have to face that. Trying to change him would only result in misery for both of them.

I hate that he’s been killing himself with guilt this entire time.

He stroked her stomach, his big hand stretching from one hip to the other. “It’s weird to think th

at there’s a baby in here. Aside from you being willing to cut someone’s throat for Greek yogurt, nothing’s really changed—and everything has.” The slow drag of his calluses over her sensitive skin made her shiver. “Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?”

She huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know. Fifty-fifty chance.”

“Yeah, I guess.” A wicked glint appeared in his eyes. “What if it’s twins?”

“Daniel Rodriguez!” She covered his hand with her own. “Why would you say such a horrible thing to me? You remember the Conley twins? I’m pretty sure their mother wasn’t the least bit crazy before she had them, but by the time they graduated she was about ready to commit herself just to get some peace and quiet.”

“Still.” He kept up his absentminded stroking, trailing his fingers across her stomach. “I wouldn’t mind being daddy to a little girl. I bet she’d have your get-up-and-go.” A small line appeared between his brows. “Though the thought of her getting into the kind of trouble we got into isn’t going to make me sleep better at night.”

“We weren’t that bad as kids.” They’d gotten into the same mischief that most teenagers in small towns across America did—bonfires, a little drinking, a whole lot in the way of flirting.

Daniel kissed her temple. “No, not too bad. But it’s different when it’s our kid.”

Our kid.