Chapter Eleven
“I can’t get your rack to cooperate.”
Danny blinked and tore his eyes away from his favorite rack—Olivia’s—to find out what rack Honor’s younger brother, Cooper, was talking about.
“I think the turkey is too heavy,” Cooper added, his head down, the oven door open, potholders in his hands.
Danny took one more peek at Olivia. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her all day. She seemed to have the same problem where he was concerned, his observations rarely going unnoticed. Over the past couple of weeks, they’d talked openly and honestly with one another, leading to arguments and then hot as hell make-up sex. Every minute in opposition was worth it. While not always easy, they understood each other better afterward and were in such great sync as a result that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Off the charts only hinted at how good the sex was, and heat climbed up the back of his neck thinking about it. He rubbed his nape. It had taken Liv—his best friend—to blow his mind in bed.
“Dude, a little help?” Cooper prompted. “The rack is not sliding out.”
“Let me grab an oven mitt.” Danny covered his hand and stood on the other side of the oven. “Ready on three. One…two…three.”
They pulled on the rack. Hard. A little too hard. The thirty-five pound turkey flew out of the oven. It hit the side of the kitchen island, launched off it like an Olympic toboggan, and skidded across the floor until it came to a stop in the middle of the room where the huge bird flipped out of the pan.
Danny looked at Cooper, who looked at him with terror on his twenty-year-old face, and for a few seconds the kitchen fell completely silent. Danny turned to Liv and Honor sitting at the breakfast bar. Both their jaws hung open.
“Why is the turkey on the floor?” Bryce asked as he came into the room, a perplexed look on his face.
Everyone cracked up. Bryce crossed his arms over his chest. Someone hurry up and tell me what’s going on, the gesture said. But no one could stop laughing.
Cooper got control of himself first. “Danny and I pulled a little too hard on the oven rack.” He walked over to the escapee, lifted it, checked for damage, and put it back in the pan.
“It’s a good thing Mr. Clean mopped the floor this morning,” Liv said good-naturedly, her lips tipping up in that cute, sexy way of hers.
Danny pocketed her grin. Lately, he’d been pocketing a lot of them so when he needed a little Liv pick-me-up while working he had one.
“Something that weighs this much comes with a thirty-second rule.” Cooper placed the pan back on the rack and reached for the thermometer. The kid liked to cook when he wasn’t competing as one of the top professional skateboarders in the country. To his credit, the bird smelled damn good.
“Mom and dad are so hearing about this when they get back this weekend,” Honor teased.
“Whatever.” Cooper waved his sister off. “It doesn’t matter because this is going to be the best turkey anyone’s ever eaten.” He wrestled with the rack for a few seconds before Danny helped push it back inside the oven.
“It’s a good thing you haven’t gotten that dog you’ve talked about,” Bryce said, wrapping his arms around Honor’s shoulders and kissing the back of her neck. “He’d have been all over that faster than you could blink.”
Danny tossed the oven mitt onto the counter. “No doubt.” His gaze snagged on Olivia’s surprised expression.
Before Liv walked through his door, he’d thought a dog might fill the unnamed void bothering him. A Lab or golden retriever, like the dogs he’d grown up with. Kool-Aid had been the best at chasing down a Frisbee or lending an excuse when a girl couldn’t take the hint he wasn’t interested. I need to walk my dog. Sorry. And since he knew that one day a dog would be his only companion, he wanted one that wasn’t required or needed, but around for the fun of it.
A dog won’t be your only companion now.
Liv opened her mouth to say something just as a warm “hello” rang out from the vicinity of the front door. Olivia snapped her jaw shut, got to her feet, and ran her hands down her pretty mustard-colored knit dress before resting her palm on her growing belly. Goddamn, she looked beautiful.
“Don’t be nervous,” he whispered, coming to stand beside her.
“Do I look okay?”
“You look gorgeous.”
She smiled up at him. “I kind of want to kiss you right now.”
“Go for it.”
“Not in front of your parents,” she chastised in a way that told him she’d be a total pushover as a mom. She turned her head away. “Hi, Russ! Hi Mary!”
Danny’s mom took one look at Liv and, as he’d expected, she burst into happy tears. “Olivia, look at you!” She put the covered dish in her hands on the counter and wrapped Liv in a hug. “I’m so happy to see you. And my soon-to-be grandbaby. May I?” She hovered her hand over Liv’s stomach.
“Of course,” Liv answered, casting a quick, sideways glance at him.
Danny clenched his jaw. This was worse than he’d thought. Two seconds in and his mom was already calling the baby hers. And he hadn’t factored in the existing love and affection between Liv and his mom. This strengthened their bond, not his and his mom’s. He watched with mixed emotions as the two most important women in his life shared something deeply personal and meaningful, his mom’s hand on Liv’s growing belly more than just a picture of approval and admiration.
“Hi, Danny,” his mom said, putting her arms around him.
He hugged her back, happy to see her, but plagued with uncertainty at the change in dynamics between his mom and his best friend. “Hey, Mom.”
“Olivia,” his dad said, pulling Liv in tight and kissing the top of her head.
His mom let him go and moved to Bryce next. He and his dad did the one arm hug thing. Honor and Cooper were introduced next and immediately treated like family, too.
“Shut the front door!”
Danny turned his head to find his sister standing in the kitchen entryway, a covered pot in her hands, her husband right behind her, and her eyes wide as an owl’s on Liv.
“You have blond hair,” Kelsey said to her. “I love it!”
Danny wanted to kiss his sister for picking Liv’s hair color to comment on. He didn’t know how much his mom had told her, but she’d always had this weird sense of knowing when his nerves needed to be settled.
“Olivia hasn’t always had blond hair?”
Danny did a one–eighty to find Mrs. L. and Tuck striding in through the sliding glass door, pies in their hands. Party central had taken lift off. “It’s so natural looking,” Mrs. L. added.
Further introductions followed, voices grew louder, wine filled glasses. The temperature in the room jumped about a thousand degrees. More than once, Danny put a couple of fingers under his collar. Coop pulled the turkey out of the oven to “rest.” Danny’s mom put her Brussels sprouts with pecans into the oven to heat up while Kelsey stirred her mashed potatoes on the stove. Danny took a step back from all the activity to connect with Liv, but she’d left the kitchen.
He found her right where he knew he would. Lately, she’d made a habit of spending time sitting on the small concrete bench underneath the willow tree in the backyard.
The fading light cast her in magnificent shadow and, for a few moments, he kept still and stared. She’d pulled her hair up in a loose twist that framed her heart-shaped face and exposed the smooth column of her neck. Solitude surrounded her, but it didn’t reek of loneliness or melancholy. It smacked of peace and humility, exposing still deeper layers to the woman he’d thought he knew inside and out.
Her notice got him moving. In quiet moments like this, with just the two of them, nothing felt more right. And more and more, the rightness of their situation plagued him. Was it fair of him to want all the parts of her when he couldn’t offer the same in return? He knew Liv. Knew that she’d taken their relationship to a new and rare level, and he kept taking because he didn’t want to give up the way she made him feel. Not when he could see the unrestrained affection in her eyes.
Which made him selfish in a way he hadn’t known he could be.
Liv smiled up at him and patted the spot beside her. “Hey.”
“No fair you leaving me alone in there,” he teased, sitting and bumping his knee to hers.
“It was that or risk throwing up on my boots, and I really like these boots.”
Alarm swept through him. “You’re not feeling well?”
“I think it was just all the different smells…the noise…and the temperature in the kitchen. I’m feeling much better now that I’ve gotten some fresh air.”
Air ripe with rain on the way. Danny glanced up at the darkening sky. He couldn’t make out much, but the clouds had yet to hide all the stars.
“Do you miss your parents?” he risked asking. They’d avoided the topic since Liv had told him Joy and Jim were going back east to spend the holiday with her stepfather’s family.
“Yes and no, which makes me feel awful. Everything is always so easy with your family and I’m happy that I don’t have to worry about what my mother is thinking. But she is my mom and this is traditionally a day of family. Honor’s mom has texted her at least five times with pictures of their new great niece or some little thing to let her know she’s being thought of.”
“Your mom’s thinking of you, Liv. More than you know.” He took her hand in his, rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.
“Maybe.”
“What sound does a turkey’s phone make?”
Liv laid her head on his shoulder. He couldn’t see her smile, but he felt it. Closing his eyes, he was conscious of everything about her, from her softness to her floral scent, to the tension leaving her body. “I don’t know. Tell me, what sound does a turkey’s phone make?”
“Wing, wing.”
There weren’t many sounds that beat the resonance of Liv’s laughter and he smiled, glad to have lightened the mood.
“Okay you two lovebirds.” Danny opened his eyes to find Mrs. L., hands on her hips, looking at them like she’d caught a couple of escaped convicts. “The food is ready to be served so get your bottoms back in here.”
“Yes ma’am,” Danny said. He helped Liv to her feet and they headed to dinner. She’d set the dining room table pretty spectacularly and once food filled the center, Danny couldn’t remember a more festive or delicious looking Thanksgiving meal.
Conversation never lagged, even as everyone stuffed their faces.
Before they moved to dessert, Danny’s mom stood and tapped the side of her glass with a fork. “We have a Thanksgiving tradition in the Ellis household of sharing one thing we’re most thankful for over the past year and I’d like to keep that tradition going, if that’s okay?” She looked at Danny. He nodded. “Okay, I’ll start and we’ll go clockwise around the table.”
That meant Liv would go before him. She’d had some major setbacks this past year, what with losing her job and the breakup with Will. But the one incredible gift growing inside her trumped any hardship and had to be the best thing to happen to her. For that, Danny was most grateful.
He took a stealthy look at her. Did she still think about Will? It rankled to think she might, another selfish feeling on his part. The guy was the father of her baby, of course she thought about him. Had every right to.
“You’ve got a little honey,” he whispered near her ear. She turned, so he touched the corner of his mouth with his finger. Her tongue darted out to lick it away. Lucky honey.
“Thanks,” she whispered back.
“This past year I’m most thankful for,” Bryce started to say and Danny realized he’d paid zero attention to both his mom and Honor’s thanks. “The love of my life realizing that I’m the love of hers.”
“When’s the wedding?” Mrs. L. called out.
“He has to pop the question first,” Honor said easily.
Shock flashed across Bryce’s face. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
It was no secret that Honor had some issues with commitment, and that Bryce planned to wait as long as it took for her to be ready for marriage.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Honor answered sweetly before leaning over to say something for Bryce’s ears only.
Liv cleared her throat. Danny’s muscles tensed. Why were his muscles flexing? Because her answer mattered to him more than anyone else’s.
“Danny,” she said simply.
One word. His name.
“I’m most thankful for Danny.”
His.
Name.
Mrs. L. elbowed Tuck in a see-I-told-you-so gesture. Danny’s mom swiped at the corner of her eye. His sister’s grin stretched wide enough to reach her ears.
Liv hadn’t said being pregnant.
She’d picked him.
He found her hand under the table, laced their fingers, and squeezed. In thanks. In gratitude. No matter what, he’d hold her hand until the end of time. It’s the one thing he could do without fail.
…
“What’s this?” Liv asked, climbing back into bed Friday morning and lifting the envelope sitting on her pillow.
“Open it and find out,” Danny said, distracting her with his muscled chest and ridged abs, his skin yummy and smooth as honey. She knew this because she’d kissed every inch of it last night. “Ahem.” He nodded toward the envelope.
She jerked her attention back to the paper in her hand. Right. Envelope. Ignore the naked man whose bed you’ve been occupying every night for the past couple of weeks. She slipped the plain white card stock out of the envelope and read the neatly written message.
Three Days of Whatever You Want
Pampering Included
Happy Half Birthday, Maybug
“You remembered.” It was silly, she knew, to put so much weight on a half birthday, but she hadn’t had the happiest of birthdays growing up so she preferred to think more favorably of her half birthday. When Danny found out, he’d vowed to make those days special and celebrate with her.
“I promised you I always would.”
She met his warm, true-to-his-word eyes. “I know, but with everything going on and Thanksgiving yesterday, I thought this year might be different.”
“This year is different. You’ve got three days with this.” He gave her a cocky grin and gestured toward his body.
Liv splayed her palm across his chest. “What about work? You’ve got a piece due next week, don’t you?”
“I’ll get it done. This holiday weekend is about you.” He watched her walk her fingers down toward his lap and the edge of the sheet.
“And anything I want.”
“That’s right.”
“Awfully generous of you.”
“I’m a”—he groaned as she rubbed over the sheet and his growing erection—“giver.”
“I know you are.” She tossed the notecard over her shoulder and crawled on top of him, straddling his hips with her thighs. “Know what I want right now?”
“My rocket?”
She cracked up. God, he was adorable. He framed her face in his hands, quieting her with an open-mouthed kiss that made her wet and warm and wanting. She broke their connection to pull his UCLA shirt up and over her head.
Danny’s hands were all over then, kneading her breasts, cupping her bottom, roaming up her sides and across her back. She rocked against him, cupped his cheeks and brought his mouth back to hers. He took possession of the kiss, tangling their tongues, taking her bottom lip between his teeth. “Ride me, Liv.”
She lifted the sheet away from his waist and kicked the soft material down the bed. Hands on his shoulders, eyes locked on one another, she wiggled her hips and lowered herself onto him. His fingers curled around her sides to help guide her until she hit that delicious half way mark where he filled her enough to move his hands to her inner thighs. His thumb grazed her swollen, wet flesh, causing her to arch her back, her breath to catch. She sank all the way down on him and went still. To relish the pleasure that bordered on pain, the fullness between her legs, the heated look in Danny’s gaze.
He broke the perfect stillness first, surging upward with a sexy, raspy growl of impatience. She loved when he lost control. Loved that she was responsible. She took over, riding him in slow, insistent circles until he leaned forward and took her nipple into his mouth. The second he started to suck, she started to buck.
“I love how sensitive you are here,” he whispered against her breast, his warm breath almost as potent as his sucking. “Have you always been?”
“No.” It’s you, she wanted to add, but held her tongue. Better for him to believe it was only the pregnancy making her so responsive to his touch.
His ministrations moved to her other breast. Her hands gripped the back of his head. She was about to tumble over the edge and wanted him there with her. “I’m going to come,” she moaned, her voice barely recognizable.
Danny released her breast and sat back, watched her. He liked to watch when she came. He thrust up, she pressed down, the give and take of their hips in total harmony.
The blinding, pulsing moment of release moments later had her shouting his name. He shuddered and spilled inside her, his ragged breath mingling with her cries. She touched her forehead to his as their bodies calmed.
Smiling. They were both smiling.
Liv eased off him gently. She rolled onto her back and enjoyed the shivers climbing up her spine at the gorgeous sight of Danny post-orgasm. He dropped down beside her and tucked her into his side.
“How was it?” he asked.
She frowned at him. Like he needed to ask.
“The ride into orbit,” he said so seriously that it took her a second to realize he was referring to his “rocket.”
She burst into a fit of laughter. Again. His arm tightened around her, a quiet way of saying thanks for finding him funny.
There wasn’t anything she didn’t like about her best friend. And with every day that passed, she found it harder and harder to ignore feelings she was trying to keep under lock and key, never to be opened. She wouldn’t ruin what they had by sharing feelings that might send Danny running.
“You hungry?” he asked, interrupting her dangerous thoughts.
“When am I not?”
“True. You up for some chicken and waffles?”
“Sounds good,” she said, pushing up. “You know what tastes good on chicken and waffles, don’t you?”
He kissed her cheek and slid out of bed. “Let’s go, Pooh Bear.”
After breakfast, the rest of the day was bliss. They watched movies by firelight. Danny massaged her feet. He drew them a bubble bath in his giant tub, and she read steamy passages from her romance novel to him. He took her to bed.
Early in the evening the next day they were sitting on the couch, finishing up some take-out and watching 10 Things I Hate About You, when Liv said, “Is there anything you didn’t get to do when you were younger that you wished you had?” She’d been thinking about her childhood more lately. Adolescence was never easy, but she intended on making her child’s better than her own.
Danny shifted next to her. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“What is it you want to do?” he gave her leg a little push. “Now’s your chance, you know.”
She did know. That’s why she’d brought it up. “I want to build a fort. With blankets.”
“Totally doable,” he said, not the least bit put off by her childish request. “Want to make it here or somewhere else?”
“I was thinking over your bed?”
The sexy turn of his lips set off fluttery impulses from her neck down. “Let’s do it.” He stood and put his hand out to help her up. Halfway up the stairs, he stopped. “There’s something I need to grab, but you can start gathering blankets and sheets from the linen closet and extra bedrooms.”
“Okay.”
Danny chuckled when he entered the bedroom a few minutes later and took in the pile in the middle of the floor. “Did you grab everything?”
“Pretty much. What do you have?” He held a bin she recognized from the garage. On top of the bin were several clamps. Danny was so the right person to build a fort with.
“You’ll see.” He put the container down and did a quick survey of the bed. A brief flash of displeasure crossed his face. The unmade covers drove him crazy.
Liv put her hand on his chest. “Want me to make it first?” She’d coaxed him out of it this morning without a glance back so the least she could do was make it comfortable for him now.
“If you insist.”
“I do.” She turned, and with a little extra wiggle in her hips walked to the bed. Glancing over her shoulder she caught him staring.
He shook his head and got busy searching through the linens. Once the bed was made, Danny stood in the center of it and asked her to hand him the sheets he’d selected from the pile. The ceiling fan above the foot of the bed served as the top of the fort and Liv helped Danny spread out the sheets until the entire king-size was shrouded. He took her suggestion on where to leave the small opening for them to crawl through, then he pulled strings of lights out of the bin. Her heart rate sped up.
They draped the lights inside and outside the fort. Danny used extension cords that he had somehow hid from view. When finished, he told Liv to lie down.
“Ready?” he asked from somewhere in the room.
“Ready.”
Tiny white lights flickered on. With her head on the pillow, Liv looked up in awe. It was magical. Romantic. Perfect. She blinked back happy tears.
Danny crawled onto the bed and laid down beside her. “Nice work, Miss Lincoln.”
“I was about to say the same to you, Mr. Ellis.”
“We make a good team.”
“We do.”
He rolled over onto his side, his head propped on his hand. Liv kept her gaze on the lights, afraid of what her eyes might reveal is she looked at him right now. “This far exceeded my expectations,” she said. “Thank you.”
Rather than respond, he traced a finger around her cheek, across her lips. The feather light touch caused her eyes to flutter shut, tingles to swarm her body.
She felt his lips on hers next, soft at first, like she was something fragile, then firmer, more demanding, like she was something he wanted to possess. “Danny,” she whispered.
They undressed each other slowly. Hands roaming, mouths feasting, skin buzzing in anticipation. Liv had never felt so cherished, so in touch with her body. This man’s attention made time stand still. There was nothing but the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms and legs, bringing indescribable pleasure with every touch.
Danny eased himself just barely insider her. Pulled back. Did it again. She could only take the delicious torture for so long before she wrapped her legs around his hips, encouraging him to stop teasing. He got the message. He flashed a dimpled smile and with one deep, driving thrust he had her screaming, “Yes!”
She raked her nails down his back, loving the tension in his muscles. Lifting one arm off the bed, his fingers found her curls. He caressed the tight nub there, back and forth with exquisite pressure. His thrusts grew more insistent. Perspiration dotted his forehead.
“Liv, I can’t hold on much…”
“It’s okay. I’m right there with—oh God, Danny…” She pressed her hands into the bed as her body tightened and shuddered. With each contraction she took everything she could, wanting to prolong the waves of pleasure.
Danny’s release followed right behind, his eyes glazed and content when he opened them to look down at her.
“I don’t want to ever leave this bed,” she murmured.
He kissed her before collapsing onto his back. “Okay,” he said, his voice low, gravelly, his energy clearly depleted.
She rolled over and kissed his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips, and his chin. She lavished tender kisses on his neck, shoulders, chest, and abs. Resting her head over his heart, she listened to the steady beat as he drifted into sleep.
“I love you,” she barely whispered, wrapping her arm around him. She hadn’t meant to fall so hard and fast for him, but it had happened anyway. He owned her heart. Her soul. Consummating their friendship with a physical intimacy she’d never felt before had changed everything for her. She wondered if it had changed him, too, but only for a minute because it didn’t matter. She couldn’t change what her heart felt or wanted and she’d take whatever Danny could give her. “I love you,” she mouthed and trailed him into dreamland.
The next morning the sound of the doorbell woke her. “Danny,” she said after a yawn, “there’s someone at the door.”
“I know. I’m hoping they go away.” He had her trapped in his arms with his palm on her belly, her back against his front. She had zero objection to them staying exactly like that.
The bell rang again.
If it rings one more time, I’ll get up and answer it.
The bell chimed a third time.
Liv let out a deep breath. “It could be important.” She slipped out of bed, covered herself with a robe, and padded downstairs in her bare feet.
Sunlight streamed in through the oval window at the top of the custom front door. She turned the handle and opened the door.
And her heart stopped.
A shiver racked her body.
Will stood three feet away, a bouquet of roses in his hand. “Hello, Olivia.”
“Who is it, Liv?” Danny said, his voice still that rough, sexy, sleepy sound she loved to hear every morning. He put a hand on her waist, looked over her shoulder.
Will looked from her to Danny, then back to her, waiting for an introduction, she guessed.
Kind of hard to do when her vocal chords had seized up and speaking seemed impossible.
Danny’s hand tightened around her. He knew. Somehow he knew.
“Danny,” she said, clearing her throat. “This is Will Stapleton.”