All of You (16 page)

Danny hadn’t planned for this. He’d intended to bring her back here, get her settled, and go to bed.

Alone.

But the second Kat had stepped into his house, into his personal space, looking so fucking delectable…all Danny had been able to think about was getting closer to her.

“What was the question, again?” she whispered, eyes still firmly latched onto his lips.

Danny lowered his head until their faces almost touched. “How did that asshole at work impress you?”

Kat’s labored breathing, glazed eyes, and trembling lower lip were testing his self-control in ways it had never been tested before. Any remaining shreds of control were quickly wearing away, creating an internal panic the likes of which he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Danny wanted something very, very badly. Something he knew how to take, but not to hold onto.

Because he’d never tried to hold onto it before…because he’d never
wanted
to hold onto it before.

His first instinct was to push her away, but Danny was too twisted up to do much more than stand there like an idiot – trying to keep his mask in place, but knowing deep-down it didn’t matter because Kat had always been able to see through it anyway.

Kat’s wide hazel eyes lifted until they met his. “Danny?”

“Yeah?” he pushed past the fist in his throat.

Her eyes dropped back to his lips. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Way before Danny’s sluggish brain caught up with her words, Kat wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.

God
damn
, Danny knew he should pull away, but there was no chance in hell of that happening.

None.

Not once he tasted her and breathed in the warm, soft sigh she exhaled as she parted her lips. Not after her fingers curled into the front of his uniform shirt, clinging to him as he slid his tongue into her warm, sweet mouth.

Danny growled in the back of his throat like a feral animal, pinning her back flat against the wall and leaning the length of his body against hers. He buried one hand in her hair and wrapped the fingers of his other around her neck and chin, holding her face still as he sucked and nibbled her top and bottom lips, ran his tongue over their fullness and kissed the corners of her mouth.

Kat undulated against him, letting out a frustrated little sigh that made Danny’s vision haze over. When Danny’s tongue delved back into her mouth, Kat exhaled a contented moan and sucked at it greedily – one hand gripping his shirt like a vise and the other clutching at his right bicep – until Danny almost came in his pants like a fucking teenager.

One more lick, moan, sigh, or touch and it would have been Game Over.

He pulled back abruptly and stumbled backwards, lifting his fingers to his tingling, swollen lips and gaping at her.

“
What the fuck?
” he whispered more to the universe at large than the two people standing in his kitchen.

Kat’s eyes were as wide as his and her lips were every bit as swollen, the skin around them a light pink from rubbing against Danny’s whiskers. Her face and neck were flushed and her hair was wild from Danny grabbing onto it.

Kat looked marked.

By him.

Taken, somehow, even though it had only been a thirty-second kiss.

She was the most beautiful, terrifying thing he’d ever seen.

They stared at each other for a long while, the room silent except for their stilted, labored breaths.

Get away from her. Whatever is going on here is
fucked up
. Walk away.
Now.

As soon as he was certain his legs wouldn’t buckle under him, Danny wordlessly turned and headed up to his bedroom. Hands still shaking and his heart pounding hard in his ears, Danny quickly stripped his bed of its pillowcases, sheets, and comforter. He made up the bed with a spare set of cotton sheets and pillowcases, grabbed his favorite Bowling Green afghan off the recliner in his spare room, and spread it out on the bed.

He flipped the TV on and scanned the channels until he stumbled onto the Hallmark Channel, which he figured was as safe a choice as any. Danny gave the room another once-over before turning to walk out.

Shit.

Danny bee-lined it for the nightstand drawer, pulled out the reams of Trojans, and stuffed them into a shoebox in his closet. Finally satisfied it was as good as it was going to get, Danny made his way back to the kitchen.

But Kat wasn’t there.

He walked through into the living room and found her curled up and fast asleep on the couch. Danny’s chest ached watching her…

Kat was as vulnerable as he’d ever seen her and it made him want to pull her into his lap and hold her. She looked every inch the fierce little thing she was when she was awake, but asleep? Kat seemed…fragile, somehow. And it activated a protective instinct in Danny he hadn’t known he possessed before he’d met her.

Danny hooked one arm under her legs, wound the other around her back, and lifted her up against his chest. Kat stirred before, with a mind-fucking, soft little sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck and burrowed her face into Danny’s chest.

“
Aw, hell
,” he muttered, standing there.

Torn.

Danny finally lowered his lips to her hair and pressed a gentle kiss to her head, simultaneously huffing her scent like the creepy psycho he clearly was.

Yep, it had been confirmed: nothing had changed in the fifteen minutes he’d been in the bedroom. Kat still smelled like fucking heaven. And, sure as shit, her scent still had the power to rattle his brain and pump up his body.

That kiss – their mouths together, her body leaning into him, his hands buried in her hair – had been so powerful, so surreal, that Danny felt changed by it somehow.

Different
.

And not in a particularly good way.

Danny finally walked her up the stairs to his bedroom. He carefully laid her down on his side of the bed, removed her Converse and socks, and pulled the afghan up to her chin. He switched off the side table lamp, but left the TV on in case she woke up disoriented in the middle of the night and needed light to find him.

Danny gathered up the dirty linens from the bed, tossed them into the laundry room, and checked on Kat once more before grabbing two beers out of the fridge and popping the caps off on the edge of his counter. He dropped onto the couch, blowing out a hard sigh before propping his feet up on the coffee table, grabbing the remote, and mindlessly flipping through channels.

He downed one beer and made a serious dent in the second one.

Danny didn’t see any sleep in his near future. He was rock-hard, freaked out, and fighting a seriously overwhelming urge to slip into bed next to Kat and hold her.

Or fuck her.

Or, preferably, fuck her and then hold her.

And then maybe fuck her again.

And then hold her again.

And then…

Danny figured maybe if they screwed hard enough, for long enough, they could get this weird connection out of their systems and move on.

Because he was
not
looking to feel like this much longer. Had zero interest in getting any more entangled than he already had.

But, deep-down, in hidden places men like Danny feared to tread, he knew, with absolute certainty, that was not the way things were gonna go down.

And that he was utterly powerless to do anything about it.

‡

K
at’s eyelids fluttered
open. She slowly lifted her head from the pillow, planted her palms down on the mattress, and pushed herself upright. Still blinking sleep away, Kat took in her surroundings.

She was in a bedroom she didn’t recognize, lying in the middle of a huge, steel-framed bed, covered by a red and white Bowling Green blanket. The room smelled of Danny, which helped jog Kat’s fuzzy recollection of exactly why she was waking up in a strange bed, fully-dressed, at…

She glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

1:02.

Had to be afternoon, with the soft, gray shafts of light coming in through the wide-slat, white wood blinds covering the window.

Kat hooked an ankle on the edge of the mattress and scooted herself over. She swung her legs over the side, planted her feet on the ground, and – once she’d ascertained that her legs were working properly – stood up.

As she plodded down the stairs, memories of the stunt she’d pulled last night washed over her, making Kat want to grab her purse, head to Cleveland-Hopkins airport, and buy a one-way ticket to Mongolia.

Kat wasn’t so much embarrassed about the whole femme fatale-esque kiss she’d laid on Danny as she was her simpering behavior leading up to it.

He’d had her in the palm of his hand – had turned her entire body into a quivering, needy pile of mush with no more than a few hot looks and some velvety words – and they’d both known it. Sure, Kat had taken back a bit of the power when the urge to taste him had overridden all embarrassment and uncertainty and she’d kissed him, but still.

Horrifying.

Kat walked into the kitchen and, finding it empty, too, she called out, “Danny?”

When he didn’t answer, Kat checked the living room, called down the basement stairs, and finally peeked into the garage.

Danny’s car was gone.

“Huh.”

Kat ambled back into the kitchen, desperate for any coffee product she could find. A tented-up, white piece of paper next to a Dunkin’ Donuts cup on the kitchen counter caught her eye. She picked it up and read:

“Kat, I’m not a coffee-drinker, but I remembered you are. I ran through Dunkin’ Donuts and grabbed you this. There’s creams and sugars in the DD bag in the fridge. I know microwaved coffee kind of sucks, but I figured it was better than nothing. I’ll be back by 2. Hope you slept well. Danny”

If he’d been here, Kat probably would have laid another big ole kiss on him for this. If she was being honest, she probably would have done it without the coffee, but the coffee definitely clinched the deal.

After she’d warmed it up, added her cream and sugar, and plopped down on Danny’s couch, Kat reached into her purse and pulled out her cell.

Ten texts and two voicemails.

Shit
.

Stalking sisters, no doubt.

There was a voicemail from Gigi, checking on her, and one from Stellan, letting her know he’d gotten her text about not coming into work today.

There was a text from Fi, asking how her night had gone, and one from Carla, wondering if Kat could babysit next week. There was one from Pops, who had just recently learned to text. It bordered on incoherent, but Kat
thought
the gist was that he was looking to have a Scrabble fest soon. There was also one from Giovanni, asking Kat to help him with a Physics project.

Two texts were from Stella – one asking how she was feeling and the other a long-winded, exclamation and emoticon-riddled one going on and on about how much she, Nathan, and Gia – and the rest of the family – loved her and supported her and how Kat should really think about “following her heart,” “leaping without looking,” and “believing in fate,” whatever the hell that meant.

By the time she finished Stella’s novella, Kat was emotionally exhausted and more than ready for the three innocuous work-related texts from some guys in her lab.

The last text was from Danny.

“Hope you found the coffee. And that you slept well. Make yourself at home. Be back by 2. DM”

Damn it, he was a little sweet. And kind of thoughtful.

Better Judgment piped up.

Don’t think for a minute he’s doing or saying anything he hasn’t done and said to a ton of other “houseguests.” And don’t misinterpret his behavior any more than you already have. He’s a nice guy…to everyone, but especially women. Just because he said he liked stuff about you during a drunken gabfest, doesn’t mean
anything
beyond exactly what he said.

You once watched Nina give a passionate, rousing speech about her undying love and admiration for British punk band
Chumbawamba
after a night of drinking and card-playing a few years ago.

Drunk people say and do stupid shit. Period.

Although, Nina actually
was
a big fan of
Chumbawamba
, which only complicated the already jumbled up mess inside Kat’s head at the moment.

Kat decided to take a quick shower, because she felt gross and it would be a good distraction. Fickle Bitch Brain decided she would use the shower in Danny’s room, as opposed to the main one. Kat pinned up her hair, turned on the shower, and let out a long sigh as the warm water cascaded over her body.

Unfortunately, being naked in Danny’s house, in the shower he used every day, using the Old Spice soap that smelled like him, ended up being the opposite of a distraction.

She toweled off, put her clothes back on sans dirty undies (which she shoved into her purse) and headed back to the kitchen. She warmed up the coffee, popped the tab back on the lid, and dropped back onto Danny’s couch.