words, every confession, are all on my tongue ready to be spat out. I just don’t know where to begin.
I hustle back to my room and find the phone behind the drawer, and I don’t think twice about texting Nox to tell him I have nothing to report. That’s the first step of my plan complete. The easiest step. I quickly replace the cell, scrub my teeth, and hurry back to Danny’s room, but when I make it there, he’s not in bed. I look across to the glass doors and see him on the terrace, his long body naked. My eyes root to his back as I creep up on him, slipping my arms between his and hugging him from behind. “You realize the panels are glass, don’t you?” I ask.
He moves so fast, it’s all a blur, and then I’m swiftly in front of him, my ass pressed up against the glass panel, Danny caging me in.
“It is?” he says, taking the bottom of the shirt I’m wearing and pulling it up to my waist. “Oh dear.”
I purse my lips and peek over my shoulder. It’s silly. If there was anyone in the garden below, Danny wouldn’t be exposing my ass to them. Not now. Returning my attention to him, I shrug and he wrinkles his nose, rubbing it with mine. Everything—the jet ski incident, Watson, last night, now, it’s all building a pile of rightness, telling me that what I’m doing is the best thing. “Can we have dinner tonight?” I ask. I’ll tell him then. It’ll give me the day to figure out where to begin and how I’ll explain bit by bit.
Pulling away, he cocks a questioning head. “Dinner? Like a date?”
What is that heat in my cheeks? “If you want to call it that.”
His lips twist, as he clearly tries to wrap his morbid mind around the concept of a normal date. I suddenly feel stupid and for a brief moment I waver on the edge of uncertainty. “A date,” he muses.
“It’s easy,” I explain. “Do what you’ve done the past two times you’ve taken me for dinner, just don’t kill or threaten anyone during,” I quip, trying to make light of what he clearly thinks is an odd suggestion.
“Okay.” He starts bending his arms against the rail behind me, bringing his face down to my neck. He presses a kiss on my throat before straightening them again, pushing away from me. Then he bends again, dropping down and placing another kiss on my chest before straightening his arms.
“What are you doing?” I ask, as he continues to bend and straighten his arms, like he’s doing push-ups against the railings, me trapped between his muscled limbs. Another kiss, this time on my cheek.
“I missed the gym this morning because of you.” He drifts away and my eyes fall to his biceps bulging. They are truly sigh-worthy, and an appreciative wisp of air leaves me.
“I think three sets of twenty will do.” I pout as I stroke down the length of his swelling arm, happy to admire him while he has a quick workout.
“You gonna count?”
“One,” I start as he slowly lowers toward me again, looking me in the eye as his lips land on my chest.
“Open the shirt,” he orders, pushing himself up straight again. I do as I’m bid and expose my front to his eyes as he slowly descends again. This time, he goes lower, kissing me between my breasts.
“Two,” I breathe, resting my arms on the metal railing and leaning back, making the distance between us greater. Not that it fazes him. With each press, he kisses a different part of my body, and with each flex of his toned arms, his muscles swell more, the blood pumping in more than one place. I’m so lost in the mesmerizing sight of him before me, I lose count, my mind only willing to focus on his mouth meeting my skin. By the time Danny finishes, there’s not an inch of my torso or neck that doesn’t have his lips imprinted on them.
His final descent brings his mouth down onto my forearm. My dressing is gone—Esther said the wound needs air—and he brushes a delicate kiss across the cut. Regret captures me again, and my eyes fall to Danny’s arm, where a bandage still covers his wounds. Not just one cut, but many cuts, all much deeper than my single slice. I swallow and lay my hand over the white dressing. “Why did