“We are,” he says, both of us knowing that this is a lie.

  Chapter Twelve

  Danny

  Izzy gingerly rests her head on the front of my shoulder, then pops up one more time. “You wore deodorant today, right?”

  “Come on.”

  “Just checking,” she says. But before she settles in for real, Izzy stretches her arms above her head, making the sexiest fucking noise I’ve ever heard. In the dim room, I can see the outline of her breasts jutting out with her stretches. Her back arching off the back of the tub. Does she know what that looks like? Does she know what that does to me? Pain in the ass or not, her shape is sexy as hell. An image flashes into my brain for a second, my fingers teasing that arced spine, my face having its way with those breasts. If she knew my mouth is watering, thinking about tasting her nipples, feeling the soft skin against my scruff, my fingers tracing the line underneath them where her bra may have left a mark…Izzy would shove me outside into the flooded ditch.

  She goes back to resting her head against me, but this time a little more on my chest than on my shoulder.

  My mind has a quick chat with my cock, warning it against any pop-up surprises. You’re going to behave yourself, little D.

  Izzy inhales a deep yawn. “Your arm will cramp at some point.”

  “Probably. But at least you’ll be asleep and not chastising me,” I tease.

  “Am I that bad?” Her words are slurred with drowsiness.

  A clump of her curls tickles my nose, giving me a perfect excuse to brush it away from my face. And smooth it down across her head gently. “Yep,” I say.

  She chuckles, then nuzzles deeper into me, now turning her body toward me. “’ Kay.”

  I should stop touching her hair. But I don’t.

  Soon, I’m no longer simply petting her locks but blatantly weaving my fingers into her waves. Just my luck, I’ll get tangled while she’s asleep, and then she’ll wake up and punch me in the lungs. I would deserve no less.

  The next thing I know, I’m straight up sniffing her hair. Yep. I’m that creep. Citrus and something flowery. Honeysuckle. I smell that whenever I work in Miss Ernestine’s yard every Wednesday, and her yard has a whole border of those flowering trees along one side.

  There’s no way Izzy is asleep yet, and yet I’m not done sniffing. She sighs and turns entirely on her side, sliding her arm around my middle. Wow. I was fully expecting to be rejected by now.

  I go deeper, nosing through her thick hair, inhaling her scent into my lungs. I close my eyes, and I think of sunshine in my bedroom window on a Sunday morning. No work, just a full day of fun and laziness and comfort ahead of me. Maybe a quick yank before stumbling out of bed to refill the bird feeders.

  Wow, am I an unrepentant ass or what? Can I not think about getting my rocks off for two seconds?

  And the answer to that is no. I will not catch a break because Izzy pulls away from me and does some strange shimmy with her top and her sleeves, and…what the hell?

  “Mmmm, I gotta get outta this stupid bra.” She pulls something out of the sleeve of her shirt and tosses it into the hallway, sighing. “There. Better.”

  Oh, my shit, she’s now braless and fully fitted against the entire length of my torso: her head on my chest, her arm flopping over my middle, and her warm, newly freed breasts softly nudging my ribs.

  “Are you okay? Your heart is beating like you just ran a marathon,” she murmurs.

  I speak low into the warm tangle of her hair. “No. Not okay. You’re kind of making me crazy, pressing your tits up against me.”

  Unexpectedly, she sits up and looks into my eyes. Even in the dark, I can see that they’re wide awake. “Well, fine, if you don’t like it. I’ll leave you alone and go to my room.”

  Wait, what is happening? Izzy untangles herself from me and steps out of the tub.

  “That came out wrong, Izzy.”

  “Interesting pattern you have there,” she snarks, struggling to climb over the mattress, headed for the door.

  Shit. This is not how it was supposed to go. I can’t sleep with her wrapped around me without thinking about banging her, and also, I can’t tell her she’s turning me on without offending her.

  I don’t think I can win with this girl, except for one thing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Izzy

  “Wait,” Danny says.

  But I’m not waiting. I’m not here for a dude who says I make him crazy. I thought there was something between us, but I guess I was wrong. I’ve embarrassed myself.

  I forget that my full-size mattress is spread out on the bathroom floor. There’s a gap between the tub and the edge of the mattress, which I step right into, tripping clownishly over the edge and falling facedown with an “oof!”

  “Izzy!”

  Physically, I’m uninjured, thanks to the soft landing. Mentally, I’m embarrassed all over again. “Shit, that’s not the exit I planned.”

  “Wait, Izzy.”

  Before I can stand up and declare I’m fine, though, Danny is there. Not just on the mattress with me, but over me. Around me. I gasp in shock at the brazenness. My body reacts with a fiery annoyance to the barrier of his arms and legs caging me in. I try to roll over to stand up, but I can’t move. He’s trapped me. Agitation ratchets up to perturbed, bordering on anger as my hands shove futilely against arms like steel.

  He laughs at my struggling, and now I’m outraged.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Pinky?”

  I don’t know what that nickname’s about, but I’m not going to hang around to find out. “To my room.”

  “Nope.”

  Grunting as I shove pathetically at his legs with my socked feet, I feel his breath on me, his arms closing in around my shoulders. “What are you doing?” I spit out through gritted teeth.

  “Keeping you still, so you listen to me. For once.”

  The amused edge in his voice makes my blood boil. My traitorous sex doesn’t register any red flags, though. If my neglected pussy detects any flags, it’s one with stick-figure visual aids on how to wrap my legs around this towering beast and get to grinding. I should probably seek therapy for these contradictory urges.

  “Make it quick before I knee your nuts up into your abdominal cavity, Danny boy.”

  He chuckles. It’s maddening that he finds this so funny. And yet, I feel a heated rush of need, dampening my underwear.

  “Quite a picture you paint there, Pinky. Now listen to me.”

  Fine. I’ll listen. But I’ll also notice how, with his elbows slotted against my upper arms, his fingers touch my hair. Having my hair touched and petted is my kryptonite; if he starts with that, I’m sunk.

  “I didn’t mean to make you think that I think you’re crazy. I meant to say you’re making me crazy hot. And I don’t want to take advantage of a vulnerable girl alone in the middle of a blackout. But you’re making it real hard to go slow.”

  I try to distract him from talking about this subject, hoping he’ll let up his grip on me. “Why do you keep calling me Pinky?”

  “Your jacket. The first thing I noticed about you was that your jacket was soft and satiny and pink and…touchable. Despite the words coming out of your mouth, all I could see was soft curves, and I wanted to touch them, and touch everything I couldn’t see but I knew was under there.”

  I smirk as I writhe against him. “Thanks for the lesson in object permanence. I’m going to bed.”

  “Your bed is right here. Underneath us. And it’s a hell of a lot more comfortable than your couch.”

  His voice drops low when he speaks now, and in the dim light, I can make out the way his brow arches. I’ve seen him do that before. It’s a dad look and a dad-in-charge type of voice. And I feel it resonate in the unexplored territories of my body. The walls of my sex clench against a lonely ache, my folds tingle with anticipation, and my clit…good god, how does he provoke my clit to react without touching it? I push back against unwelcome thoughts—I want to do rude things to this landscaper. I want him to do atrocious things to me. I want him to spread me open and wreck me. I want to find out how nice those long, thick, fuzzy legs of his feel against my soft, smooth inner thighs. I want to use his body. I want to use my pussy to muffle his words and wipe that cocky grin off his face. Make him beg for mercy. I want him to take control and plant my legs on his shoulders and fuck me with his mouth.

  “I’m not convinced of that. See, there’s a big dude in here who’s probably a mattress hog.”

  It’s then that I feel his lips just barely brush my cheek. “You won’t be sharing. You’ll be exhausted and sleeping on top of the mattress hog.”

  At that moment, I lose all remaining scraps of decency as my pelvis rolls upward to meet his. “Thought you said you wanted to go slow,” I say.

  Growling, Danny takes both of my wrists in one big fist, pinning them above my head. “This little wrestling match you’re putting me through is making the slow route impassable. The only way forward is straight into the storm, or we abandon this ship altogether. What’s it gonna be? You gonna keep rubbing that flimsy little vee neck tee shirt and braless titties against me, or am I gonna rub this problem out myself, alone, on the sofa?”

  “Gross,” I whisper weakly, though I don’t find it gross at all. The image of Danny alone on my vintage teal love seat, his long bare legs slung over the doilies on the armrests, with my granny afghan spread over his lap, shorts yanked down, teeth gritted, forearms rippling, face strained, pumping himself because I wouldn’t let him get it in me…the only thing gross about it is how much I love knowing he’s that frustrated with me. I would wash that blanket in the morning with a shit-eating grin on my face, and then I would cook him a farmhand’s breakfast to say thank you.

  The tight grip on my wrists is quickly becoming too much for me. Every neuron in my brain seems to disagree on what should happen next. This is fucked up; no way do I let a man pin me to the bathroom floor. Or a mattress. Or a mattress on the bathroom floor. And yet…and yet…I like this. I like the struggle. My sex thinks we’re playing. Play-wrestling in bed like a couple of horny 16-year-olds. The unyielding manacle of his long, strong fingers sends a flood of heat to my sex.

  I writhe under him, pushing against his grip, my hips sliding up and down against his. A low growl escapes his throat while his lips feather the shell of my ear, then my cheek, and then my jaw. He’s so close; all I would have to do is angle my face just a hair to the left, and we’d be…

  Kissing. Oh, my. There he is. And there I am. And we’re kissing.

  I’ve thought about this before. Imagined it. All those times I sat in Ruby’s Diner, listening to the Fate town council talk about god knows what, trying not to be too obvious about cutting my eyes at Danny Bryce. I’d always sat at the table that lent me a view from behind. Those broad shoulders, that deep voice. That officious way he conducts the meetings, wrangling people to stay on topic. He always sits in the same chair, and so did I. I knew if I sat anywhere that I could see his face, I wouldn’t be able to stop stealing glances. I’d be caught for sure.

  He may have a smartass mouth, but those lips are behaving quite nicely when pressed against mine. Danny’s kiss is intense: slow and sweet at first, then growing deeper and more passionate the more I kiss back. Every move I make under his body seems to trigger him to go deeper. When he nudges my lips apart with his tongue, I welcome it in with a gasp and a small moan I can’t seem to control. He answers with a self-satisfied hum into my mouth. He’s loving this. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction that he’s got me right where he wants me. But every inch of my body wants to surrender. I could let my legs fly around him and grip him like a vise, demanding he give me what my body craves.

  But no. He needs to work for it. I want him to push me.

  And push me, he does. With his free hand, Danny caresses from my gathered wrists, all the way down my side, stopping at my hip. An innocent petting that nevertheless thrills me, building expectation for something less innocent. I rock into him, slowly sliding the inside of my leg up the outside of his, all the way until I’ve got one leg hooked around his hip.

  He groans as his tongue works over my mouth—sloppy and wet. Needy. So needy and so deep, I almost can’t breathe. And then the rubbing. Our pelvises fused, we grind together, building a rhythm that I know for a fact can only end with Danny nutting inside my brother’s high school basketball shorts. And yet it’s okay. If that should happen, I’ll do them both the courtesy of tossing those old things out.

  All of a sudden, Danny pulls back from the kiss and speaks. “Will you be a good girl if I let go of your wrists?”

  “I’m a grown-ass woman.”

  His free hand travels roughly to the waistband of my leggings, where he worms his way in. I gasp at the warm, firm sensation against the skin of my pelvis. HIs two fingers delve into my soaked slit, and I bite down on my lip to stifle a cry. Buried in my folds, Danny curses. “Shit yeah, you’re a grown-ass woman. You’re soaked.”

  And he’s making me more soaked the more he explores. My clit throbs, begging to be touched, but he’s only making wet circles around it, briefly nudging as he has his way. I’m not going to ask for it. I refuse. I don’t want to come just yet. I want to see his bag of tricks first.

  Working so hard not to voice my body’s demands, I bite down on my bottom lip, groaning deep in my throat.

  “And are you gonna be a good little grown-ass woman and not run away if I let go?”

  I should kick him out of this bathroom. But what I should do and what I want to do are on polar opposite ends of the spectrum.

  And just like that, I no longer care about any of it. He can call me Pinky. Good girl. Baby girl. I don’t give a fuck, as long as he keeps wiping away the dust that has settled around me. As long as those words, those touches, those kisses, continue to wake my ass up, I’m here for it.

  “Anyone would be a fool to run away after getting kissed like that.”

  I’m staring up at the devil himself in the dark; I must be because the next thing he does is lift his wet fingers to his mouth and suck off my juice like a goddamn lollipop.

  Oh my god.

  “Good answer, baby. Because I need two free hands for what’s gonna happen next.”

  I swallow, my mouth nearly drooling. “Wh-what happens next?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Danny

  I didn’t come here with an expectation to kiss her.

  I came here expecting us to hash out this misunderstanding and maybe leave on good terms. And maybe, maybe down the road, meet up again for a friendly meal.

  But my body has taken over, and now it’s all I seem to want to do at the moment. It’s been so long. Years. My heart feels like it’s been impaled on a stake, and putting an end to kissing her would be like pulling that stake out of my heart and watching me bleed out.

  Her tiny, soft breaths against my cheek heat my blood, and all I want to do is lie here on the mattress on the bathroom floor, in the dark, forever.

  This time, when my mouth runs away from me, it’s for a good reason and not a smartass one. “What happens next is I’m going to taste your pussy, Izzy. I’m going to eat you so good, and you’re gonna come on my face. Can you handle that?”

  I let go of her wrists slowly. In the next moment, my little Pinky fists the front of my shirt, pulling some of my chest hair along with it. “Now, you listen to me, Danny Bryce. All I’ve been thinking about all night is suffocating that smart mouth with my pussy, so yeah, I can handle it. As long as you know how to put your money where your mouth is, big talker.”

  I have to hold my breath before I nut too soon. This little spitfire? Who does she think she is? She probably thinks we’re just fucking around. Well, we are doing that, but what she doesn’t know is that this time next year, I’m gonna be fucking her in this same bathroom while she wears my ring on her finger.

  She makes me so crazy, I don’t know whether I want to howl like a dog, curse, crush her body against mine, shut her up with my kisses, talk to her all night, rut her so good she’s ruined for anyone else, or make her come with my tongue so many times in a row she rips out fistfuls of my hair. Some combination of all of the above, please and thank you very much.

  And that taste of her on my fingers. Fuck. Sweeter than peaches in summertime and juicer than watermelon. I can’t wait to feel her drip down my chin.

  That’s it. No more words.

  Tugging off her leggings and underwear should be a slow, seductive move, but there’s no time. I’m taking what I need right this second.

  “Ugh,” she mumbles. “I wore the wrong undies for this. Sorry about the white cotton grannies.”

  I don’t know why the fuck anyone cares. She could be wearing bloomers under her clothes, and I wouldn’t give a fuck as long as they were quickly removable. Or fuck-through-able. I’m a simple man. Any way I get to put it in with Izzy, I’ll take it.

  Her legs are locked together. Whether that’s out of nervousness or having second thoughts, I can only guess.

  “Spread for me, Pinky.”

  “You want it so bad, you do it,” she replies.

  “You’re a bratty little thing for a grown-ass woman,” I say, shoving her knees apart and diving in.

  Little Izzy bleats out some kind of animal noise that’s half gasp, half moan as I bury my face between her folds and devour her. My peach, my soft, delicious, spicy treat. I feel Izzy’s hands go to my head and clamp down against my hair. Her tugs and her squeaks guide me like I’m the freaking chef in that Pixar movie with the pet rat chef. This is the sort of comparison that will land me in trouble, so it’s a good thing her pussy has my mouth right where she wants me. Oh sure, she can pretend she’s making me do all the work, but she’s into it. I don’t know what I did to deserve this feast of a woman, but she’s got my tongue hooked on her taste. I gently nip at her sensitive wet folds, hum against her skin, familiarizing myself with every spot and every contact that makes her squirm, clench, and dig her fingers into my scalp.