How could she put into words what Danny had given her when he gave her his last name? It sounded cliché, but she hadn’t just gotten a husband—she’d gotten a father, a brother, and an extended family of sorts. She got holidays back, something she’d thought gone forever. She got fatherly phone calls when she was feeling ill. She got a brotherly teasing when the situation arose, something she’d never known she was missing. While she’d never had the opportunity to meet Danny’s older brother, Jeff, or his mother, Renee, she still felt their love when she was in the Marcus home and she felt their loss while with the Marcus men.

“Being with them,” she continued, “brings me more comfort and happiness than you’ll ever know. Thank you for sharing them with me.” Even with his hand under hers, she was powerless to stop him as his palm inched up her jean-clad thigh to the seam between her legs.

“Everything I have is yours, honey,” he muttered as his middle finger pressed against the denim. “Everything you have is mine. We made those vows. We honor them.” His voice was rough as his left hand white-knuckled the steering wheel. “Unbutton your pants, baby. Gimme what’s mine. We’ll be home in no time. Neither of us is getting out of this fucking car until the windows are steamed and we both come… at least once.”

By the time he threw the truck in park, Julie was coming down from her first climax.

“Mmm, you could teach a course on one-handed-orgasm-giving while driving,” she said.

“Sure the DMV wouldn’t look too kindly upon that, babe.” Danny smiled, unclicking his seatbelt.

Julie’s eyes settled on the bulge in her husband’s jeans. The man was sex personified. Just his heated looks got her wet and ready.

“That lower lip has always been your tell, Jules…want. Question is, how do I want you to take me? In that sexy mouth of yours or in that tight pussy?”

Either one was perfect to her. She found pleasure in giving him his.

The driver’s seat slid back. “Fuck me, baby. Now.”

Excitement traveled through her blood as she moved from her seat to his. Her jeans had already been unbuttoned and pulled halfway down her hips. She just needed to slide them off one leg and move her panties to the side. He felt so heavy in her hand, so thick, she almost wished he’d chosen a blow job—until she lined him up to her entrance and sank down. Then she thanked her lucky stars he’d wanted to fuck.

“Oh oh, God, Danny. You feel so…”

“Ride me, honey, ride my cock.” He grunted, thrusting his pelvis into hers.

His hands felt amazing on her skin. His tight grip on her ass would no doubt leave marks, marks that they’d admire when they made love later that night. He pulsed into her, and she tightened around him, her release within her grasp.

“Can feel you, baby, so close. Tight little cunt is squeezing me. Fuck, Julie, fuck…”

His thumb swiped at her clit, and bliss hit, stealing her breath and pounding her heart. His orgasm reignited hers as he held her tighter until his tremors stopped.

“You were right,” she teased, lightly touching her lips to his. “The windows are steamed up and we both came.”

Chuckling, Danny nuzzled her nose. “You, more than once.”

###

LAUGHING, SHE UNLOCKED their front door while he carried their luggage over the threshold. “I could have carried a bag or two, you know.”

“First of all”—Danny dropped the overstuffed duffle bags and roll-away suitcase on the tiled entrance floor—“my woman doesn’t carry heavy shit; you know this. Second”—he waved at the collection of luggage—“the fact that we even had this much crap for a four-day trip is in-fuckin-sane, honey.”

Julie stared at Danny. His jeans were unsnapped, shirt unbuttoned, hair screaming that he’d just gotten fucked in the front seat of his truck. The man was so sexy it was sinful, and it was natural. “Not all of us can wake up in the morning and look like that.” She pointed at him.

“What do you mean?” A slow smirk creased his mouth, the smirk that said he knew exactly what she was talking about but wanted to hear her say it.

Danny wasn’t stupid or blind; he knew he what he looked like, but he wasn’t arrogant about it. As he’d said in the past, “Being attractive is good and all, but having the woman I’m in love with look at me with such carnal desire, like she could pull out a spoon, drag it across my flesh, and taste only hot sex and sweet promise, is better than a hundred women vying for my attention.”

With answers like that, how could she ever deny the man anything?

Shaking her head, she pressed her lips together, trying and failing to keep her smile hidden. “I mean, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Seriously, you’re gorgeous, sexy…” Danny’s grin widened, so Julie decided to rein his ego in a bit. “Hell, you’re pretty, sweetheart. You’d make a beautiful girl.” When Danny’s brows snapped together, Julie saw his intensions and dropped her purse. But even as she backed away from what was sure to be relentless tickle torture, she continued to tease, “So pretty with your long lashes and big hazel eyes. I’d call you Danielle if you were a girl.”

“Run, Julie,” Danny warned.

Julie screeched and complied, running through the hallway and up the stairs. She didn’t get more than a foot into their bedroom before she was lifted off the floor and tossed onto the bed.

“Hope you don’t have to pee, honey,” Danny warned as his fingers met her bare skin and the tickling began. Peals of laughter danced between them as they rolled around the mattress. “What’s the matter, baby? This girl too strong for you?”

After minutes of playing and Julie struggling to keep her bladder from giving up, the phone rang. “D-Danny. Danny, the phone,” she stammered between rounds of hiccups and giggles. “The phone’s ringing.”

“Oh no, you started this. You think I’m gonna let the phone finish it? Tell me I’m the supreme master, and I’ll stop.”

“Never.” She attempted to roll to her side as the answering machine clicked on.

“You’ve reached the Marcus’s. We’re probably avoiding you, so leave a message and we’ll call you later,” the outgoing message recited.

“Danny, Julie, are you there?” Danny’s father’s voice was wrong. The sound of terror in it was so present, it felt tangible. “Please, if you’re there—”

Danny lunged for the phone and yanked it off of its cradle. “Dad?” His voice echoed, the answering machine playing both his voice and his father’s.

“Daniel, oh, God, Daniel…oh my God.”

“Dad, what’s wrong? We just left you this morning…literally just got home.”

A knot formed in Julie’s stomach, one she hadn’t felt in over six years, but one she recognized immediately. On her knees, she crawled to Danny’s side, resting one hand on his back as the other twisted in the bed sheet.

“Neal…it’s Neal,” Allan said.

They’d said good-bye to Neal the night before because he’d had to report for his shift at the station. Forty-eight hours on, one-hundred-twenty off was the rotation Neal was on for the month. Danny’s schedule had an extra twenty-four hours off built into the rotation, making the trip to North Carolina convenient. So they’d said their “see-ya-laters,” and off Neal went. Apparently a two-alarm fire broke out in the early morning. Faulty Christmas lights, old batteries in the smoke detectors—the age-old recipe for disaster. Julie saw the stories on the news every year, and every year her heart broke for the families who’d lost everything on Christmas. Every year she prayed for the firefighters, including her husband, who got called out on the holiday, wishing them a safe return home.

***

“WHAT ABOUT NEAL?” Danny’s flat tone was colder than the temperature outside.

“They got the kids out.” Allan sounded detached, matter-of-fact. “All four of them. They got the mom and the new puppy to safety…but when he went back in for the father…” Allan’s voice cracked.