Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Christina
The house is still quite a mess, but Danny and I leave it for now. He just takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom.
The club was as wild and freeing as I hoped it would be.
And yet I still just wanted to be with Danny.
That unhinged, life-altering bathroom sex was so good because I knew the night would end here—in this bedroom of dark greens and grays, with our chargers and medications and books on the side tables.
The sexy outfits were so fun because I knew we’d be taking them off and switching into our regular sleep garb.
Throwing back shots was so enjoyable because I knew Danny would be fetching me a glass of water and Tylenol before bed.
He unzips my dress slowly. I shuck off his blazer and gingerly unbutton his shirt.
We climb into the shower, and he dips for me to carefully wash the product out of his hair. He washes my hair in turn, his fingers so gentle and soothing on my scalp. Eyeliner smears our faces until we finally clear it all away.
And then it’s just us remaining. Danny pulls me into him. His wet hair clings to his head and neck, and he smooths mine down my back over and over as the steam thickens and the water rains down on us. I stare into his burning eyes.
Present.
My pulse quickens as that new energy from earlier loops around every nerve in my body.
Deserving.
I’m not completely unafraid, but I can no longer suppress the obvious. I can no longer suppress what feels right.
Expansive.
I slide my hands up Danny’s slick chest and hook them on his shoulders. I kiss over his heart and feel the steady beating on my lips.
Complete.
His hands rise to cup my nape as I peer up at my friend, my lover, and my maestro.
My heart.
“Hey, Danny?”
“Yes, Christina?
“I love you.”
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe. His eyes just bore into mine, smoldering with so much intensity that my knees wobble.
Then his voice comes out as pure whiskey and fire. “Say it again.”
My breath catches. “I love you.”
He just stares and stares.
“I’m in love with you, Danny.”
His chest finally heaves, and continues to heave, and his face twists in some combination of relief and disbelief. He shakes his head faintly, as if he can’t conceive of what’s happening.
I slip my fingers up his neck and into his wet hair. “I love you.”
He traces one soft finger across my wet lips. “Christina …”
I shiver at the worshipful longing in his hushed tone.
“I’ve loved you for what feels like a lifetime, sweetheart.”
I release a half sob, and he captures it in a searing kiss, our lips slippery and hot from the water beating down on us. He slides his lips up to my cheek. “I love you,” he murmurs into the wet there. Then up to my temple. “I love you.” Across my eyebrows. “I love you.”
He kisses his love into my warm, slick skin, and I’m trembling in his arms. He can’t stop saying it, like he’s been saving the words up and now a valve’s been released and they are pouring out beyond his control.
A kiss to my eyelid. “I love you.” A kiss on my nose. “I love you.” A kiss to my jaw. “I love you.”
My tears mix with the streaming water. I didn’t know it would feel like this.
When the person you’re in love with loves you back so fiercely.
I thought this kind of all-consuming love would contain me.
That’s all I’ve ever known: love boxing you into a role to perform.
But this love isn’t containing me at all; this love is setting me free.
Because Danny knows me. The real me. Some messy amalgam of books and silliness and religious trauma and dirty talk and therapy and coziness and grief and adventure and creativity and loss.
And I know him. My Danny, heaven above.
Danny and I have already been living out this love for one another. Explicitly acknowledging it simply feels like I can fully breathe. Like my heart and soul and mind are finally in alignment. Like I’m more myself rather than less myself.
The world blurs as Danny shuts off the water, gathers me in a bridal carry, and walks us to the bed, water sluicing off our bodies and hair.
I can only cling to his wet body, dragging him on top of me because I refuse to unhook my arms from around his neck when he sets me on the comforter.
He obediently climbs on top of me, the weight of him settling over me like a blanket of calm.
It doesn’t matter that I last had him a mere hour ago; in this moment, I need to be as close to him as physically possible. I need to tangibly feel what’s happening intangibly. I need all the layers that are Danny and me—from dirty fucker to I love you.
“Say it again,” he whispers, notching his erection at my entrance.
“I love you—ah.” He slides all the way in on my pronouncement. I gasp at the fullness, the rightness, the familiarity. I’m tumbling into those big brown eyes as he expands me with his essence from the inside out.
He pulls out as far as possible, the slow friction maddening. “Again,” he demands.
“I love you.” He thrusts in a little harder on this one, hitting deep, before dragging out once more to the tip.
“Again, Christina.”
“I love you—” Now he thrusts back in, hard. “Danny.” I practically cry his name.
“You think I’m gonna fuck you gentle because we’re in love, baby?”
My pussy clenches around him on command and he chokes.
He unhooks my arms from around his neck, secures both wrists in one big hand, and slams them high above my head.
He licks at my straining tits as he fucks me, and my back arches to better receive his tongue and his cock as the barrage of sensations transport me to another planet.
“Good Jezebel,” he mutters into my skin, pounding into me again and again. “You take my cock so good, baby. You take my cock like you love me.”
I pump my hips back against him to increase the friction, to take it even harder, and he tightens his grasp on my wrists on a broken cry.
He buries his face against the side of mine. “Remember when you thought someone else could give you this?” he pants into my ear, his breath hot on my cooling wet skin. “You were wrong, weren’t you?”
The edge is just out of reach. I hike my knees up his hips so he hits even deeper, and we both groan. “Yes, I was wrong.”
He kicks the pace up a gear at my confession. “Because I fucking love you. Because I was fucking made for you, Christina. I was made to make you come.”
Oh god, every muscle is tightening. My pussy grips him so mercilessly that he can barely pull out enough to thrust back in, so he buries in deep and grinds that spot in me over and over.
My trapped hands mean I’m anchorless as the raging storm is about to break, so I bite down on his shoulder, my teeth tearing at the soft flesh.
“Fuck yes, baby. Take what you need. Use me. I’m fucking yours.”
I wail into his shoulder when the orgasm rips through me. My pussy spasms on his cock, the contractions stretching me beyond breaking around the thick piece still shifting in me.
“I love you.” His choked cry at my ear is desperate when he bucks a final time, driving his hot cum so deep and owning me so completely that my orgasm pulses on, past what I thought possible.
He slumps on top of me and slips out on a wince, finally releasing my wrists so I can draw soothing lines up and down his drying back. We simply breathe together as we come down for long minutes.
“Christina?” He props up on elbows to peer down at me.
I hum and trace the strong angles of his beautiful face with my fingertips.
“Will you move in here? When your friends go, will you move into this house—our house? I want to live with you, and I want to be your business partner too. We can run Sweet & UNsweet Tea together. We can do all of life together.”
His words seem to travel through a long cone before they fully reach me. I catch their distant echo as I study the face of this man I love, and then they slam into me all at once, like a physical slap.
This is it. The big one. The moment I have to choose. The moment I have to listen to myself. The moment I have to trust myself. The moment I have to know what’s right.
I love Danny.
But he’s asking me for everything.
I can hear the doors to other paths banging shut all around me.
I can hear the shredding of my found family into pathetic pieces.
I can hear my father telling me I ruined the marriage bed by sleeping with my ex. That’s the moment I knew I had lost my entire world and would have to start over.
I won’t survive it again. If Danny is my entire world and I lose him, I will not survive.
Danny’s hopeful face slowly falls as the silence stretches.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
The pain that flashes in his eyes shatters my heart on impact.