Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Danny
Usually, I bury myself in work when I need a distraction. Fortunately, there’s no end to the work for a documentarian. The minute you finish editing one section, there’s just another section. And the minute you finish one documentary, there’s just another documentary.
But most unfortunately, the very thing I need distracting from is also my work.
There’s no escaping Christina. Her sweet voice fills my home studio and her beautiful face flashes on every monitor as I cut and edit footage through my Saturday evening. And that’s nothing compared to the space she takes up in my head.
The kiss almost took me under. I’m not sure how a man is expected to go on paying bills and eating lunches and keeping appointments after a kiss like that. I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and lock her in my bedroom for as long as we could survive.
I would remember every second of that kiss even if I didn’t have it on video. But I do. Christ help me, I do. And so does Christina.
Her conflictions were crystal clear on her face. She wanted more, but she was also scared to want more. She wanted to follow me into my house, but she couldn’t move from the car.
I get it. I’ve been haunted all week by what she told me at dinner. The way her family groomed her to be a pure and submissive wife. The way sex was both idolized and weaponized and then became the very symbol of her family’s downfall.
But she said she made TJL because she wanted to live.
And that clip of us is pure, unadulterated living. I wanted her to see that.
I don’t think either of us could give up what we’ve come to mean to each other. But god do I want more.
And the thought of her getting that more from other men … I just have to compartmentalize the shit out of that.
My phone buzzes on my desk. I snatch it up, pathetically hoping it’s Christina.
We’ve still texted throughout this past week like usual, even though neither of us has mentioned the kiss again.
She’s become part of how I operate now—sharing snippets of my day and thoughts on what I’m reading and inside jokes.
Thankfully, I’ll see her tomorrow when we film a yoga class at a studio downtown; it’s been a very long week of not experiencing her laugh in person.
My heart sinks when I see it’s Charlie calling, not her.
“Hey, man,” I answer.
“Hey, are you home?” I hear music and laughter in the background.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I’m over at Delaney’s and we decided to get a Rook tournament going.
“Oof, are you asking me to come play Rook?”
“You know you and I are unstoppable as Rook partners,” Charlie says.
“I do know that, but I’m pretty deep into editing for tonight.”
“It’s Saturday. You can take a weekend night off.”
“I’m aware. Just like I’m aware you actually begged Delaney and the others to agree to play Rook so you’d have an explicit reason to invite me out.”
He sighs. “Okay, busted. It’s just the thought of you sequestered in your studio, sorting through hours of footage of the girl you’re falling for, who explicitly told you she wanted to sleep with men who aren’t you, is too depressing for me to handle.”
Fuck, when he puts it that way.
I rub my forehead. “Yeah, okay, that sounds really depressing.”
Charlie laughs. “So come over, man! We can play Rook or just hang out, whatever you want.”
This could be the distraction I need. Although part of me doesn’t want to be distracted from Christina. Which I immediately recognize is the problem and the very reason I need a distraction.
I blow out a dramatic breath. “Fine, you got me.”
“You’ll come?” Charlie squeaks.
I stand from my desk chair and make my way to the foyer to slip on my shoes that are by the front door. “Yeah, I’ll come. But I want to destroy some people in Rook. Like, decimate.”
Charlie’s booming laugh has me grinning.
My doorbell rings.
“Is that your doorbell?” Charlie asks.
I frown and move to the door. “Yeah. Maybe a late delivery?”
I open the door and—there she is.
Christina is standing on my porch, and over her shoulder, I see her car parked out on the curb. Her hair falls in loose waves over her purple peacoat, and her hazel eyes are bright and clear. Determined.
“Christina?”
In my ear where I’m still dazedly holding my phone, Charlie squawks, “Did Christina just show up at your house?!”
“Are you okay?” I ask her, scanning for possible injuries.
Her forehead creases. “No, not really.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Charlie asks.
“Charlie, I have to go.”
“I want details about this ASAP—”
I hang up the phone.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” I’m two seconds from panicking. If she’s hurt … If another person hurt her … Fuck, my hands are shaking.
“So I downloaded a hookup app and went out to use it tonight.”
My face goes slack as everything inside me deflates.
She swallows. “I did it because talking to you and kissing you and sharing life with you and watching that damn video one million times has made me absolutely certain that we are the opposite of casual. That if we really start something here, there’s no telling where it will stop.
And I’ve been terrified that something significant between us would define me or limit me in ways I’ve worked so hard against this past year. ”
I’m hanging on her every word. I have no idea why she’s here or why she’s telling me this. I have no idea where this is going. She may be about to crush me, and all I can think is how happy I am that she’s on my porch.
“So I matched with several people at the downtown bars tonight,” she continues. “To explore. To be casual. To prove that’s what I needed.” She laughs humorlessly. “Mostly to stop thinking about you. And they were … nice. Decently good-looking, I guess. One even made me laugh.”
She bites her lip and shifts her gaze downward for a moment. When she looks back up, her every feature is imploring even as she squares her shoulders fearlessly. “But I hated them. I hated them. I hated them because they weren’t you, Danny.”
My heart expands so rapidly in my chest, double, triple, quadruple its size, that it’s pushing the boundaries of what my body can contain. I reach for her before deciding to, snagging the edges of her open peacoat. Her hands pop up to grip my forearms from below.
“I still can’t be defined or limited,” she says as I slowly pull her over the threshold by her coat. She obediently shuffles toward me as I back into the house. “But not being with you is starting to feel like the limitation now.”
I pull her inside far enough to get the door closed behind her.
“So maybe we just do what feels right when it feels right and we can play things by ear—”
I suddenly change direction—slamming into her and shoving her back against the door. She gasps, her whole body going loose in my arms.
“Christina?” My voice is dangerously low even in my own ears.
Her head drops back to meet my eyes where I hover an inch over her upturned face. Every part of her is pressed tightly against me, and her heat radiates through the insufferable layers of fabric.
“Are you asking me to fuck you now, baby?”
She whimpers and her knees seem to give out. I press into her harder to keep her upright.
“Are you saying …” I bury my nose into her collarbone and run it up the length of her neck in one great inhale. My eyes roll back in my head at her dizzying scent, my cock straining painfully against my jeans.
I continue right in the soft space behind her ear, “Are you saying you’re finally ready for me to take care of this little waxed pussy?”
She shivers violently against me as her fingernails dig into my forearms.
I get her earlobe between my teeth and return the sting. “Say it.”
“Yes,” she breathes, chest heaving. “Yes, all of it.”
Desire and devotion grip me in an equal chokehold. She’s choosing me. In spite of her reservations and fears, she showed up at my door. This woman who not only sees but somehow prefers the real me. This woman who demands the real me by her mere presence.
I pull back to look at her, and she’s completely dazed: heavy eyelids, parted lips, quick breaths. And so fucking beautiful I may be losing my mind.
“All of it? That may take a while.”
She shudders, but before I can pounce, she wrenches one arm free and pats at her pockets. I give her just enough room so she can extract her phone.
“What’s this, Christina?” I ask, voice still deadly.
After only a few clicks, she flashes her screen at me with earnest eyes. It takes a moment to register what I’m seeing, but once I do, my heart swells violently with pride.
It’s test results, dated two months ago, clearing her from all STDs. She’s putting all she’s learned about safe sex into practice, even with our minds on the edge of oblivion.
“I’m still on birth control,” she manages. “And I haven’t been with anyone since these results.”
I kiss her brow and dig my own phone out of my back pocket. It takes a couple of minutes for me to log into my health portal and scroll to the results from about four months ago; she just breathes against me, our chests expanding and contracting in the sliver of space between them.
I show her my all-clear. “I haven’t been with anyone since these results, either.”
She blinks once, hazily, but then her bottom lip slips between her teeth and her breathing speeds up and that sweet blush flares across her cheeks.
I grit my teeth, slamming her flush against the door again.
And whatever she sees on my face has her dropping her phone completely to sink wild fingers into my hair, squeezing tight.
My stomach clenches and my cock swells unbearably.
I know, with blinding certainty, that I never want her to let go of my hair.
She manages a self-satisfied little smirk through her fog. Goddamn, this woman. I surge forward to claim that smirking mouth.
She opens wide for me, but gasps when I immediately shove my tongue in deep, too overcome with the need to be in her, part of her.
Her tongue tentatively brushes back against mine, like she hasn’t done this very much, if at all—and I’m so fucking turned on to be her sexual test subject.
She can experiment on me all she likes as much as she likes; in fact, I insist on it.
As I lick and move my lips against her in encouragement, she gets bolder.
She takes more and more charge with every slant of our mouths, tangling tongues with me and pulling me in tighter by my hair.
When I retreat to catch a breath, she plunges her tongue into my mouth, and my hips pitch against her on pure instinct.
She moans into me, low and undone.
This woman is going to come for me, and I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when she does. Something irreversible. Something permanent.
The taste of her mouth alone is threatening to destroy me. But I need more. I need to taste every fucking part of her. I need to crawl inside of her and never come up for air.
“Danny.” Her hushed plea at my ear is almost more than I can handle. I’m forced to grip my cock through my jeans with enough pressure to slow my roll.
“Tell me, Christina.”
She pulls my head back by my hair to meet her eyes. Through swollen lips and shallow breaths, the lust and longing darkening her sweet voice unhinge me entirely: “I want you. Now.”
I attack.