Danny pleated and unpleated the belt of Ross’s robe. She would not lose it and bawl like a baby. So the waitresses were twins. There were lots of twins in the world; Ross had twin sisters, for goodness sake. She’d guessed somewhere between the second and third course that they were being served by two different women who looked almost exactly alike, and had tried to ignore it. But as the meal progressed, the pain in her chest forced its way into her throat, making it impossible to swallow. The fact that Ross seemed to be getting annoyed with her hadn’t helped. How could she explain she was a nutcase?
She heard Ross see the caterer and women out.
He reappeared beside her. ‘They’ve gone.’
Danny looked up and pinned a smile on her lips. ‘Thanks a lot for a wonderful day and an awesome meal, Ross. I owe you.’ She put her hands on the tabletop and pushed herself to her feet; she couldn’t trust her legs to do it alone. Ross had already told her they were staying the night at the apartment and she was sleeping in the guest bedroom. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now.’
He didn’t move. ‘You can’t keep running away from this, Danny.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She tried to step around him.
Ross moved, blocking the way. ‘There’s always going to be twins in the world.’
Danny sidled the other way, but he barred her way again.
‘You have to get used to seeing twins together,’ he said. ‘The way you used to be with Daniella.’
His lack of sensitivity stunned her. ‘Shut up!’
Danny tried to force her way past him. Ross caught her arms and gave her a little shake. ‘You can’t climb in that hole with her.’
‘She’s not in a hole! We burnt her!’ She grabbed her mouth.
Ross caught her wrists. ‘But you aren’t dead, and you can’t carry on acting as if you are.’
Her bottom lip wobbled and her eyes brimmed. ‘But I feel dead! I feel like part of me has died! And—I can’t bear it!’ Danny buried her face in his chest and wailed like a child. ‘I miss her…I miss her!’
Ross wrapped his arms tightly around her. ‘You’re alive!’ He said fiercely and kissed the top of Danny’s head. ‘You’re alive!’ He pressed his lips to her neck and caught her skin between his teeth.
Danny yelped.
‘Feel that?’ He raised his head and bit her none too gently on her bottom lip.
She gasped against his mouth.
‘Feel that?’ he said harshly. His heart was beating so fast he could feel it throbbing in his ears.
Danny’s eyes were huge. She couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs. Her breasts rose and fell quickly. She nodded.
Ross cupped her bottom and pulled her against him. ‘Do you feel that?’
He was rock-hard. ‘Yes,’ she whispered and leaned into him.
He took her hand and walked into the bedroom. He stopped at the end of the bed and opened the robe. Ross studied her body intently and said in a low voice, ‘I’ve wondered what you looked like ever since the night of that damned party.’ He pushed the robe from her shoulders and tossed it on the floor.
Danny’s breath hitched. ‘Now you know.’
‘Yes.’ Ross stroked the underside of one of her breasts with the tip of one finger. ‘And now I know.’ He dipped his head and touched her nipple with his tongue. ‘Do you feel that?’ he asked huskily.
Tears slipped down her cheeks. She nodded.
Ross pressed her down onto the cool, white bed linen and traced a pathway across her breasts with his lips and tongue. He moved downwards, stopping every so often to murmur ‘Do you feel that?’
Her sobs quietened. She caught his head and buried her fingers in his silky, black curls and moaned. Ross dipped his tongue into her navel. Danny dragged his shirt up his back and smoothed her hands across his warm skin. ‘Take it off…’
Ross rose from the bed and stripped off his clothes.
Danny raised up on her elbows and looked at him. She bent her knees and reached for him. He caught her ankles, knelt on the edge of the bed and pulled her down the bedcovers towards him.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘I bet you’ve always called the shots in bed, haven’t you, Danny?’ Ross lifted her legs and placed them over his shoulders.
‘What does that mean?’ She was struggling to breathe, let alone talk. Why was he talking so much?
‘I bet guys couldn’t believe their luck. I bet you turned them inside out—and then you walked. Didn’t you, Danny?’
She punched him on the arm. ‘Just do it.’
‘You’re not going to use me for a quick poke, Daneka. You’re not going to use my dick to run away and hide.’ He pressed his hands against the insides of her thighs. Danny pressed back. ‘Open for me,’ Ross said softly. ‘Please.’
She hesitated and slowly parted her thighs. Ross looked down. He dipped his head and laid his tongue against her.
Danny fell back on the bed. She closed her eyes and clutched his shoulders. He was her anchor as her world flew apart. She sprawled on the bed like a rag doll; beneath her palms Ross’s shoulders were slick with sweat. Danny could hear the ragged sound of his breathing as he moved away and the bedside drawer opened and closed. Ross stretched out beside her. Danny felt him pressed against her thigh and whimpered, ‘I can’t!’
‘We’ve got all night, Danny.’ His words were in stark contrast to the tension she could feel in him.
Danny turned her head. Ross was watching her. The look in his intense, dark eyes scorched her; she stroked her thigh against him. Ross closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. She rolled on her side and hooked a leg over his hip. His eyes flared. He caught her thigh and eased it higher. Danny traced the tip of her tongue along the seam of his lips, and when he opened them for her she slipped her tongue between them.
Ross pushed himself inside her, and Danny arched her back greedily. Ross cupped her bottom and changed the angle. Even better. Danny didn’t miss a beat. They climaxed together, shuddering.
‘You OK?’ Ross asked when he was able to speak again.
‘I’m good,’ Danny said. ‘I’m very, very good.’
Ross caught her chin and smiled. ‘But you do bad better.’
He went to the bathroom to deal with the condom, and stared at himself in the mirror as he tried to come to grips with what had just happened. He’d just had sex with Danny. And he wanted to go right back out there and start all over again.
Danny was so vulnerable. And his track record with women was abysmal. He braced his arms on the vanity, hung his head and murmured ‘Shit.’ Danny wasn’t the only person who used sex as an escape. Ross was guilty of the same thing. He’d slept with a lot of women, but he’d never connected with one the way he had with her tonight. It was…disturbing.
Danny rolled onto her stomach and tried to decide what to do. How had Ross known what she’d been trying to hide, even from herself? How had he known that Daniella’s death made her feel like an amputee—she hadn’t lost an arm or a leg, she’d lost part of her soul. What began as sex and comfort had turned into something else. And Danny wanted more. When it came to Ross she had a feeling that she’d always want more, and that would be a fast track to disaster. She was considering getting dressed when Ross reappeared, and her heart began to hammer at the sight of him walking towards her naked. He looked as wary and uncertain as she felt, and some of Danny’s tension dissolved.
Ross looked at Danny stretched out on his bed on her stomach. She had her cheek propped on one hand and a guarded expression in her eyes. He followed the smooth, supple curve of her spine as it rose up to her pert little ass. His gaze halted at the cleft of her bottom and his eyes widened.
‘I knew it!’ he exclaimed triumphantly and came closer. ‘I knew you’d have a tattoo!’ Danny tried to roll onto her back, but Ross caught her shoulders and turned her over. She tried to cover the tattoo, but he pushed her hand away.
‘I had it done years ago when I was young and stupid! It was a dare!’
Ross sat on the bed and traced the tattoo with his finger. Danny had three tiny black moles at the top of one buttock. A dice had been drawn around the moles, and looked as if it were tumbling into the cleft of her bottom.
‘I might have known you wouldn’t have a rose or a bluebird.’
She looked at him over her shoulder. ‘What did you expect me to have?’
She took a half-hearted swing at him, and Ross used it to flip her onto her back. He caught her hands, raised them above her head and covered her body with his.
‘You said I could stay in your guest room.’
‘You’re not staying in the guest room.’
Danny stroked the sole of her foot along the back of his calf. ‘No? Why not?’
‘Because,’ Ross smiled down at her, ‘I think I’m going to get lucky.’
When it came to sex, they were a perfect match. They left the curtains open to let the moonlight into the room, and made love twice more before falling asleep.
Ross woke around three o’clock to find Danny crying in her sleep. She wasn’t making a big noise about it or thrashing about the bed, just sobbing softly, tears making wet, silvery tracks down her cheeks. Watching her made his insides feel as if somebody had scraped them raw and left them oozing. Ross touched her shoulder. ‘Danny.’
Her eyelids flickered and opened. She lifted her head and looked up at him bemusedly. ‘What…’ Danny touched her wet cheek and her face crumpled. ‘I was dreaming about getting the tattoo. You know who dared me?’
‘Nella?’
She nodded.
Ross caught her sob in his mouth and made love to her slowly and gently, rocking his big body against her much smaller one, trying to wipe away her loneliness and grief for just a little while and replace it with the tangle of tongues and legs and arms and his hardness buried deep inside her warmth and softness.
When it was over, he looked down at Danny and said quietly, ‘Happy birthday.’
‘Happy birthday,’ her bottom lip wobbled. ‘I didn’t get you anything.’ She hoped he wouldn’t say something crass about how she’d been his present.
‘There is something you could do for me that I would really like,’ Ross said gently.
Danny stared at him. What was he? The Energizer Bunny?
‘Tell me where you’re hiding my socks.’
Ross expected Danny to want to talk about things in the morning. Women always wanted to talk about things after they’d slept with a guy for the first time. Talking about whatever the thing might be didn’t mean a casual conversation based on sound logic. It meant dissecting the hell out of something, looking at it from every conceivable angle, postulating on the possible outcome from both a positive and a negative perspective, and basically making something that was straightforward and fun a pain in the ass and awkward. While Ross knew he wasn’t exactly a sensitive New Age guy, he also knew he didn’t qualify for Neanderthal of the year. Danny had been through the emotional wringer on her birthday, and even he thought that what had happened between them qualified as a big thing.
On the drive back across the harbour bridge, Danny talked about everything but things. She’d borrowed a pair of his too-big boxer shorts, and the sight of them hanging over the waistband of her jeans made him horny. In desperation, and to his eternal regret, Ross raised the subject of things himself.
‘What’s the deal with us once we get back to the house?’ he asked.
Danny looked at him blankly. ‘Us?’
‘Yeah—us. As in: was last night a one-off or are we planning to continue?’
‘You mean…have sex again?’
Ross was exasperated. ‘Yes!’ When Danny didn’t answer, he began to get a bad feeling about things. ‘A straight yes or no will suffice,’ he said curtly.
‘No.’
Ross prayed he’d misheard. ‘No?’
Danny stared out the passenger window. ‘No.’
He was stunned. ‘Are you trying to tell me you didn’t enjoy last night?’
‘No, I’m telling you I don’t think it’d be a good idea to do it again.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because this isn’t just about us—there are Matt and Mia to consider.’
‘What does us sleeping together have to do with Matt and Mia?’
‘Plenty,’ Danny said. ‘I don’t want them to think of us that way. It’ll be enough of a wrench for them when you eventually leave. Besides,’ she pursed her lips, ‘it’s not as if you’ll have to go without.’
‘You think I’ve got somebody else?’
‘No, I think you’ve got lots of somebody elses.’ Danny shrugged with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. ‘That’s the way you are. The way we both are. We don’t get attached’
What was left of his ego deflated and fizzled like a flattened whoopee cushion. Danny’s indifferent attitude was totally at odds with the passionate woman he’d made love to the night before—and they had made love, certainly the last time, when she’d been crying in her sleep, no matter how determined she might be to label it otherwise.
‘Don’t feel under any pressure,’ he said flatly. ‘If you don’t want to sleep with me, I’ll cope with the disappointment.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Danny retorted. ‘There’s always Selena.’
For a moment Ross didn’t have a clue who she meant.
‘Not to mention the nutter in the supermarket. You could always hang out there if Selena has to work late.’
‘And of course there’s always Lance if you’ve got an itch that needs scratching,’ Ross snapped.
‘I never slept with—’ Danny closed her mouth abruptly.
‘Is that so?’ Ross almost smiled until he recalled the night he’d spent wondering where she was and what she was doing with Ashburn. ‘Where were you that night? You never came home!’
‘None of your bloody business!’
‘What’s the matter?’ Ross taunted. ‘Did he turn you down?’
‘No! I realized when he had his tongue down my throat that I didn’t want him!’
Ross strangled the steering wheel between his fists at the picture her words painted in his head. ‘Damn fairy!’
Danny rounded on him. ‘Oh? Oh, really? So it’s not OK for me to sleep with Lance Ashburn, but it’s perfectly fine for you to shag Selena what’s-her-face. Talk about bloody double standards!’
Ross bought himself time by checking the wing mirror to make a lane change as they descended onto the northern motorway. ‘What was I supposed to do? She’s Christine’s cousin.’
Danny’s brows rose and her lip curled. ‘You shagged her because she was Christine’s cousin?’
‘Will you stop saying that?’ Ross shifted uncomfortably. ‘She’s a nice woman. It seemed…rude not to.’
She flung up her hands. ‘Am I really hearing this? Did you just say you had sex with a woman because she’s your best friend’s wife’s cousin and because it seemed rude not to? Just when is the Mother Ship coming back to collect you, Ross?’
‘It happens more often than you think,’ he said defensively.
‘What? Pity fucks?’
Ross winced.
Danny pointed a finger at him. ‘Don’t you dare correct my language! That poor woman! How would she feel if she knew?’
‘I made sure she didn’t know! I made sure she…’ Ross trailed off. He’d already dug a big enough hole.
‘Had a good time?’ Danny cooed. ‘Multiple orgasms?’
She was jealous. Ross had shared with Selena what he’d shared with her last night. It was better that she thought about it now, better to feel the anger and jealousy than imagine something that wasn’t there.
‘Tell me, Ross, was I another one of your pity fucks?’
The Explorer swerved and the driver in the next lane honked his horn. ‘No!’
Ross took a deep breath and slowly let it out again. ‘Last night was different, Danny. It was completely different.’
She looked out the window, thinking wearily that it really didn’t matter, because she wasn’t doing it again. ‘Whatever.’
They collected the kids from Vanessa’s and drove home listening to Matt and Mia’s excited chatter about their trip to McDonald’s and the movie they’d seen. Their noise filled the silence that stretched between Danny and Ross.
‘Did you have a nice birthday?’ Mia asked.
‘Did you do anything special?’ Matt wanted to know.
Danny didn’t answer.
‘Auntie Danny had a massage and manicure and all that girl stuff,’ Ross said to fill the silence.
Matt rolled his eyes. ‘Bo-ring.’
‘No, it’s not! It’s nice!’ Mia insisted. ‘Bet it was really nice, wasn’t it, Auntie Danny?’
‘Yes, it was…very nice.’
It was way better than nice, Ross thought bleakly, and unlikely to ever be repeated.
He thought Danny had changed her mind when she knocked on his bedroom door later that night after the children were in bed. She was dressed in a pair of green cotton pyjama pants and a matching camisole top. Danny handed Ross a small package wrapped in bright blue paper printed with yellow and red party streamers. ‘Your birthday present.’
He looked at her breasts beneath her thin cotton top and remembered how they had felt in his hands and against his tongue the previous night. ‘You got me a birthday present?’
‘It’s not just for you; it’s for your family.’ She turned away and headed back to her bedroom. ‘Goodnight.’
Ross watched her go and wondered why they always hurt one another.
He sat on the bed to open the gift, thinking that it wouldn’t surprise him if it exploded. But when he peeled away the wrapping paper, Ross discovered a small yellow photo album filled with pictures of Pat, Daniella and their children. There were photos of when Pat and Nella first met, taken on the beach sunbathing and with their arms wrapped around one another beside a roaring bonfire.
Ross flipped a page. A heavily pregnant Nella posed in front of Pat and smiled at the camera. Pat was holding her belly in his hands. The next shot was taken in the delivery room at what Ross presumed must have been Matt’s birth. Pat was staring down at a waxy, wet looking baby with black hair stuck to its pointy head, while a tired, dishevelled-looking Nella leaned over his shoulder to look at the baby.
Ross slowly turned the pages and watched his brother’s secret life with Danny’s sister unfold. The last photographs showed Matt and Mia a couple of years younger than they were now, riding boogie boards in the waves at the beach with their parents.
‘Pat, you damned fool…Why did you have to shut us out?’
He took the book and tapped on Danny’s door.
She didn’t seem surprised to see him.
He held up the photo album. ‘Thank you,’ he said huskily. ‘Thank you.’
His eyes were damp. Tonight, he was the vulnerable one, mourning the loss of something he’d never had, an opportunity missed and gone forever.
Danny sighed and pulled him into her room. There was always one guy a girl was a sucker for, and it seemed Danny wasn’t immune after all; she was a sucker for Ross Fabello.
‘I didn’t come down here to—’
‘You better not have.’
She closed the door and propped her hands on her hips. Sleeping with him last night had messed everything up, but it had been precious, and Danny couldn’t regret it. Taking the album from him, she placed it on the chest of drawers. Tonight he needed her. Danny gently tugged Ross towards her. ‘Come here, Darth.’
Ross’s hands hung in midair while he wondered if he was imagining this because he wanted it so much. He sighed deeply, wrapped his arms around Danny and buried his face against the side of her neck. She stroked his back and turned her face to find his lips with hers.
‘Was that a pity kiss?’ Ross asked when they finally broke apart.
‘It might be. How bad are you feeling?’
‘Real bad,’ he said quickly, and she laughed, but stopped when she saw the look in his eyes.
‘I guess there’s nothing for it but a trip to the Death Star.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Come to bed, Darth.’
Vanessa cornered Danny at work the next day and said, ‘You’ve slept with him, haven’t you? I couldn’t say anything in front of the kids yesterday.’
Danny considered lying, but decided there really wasn’t much point.
‘D’you think everybody else will be able to tell?’ she asked anxiously.
‘From your face?’ Vanessa asked dryly. ‘No. But I’d try to kill the John Wayne walk if I were you—bandy legs are a dead giveaway.’
‘Shut up!’
‘So, was he any good?’
Danny pursed her lips.
‘Don’t be cruel!‘Vanessa pleaded. ‘How else will I have a sex life if I can’t live it vicariously through my friends?’
Danny glanced around to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. ‘He was good,’ she muttered.
‘How good?’ Vanessa demanded.
She checked again for eavesdroppers. ‘Very good.’
‘On a scale of one to ten?’
‘Oh for chrissakes, Van! What are you? Sixteen?’
‘No, thirty-three and very horny.’
Danny took pity on her. ‘You know how Cosmo always has those articles about the G spot?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, Ross Fabello knows exactly where it is. He also knows where to find H, I, J and K.’
‘You…lucky…cow.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ Danny paused. ‘But it won’t be happening again.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Because my life is here and his is in America,’ she said firmly. ‘And I’m never going to be like Nella, waiting for crumbs to be thrown my way when Ross finds the time to fly in for a quick visit to see Matt and Mia.’
Vanessa frowned. ‘Danny, Ross isn’t anything like Patrick. And you’re nothing like Daniella. You’d never in a million years become some guy’s doormat.’
Danny studied her pensively. ‘Problem is, somewhere along the way he stopped being just some guy.’
Ross soon realized that Danny’s lapse the night he opened his birthday present was definitely not going to be repeated, which infuriated him, because if anything their second night together had been even better than the first—which he would have insisted was impossible.
Danny tried to morph herself into his friend. If Ross hadn’t been so sexually frustrated, it might have been amusing watching her bite her tongue when he went out of his way to bait her, which was the only way he could let off steam. He didn’t want her friendship—well, not the lukewarm, polite variety she was offering. Ross wanted her wild and naked beneath him, and when she wasn’t there he wanted her smart mouth and sharp brain. It was like taking a mouthful of your favourite coffee and finding non-fat milk instead of rich, velvety cream. Ross wanted full cream. He wanted Danny back. But the more he pushed for her to reappear, the more Danny withdrew.
It was a relief when the time finally came to pack his bags for the trip back to the States.
On the morning Ross left, Mia cried and clung to him, and even Matt looked upset. ‘I’ll only be gone a couple of weeks.’ He rubbed Mia’s back soothingly. ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’
He looked at Danny’s composed expression and felt the helpless, angry frustration that was becoming his constant companion. ‘I’ll be back by early December. You’ve got the numbers I gave you if you need to contact me for anything?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. We’ll be fine. Robyn’s found somebody to cover the Walking School Bus while you’re away.’
Ross stared hard at her.
Danny concentrated on picking a speck of paint off the handle of the front door.
He grabbed his suitcase, flung a leather holdall over his shoulder and said curtly, ‘See you, then.’
‘Yeah,’ she pushed the door wide open. ‘See you.’