And then it arrived, a wave of pleasure that started at my toes and rippled all the way up to my head before racing back down. I arched, going stiff. My hips lifted under him and he grunted and groaned as I spasmed around him, sending him over the edge. His hips hammered me back down into the bed for three more thrusts and then he hilted himself and shot inside me in long, shuddering streams. I wrapped my arms around him and clung to him and he clung to me as we rode the pleasure on and on.

61. Erin

61

ERIN

The wind howled outside, blasting snow past the windows at ferocious speed. But in the bed we were cozy and snug. Danny’s body was deliciously warm and solid and I decided I’d be happy if I never moved again.

I had my head on his chest and after a while, I could feel him watching me. I craned my head back and looked up into those incredible green eyes. There was a look on his face I couldn’t decipher. “What?” I asked. Then, when he didn’t respond, my voice went tight with worry. “What?”

He shook his head as if it was nothing to worry about. “Just sorting stuff out in my head,” he muttered. “I wasn’t planning on this.”

I slid on top of him so that I could look up at him properly. “You’re worried about JD?”

He shook his head again. “We can deal with that, we’ve just got to do it right. No I just—” He scowled, trying to find the words. “I wasn’t planning on falling for someone.” His voice dropped. “Didn’t think I could.”

I said nothing: I’m not great with people but we’d spent so much time together, in the last week, that even my malfunctioning social radar had gotten dialed in to Danny’s wavelength. And right now, the right thing to do was just listen.

He looked up at the ceiling, frowning and uncertain. I’d never seen him be uncertain about anything before. It felt like he was discovering something new, testing out its limits. “I thought….” he said at last, “I thought that bit of me was…broke, or something.”

He huffed a little, as if angry with himself for saying anything. His chest filled, lifting me…but when I didn’t laugh at him, when I just gazed tenderly down at him, he relaxed. He went to speak again once, twice, but kept biting it back. “The scars on my back,” he blurted at last. “They’re not from Iraq.”

I nodded. There’d been a cold ache in my chest, before I even saw the scars for the first time. Ever since that moment when he’d sheltered me from the wind and I’d seen the pain in his eyes. I’d known someone had hurt him.