by Katee Robert
She resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest, but only barely. “I think I like you better when you’re being irrational and pushy.”
“It’s a hell of a lot easier to say no to me when I am.” He sounded too freaking cheerful for her blood pressure. How was he acting so calm when their entire lives had gone topsy-turvy? Unless this is what he wanted all along…
She shut that thought down real fast. This was an accident as a result of two consenting adults. She was as much to blame for the error in judgment as he was. Lord, she should be happy that he wasn’t freaking out and blaming her and acting like this was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. “Daniel…”
He reached over and took her hand, the shock of his skin against hers stealing her breath. “We’ll figure this out. I know it’s not how you had your life planned out, but this is where we’re at. It’s not going to be easy, but what about life is?”
Too reasonable. Something is up.
She extracted her hand, because she couldn’t quite think straight when he was touching her, and turned to look out the window. All the words coming out of his mouth were right, but there was something off about the delivery. It was like he knew the steps to go through but he didn’t really believe that it would be that easy any more than she did. “I don’t…I don’t trust you anymore.” It hurt to say that aloud, but it was necessary. Everything had changed, and that lack of trust was the most damning part. Hope took a deep breath. “I’m not staying. End of story. So whatever you’re planning, knock it off.”
“What makes you think I’m planning anything?”
Because he was too calm, too settled, when a few short hours ago he’d been totally and completely out of control. That switch didn’t flip without a good reason, and she hadn’t agreed to anything he wanted. Not really. She was leaving and that was that, and the fact he was so calm about it didn’t sit well with her.
It all added up to trouble.
Even if she didn’t know the specifics, she was smart enough to see which way the wind was blowing.
Chapter Nine
Daniel spent the next hour walking on eggshells. He knew he’d pushed Hope too hard that morning, and he was determined to figure out a better way to convince her that staying with him was the only option. Every single thing he said was the wrong thing, and he didn’t know how to fix that. All he knew was that if Hope left in a couple days, she wouldn’t be back.
So he gave them both a break and went outside to let Ollie run for a bit. The pup was in her element, running circles around him and then darting off to chase phantom animals, racing back and then starting the whole process over again. She, at least, didn’t plan on leaving him the first chance she got.
Ollie barked again, wondering why he’d stopped playing, and he crouched down to ruffle her ears. He’d never considered himself underhanded before now, but he’d do worse than mess with Hope’s car to get her to sit still long enough for him to find the right words to get her to stay.
Can’t convince her from out here. He pushed to his feet and headed for the door, Ollie on his heels. Daniel opened the door—and then stopped when he heard humming deeper in the house. He sat down on the mudroom bench long enough to yank off his boots and then went in search of her. The living room was empty, but he found her in the kitchen, her phone set up to play some funky music he’d never heard before, her hips shaking as she moved around the stove, dumping ingredients into a casserole dish.
This could have been my life.
It still could be.
Without thinking, he crossed the distance between them and slid his arms around her waist. She went still as he rested his chin on the top of her head. “Damn, darling. I missed you.”
“Danny—”
He turned her in his arms and framed her face with his hands. “We talk too much.” And they never solved a damn thing doing it. Then he kissed her.
She went soft against him, her hands sliding down his chest to grab his hips and pull him closer. That was all the invitation he needed to tip her head back and deepen the kiss. Shit might be fucked up beyond all reason when it came to them, but at least they still matched up here.
Today she wore those damn yoga pants again. It didn’t matter to him that he could see the ridges of her scar beneath the thin fabric, because they gave him a heavenly view of her ass whenever she turned around. And the stretchy fabric was more tease than barrier. He reached between them, rubbing the heel of his hand over her clit. “What do you say?”
She blinked at him, her brown eyes hazy with lust. “What?”
“This thing.” He kept rubbing her, shifting so he could press a knuckle on either side of her clit, stroking up and down slowly. “I want inside you, darling. I want it so bad, it’s been driving me fucking crazy.” Her breath hitched, and he pressed his advantage. “You want it, too. You’re so wet, I can feel it.”
“I…” She bit her lip. “It’s a mistake.”
“Probably.” Definitely. “But what’s the worst that could happen?”
Her smile was bittersweet. “It’s already happened.”
Part of him hated that she thought getting pregnant was the worst thing that could happen, but now wasn’t the time to start fighting about it. He’d have to show her that this was a second chance in disguise—a way to make things right once and for all—and the only way to get her to sit still long enough was an orgasm-induced coma.
It doesn’t hurt that you’ve been in a permanent state of blue balls since you saw her last.
No, it didn’t hurt one bit. Everything else might have changed, but he wanted Hope more than he wanted his next breath.
He slipped his hand into her pants, resuming the motion that had her quivering in his arms. “Might as well take advantage of me, then.”
“Take advantage of you?” Her voice was a little breathy, but she managed to keep it together. Mostly.
“Mmm.” He skimmed off her shirt, dropping it next to them and cupping her breasts. “Fuck. When I fill you with my cock, I want you naked. I want to see these beautiful breasts bouncing with every stroke.”
“Arrogant.”
“Realistic.” He stroked her nipples with his thumbs, watching her face. “You know you’re craving it. I bet you’ve been touching yourself remembering that night. Coming with my name on your lips just like you did then.”
Her fingers dug into his biceps. “I hate you more than a little bit right now.” She arched, pressing herself more firmly into his hands. “But I don’t really care.”
“Say yes.”
“Yes.” It was barely more than a whisper, but it might as well have been a yell with how the word reverberated through him.
Daniel spun her around, keeping a hold on her hip to make sure she didn’t stumble, and shoved down her yoga pants. He reached between her legs from behind with one hand. “Christ, do you ever wear anything other than yoga pants?”
“Not when I’m lounging around the house, you jackass.”
He delivered a stinging slap to her ass—more to get her attention than anything else. “When did you get so mouthy?”
“Right around the time you got so damn bossy.” She braced her hands on the counter. “Now take me before I change my mind.”
Daniel stroked a hand down her spine and palmed her ass. He undid his belt and jeans with his other hand. “How many times?”
“What?”
He pushed his jeans down and notched his cock at her entrance. “How many times have you fantasized about this?”
“Since we last had sex or since I was eighteen?”
The words hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. He sheathed himself to the hilt, using his hold on her hips to pull her back onto his cock. “Both.”
She squirmed, breathing hard, but he wasn’t about to let her move until he was damn well ready. Hope muttered a curse that made him smile despite everything. “A dozen times to the former, impossible to count to the latter.”
He felt like crowing with a vi
ctory he sure as fuck didn’t deserve. So he started moving, sliding out of her almost completely before slamming home again. “I’ve thought about you, too, darling. Over and over again, palming my cock and imagining it was your tight little pussy wrapped around it instead. It doesn’t fucking compare. Nothing—no one—compares to you.” He reached around to rub on either side of her clit, his mouth against her ear, his chest pressed against her back. “You want to know why you couldn’t stop thinking about me?”
“No.” She shoved back against him, taking him deeper.
He licked the shell of her ear. “It’s because this pussy is mine, darling. It always has been. It always will be.”
“I…hate…you.”
Daniel hitched her higher, running his free hand up to cup her left breast, pinching her nipple lightly. “Doesn’t change a fucking thing. Now be a good girl and come for me.”
He pressed three fingers hard against her clit and that was all it took. She cried out, her pussy spasming around him and her entire body shaking. He leaned back to grab her hips, pounding into her, chasing his own orgasm. Pressure built in the base of his spine, and though he tried to fight it off as long as he could, it was just too fucking good. He came so hard his knees buckled. “Holy shit.”
And then there was nothing to do but lean against the counter, covering her, and relearn how to breathe.
Hope didn’t give him much opportunity. She ducked out from beneath his arms and yanked her pants back into place. “You…I can’t…God, I hate you.”
He turned his head to watch her snatch up her shirt. “You’re welcome for the orgasm.”
“Don’t start that crap with me. I agreed to sex. I did not agree to you doing the equivalent of peeing on my foot. I am not yours, Daniel. I haven’t been for a long time and I never will be again.”
…
Hope was so furious, she could barely think straight. How dare he? And she’d walked right into it, which was the most unforgivable part of the whole mess. She shoved out the front door, making it a whole three steps before Ollie rushed around the side of the house, barking happily. The dog ran circles around her, making it impossible to take a step without worrying about stepping on her.
Good lord. The dog was attempting to herd her back into the house.
She propped her hands on her hips and glared. “I know what you’re doing, and I don’t appreciate it any more than I appreciate what he’s doing.”
“Careful there—you’re going to hurt her feelings, and I’ve never seen a canine that can mope quite as effectively as Ollie.”
Deep down, she’d known that he’d follow her out here. She needed time to wind down, and Daniel wasn’t going to give it to her. He’d just keep pushing and prodding and steamrolling until she either caved or exploded. Right now, the latter was looking pretty damn attractive.
She spun to face him. The fact that he looked rumpled and sexy only made her crazier. It would be so incredibly easy to stop fighting and let him steamroll her. He wasn’t saying anything she didn’t want to hear. But that was the problem—she no longer trusted Daniel Rodriguez. A baby. A catastrophic leg injury. Both were world-altering events, and he’d dropped her like a hot potato after the first one. Who was to say he wouldn’t do the same thing after the other the second he stopped to think too hard about it? “You sicced your dog on me.”
“Sicced, huh?” He made a show of looking at the deliriously happy dog, which only made her want to stomp her foot like a toddler. Daniel raised his eyebrows. “Are you feeling threatened? Because Ollie here looks pretty fucking threatening right now.”
“Shut up.” He didn’t get to surprise her in the kitchen with mind-blowing sex, lay claim to her vagina, and then turn around and poke fun at her. “I need space.”
It was clearer than ever that this wasn’t working out. She’d shown up here expecting… She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. When she’d driven from Dallas, she’d been convinced he would say all the right things and then she could go back to her life, well assured that he’d be supportive in the way she envisioned. That they would be partners—long-distance partners.
Apparently that had been her delusions talking.
The truth was that Daniel wasn’t the only one to blame for things going south so quickly. She was too keyed up, and it was making her emotions flip-flop faster than even she could follow. If she’d told him to back off sexually, he would have. She was the one who’d made the first move. So the blame for that, at least, lay firmly in her court. Hope held up a hand. “Space, Daniel. Respect it or I’m getting in my car right now.”
He stopped in the middle of walking toward her. “You don’t get to throw that threat around whenever it pleases you.”
“Wrong. We aren’t dating, and we sure as hell aren’t married. I might be having your baby, but that doesn’t mean I’m yours.” She hated the way his mouth tightened with each word, but she needed to make this as cut-and-dried as she could. She’d been back in Devil’s Falls all of a weekend and it was more clear than ever why they wouldn’t work.
“That’s where you’re wrong, darling.” He leaned against the post of his front porch, looking for all the world like he wasn’t worried she’d leave. Like she was a sure thing. “You never stopped being mine.”
It was too much. She’d tried so incredibly hard to let go of the past and move on, but being back here and having him make claims on her he had no business making… She couldn’t do it anymore. “If I was really yours, you wouldn’t have left me in that hospital alone, Daniel. You would have been there when I woke up. You would have been at my side when we buried my brother. You wouldn’t have stared right through me as if I wasn’t there. You would have, I don’t know, returned a single phone call instead of letting me twist in the wind. I’d lost so much, and then you went and made sure that I lost everything.”
It hurt to say, like she was traveling back in time to that terrified eighteen-year-old girl who’d woken up an only child and watched her college track scholarship disappear before her eyes. She’d clung to the fact that at least she still had Daniel…except then she didn’t have him, either.
He flinched. “Darling—”
“Do not call me that.”
They stood there, staring at each other across a distance that should be easily crossable. If only he would take the first step, if only he’d been willing to bend just a little. He wouldn’t, though. Nothing had really changed.
Daniel straightened. “It was a mistake.”
“I know this was a mistake.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Back then, I made a mistake. Fuck, I made more than one. We went out that night and I knew I was the designated driver, and I still had two beers.”
Her eyes went wide. Surely he doesn’t still blame himself for that? “I don’t know how things are for you now, but back then two beers wasn’t even enough for you to catch a buzz.”
“I blew a point-oh-nine.”
“That doesn’t mean you were drunk.” She’d known he wasn’t drunk. In all the scenarios that had played out in her head over the years, she’d always comforted herself with the knowledge that Daniel had to know that that car crash was beyond his control. “It was raining like crazy and that truck lost control. You were trying to avoid a head-on collision.”
“Instead, I rolled the car, killed John, and crippled you.”
She jerked back, biting down on her instinctive response to that. This moment wasn’t about her. It was about him and the guilt that had been poisoning him for far too long. “No one could have done better. Everyone knows that.” Everyone except, apparently, Daniel.
But he wasn’t listening. He stared off into the distance. “How could I face you, Hope? We all loved John, but he was your big brother. He’d always suspected I wasn’t good enough for you, and that night I proved him right.”
“You’re rewriting history. Don’t you dare put the memory of John between us.” She drew herself up. “He might have been y
our best friend, but he was my brother. He wouldn’t have blamed you for the crash any more than I did. You made your intentions to marry me after I got through college pretty damn clear. He thought we were great together.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. “There’s no way you don’t blame me for that. It’s impossible.”
“Well, then pigs are flying, because I don’t. I never have.” She waited a beat, silently debating just letting this go. But it was like lancing a wound—it was time to get it all out there. “I blame you for abandoning me afterward.”
“I couldn’t face you.” He shook his head. “I might not have taken off like Adam did, but it was everything I could do to go to the funeral. It was bad putting John in the ground, but it was almost worse seeing you in that chair, looking like you had one foot in the grave. I just…I thought you’d be better without me in your life.”
He’d been mourning, the same way she had. The difference was that he’d only seen what he’d lost, rather than what was still left. Mainly her. Because of her leg, apparently. “If you couldn’t handle the thought of being with a cripple, then just say it. It’s fine—you didn’t sign on for that when we started dating. But don’t try to pretty it up like you were doing me a favor.” Suddenly exhausted, she wobbled over to drop onto the step next to where he stood.
He sank down next to her. “I don’t think you’re a cripple.”
“You literally just said that.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Bully for you.” She didn’t really want to talk about her injury. It was just another opportunity for him to wallow in decade-old guilt instead of focusing on the current issues. “My point, which we’ve stampeded away from, is that you are the one who ended us. Not me. So you don’t get to just decide that you’re picking back up where we left off. That’s not how it works.”
“Do you still love me, darling?”
Her breath stilled in her lungs, and her eyes went wide. The world tilted crazily around her like it had last time she had the misfortune of being on a carnival ride. She hadn’t liked the experience any more then than she did now. “What the hell kind of question is that?”