“Okay, here’s my new unworn sport coat, your new shirt and slacks ironed by Maicy and the spare key that you may or may not be using tonight...” Conor announced when he came into the guest room of the house he shared with his fiancée. Liam had just showered and was in nothing but a towel.
It was late Sunday afternoon. Liam, Conor and Kinsey had spent the day with Declan at the rehab center until Declan had claimed fatigue and ended family day.
Leaving the center, Liam had enlisted his sister and brother to go shopping with him to help him pick out something to wear to dinner tonight with Dani. During the shopping trip Conor had offered to loan Liam his newest purchase of civilian clothes—a sport coat—so they’d focused on buying pants, a shirt, tie, shoes and socks to wear with it.
Then Liam and Conor had dropped off Kinsey and gone to Conor’s place, where Liam was prepping for his night out.
“Thanks,” he said as Conor hung everything on a hook on the back of the door.
Liam went into the adjoining bathroom to shave and Conor trailed along, going as far as the bathroom door, where he leaned a shoulder against the frame.
“I thought you and Declan and I would talk more about whether or not to go along with the DNA tests for the Camdens before any one of us gave Kinsey an answer,” Conor said. “You kind of blew that today.”
Liam had told their sister that he would give her a copy of his DNA test when it came through this week. “Yeah, but I know what a big thing I’m asking of her—and of you—when it comes to the twins, and it didn’t seem fair to ask it and then turn down what she wanted from me. I made it clear that just because I’m handing over the DNA test, though, it doesn’t mean I’ll have anything to do with the Camdens.”
“Yeah, but you and Declan are identical twins, so your DNA will prove whether or not Declan is half Camden, too—which takes away the choice for him—”
“He didn’t care. I talked to him about it over breakfast yesterday morning. I was almost hoping it would get a rise out of him but not even that did.”
“And that leaves me as the holdout,” Conor said.
“I thought you’d basically decided to do it anyway. To give in since Kinsey had been giving you the hard press. You said you were tired of fighting it.”
“Yeah, but still, you kind of forced my hand.”
“I didn’t mean to, that whole Camden thing just seems minor to me right now, when there’s so many bigger things to deal with. I agree with you—I don’t think anything is gonna come of it. I think Kinsey is barking up the wrong tree to think that they’ll want anything to do with her even if she proves Mitchum Camden was our father. But you said yourself there’s no stopping her. So I just figured I was getting on board with you—why fight it anymore? Besides, we all know we had the same father. We’ll know anyway when Kinsey finds out for herself. Why not just give this one to her and forget about it?”
Liam saw his older brother’s reflection in the mirror as he lathered his face. He could tell Conor wasn’t mad about his agreement to let their sister send his DNA to the Camdens. Conor was just letting him know he didn’t appreciate that Liam had agreed before the three brothers had reached a formal consensus.
And Liam didn’t see any point in dwelling on it, so as he picked up his razor he changed the subject. “So you’ll talk to Maicy tonight about the twins?” Liam had talked to Conor and Kinsey about some possibilities over the rehab lunch.
“I told you I would.”
“Tonight, though? You won’t wait?”
“Tonight. I won’t wait. But I’ll just be telling her the basics. You don’t expect any kind of decision, right? I mean, we can’t really make one when you don’t know if you’re asking us to be short-term or long-term guardians if the kids are yours—which are two pretty different requests. And if they aren’t yours...that’s a whole different ball game altogether, especially not knowing if you’ll be around. Because if you won’t, then it’s just us becoming foster parents.”
Hearing it laid out like that, Liam realized that his brother had a point, that this morning with Conor and Kinsey he’d tossed a lot of possibilities out at them. It was just that something had been eating at him about including his brother and sister in a future with the kids and he hadn’t figured out what it was.
“Yeah, sure, you’re right,” he said. “I got wrapped up in Evie and Grady’s situation and didn’t think my part all the way through. I can’t ask you guys to make a decision when I haven’t. When everything is still up in the air until I know if I’m their father or not.”
“And maybe because you are wrapped up with these kids, you might not want to only facilitate and leave them in other people’s hands—whether they are yours or not,” his brother suggested.
Liam raised his chin in acknowledgment. “This whole thing—”
“I know—it landed in your lap and you want to rescue them no matter what. That’s what you’re trained for. And I’m not saying no to anything because I can see this has hit home for you. These kids have come to mean something to you. But you have to get what you want—and what you’re going to do—straight in your own head before we can know what role we’ll play.”
“Sure,” Liam agreed.
“So work it out and in the meantime I’ll ease Maicy into the possibilities, so she can be thinking about things, too. But that’s as far as it can go for now.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Liam agreed again.
It was Conor who changed the subject then. “And tonight? The twins are at a sleepover and you aren’t sure if you’ll be having one of your own with the nanny?”
Conor’s tone and expression had lightened and it allowed Liam to once again put off thoughts of his own future and just concentrate on what he’d been looking forward to all day: tonight.
“That’s about it,” Liam confirmed. He wouldn’t have told his brother as much, but since he might need to bunk at Conor’s, he’d had to reveal more than he’d wanted to.
“So, it hasn’t been all about the kids this last week,” Conor said.
“It’s been mostly about the kids,” Liam hedged as he went back to shaving.
“But tonight you’re having a little R and R with the nanny.”
“Tonight I wanted to take Dani to a nice dinner to show her how much I appreciate all she’s done for Grady and Evie and for me, teaching me what to do with them.”
“Uh-huh,” Conor said knowingly. “And you’re hoping to show her appreciation all night?”
“I gave her the option of not being alone with me in the house with the kids gone so it didn’t look bad.”
Conor laughed before he said, “It’s good that you’re looking out for these kids whether or not they’re yours. But when it comes to the nanny? What you appreciate about her doesn’t have jack to do with the kids or what she’s taught you. It’s you who wants to teach her a few things,” he said, his tone heavy with insinuation.
Liam said only, “It’s up to her whether I stay there tonight or not.”
Conor laughed more. “But you’re so damn hot for her that if she sends you back here I’m gonna have to hose you down.”
Yeah, that is actually true...
But Liam wasn’t going to admit it. “It’s a crazy situation,” he maintained.
“You said yourself that she’s pretty and nice, that you have a good time with her. Hell, you can barely say a sentence without ‘Dani this’ and ‘Dani that.’ The two of you have been in close quarters, stuff is getting stirred up, you came straight out of a mission so who knows how long it’s been since you’ve been with a woman—I don’t see anything crazy about that all leading to what you’re hoping it leads to tonight.”
“The amount of time I’ve been without a woman or that we’ve been in close quarters has nothing to do with anything.”
Maybe the close quarters had a little something to do with it; they’d spent a lot of time together in a situation that bred intimacy.
“And she’s more than just pretty and nice,” he felt compelled to add for some reason. “She’s also just great—easygoing and sweet and kind and smart and insightful and patient with those kids. She brings out the fun in everything—including in me. Being with her is the best R and R I’ve ever had even without getting her in bed because when she and I are alone together, everything else just fades...”
“Wow,” his older brother said, making Liam realize he really had gotten carried away with the accolades. And maybe revealed more than he’d intended.
So much more that it had sobered his brother. “The stuff with the kids...you don’t just want to impress the nanny, right? ’Cause I was just giving you a hard time about her, but the nanny is a bigger deal to you than I thought...”
“Dani and the kids are two separate things.”
“But you do want to impress her.”
“I’m not trying to win her over by taking care of these kids, no. I’d still feel the way I feel about that—about them—whether Dani was watching or not.”
“But there’s more happening with Dani than you’ve let on,” Conor concluded as if solving a mystery. “Are you sure the game hasn’t changed for you all the way around?”
Liam frowned at his brother in the mirror.
Conor responded to that scowl by saying, “All of a sudden you could be a father and even if you aren’t, you’re feeling responsible for two kids. There’s a girl you’re more than just hot for. These kinds of things can get you completely off course, you know? Maybe you have more to rethink about the future than just the twins.”
“The kids are enough,” Liam said to squash his brother’s implication that there was something serious going on with Dani.
“And that leaves the nanny as what? Just a little perk?” Conor goaded.
Liam couldn’t let that pass because it sounded disparaging of Dani. “She’s not a perk.”
Conor smiled smugly, as if Liam had just proven his point. He pushed away from the door frame to head out of the bedroom, saying over his shoulder, “Game changers, Liam. Game changers.”
But Liam was just glad his brother was leaving so that he could get ready for tonight in peace.
* * *
Dani, Evie and Grady spent Sunday buying birthday presents for the Tyler twins, then wrapping them and packing for the party. The party that there were endless questions about since it was their first sleepover.
Dani answered all the questions and offered even more information so they were clear that they would be spending the entire night sleeping in their new sleeping bags at the Tylers’ house with their friends.
The four-year-olds were excited about it but leery, too, and needed reassurance that if they didn’t want to stay when it got dark, Dani would come and get them. Which Dani promised them she would.
All the while hoping that didn’t happen.
Not that she was absolutely certain she was going to spend the night with Liam, but she didn’t really want that option taken away. Just in case.
The Tyler house was near the entry to the gated community, the first house inside the gate, and was even larger than the Freelander home. Huge, in fact. When Dani brought the kids in they discovered that the enormous recreation room had been transformed for the party. There was a small bouncy house and a ball pit and activity stations along with a tent that looked like a circus tent set up for sleeping under a canopy of twinkling stars.
Between the atmosphere and the fact that everyone else there was a familiar face from preschool, Evie and Grady jumped right into the festivities and barely said goodbye to Dani, giving her hope that they would make it through the night.
After dropping off the twins, Dani rushed to the apartment she shared with Bryan to get clothes for her dinner with Liam.
Bryan was out so she was able to waste no time gathering everything she needed before hurrying back to the Freelander place to get ready, the whole while in heady anticipation of a genuine date with the man who was a constant, vivid presence in her mind even when he was nowhere around.
She brought her phone with her into the bathroom as she showered and washed her hair, just in case there was a call about the twins. She also kept it close enough so she could hear it while she blow-dried her hair to only slightly damp. Then she put a few rollers in it to dry the rest of the way.
The dress she’d chosen was a sleeveless party dress in a bronze hue that Bryan said brought out the toffee tones of her eyes.
It was light and airy, made with strips of delicate chiffon in wispy ruffles layered together. For the bodice the layers were laid over each other diagonally to form a deep V neck in front. A banded waistband accentuated her midriff, and the circle skirt went just to her knees, formed by vertical layers of the scant ruffles.
With her hair completely dry by then she took out the rollers and brushed it upside down, then flipped it to fall in full, come-hither waves around her shoulders.
Sling-back sandals with nothing but sexy little crisscross straps over the base of her toes to hold them on completed the outfit, and as she took one final look at herself in the full-length mirror in the closet, the doorbell rang.
It was the stroke of seven. Since Liam’s rented SUV hadn’t been there when she’d arrived home and she hadn’t heard him come in, she assumed he’d dressed at his brother’s place and was now at the front door to pick her up.
Making sure to slip her phone into the small evening bag that matched her shoes, she tried to walk to the door at a moderate pace. But there was still a quickness to her step because she just couldn’t wait to get to him.
She opened the door and there he was, tall and straight, dressed in a light gray sport coat, darker gray slacks, a crisp white shirt with a grayish cast to it and a charcoal tie. Clean-shaven, his hair neat but not slick, she was struck again by how drop-dead gorgeous he was, and it required a minute for Dani to take it all in.
A minute he spent giving her the once-over before a grin slowly spread across his supple mouth in flattering appreciation.
“Ohhh, very nice...” he breathed.
“Thank you,” she said. “You clean up pretty well yourself,” she countered, even as she was thinking that as great as he looked, it was no better or worse than the first time she’d opened that door to him. The man just couldn’t look bad.
“I made reservations for seven thirty, so if you’re ready...” he said.
She took a deep breath to calm herself down because she was more excited for this evening than she had been since the first date she’d gone on when she was fifteen.
You’re being silly, she told herself. It’s just dinner with some guy you’ve seen and had dinner with every day for a week.
But still, as she stepped over the threshold and pulled the door closed behind her, it felt different.
* * *
“I love this place!” Dani said as they were seated at a table in the chic Sushi Sasa, a Japanese restaurant in Denver’s hip Lower Highland area.
“I know,” Liam said. “I didn’t have any idea where to take somebody who owns a great restaurant herself, so I talked to Bryan on the sly when we were there last night. He told me.”
Dani appreciated that Liam had gone to that length. She’d never had anyone consider that aspect of dining out with her before.
“Do you like sushi?” she asked.
“I learned to when I was in Japan.”
“So you’ll know how this compares to the real thing.”
“Compares, maybe. But I’m not an expert,” he hedged.
They ordered drinks then—a lychee martini for Dani and Japanese beer for Liam. Over appetizers that Liam ordered, they discussed what else to have.
When they’d made their selections, Dani said, “How did your day with your family go?” Although she was most interested in how his family had responded to his request for help with the twins.
“It went okay,” he said without much zest before adding, “Not great, but okay. I made a couple of mistakes.”
“What did you do?”
“The first one was that I brought up what to do with Evie and Grady when we were with Declan.”
“And that was a mistake...why?”
“He’s wrestling with guilt over Topher’s death, and part of that involves the little girl and the new baby Topher’s wife is pregnant with—”
“And there you were talking about two other kids who’ve lost parents,” Dani said, predicting what he was getting at.
“Yeah. Talking about making sure the twins are taken care of, about making it a family effort—in front of Declan—was stupid of me when I had a similar conversation with him the first day I saw him, about us doing whatever we could to help Topher’s widow and kids.”
“Did he feel like taking care of Grady and Evie was instead of that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a little. Maybe he thought I was asking for Grady and Evie to have priority—”
“If they’re part of your family they kind of will, won’t they?”
“Yeah, that’s probably inevitable—which Declan probably realized. And I think it might have made him wonder if we’ll forget Topher and his family, which we won’t, but... I don’t know. He got a lot quieter and seemed to shut down more—if that’s possible. I should have thought about what it might mean to him and talked to Kinsey and Conor when we weren’t with Declan. But I was in such a hurry to see if I could get them into this, I didn’t think about that.” He sighed, sounding rife with self-disgust. “And actually I guess the second mistake qualifies as jumping the gun and not thinking everything through, too.”
Dani finished a sip of her martini with raised eyebrows that asked for him to expound.
“Conor pointed out that I’m asking things of him and Kinsey before I can be sure what it is I’m asking, that I’m sort of pushing for them to make a decision...a commitment...even before I have any idea what I’m going to do.”
Liam went on to explain and as Dani listened she realized that she’d jumped the gun, too. It hadn’t occurred to her that Liam hadn’t made any decisions about himself or his future with the kids. She, too, had been so eager for a comfortable solution for Evie and Grady that when it seemed like he’d come up with a plan of action providing it, she’d just been relieved.
“He’s right, isn’t he?” she said about Conor’s point of view and balking at being pressured to make some kind of commitment to the twins before Liam had.
“He is.”
“So what happens to Evie and Grady is still up in the air,” Dani said, feeling as if a little of the wind had been taken out of her sails.
“It’s less up in the air if they’re mine. Then it’s a matter of if I’m asking my family to look after them just until I can get situated to take over myself, or if I’m asking for something more indefinite.”
“But if they aren’t yours...”
“Conor is right and I don’t really have any business asking him and Kinsey to become foster parents on their own at this point. Conor didn’t shoot down the idea. And neither did Kinsey. They both said they’d talk to their other halves. But I can see now that it’s a different—a bigger—suggestion. And at first it seemed like a good idea, but I have to admit that when I said it, it felt kind of...off. I don’t really understand it. I guess I have more thinking to do.”
“Sure,” Dani said, disheartened. And worrying all over again that her young charges’ future was hanging in the balance.
“I’m not just giving up, Dani,” Liam said, as if he saw the reemergence of her stress over the kids’ future. “But I do have to make up my mind about what I’m willing to do myself before I can go to my family again.”
Dani nodded, and as she studied him across the table she could only hope for the best. Again.
Their sushi arrived and after pointing out what was what, their waiter left and Liam said, “Has this been mistake number three today? Has talking about this now wrecked tonight?”
“It didn’t help,” she said with a humorless laugh.
“I’m sorry. I wanted tonight to be a treat—just you and me, free as birds. I didn’t mean to bring it down.”
At least he knew how to apologize in a tone that made her believe he genuinely meant it.
As they began to try the sushi he said, “Did I hear you and Bryan talking about the offer on the restaurant last night?”
Dani could tell that he wanted to get them past the last topic, but it must not have occurred to him that this one wasn’t going to lighten things up.
Still, she went with it and said, “Apparently dragging my feet making a decision caused the offer to go up. By a full 50 percent.”
“That’s a lot.”
“A lot,” Dani confirmed.
“Does that sweeten the pot or thicken the plot?” he asked.
“Both,” she said with another laugh. “It’s too much money not to consider. I need to really be sure I want to run the restaurant before I can say no to it. I don’t want to be making meatballs one day and fantasizing about all that money that could be sitting in a bank account as a big fat cushion that would have let me work with kids instead and wishing that’s what I’d done.”
“Would your grandmother be happy thinking that selling the restaurant would be the cushion that lets you go on working with kids?” he suggested.
“Maybe,” Dani admitted.
“So you have as much weighing on you as I do,” he concluded, taking another California roll.
Dani took one of those, too, thinking that maybe it was impossible for either of them to have even a temporary reprieve when they were both facing so many heavy decisions.
Then Liam said, “But tonight we’re free birds! Let’s give ourselves a break from the rest so we can come at it fresher this week when it’s all going to hit the fan.”
It all was going to hit the fan this week when the DNA results were in, when Grady and Evie’s future would again be a court decision that Dani feared could land them in the system. When those results either made a father out of Liam or would put his vow to help the kids to the test.
He didn’t give Dani the opportunity not to switch gears, though, because in a genuinely lighter vein he said, “I told you who my first love was. Tell me about yours.”
She’d been so excited about this dinner tonight. She couldn’t let it be ruined. So she played along. “You mean after Bryan?” she said, only half joking.
Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “Bryan was your first love?”
“I was almost seven and he was very sensitive to my feelings over losing my parents.”
“So you fell romantically in love with him?” Liam said.
Dani laughed. “It seemed romantic at seven,” she contended.
“And now?”
“I love Bryan like a brother. Maybe more because we don’t have any sibling rivalry. But there’s nothing romantic about it.”
“Okay, so your second first love,” Liam prompted while they continued to work their way through the platter of sushi.
“That was a crush when I was ten on the delinquent son of the carpenter who my grandparents hired to build the booths at the restaurant. The carpenter owned a small farm and the handyman stuff was the supplement to the farm’s income. I don’t remember what the handyman dad’s name was, but the delinquent son was Neville—”
“How much of a delinquent can a ten-year-old named Neville be?” Liam teased.
“I was ten, he was sixteen. And he was enough of a delinquent that he’d been kicked out of school, so his dad brought him to work as his assistant. That’s how I got to see him. He was a very bad boy,” Dani said as if she was dishing up a torrid scandal. “He had all the cowboy stuff going—a few muscles from the farm work and he wore Western shirts and tight jeans and pointy-toed boots and a cowboy hat with sweat stains—”
“You were turned on by sweat stains?” Liam asked with another laugh.
“Oh, yeah, it seemed so manly,” she gushed. “And he was cute and insolent and just simmering with teenage angst and anger and rebellion—” Dani sighed at the memory. “I followed him around like a puppy.”
Liam laughed and those joy lines she liked so much formed at the corners of his eyes. “Now that’s a love story,” he judged facetiously.
They ate their sushi but Dani opted for leaving most of the spicy tuna rolls for Liam because they were a little too hot for her.
After that Liam amended his inquiry into her past again and said, “How about the first love that was reciprocated?”
“That didn’t happen until ninth grade. Parker Fitzpatrick and it almost caused a rift between Bryan and me because Bryan loved him, too. But Parker loved me.”
“Loved loved?” Liam asked with innuendo.
“I did not lose my virginity to Parker, if that’s what you’re getting at. But we did go together until junior year...”
“When it ended badly?” he guessed from her ominous tone.
“When he decided he might have developed a crush on Bryan after all.”
“Ooo...” Liam said as if absorbing a hit.
“Yeah. That was as hard on me at that point as me being with Parker was on Bryan at first,” Dani said as she finished the salmon sashimi.
“And where did the confused Parker ultimately land?”
“Gay. He and Bryan dated for a while and the whole thing kind of shook my self-image for the rest of high school, especially when some not-so-nice kids made me the butt of jokes about how I turned guys gay...”
Liam’s laugh was sympathetic again. “Am I just on a roll today when it comes to making mistakes with what I say?”
Dani laughed, too. “No. That was all too long ago to bother me anymore. It just isn’t as pretty as your first love story with the one hometown girl you dated until you both went to college. My past is a little more checkered.”
“I don’t think it qualifies as that,” he judged.
Dani took one last California roll and announced that she’d had enough, leaving the remaining variety of three rolls for Liam, who took them onto his plate as he said, “Did you rebound in college?”
“That followed a more regular dating zigzag path that wasn’t particularly noteworthy.”
They’d both finished eating by then and even though Liam tried to talk her into dessert he didn’t succeed, so he paid the check and they headed back to the Freelander house.
Along the way they discussed how the sushi had compared to what he’d had around the world and Liam rated it in the top five.
Then they were home again and he was walking her to the door where he’d already assured her he would leave her if that was what she wanted.
When they reached the front door he said, “Well, this is it...” and he did kiss her.
It was a leisurely kiss with lips parted but with no claim to more.
Before he ended the kiss and grinned down at her.
“That felt like an invitation...”
It should have—she’d put her heart and soul into it.
“Was it?” he asked in a quietly husky voice.
She asked herself the same thing.
But as she stood there looking up into those blue eyes in the glow of the outdoor house lights, drinking in the sight of his dark hair and chiseled features, she was thinking that tomorrow everything could change. DNA results could come in and the future would take over.
And what Bryan had said about her regretting it if she didn’t see things through with Liam was true. Because there was no question that she wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted anyone.
A single sweet memory to take with her out of what had been such a rough time these last several months...
So she smiled back at him and said, “I think it is an invitation.”
“You can’t just think,” he warned. “You have to be sure.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him to show just how sure she was.
Then she turned and punched in the code to unlock the door and went inside, casting him an expectant glance over her shoulder to let him know to follow.
He laughed in a way that said game on and stepped over the threshold, closing the door firmly behind them before he grasped her upper arm and spun her into a third kiss that made the other two pale in comparison. His mouth opened over hers and his tongue mounted a sexy assault so fierce that he had to catch her head in his hand to support it against the onslaught.
But Dani gave as good as she got, clamping a firm hand of her own to the back of his neck.
His other arm went around the small of her back and hers went to his chest, where that sport coat suddenly seemed far too bulky. So while her mouth went on answering the call of his, she let him know the jacket had to go by snaking her hands underneath it to his shoulders and pushing it partially off them.
With his cooperation, she managed to remove it. Then she tossed it onto the table beside the door.
She returned both of her hands to his neck then, one rising higher into his coarse hair while they went on kissing like two people meeting again after a long and lonely separation.
But only until Liam went from kissing her mouth to kissing the side of her neck as he said in an even huskier voice, “I found sheets in a linen closet upstairs and changed the ones on my bed this morning before I left...”
Dani laughed. “Oh, did you...” she said.
She felt him smile against her skin before he flicked the tip of his tongue to it. “Just in case,” he said.
“I do love clean sheets...” she responded softly.
That was all he needed to hear to grab her hand and take her up the stairs to the guest room, a step ahead of her the entire way, unwittingly providing her with the chance to check out his great rear end.
The guest room was awash in moonlight coming in through its glass walls and the skylight overhead. But Liam flipped the switch that mechanically closed the curtains all the way around them for privacy, leaving only the starlit sky overhead visible and bathing them in just enough illumination to satisfy her desire to see him.
He closed the bedroom door behind them, too. Then he leaned that strong, straight back against it, and while his eyes held her in the heat of his gaze, he got rid of his shoes and socks.
Dani took that same opportunity to step out of her sandals, feeling somehow more vulnerable in her bare feet and missing those two inches of height as he came close again and his over-six-foot frame dwarfed her.
But while he was imposing, there was nothing threatening in him raising only one hand to gently brush the backs of his fingers on her cheek while he leaned over and again kissed the side of her neck ever so lightly.
“You have no idea how much I want you,” he said, as if it was taking everything he had to contain himself.
Dani tilted her head to allow freer access to her neck, bringing her own hands to the top button of his shirt to unfasten it.
With only those delicate kisses and a scant flicking of his tongue to her neck again, he reached around to lower the zipper on the back of her dress, taking his time to unclothe her as she did the same with him, sliding his shirt off once she’d finished with the buttons and pulled it free of his pants.
It didn’t take much for her dress to float down around her ankles a moment later, leaving her in only her string bikini panties and the lacy demicup bra that went with them.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close as his mouth again found hers.
Oh, it was so delicious to have his warm, naked front right up against her. To have his hands on her bare back...
To that she added her own hands gliding around him and coursing from just above his waistband to the widening V of his expansive shoulders. As she pressed her palms in a slow caress of smooth, satiny flesh over solid muscle, her mouth welcomed the kiss that thoroughly savored hers as if he, too, wanted the absolute most he could get out of tonight.
So for a while that’s all they did, standing there, kissing profoundly as if there might not ever be other kisses, reveling in the glory of skin on skin.
Until desire and hunger took over. Then raw passion came into it, bringing too much drive to maintain anything sedate.
Liam’s hands began a sumptuous massage of her back that made her ever more pliable as he kissed a path to the hollow of her throat and downward, until the kisses were on the upper curves of her breasts thrust above the half cups of her bra.
Dani wasn’t sure what she wanted more, his hands or his mouth fully there, but for a moment the tiny nips he was taking of those swells stole her breath and made her bold enough to reach for the zipper in front of impressive proof that he really did want her, too.
Down that zipper went, leaving his pants bulging open but still in place, because just then he nuzzled one bra cup down to expose her breast completely and take it into his mouth. Dani was instantly lost in the black velvet warmth encasing her, in his tongue flicking at her nipple and tantalizing her as he bent her backward into strong arms that held her safe and secure.
Then he swept her up into those arms and took her to the bed, lying her on cool, crisp sheets before abandoning her to stand beside the mattress, where he took a condom from his pocket, setting it on the nightstand and dropping the remainder of his clothes.
She thought a little more light might have been nice at that point but since her eyes were adjusted to the dimness she still got to see what went with those incredible shoulders and biceps and pectorals and abs that had been first revealed to her at the pool. She still got to see what went with his long, thick muscular legs and that it was long and thick all on its own.
Then he crawled like a panther onto the bed with her, kissing her again as he stretched that magnificent body alongside hers.
She wasted no time letting her hands explore it. Every sinewy inch of his back and chest and tight derriere, sliding down those tree-trunk thighs and up again without quite reaching for that part of him that was difficult to ignore. But she wanted to choose her moment. She wanted to torment him just a little, the way his hand was tormenting her breasts with such a light touch that they were straining for more.
He made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a growl deep in his throat as he reached around and unhooked her bra with one hand. Casting it aside, he abandoned their kiss to again take her breast into his mouth, this time more greedily.
And while he was at it, he caught the front of her panties with one index finger and took those off, too, leaving her as bare as he was and sluicing a big hand down her stomach, between her legs and into her.
Her own hand went almost instinctively to him, closing around that long, hard staff to work him into the kind of frenzy he was working her into. Until neither of them could endure it much longer.
With another of those guttural sounds he pushed himself away and retrieved the condom, making quick work of sheathing himself so he could get back to her.
To her body, awakening and arousing everything before retracing his path between her legs to show her what he had in mind, bringing her to just a teaser of a climax that opened her thighs to him completely in obvious invitation.
He laughed and rose above her, sliding into her as if she were the very niche he was carved for.
And the fit was just perfect. Full and complete. And Dani couldn’t help the part sigh, part moan that told him just how good it felt.
His mouth came to hers again to kiss her nearly into oblivion as he only pulsed inside her.
Until he drew out some and came back in.
Slowly at first. Gaining speed that Dani learned and kept pace with, drawing away when he did, returning home when he did, tightening around him with each thrust, filling her hands with the muscular mounds of his back.
Faster and faster it went, taking her to greater and greater heights, until she reached a peak that exploded through her and held her in a grip of ecstasy like nothing she’d ever known, a grip of brilliant white light flooding through her so intensely she wasn’t sure where she was or what she was going to do when it let her loose, and could do nothing but let him take her there.
She felt him dive even more deeply into her in a climax of his own that embedded him to her core and rewarded her with yet another crest as his entire body stiffened and held them both frozen there for one mindless moment of devastating, awe-inspiring bliss.
Dani’s heart was pounding in her chest when it passed, and she could feel Liam’s pounding equally as hard in his as he carefully let his body relax atop hers, weighing her down in a way that was just right, as they both caught their breath, cooled and returned to sanity.
“Wow...” he murmured in a genuinely astonished tone.
“Yeah,” she agreed, like him too thunderstruck to be coy.
A few more minutes passed as they stayed just like that, resting, recovering, basking in it all.
Then Liam said, “If you don’t want to stay here with me and do this the whole night, you better run now while I’m too wasted to chase you.”
“And miss knowing if that was only a fluke or if it could actually be reproduced?” she challenged.
He laughed. “Yeah, I’m kind of wondering the same thing,” he said, letting her know that it had boggled his mind, too.
He slipped out of her and rolled off the bed, saying as he headed for the bathroom, “Now’s your chance.”
But even if Dani had had an ounce of strength to get out of there, there was no way she would have left that bed—or him—behind.
Instead she was waiting when he came out, threw himself flat on his back on the mattress and immediately cocooned her in his arms to bring her as close to his side as was humanly possible.
Then she felt him completely relax—all but his arms that tightened around her—and she let her body conform to his, her head cradled in the indentation between his chest and shoulder, her leg draped over his while her arm rested across his middle.
“Just a snooze and then we’re gonna see if that was for real,” he said, his voice already heavy.
Dani closed her eyes, for now content with the promise of more and needing that snooze, too.
And all she could think as she drifted off in the warmth of that amazing body was that there were definitely going to be no regrets for this one night, except maybe that it might be only this one night...