All of You

by Gina Sorelle

  “But…” Danny’s mind raced, trying to make sense out of what Stella was suggesting, but finding it impossible. “Why would she do that? I’ve told her over and over that I want to take care of her!”

  “Yeah, well, Kat’s not big on letting people take care of her, even if they want to,” Fi said, eyes rolling. “Trust us…we’ve all been down that road with her more times than we can count. I think you’ll agree when I say the woman can be a stubborn pain-in-the-ass sometimes.”

  Nina snorted. “Sometimes?”

  “Okay, all the time,” Fi conceded with a grin.

  “But she seemed like she was getting better,” Danny said, his brain still racing to figure shit out. “She used her cane all the time when I first met her. Now she doesn’t use it at all.” He reconsidered. “Except for whatever that was today.” Danny rubbed at his chin, thinking back. “And she didn’t say anything to me about it the whole time we were together. I mean, she said she was sore. And tired. But, hell, that didn’t seem weird, considering…” He glanced up to find the four of them eyeing his sudden discomfort with great interest.

  Well, not Nina. Nina looked like she wanted to rip out his carotid artery and strangle him with it.

  And not Gigi, who was still sniffling into the towel.

  But Stella and Fi appeared to be highly amused.

  “Considering, what, Danny?” Fi asked, smirking.

  But Danny’s mind had already moved beyond his and Kat’s frequent, often demanding sexcapades and back to her disease.

  “Why does she think it’s getting worse?”

  When Stella paused, a weird guilty look crossing her face, Danny’s throat tightened. “What?”

  “She fell last week at work,” Stella replied, wincing. “Hit her head pretty good against the corner of a cabinet and needed to be taken to the Emergency Room.”

  The first emotion he experienced?

  Heartbreak that Kat had been physically hurt.

  The second?

  Guilt that he hadn’t been there for her, even though he hadn’t known a fucking thing about it.

  And the third?

  Yeah, that third was a rapidly increasing relief and fucking ecstasy that there was a tiny chance in hell that what her sisters were saying was true.

  “When did it happen?” he asked.

  “Last Wednesday,” Stella answered.

  The night she was MIA for a while and then blew you off. The night she refused to see you and the night she got all huffy about needing space.

  The night before she ended it.

  Oh, my God…

  “Kat refused to call you or to let me call you. She said it was because she didn’t want to worry you over nothing. I could tell there was more to it than that, but she’s so damn hard to read,” Stella said. “I had no idea that she never intended to tell you…or that she would get so freaked out she’d break up with you over it.”

  “What happened, exactly?” he asked.

  “Her left leg gave out; she fell and cut the side of her head,” Fi said.

  “What the fuck,” Danny breathed out, head shaking. “How long was she in the hospital?”

  “They only kept her for a few hours. Just long enough to put in some stitches, get her an MRI, and a quick visit with her neurologist,” Stella replied.

  “Stitches?”

  Stella nodded. “Yeah, three.” She touched her fingertips to the side of her head, above her ear. “On the left side, right here.”

  Danny racked his brain. “But how could I have missed that? I saw her the next morning…”

  His words trailed off as he remembered everything that had gone down that morning.

  You missed it because you were so busy being paranoid, insecure, and fucking selfish to notice. So wrapped up in getting your own needs met that you couldn’t see what was going on right in front of your face.

  Too immature, idiotic, and pathetic to consider for one minute that something else might be going on…something that had nothing to do with you and your stupid ass baggage. Something huge that had everything to do with the feelings and well-being of the woman you claim you love.

  No wonder she doesn’t trust you to take care of her. No wonder she cut you out of her life. Not only are you unworthy of her love, you are too clueless and selfish to be trusted to do the one thing every man is responsible for regarding his woman: protecting her. Keeping her safe. Taking care of her when she cannot take care of herself.

  Noticing when her health is failing and – oh, yeah – when she has three fucking stitches in the side of her head.

  Maybe slowing down a little on the insane screwing so she can take care of her body properly.

  Danny’s mind raced back to a million little things she’d done and said:

  All the times she’d said she was tired and worn out.

  Her apologizing for not being able to do what other women could do.

  Her body giving out at the mall.

  Kat telling him he deserved a lifetime of love that was free of burdens.

  A hushed story Kat had once shared with him as they’d lain in each other’s arms in the dark…a story about her father’s suicide attempt. All about how her mother would have been devastated to know her death had almost destroyed the man she loved.

  Danny grabbed the back of his neck, head shaking as he remembered.

  Kat suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere breaking up with him.

  The devastation in her eyes as she’d done it.

  All those gut-wrenching tears.

  The things she’d said to him on Christmas slammed into him like a sucker punch to the gut.

  “But I just wanted you so badly…too badly to make myself walk away from you. So badly I couldn’t think of anything other than having you, Danny. Knowing it would hurt you, knowing it would destroy me…knowing it could never last forever.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” he breathed out, the self-loathing nearly choking him. “She pushed me away because she was trying to protect me.” Danny shook his head, one painful, clarifying realization after another washing over him. “Nina is right…I am the blindest motherfucker to ever walk the planet. And the most selfish and stupid, too.”

  Nina nodded emphatically. “Exactly.”

  Gigi shot Nina a hard look before coming over to pat him on the shoulder. “You couldn’t have known, Danny.” She squeezed gently. “Kat is very good at hiding things, always has been. We didn’t see what was going on with her, either – not until Nathan made some assumptions based on things Kat mentioned to him. Hell, she didn’t even call Nina and me the night she went to the hospital.”

  Danny looked at Stella. “Did she call you? Is that how you found out?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, she called me on the way to the hospital.”

  “She drove herself?”

  Stella paused, wincing again.

  “What?”

  “Ben drove her,” Stella said.

  His hands balled into sweaty fists.

  “Ben, huh?” Danny’s slow nods morphed into head shaking, lips curling into a tight smile. “Well, that just fucking figures, doesn’t it?”

  Of course Ben had driven her.

  Of course Ben had been there to take care of her.

  Of course Ben was there with her, bright and early, the next morning when Danny waltzed in like the clueless, useless asshole he’d always been. The jealous idiot who was too blind to see beyond the nose on his face.

  Ben is the better man, after all.

  Always has been. Always will be.

  It was too damn bad for Ben and Kat that Danny no longer gave a flying fuck who the better man was.

  Not anymore.

  The maelstrom of emotions swirling around inside his brain was too much for him to try to identify, process, and deal with.

  And so he acted.

  Danny straightened up, pushing back the chair as he stood.

  “Where are you going?” Nina demanded.

  “Where do you think
I’m going? I just found out the woman I love, the only woman I’ve ever loved and will ever love…the woman I thought I’d lost for good – loves me so much she broke her own damn heart to try and save me.” Danny dropped his hands on hips, let his face stretch into a shit-eating grin, and winked at Nina. “I’ve got a pretty little neck to wring…and a hot little ass to set straight.”

  Nina’s jaw dropped, Fi’s eyes widened, Gigi grinned, and Stella clapped excitedly.

  “Go get her, tiger!” Stella said. “And make it good, ‘cause I’ll be begging her for the details later!”

  Danny returned her grin and headed for the door, only to have Nathan open it and walk through first.

  He eyed Danny’s shit-eating grin suspiciously. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Danny clapped him on the shoulder a few times, raising Nathan’s brows. “It’s all good. The sisters explained everything.” He pulled Nathan into an impulsive, awkward man hug, with Nathan’s arms hanging limply at his sides. “Thank you, brother…for figuring it out,” Danny said quietly, tightening his arms just a little more. “And thank you for marrying Stella – for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because her sister saved my life.” Danny paused before really pushing his luck. “And thank you for everything you’ve done for me since we were eleven years old.” He grinned again. “You never let me say thank you or hug you, so I figured I’d throw that in there since I already have you here.”

  Nathan gave him a few stilted, hard pats on the back. “You’re welcome, brother,” he replied gruffly before dropping his arm and pushing Danny away. “Now get the fuck off of me and go take care of your business, fast. Kat is such a broken up mess I hated leaving her there alone.”

  “Yeah, well, no worries about that.” Danny released Nathan and pushed open the screen door. “I’ll be fixing her up good. Forever.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

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  Kat’s phone rang loudly in her hand, startling her. When she looked down and saw it was Danny calling, another massive surge of epinephrine threw her sympathetic nervous system into overdrive.

  Finger shaking, she hit accept. “Hello?”

  “Where. Are. You?”

  Her heart pounding fast, her breathing hard and heavy, and every muscle fiber in her body vibrating, Kat cleared her throat. She opened her mouth to answer, but wasn’t able to force any words past the dry tightness in her throat.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time. You choose not to answer and I’ll send every available squad car out there to find your ass – and, trust me, you won’t like what I do to it when they do,” Danny breathed out, the husky intensity of his voice sending a hard shiver down her spine. “Where. Are. You. Kat?”

  Kat swallowed again and managed to eek out, “At your house. In your driveway. In my car.”

  Danny exhaled a short laugh. “Oh, yeah? What’re you doing there?”

  “I, uh…” Kat picked at the stitching on the steering wheel and lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know…I…”

  She cleared her throat, not sure how or where to begin. Danny had already soundly rejected her once today and he was probably going to do it again before the day was done. But Kat had no choice; she had to try again. And she’d keep trying until Danny forgave her, because she now knew her life meant absolutely nothing without him in it.

  She cleared her throat again. “I’m not sure…”

  He scoffed. “Do you even know how much fucking trouble you are in right now, Kat? Do you have the slightest goddamn clue what I’m going to do to you when I get there?”

  Kat’s stomach flipped and her thighs clenched at the overtly sexual tone of Danny’s gruff threat. “What-what do you mean?”

  “Don’t move a muscle. Do not so much as look at that car door until I get there, do you understand me, Kat? I get there and your ass is anywhere but in the driver’s seat of that car and I swear to Christ you won’t be able to sit on it for a week – fucking MS or no fucking MS.”

  Kat wrapped her free arm around her midsection, trying to contain the hard shivers wracking her body.

  Through chattering teeth, she whispered, “I won’t move, Danny. I promise.”

  He scoffed again. “Yeah, we’ll see if you can manage to behave yourself just this once. You know, you haven’t been a very good girl lately, Kat…” Danny paused, voice lowering and tightening. “But that’s okay. I know exactly how to adjust your attitude. I know just what you need, no problem. And I’m coming to give it to you, sweetheart.”

  Kat’s hand flew to her mouth as her breath caught on a hard sob.

  He called me sweetheart.

  I never thought I would get to hear him say it again.

  I never thought I’d hear him speak to me in that sexy, loving way ever again.

  Kat squeezed her eyes shut tight, sending tears spilling down her cheeks – the pain, loneliness, and horror of the past week melting away until all that was left was her overwhelming need and love for Danny.

  And the now shocking, and seemingly real, possibility that he might actually be considering giving her a second chance after all the damage she’d caused.

  “You ready to get adjusted, Kat? ‘Cause I’m turning onto the street right now.” Danny exhaled a soft laugh. “If you’re gonna make a break for it, now’s the time, sweetheart. I’ll catch ya and it’s all gonna turn out the same way in the end, but now you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Kat caught sight of his car coming down the street and watched in the rear view mirror as Danny pulled into the driveway behind her.

  She saw his lips curl into sly grin – phone still in his hand as he stared back at her. “Too late.”

  Kat tossed the phone onto the passenger seat without bothering to end the call. A few seconds later, Danny was yanking open her door. He rested his left arm along the top of the open door, braced his right forearm across the top of the car, and leaned in, crowding her. Danny stared down into her eyes – hard and wordlessly – until Kat was squirming in her seat.

  “Step back and let me out, Danny,” she finally whispered. “Let’s go in the house and talk, okay?”

  He snorted. “I’m not taking so much as one fucking step away from you and nothing we do in the house is going to come anywhere close to talking.” Danny’s lips curled again. “Well, there will be a little talking – ‘cause there’s a thing or two I’ve gotta get straight – but you better believe it’s gonna be brief.” Kat’s breath hitched as his eyes dropped to her lips. When Danny’s eyes rose up to meet hers again, they were smoldering. “And after that, it’s gonna be nothing but pure, fucking filth, Kat. I promise you that.”

  Oh, God…

  Kat felt a massive surge of blood shoot straight to her labia, swelling them and increasing the dull internal ache she’d had since the moment she’d heard Danny’s gruff voice on the other line.

  Before she could respond – assuming she could have responded at all – Danny reached in and grabbed her, sliding one arm around her back and the other beneath her knees. A quick lift and step backwards later, Danny had her out of the car.

  Kat tightened her arms around his neck and buried her face there, way too elated to be back in Danny’s arms to be embarrassed by the presumptuousness of her behavior.

  The man basically just promised/threatened to screw her silly, anyway. It was probably a decent assumption he had no problem with Kat clinging to him.

  She closed her eyes and pressed her nose and lips to his skin, inhaling deeply as more tears of love, gratitude, and joy filled her eyes.

  Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God.

  A thought occurred to her and Kat lifted her head. “I need to grab my cane.”

  He stared down at her with a stern, knowing expression that tightened a few stomach knots. And, in that moment, Kat knew Danny knew…maybe not everything, but enough.

  It wasn’t too surprising, given he’d been left alone with her four crazy, loudmouth sisters without Nathan there trying to moni
tor and mitigate the shit-storm that had certainly happened as soon as Kat had left.

  Kat whispered, “We can talk about it all, but you need to grab the cane. Because I can’t walk without it right now.”

  He kicked the door shut hard and strode toward the front door. “Stella said you using it now has nothing to do with the MS getting worse…that it’s all because you haven’t been taking care of yourself.” Danny maneuvered until his hand could reach into his jacket pocket and retrieve his keys. He finagled to find his house key, slipped it into the lock, and turned it. “Which means you don’t need to be walking around any more than necessary until you build your strength back up.” As he pushed the door opened and crossed the threshold, Danny stared down at her, upper lip curling. “Which works out perfectly, because I’ll be keeping you on your back for a long, long time, sweetheart.” He paused, brow quirking. “Well, not just on your back, mind you. You’re gonna be on all fours, your side, riding me, and sitting on my face. Gonna be fucking you against the wall and bending you over every piece of furniture, too.” Danny’s lip curl morphed into a sensual, sexy half-smile as he eyed Kat’s mouth again. “And that’s just what’s on the menu today.”

  Danny kicked the front door shut and began walking toward the staircase. “Now, I know you’re run down and the MS has been acting up, but don’t worry…I got no problem doing all the heavy lifting, sweetheart. You’re just gonna sit back, let me do all the work, and it’ll all turn out just fucking fine.”

  As Danny started climbing the stairs, old familiar feelings of apprehension, doubt, and embarrassment crept back into Kat’s consciousness.

  How could you ever be what he wants? What he’s used to? What he needs?

  He says he doesn’t care about what your body can do, but that’s easy to say now when you’re still somewhat healthy.

  You’re learning to let go of your emotional limitations, but you will always have physical ones…ones that will probably get worse, until you can no longer satisfy him at all.