by Gina Sorelle
And it snapped the last tenuous strings of his patience and self-control.
“Okay. Yep. That’s it,” he muttered as he lifted her up into his arms with a soft whoosh and loud gasp from her. “Time to go, sweetheart.”
She clung to him, giggling against his neck, as Danny bounded toward the exit.
“Hey! Wait! Where are you going?” Gigi called out, trailing after them. “Don’t you want to say good-bye to everyone?”
Danny whipped around with a shit-eating grin on his face and waved at the entire room at large. “Bye, everyone! Thanks for coming! Kat and I really appreciate it, but right now, we’ve got a lot of husband and wife things to do! I’m sure you all understand, right?
Loud whoops and clapping filled the room.
Stella climbed on a chair, put her two fingers her mouth, and let out one hell of whistle. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Don’t do anything Nathan and I wouldn’t do!” Stella paused, grinning, and lifted a shoulder. “Which isn’t much-”
Danny, and the rest of the room, busted out laughing when a very stern-faced Nathan reached up and quickly pulled a laughing Stella off the chair and into his lap. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard, which he allowed – obviously finding it the lesser of Stella’s two evils.
“We better call Nathan and Stella later to make sure one of them hasn’t finally done the other in,” Kat murmured against his shirt, head buried in Danny’s shoulder to avoid the knowing looks, grins, and thumbs-ups Danny was getting – and returning – as he all but jogged through the lobby toward the elevators.
“Trust me, they’re gonna be too busy to answer the phone,” Danny replied, stepping into the elevator and pressing the button. As the doors whirred shut, Kat finally lifted her head from his shoulder and he leveled a hard, hot gaze on her. “And I’m gonna turn you so inside out you won’t remember how to use your fucking phone…gonna wear you out so hard you won’t be able to walk to go get it, either, so it works out just fucking perfect for us all, huh?”
Kat stared up at him, eyes wide and lips parted. “Promise?” she asked softly. Danny laughed. “Oh, I promise, sweetheart.”
When the elevator doors whirred back open, Danny stepped into the hallway and headed for their suite.
“Dammit, I really should have put that into the vows: ‘I promise to thoroughly and frequently fuck your gorgeous brains out for all the rest of our days.’” Danny halted, mid-hallway, lips curling as looked down to meet Kat’s eyes. “Actually, maybe I should head back down and announce that part to everyone – you know, informally. Just to make it perfectly clear.”
Kat smiled wryly. “I think that part was implied, Danny. No need for clarification on that one. Not with you.” She quirked a brow. “And they’ve been watching you stare at me like a starving man would eye a Porterhouse for almost two years. I’m pretty sure they can imagine the crazy sex you have in store for me.”
Danny stared into her beautiful face, at that smart mouth he couldn’t wait to listen to for the rest of his life and began shaking his head ruefully. “Oh, sweetheart…they couldn’t possibly know.” Her smile faded as Danny dug out the key card and slipped it into the door. He got it unlocked, kicked it open, and carried her through – a huge, lascivious grin on his face. “And neither could you.”
Kat gasped softly when she caught sight of the cozy, candlelit room he was carrying her into. “Danny…” He lowered her feet to the floor, but kept his arms wrapped around her waist as Kat turned to take it all in. “What did you do?”
Danny had requested to choose the room they’d spend this night in and Kat had been more than willing to let him surprise her.
And she was surprised at the beautiful, thoughtful scene surrounding her: two nightstands flanking the king-sized bed covered in red and white rose petals and tea light candles, a large stone fireplace across from the bed with a roaring fire already going, and last, but certainly not least, a huge, corner Jacuzzi tub – edges covered with more rose petals and tea light candles.
“I knew it would freak you out having some stranger set it up, so I had Stella run up and do it a little while ago.” Danny pulled her up tighter against him and nuzzled her neck. “Do you like it, sweetheart?” he murmured against her throat. “You know I wanted it to be perfect for you.”
“This is…” She stepped forward and Danny let his arms drop so she could walk farther into the room. Kat shook her head slowly, her throat tightening up at yet another incredible Danny display of romantic thoughtfulness. “This is just perfect, Danny. As usual. Thank you.”
She turned back to face him and her breath caught…
Because Danny was always hot, sexy, and too-gorgeous-for-his-and-everyone-else’s-good, but standing there in the soft candlelight – sleeves rolled up and hands shoved into his tux pants’ pockets and looking back at her with that hungry, adoring, grateful gaze of his…
Kat was suddenly having a very difficult time reconciling that he was truly hers. That she was now legally married to this kind, loving, intelligent, maddening, crazy, beautiful man. That she – despite her best attempts to push him away, screw everything up, and live out her life in self-imposed, controlled loneliness – was actually allowed to have him. Forever.
That she could accept his love without conditions. That she could love him without restriction. And that she could, without guilt or second thoughts, allow herself to plan a future with him, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere, because he wanted to be with her no matter what. That Danny would always choose her – them – over anyone and everything else, regardless of her baggage.
She walked toward him, right into his outstretched arms, and cradled his face in her hands. Kat searched all of it as she tried hard to put her feelings – maybe even some lingering fears – into words.
“I really get to keep you, right? For always?” she whispered, eyes welling as his expression softened even more and his arms tightened around her. “Because, all-of-a-sudden, this seems too good to be true, Danny. Like…like the last few months have all been a dream that I’ll inevitably wake up from. And you’ll be living your life and I’ll be living mine and none of this actually happened. That we’ll be strangers again.” Kat shook her head again, weird panicky feelings rising up out of nowhere. “It’s not rational and those kinds of worries make no kind of logical sense. Obviously I know that, but just the thought of not having you – not getting to keep you forever…” Her voice caught. “I don’t know if it’s because I am so overwhelmed with it all or maybe because I am emotional because of today.” Kat clung to him with all the strength remaining in her shaky muscles. “I don’t know why, but suddenly I am just so terrified, Danny, I’m sorry!”
A few seconds later, Kat’s back was pressed to the nearest wall and Danny’s mouth descended on hers. His hand came up to cradle the side of her jaw line and neck, holding Kat’s face still as his tongue invaded her mouth with a gentle brutality that turned her body to jelly and had her moaning loudly into his.
Danny pulled back from the kiss, but his firm grip on her remained as he locked their eyes. “First of all, we were never strangers – not after the moment we met. I was yours and you were mine and we were always going to end up this way…because we were built for each other, meant for each other…and it couldn’t have ended up any other way for us.” He paused, voice tightening. “But don’t you think for a fucking second that I don’t have the exact same fears, Kat.” Danny’s eyes searched hers with a desperation Kat found incredibly soothing, because she knew it was the same wild desperation Danny had surely seen in her eyes a few seconds ago. “You know I do. You know that’s why I wanted to marry you the night we got back together, so there wouldn’t be time to lose you again.” He paused. “But, as fucking thrilled as I am to be married to you, that piece of paper doesn’t mean shit, not really. People get divorced every day. They very easily undo everything they built together and go right on living like nothing happened. But I’m tellin
g you – I couldn’t survive losing you, Kat…” Danny shook his head, Adam’s apple working his throat like crazy. “I barely survived it before, but now…after all this…”
“That will never happen to us, Danny,” Kat whispered fiercely, eyes locked onto his and her hands gripping his biceps with all the strength her shaky muscles would allow. “Never. I promise you that.” Her eyes welled and spilled over and Kat turned her face into the palm Danny used to brush her tears away. “I will never forgive myself for instilling that fear in you, for creating that mistrust in me.” Kat turned back to face him and curled her fingers into his biceps harder. “But I promise you I will spend every second of every day of the rest of forever proving my love for you and earning that trust back.”
“We both know I’m an insecure bastard who would feel that fear no matter what happened. Besides, you don’t have a fucking thing to prove to me, sweetheart. I know you love me and will never pull any shit like that again,” Danny said. “I get why you did it the first time and I have complete faith that you’d never be so insane as to try it again.”
All the uncertainty and fear in his eyes vanished in the blink of an eye and was instantly replaced with raging lust and open adoration Kat knew so well. Her heart sped up, her knees weakened a little and her lips parted to accommodate her quiet pants.
Watching his own movements, Danny slowly dragged the pad of his thumb over her top lip and then her bottom. “Right, sweetheart?” he asked, his lips curling.
“Right, what, Danny?”
His grin deepened. “You’d never be crazy enough or foolish enough to try and push me away again, right?”
She shuddered beneath that hooded gaze, head shaking hard. “No, never.”
“You know I would never, ever let you go, right, Kat? That I would follow you from one end of the fucking earth to the other…that I would be relentless…because there is no way I could ever survive another fucking day without you, sweetheart?”
Kat inhaled sharply when Danny suddenly dropped to his knees in front of her.
“That I could never…” Danny reached for the hem of her dress, curled his hands around it, and looked back up at Kat with a sexy half-grin on his lips and a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Ever…”
He bunched and pushed the heavy fabric up until Kat felt the warmth of the room – and his hot, hungry gaze – on her bare legs.
“Go a day without seeing you like this, Kat…feeling you like this…”
Danny ran a hand up the inside of her left leg, eliciting a low groan from Kat when he failed to put it exactly where she needed it: the warm, damp, aching spot she was dying for him to fill – with his hands and his mouth – but mostly with the huge erection Kat knew damn well was straining against the front of those pants right now.
She leaned back against the wall and grabbed onto his head for leverage as Danny wrapped his hand around her ankle and very slowly began lifting her leg. “But mostly tasting you like I’m about to do right now, sweetheart.”
He hooked her knee over his shoulder, ducked under her dress, and froze.
“What the hell…”
Kat was confused until she felt his fingertips trace the front of her white panties – which had Property of My Police Officer spelled out in silver glittery lettering and a little silvery pair of handcuffs beneath the wording.
Kat’s lips pulled into a grin when Danny exhaled a soft laugh against her upper thigh.
He extricated himself from beneath her dress and grinned up at her, arms crossing over his chest. “Well, I was gonna make you come for the first time tonight standing right there, but those sweet little panties ruined that plan.” Danny lifted a shoulder. “‘Cause now I’ve gotta get a better look at them before I rip ‘em off of you.”
Kat’s brow quirked. “You’re going to like them even better from the back, Danny. I guarantee it.”
Eyes widened, Danny exhaled a strangled scoff. “Oh, yeah?” When Kat nodded, still grinning down at him, he gestured for her to spin. “Well, in that case, turn around and let me take a look…” Danny rubbed his hands together excitedly as Kat maneuvered her body around. “I’m more than ready, sweetheart. I haven’t seen that ass in forever and you know it’s fucking killing me.”
Kat laughed. “I was in Chicago for two days for the medical conference and we made love the night before and morning that I left. I wouldn’t call that ‘forever,’ Danny.” She smiled wryly over her shoulder. “And we had sex last night!”
“Felt like fucking forever to me,” he muttered, pushing up the back of her dress. “And last night didn’t count. You ambushed me in the dark and it was over way too fast before you snuck back out like the sexy-ass, ninja mindfucker you are.”
She laughed again. “I had four sisters and a sister-in-law hell-bent on not letting me see you, so I had to creep around like a ninja. I bet the guys manning the security cameras had a nice laugh over my stealthy hallway antics.”
Kat’s smile faded as Danny’s hands slowly slid up the backs of her legs. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, and her head dropped back when she felt his lips and tongue against the back of her knee. “But I had to see you…” Kat moaned softly as Danny began kissing up her thigh. “Because you were right, Danny,” she breathed out. “Those two days I didn’t see you did feel like forever. I missed you so much.”
“Nowhere close to how much I missed you. I damn near hopped on a plane and…”
Danny’s words trailed off as he pushed the back of her dress up far enough to read the back of her panties. The strangled laugh he barked out made her grin ear-to-ear.
“Frisk Me, huh?” He grabbed one cheek with his free hand and gently squeezed. “Your ass is lethal enough, but in these damn things…” Danny finger slid beneath the bottom of the panties and tugged them up a little. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you, sweetheart?” he breathed out before lowering his mouth and nipping at the fleshy part of her cheek.
“Oh, God…” Kat’s knees weakened when Danny continued licking, kissing, and nipping at it. “I’ve gotta lie down, Danny…my legs are shaky and, if you keep doing that. I’m not sure how much longer they’ll hold me.”
“But you can’t lie down yet,” he whispered against the flesh he’d just dampened with his mouth and Kat shivered.
“Why not?”
“Because these panties have given me a direct order to frisk you.”
Danny stood, letting her dress drop back down to the floor, and stepped in closer to her – putting his front right up against Kat’s back and leaning in…
He lowered his lips and Kat felt them curl against her ear. “And how convenient that you’re already facing a wall.” Danny reached down, grabbed her hands, and slowly lifted them to the wall in front of her. “Palms down flat against the wall where I can see them.” She did it and Danny exhaled a soft laugh in her ear. “What a good little suspect. So compliant.”
He stepped back so their bodies were no longer touching. When Danny didn’t touch her again or say anything for a few agonizingly long seconds, Kat glanced over her shoulder. “Danny?”
He grinned back at her, arms crossed over his chest. “Just a part of the psychological game, sweetheart. You get your suspect in a vulnerable position and let ‘em stand there for a minute…just so everyone knows who’s in charge.”
Kat managed a shaky scoff. “In charge, my ass.” She went to push off the wall, but, before she could move, he was caging her in – his hands on top of hers, keeping them against the wall.
“You’re damn fucking straight your ass is in charge,” he whispered just above her ear. “Your ass owns me. You know it, I know it, and everyone else knows it.” Danny leaned into her harder and every muscle in her body started trembling at the feel of his erection pressing into her lower back. “And that’s why I’ve gotta frisk you, sweetheart…” He removed one of his hands from hers and ran it over her butt before grabbing it. “’Cause your ass told me to, remember?”
“Well, hurry
up, okay, Danny? Because we really, really need to have sex. Soon.” Kat wiggled that much-discussed ass beneath his hand and Danny’s dick jumped. “Okay, Danny? So do what you’ve gotta do and let’s take this to the bed, because you’re making my head spin and my knees weak and I’m getting very impatient.”
That time it wasn’t even a jump…his dick was actually straining – pushing at the front of his pants – to get out and at her…
All coherent thoughts, plans, and ideas flew out of Danny’s brain as every instinct, every thought now centered around fucking the ever-loving shit out of his wife…which, apparently, paralyzed his actions, because, a few seconds later, he was still standing there – staring at Kat’s magnificent ass in that wedding dress and panting.
“Danny?” When he didn’t answer, Kat glanced over her shoulder at him. “Danny!”
“Uh, yeah?” he replied, head shaking.
“Are you frisking me or can we forget that and get right to having sex?”
Danny cleared his throat. “Yeah, see, the problem I’m having is, all I’ve thought about since I saw you in the church was fucking you in that dress. More than once, in more than one position. But now…” He grabbed the back of his neck and squeezed. “Now, all I can think about is how bad I want you totally naked. And now I don’t know what the hell to do – for the frisking or the fucking.”
Kat laughed. “First world problems there, Danny…whether to have sex with your wife in the wedding dress or out of it.”
Danny grunted. “It’s not my fault you’re so goddamn sexy I can’t think straight.”
“Well, how about this…” Kat pushed off the wall and turned to face him. “How about we do both? We can have sex for a little while in the dress and then you can take it off.”
He scoffed. “Once I start fucking you, I don’t think I’ll be stopping to take the dress off, sweetheart.”
“Then we can do it in the dress the first time and without it the second time.” Kat quirked a brow as her lips tugged into a half-smile. “Because you and I both know we’re looking at probably two or three rounds tonight.”