Swift moves left Julie naked and flat on her back with nothing more than a Danny Marcus blanket to keep her warm. Perfect.

***

SHE’S BEEN WAITING for me. Danny looked at the beautifully naked woman beneath him. Never again.

Gray eyes penetrated him as their bare skin touched. Trust, understanding, commitment. She was in. In his heart, he’d known it the whole time, but his damn head had needed to hear it. Now that he had, he was never letting her go.

“So beautiful,” he whispered before he leaned in and took her lips. Claimed them.

Her lids slid shut and her mouth opened on a sigh, allowing his tongue to enter and slide against hers. He deepened the kiss and swallowed her moan as his hand slid from her cheek to her breast. Kneading the flesh, he plucked her nipple, loving how she responded to his every touch.

“Can’t get enough of your tits. Can spend days sucking them, touching them, watching you squirm.” His attention moved to the other breast, and her body arched as she fed herself into his mouth. “Greedy.” He chuckled but didn’t leave her hanging.

With his mouth on her chest, Julie sifted her nails through his hair and across his shoulder blades. Her touch, as always, lit him up, sending electricity thrumming through his veins, straight to his cock.

“More, Danny.”

Her words may have sounded sweet, but they were no less of a command than any he’d dish out. So he gave more. His hand looped around her wrists, keeping them restrained above her head, while his other hand dragged down her slim torso, between her thighs, and into her wetness. She gasped, and he grinned.

“Drenched, honey.”

“You make me feel so good,” she admitted with an unfocused stare. “I need my hands. I want to touch you too.”

“Can’t happen, baby, not this time.” He slid one finger, then two into her core, applying perfect pressure to her clit with his thumb. An erotic as fuck moan tore from her throat, hardening his dick further. Nope, there was no way she could touch him, not if he wanted to last. “You’re so close, I can feel it. Your pussy is squeezing my fingers. It wants this.” He rotated his wrist, lifting his finger to her special spot, and rubbed.

“Oh… yes… that feels…oh.” Her body trembled as her pelvis arched, reaching…reaching for release that he’d gladly give.

“Give it to me,” he hoarsely demanded into her neck as his thumb stroked the sensitive bundle of nerves between her legs.

And she did. The way her body trembled around him was breathtaking, made him feel like a king. Now he wanted to feel like her man.

“Gonna take you, Julie,” he promised. “I’m gonna make you mine.”

“I’ve been yours,” she croaked. Julie wrapped her legs around him as he moved to grab a condom from his jeans. “What are you doing?”

“Protection, honey.”

“I’m on the pill.” Julie’s eyes were clear suddenly, the haze from her orgasm gone, and she seemed damn ready to make a decision that affected her life.

“You sure?”

“Nothing between us means nothing between us.”

Holy shit, he’d never fucked bareback. His parents and older brother had drilled that lesson in hard. But he wasn’t just fucking Julie, was he?

“Nothing between us,” he confirmed as he claimed her mouth once again. When his cock was at her entrance and the wetness grazed the tip, Danny lost his breath. “Fuuuck.”

He entered her slowly, inch by inch, reveling in her warmth, loving the way she squeezed him. He claimed her gently, as if she were porcelain, holding back in order to keep her safe.

“Damn it, Danny, more!” Julie arched her back, thrust her hips to his, and grinded against him, looking for everything he was holding back.

Her actions snapped him out of the bareback-bliss he’d been trapped in and dumped him exactly where he’d spent his entire sexual career—on top. “Sorry, honey, it’s just…your cunt feels so fucking good. Gotta give a man a break when you take him to heaven for the first time. But you want more? I’ll give you more.”

He felt her blush right in his balls as he pulled nearly the whole way out, then slammed back in.

“Ahhh, God.”

“How’s that for more, baby?” He repeated the move and got the same response.

“Don’t. Ever. Stop.” Julie panted each time their bodies were flush together.

Hot and wet, soft and sweet—home. Danny had had plenty of sex, but never once had he found home. Just as that thought tiptoed through his mind, Julie’s pussy squeezed him. Her climax was building.

“Danny, oh, it’s never felt like this…before.”

She closed her eyes so quickly, he assumed she hadn’t meant to vocalize that thought.

“No, baby, it hasn’t. But this”—he sank deep into her warmth—“is us. Always gonna be.”

He lowered his weight onto her, thrusting in and out until her pussy coated him in her warm release, then he finally let go. The climax that had been building from the second he’d felt her bare—the one that had traveled from the base of his spine to his balls, that had twisted up every nerve in his body into a sphere of energy—released from him into her, taking with it a part of him he was sure he’d never get back. He was certain he’d never want it back. That part was Julie’s. He was Julie’s.

Chapter Five

Thank God For That

“I SPOKE WITH my brother today.”

“How is Neal?”

Julie adored Danny’s baby brother, although at twenty years old and standing six foot three, he wasn’t such a baby anymore. They’d met at Thanksgiving a few months earlier when Danny took Julie down to North Carolina to spend the holiday with his family. She fell for both Marcus men almost instantly. Mr. Marcus—Allan, as he demanded she call him—was practically a carbon copy of Danny, just older and a bit more refined. In the man’s eyes was loss but not defeat, and throughout the long weekend, he shared fatherly wisdom that Julie had forgotten she’d missed getting from her own dad.

Neal was a different story altogether. Young, spirited, and carefree, he was quick with inappropriate jokes. He’d had Julie laughing from their introduction to their hug good-bye. The only time his serious side showed was when his engine company was called out on an emergency. A huge fire had broken out in a small town nearby and the station needed more hands on deck, so Neal left in a hurry. He came home twelve hours later, the glimmer snuffed from his eyes and the spark erased from his tongue. The next morning, however, he was back to himself, as if the day before had never happened. Both Allan and Danny took Neal’s change of mood in stride, so after giving him a hug, Julie had stepped back that day and followed Danny’s lead in giving the younger guy his space.

Back in their home, Danny poured her a glass of wine. “He’s great. He’s Neal, you know? Anyway, talked to a few of his buddies in Baltimore, and they said they’d keep me posted on any positions that become available in the local stations.” Every time Danny spoke of his future, his eyes lit up like the fires he intended to battle.

Soon after they had started dating, Danny explained that he had no intentions of re-uping once his four-year contract with the army was complete. To say his admission made her happy would have been an understatement. When he mapped out his plan to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a firefighter like Allan and Neal, some of her excitement was extinguished. Fires were dangerous, but she kept her anxieties to herself. After ten months of dating—ten overwhelmingly happy, incredibly intense, sexy, mind-blowing months of dating—the thought of him running into burning buildings instead of from them scared the shit out of her.

“What’s the matter, honey?”