He licked the shell of her ear. “It’s because this pussy is mine, darling. It always has been. It always will be.”
“I…hate…you.”
Daniel hitched her higher, running his free hand up to cup her left breast, pinching her nipple lightly. “Doesn’t change a fucking thing. Now be a good girl and come for me.”
He pressed three fingers hard against her clit and that was all it took. She cried out, her pussy spasming around him and her entire body shaking. He leaned back to grab her hips, pounding into her, chasing his own orgasm. Pressure built in the base of his spine, and though he tried to fight it off as long as he could, it was just too fucking good. He came so hard his knees buckled. “Holy shit.”
And then there was nothing to do but lean against the counter, covering her, and relearn how to breathe.
Hope didn’t give him much opportunity. She ducked out from beneath his arms and yanked her pants back into place. “You…I can’t…God, I hate you.”
He turned his head to watch her snatch up her shirt. “You’re welcome for the orgasm.”
“Don’t start that crap with me. I agreed to sex. I did not agree to you doing the equivalent of peeing on my foot. I am not yours, Daniel. I haven’t been for a long time and I never will be again.”
…
Hope was so furious, she could barely think straight. How dare he? And she’d walked right into it, which was the most unforgivable part of the whole mess. She shoved out the front door, making it a whole three steps before Ollie rushed around the side of the house, barking happily. The dog ran circles around her, making it impossible to take a step without worrying about stepping on her.
Good lord. The dog was attempting to herd her back into the house.
She propped her hands on her hips and glared. “I know what you’re doing, and I don’t appreciate it any more than I appreciate what he’s doing.”
“Careful there—you’re going to hurt her feelings, and I’ve never seen a canine that can mope quite as effectively as Ollie.”
Deep down, she’d known that he’d follow her out here. She needed time to wind down, and Daniel wasn’t going to give it to her. He’d just keep pushing and prodding and steamrolling until she either caved or exploded. Right now, the latter was looking pretty damn attractive.
She spun to face him. The fact that he looked rumpled and sexy only made her crazier. It would be so incredibly easy to stop fighting and let him steamroll her. He wasn’t saying anything she didn’t want to hear. But that was the problem—she no longer trusted Daniel Rodriguez. A baby. A catastrophic leg injury. Both were world-altering events, and he’d dropped her like a hot potato after the first one. Who was to say he wouldn’t do the same thing after the other the second he stopped to think too hard about it? “You sicced your dog on me.”
“Sicced, huh?” He made a show of looking at the deliriously happy dog, which only made her want to stomp her foot like a toddler. Daniel raised his eyebrows. “Are you feeling threatened? Because Ollie here looks pretty fucking threatening right now.”
“Shut up.” He didn’t get to surprise her in the kitchen with mind-blowing sex, lay claim to her vagina, and then turn around and poke fun at her. “I need space.”
It was clearer than ever that this wasn’t working out. She’d shown up here expecting… She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. When she’d driven from Dallas, she’d been convinced he would say all the right things and then she could go back to her life, well assured that he’d be supportive in the way she envisioned. That they would be partners—long-distance partners.
Apparently that had been her delusions talking.
The truth was that Daniel wasn’t the only one to blame for things going south so quickly. She was too keyed up, and it was making her emotions flip-flop faster than even she could follow. If she’d told him to back off sexually, he would have. She was the one who’d made the first move. So the blame for that, at least, lay firmly in her court. Hope held up a hand. “Space, Daniel. Respect it or I’m getting in my car right now.”
He stopped in the middle of walking toward her. “You don’t get to throw that threat around whenever it pleases you.”
“Wrong. We aren’t dating, and we sure as hell aren’t married. I might be having your baby, but that doesn’t mean I’m yours.” She hated the way his mouth tightened with each word, but she needed to make this as cut-and-dried as she could. She’d been back in Devil’s Falls all of a weekend and it was more clear than ever why they wouldn’t work.
“That’s where you’re wrong, darling.” He leaned against the post of his front porch, looking for all the world like he wasn’t worried she’d leave. Like she was a sure thing. “You never stopped being mine.”
It was too much. She’d tried so incredibly hard to let go of the past and move on, but being back here and having him make claims on her he had no business making… She couldn’t do it anymore. “If I was really yours, you wouldn’t have left me in that hospital alone, Daniel. You would have been there when I woke up. You would have been at my side when we buried my brother. You wouldn’t have stared right through me as if I wasn’t there. You would have, I don’t know, returned a single phone call instead of letting me twist in the wind. I’d lost so much, and then you went and made sure that I lost everything.”
It hurt to say, like she was traveling back in time to that terrified eighteen-year-old girl who’d woken up an only child and watched her college track scholarship disappear before her eyes. She’d clung to the fact that at least she still had Daniel…except then she didn’t have him, either.
He flinched. “Darling—”
“Do not call me that.”
They stood there, staring at each other across a distance that should be easily crossable. If only he would take the first step, if only he’d been willing to bend just a little. He wouldn’t, though. Nothing had really changed.
Daniel straightened. “It was a mistake.”
“I know this was a mistake.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Back then, I made a mistake. Fuck, I made more than one. We went out that night and I knew I was the designated driver, and I still had two beers.”
Her eyes went wide. Surely he doesn’t still blame himself for that? “I don’t know how things are for you now, but back then two beers wasn’t even enough for you to catch a buzz.”
“I blew a point-oh-nine.”
“That doesn’t mean you were drunk.” She’d known he wasn’t drunk. In all the scenarios that had played out in her head over the years, she’d always comforted herself with the knowledge that Daniel had to know that that car crash was beyond his control. “It was raining like crazy and that truck lost control. You were trying to avoid a head-on collision.”
“Instead, I rolled the car, killed John, and crippled you.”
She jerked back, biting down on her instinctive response to that. This moment wasn’t about her. It was about him and the guilt that had been poisoning him for far too long. “No one could have done better. Everyone knows that.” Everyone except, apparently, Daniel.
But he wasn’t listening. He stared off into the distance. “How could I face you, Hope? We all loved John, but he was your big brother. He’d always suspected I wasn’t good enough for you, and that night I proved him right.”
“You’re rewriting history. Don’t you dare put the memory of John between us.” She drew herself up. “He might have been y
our best friend, but he was my brother. He wouldn’t have blamed you for the crash any more than I did. You made your intentions to marry me after I got through college pretty damn clear. He thought we were great together.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. “There’s no way you don’t blame me for that. It’s impossible.”
“Well, then pigs are flying, because I don’t. I never have.” She waited a beat, silently debating just letting this go. But it was like lancing a wound—it was time to get it all out there. “I blame you for abandoning me afterward.”
“I couldn’t face you.” He shook his head. “I might not have taken off like Adam did, but it was everything I could do to go to the funeral. It was bad putting John in the ground, but it was almost worse seeing you in that chair, looking like you had one foot in the grave. I just…I thought you’d be better without me in your life.”
He’d been mourning, the same way she had. The difference was that he’d only seen what he’d lost, rather than what was still left. Mainly her. Because of her leg, apparently. “If you couldn’t handle the thought of being with a cripple, then just say it. It’s fine—you didn’t sign on for that when we started dating. But don’t try to pretty it up like you were doing me a favor.” Suddenly exhausted, she wobbled over to drop onto the step next to where he stood.
He sank down next to her. “I don’t think you’re a cripple.”
“You literally just said that.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Bully for you.” She didn’t really want to talk about her injury. It was just another opportunity for him to wallow in decade-old guilt instead of focusing on the current issues. “My point, which we’ve stampeded away from, is that you are the one who ended us. Not me. So you don’t get to just decide that you’re picking back up where we left off. That’s not how it works.”
“Do you still love me, darling?”
Her breath stilled in her lungs, and her eyes went wide. The world tilted crazily around her like it had last time she had the misfortune of being on a carnival ride. She hadn’t liked the experience any more then than she did now. “What the hell kind of question is that?”