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She was always on edge when he was near her, and it hadn’t taken much foreplay to get her aroused to the point that he slid in easily. They both moaned, her at the fullness.

  “God, that’s good,” he said, resting his forehead against hers. She waited, getting used to his invasion.

  When he didn’t move for a long minute, she tapped his shoulder. “Uh, Danny, I know it’s been a while for you, but I think moving is the next step.”

  He laughed, thrust, and then groaned. “Better?”

  She shifted her hips under him, adjusting the angle so he’d hit her right. “Much.” There wasn’t much talking after that, only kissing and the sound of the mattress moving under them as he pushed into her harder and faster.

  She felt her orgasm building, near enough to taste. “I’m close,” she gasped.

  “Take it,” he said and did something with his hips that made her vision blur and her body melt. The orgasm tore through her, lasting forever and not nearly long enough.

  She held still as Danny finished with a groan, and held stiller as he pulled out of her.

  They lay snuggled together, her head on his bare chest. His fingertips trailed patterns over the inked flowers on her shoulders. Silence reigned for a long time until Danny broke it. “Tell me the rest,” he said gently.

  She cocked her head slightly to see he was looking at her. “The rest of what?”

  “The story behind the picture. The story of why it sometimes feels as if you’re holding a grudge.”

  Her breath caught. She hadn’t realized he’d noticed. “It’s nothing,” she murmured and planted a tiny kiss to his pectoral.

  His hand tightened on her shoulder. “Tell me.”

  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply savoring the feel of lying skin to skin with Danny, treasuring the moment and capturing it for a future colder, lonelier day. “Mr. McMauro assigned partners,” she said, eyes still closed, taking a moment to brush her lips against him, tasting the salt on his skin. “You got me.” She paused, and she must’ve tensed, because he scooched down enough to cup her cheeks in his larger callused palms.

  “I remember that part. And what else? Tell me, Amy, or I’ll ask Cat.”

  “She doesn’t know. No one does. Except you and me.”

  “But I don’t remember.”

  She struggled out of his arms and sat up, leaning against the pillow and taking the comforter with her to cover her breasts. “It’s humiliating. Can’t we let it die?”

  He sat up, no shyness, body fully exposed. “Did I hurt you?”

  She looked him in the eye and nodded slowly.

  “What did I do? It can’t have been that bad or I’d remember? Right?”

  It was the fact that he looked devastated that he might’ve hurt her more than ten years ago that gave her the courage to continue. “You were amazing,” she said. “You were the most popular senior, student body president—” It was obvious by his expression that he didn’t care for the reminder of how far he’d fallen, so she skipped ahead. “I thought working with you would be awful, but instead you were nice to me and funny and made me feel comfortable posing for you.”

  “At Dante Fascell Park, right?”

  “You do remember?”

  “Vaguely. What went wrong?”

  “I had a total crush on you after the assignment. I considered you a friend, but…” Pause for air. “The day we handed the photos in, you were outside the classroom chatting with your friends. I was about to leave the room when I heard one of your friends make a comment about me. I thought you’d defend me, but no. You agreed and laughed.” Another breath. One would think that the hurts from teenage boys made long ago would fade, but they were like tiny arrow points living under her skin, breaking the flesh when prodded.

  “What’d we say?”

  “Does it matter?” she asked.

  His arms wrapped tighter around her. “Seeing as how we’re lying here naked together, yeah, I’d say it matters.”

  Good point. If memory served, he’d also been captain of the debate team. “One of your friends said that it sucked you got paired with me. And then another laughed at the photo and asked how you were able to tell me apart from the naked lady statue at the park when I was fat. You laughed.” She tried to roll away from him, but he held on tight and buried his lips in her hair.

  The naked lady statue was one of the more iconic Miami sites. It was a giant stone voluptuous woman used as climbing equipment, and hundreds of Miami children measured their developmental milestones by her body. Was this the year they could reach her belly button? Her breasts? Her shoulders?

  “Jesus, Amy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Teenage boys are assholes.”

  “I know that,” she said on a slight hiccup. “It was more that you were an asshole. I didn’t expect you to sell me out, especially because I stupidly thought we were friends. I knew I was fat. Mirrors have been around for centuries.”

  He cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his stare. “First of all, your body is gorgeous. You need a new mirror. Second, you were not stupid. I was the stupid one, because out of everyone who heard that conversation that day, how many am I still friends with? One,” he said, when she didn’t answer. “You.”

  “We’re friends?” she asked.

  He slid a palm down to cup one of her naked butt cheeks and pulled her snug against his thighs. “God, I hope so.”

  She laughed, but then stopped because there was nothing funny about the way his fingers were exploring her backside. “Again?” she asked, not daring to believe.

  “Hell yes. Have you seen your tits?” he asked. “I defy any man to be within touching distance and not have a boner.”

  “Danny.” She giggled, loving his earthiness and frankness. Then she stopped him because there was something he’d said that needed clarity. “Hang on.” She stopped his wandering hands as they wandered from her back to her breasts. “You said I need a new mirror, but I don’t. I know I’m pretty, and I know that my body is not the typical Miami body. I know that now. Back when I was fifteen and the coolest boys in school called me fat like it was worse than calling me a terrorist—well, that was awful.”

  “Amy,” he said on an inhalation, kissing her nose gently, then moving down to touch her lips so slightly a paper could’ve slid between them. His tongue darted out, tasting her lower lip, beguiling her to taste him back.

  The flavor of diet soda lingered on his tongue along with something saltier and more elusive. Her, she realized. She pushed him to his back and leaned over him, almost rough with her desire.

  “Jesus,” he moaned, and she looked down, worried she was smothering him, but saw that her breasts hung in his face, and he was happily braced on his elbows to take first one nipple in his mouth then the other.

  Each warm touch of his mouth sent wild ribbons of pleasure to other points of her body, namely between her legs. She was still buzzing from the orgasm they’d shared earlier, and it didn’t take much to get her going again. Climbing up Danny’s body, she settled her thighs on either side of him and ground against his erection.

  His hard penis rubbed through her wetness. He groaned, then held her still. “I’m too heavy for you. You take the top,” she said.

  “Stop with the fat. You’re perfect right where you are. Too perfect. If you keep rubbing against me like that, I’m going to come.”

  “And?” she practically purred, his words giving her license to undulate against him one more time. “What’s the problem?”

  “I’m a drug addict, Amy.”

  “I know,” she murmured, still in an aroused haze.

  “Which means I could have diseases,” he finished.

  “Oh.” The least sexy words ever uttered in a bed. With a muffled thump, she unstraddled him and kneeled beside him. “Never needles, though, right?”

  “No.” He lay against the pillows, his muscular, scarred arms folded across his wide chest. “Thank God, I never sank that low. But I wasn’t having safe sex. I was dirt
y, Amy, and I don’t want any of that to touch you. In fact, we should probably end this before it becomes something more. I’m finding myself after five years of being lost.”

  Lost. That was one way of putting it. She’d often wondered if he regretted his decisions that turned him from prospective Princeton student and National Merit Scholar to lawn boy. She was reminded of that Robert Frost poem about the road not taken. In life, you were given choices and whichever path you chose, dictated your future. A lot of people might’ve chosen the same path as Danny if they’d lost their parents in one awful moment and been thrust into the role of breadwinner and guardian for a younger sibling.

  She swallowed, needing a second to gather composure lest she cry while speaking. “And you think that sleeping with me, getting involved with me might force you to get lost again?”

  A look she could only describe as anguish passed over his face. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. All I know is that when you’re in a room I can’t stop looking at you, waiting for your laugh, wanting to hear your voice. I can’t concentrate on anything else. If that’s not getting lost…”

  She stared at him, shocked. She’d had no clue—none—that he’d felt that way. Crazy, considering she felt the same about him. Should she tell him? Would it help the indecision and uncertainty etched on his expression? Or would she complicate the situation, because while she wanted Danny sexually, rationally she knew he was a terrible bet. His chances of staying clean and off the drugs were almost nil. Financially he was insolvent, and owed his future brother-in-law money that he’d be paying off until retirement. Yeah, sleeping with her roommate was a direct path to heartbreak and complication.

  Hastily she gathered up her clothes and slipped out of the bed. Holding everything to her ample chest, she looked down at him. “You’re right. This was a bad idea. Too complicated.” She made it to the door before turning around, dashing back to the nightstand and gathering the old photograph between her two free fingers. “Merry Christmas.”

  The morning after, as Amy assumed she’d forever think of the pivotal time when she had sex with Danny, she was in the kitchen making a cup of coffee and trying to ignore the urgent purrs of Baroness von Fancy, her cat, who was demanding breakfast.

  Despite yesterday having been Christmas, she had to work today. Her customers would be eager to return or exchange Christmas gifts.

  “I’ll take care of you, Fancy.” Danny’s low rumbling voice startled her into spilling more ground coffee in the machine. Apparently people wanted their lawns maintained the day after Christmas.

  “Damn it,” she muttered. “Good morning.” She turned to Danny with an overly cheery smile and then reached behind her to grip the counter when she saw he was shirtless. “Did I wake you?”

  He gave her a strange look, probably because she was smiling like a lunatic clown, then bent to pour some dry food in Fancy’s bowl. The cat sniffed delicately at it, then deigned to eat. Amy was trying to get her to lose some weight by giving her more dry food. When her mom had been alive, Fancy was a three-cans-of-cat-food-per-day girl. Not good for the cat’s health or Amy’s wallet. After more than a year of the imposed diet, Fancy seemed used to the idea that the gravy train had left.

  She watched the muscles ripple on Danny’s back as he knelt to pet Fancy as she ate. Surprisingly, Fancy tolerated it. One more female who’d allow Danny’s hands access anywhere.

  “Early job this morning?” Amy asked, again in an unnaturally perky voice.

  “Yeah. Big estate in Coco Plum.” He reached into an upper cabinet for a mug, and they settled against the counters to wait, the only sound the hiss and bubbling of coffee being brewed. It was one of the unwritten rules of the house that had happened without prearrangement. Whoever was up first made two cups of coffee. It had started when Cat moved in and Amy had unconsciously continued the habit with Danny.

  She stared at Danny’s bare feet and wondered how he felt going into the Coco Plum neighborhood as a gardener. Coco Plum was a ritzy gated community, and happened to be the neighborhood where Danny’s childhood home was.

  “Oddly enough,” he said, forcing her gaze from his feet to his face, “it’s my old house.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He nodded, and her heart broke a little for him.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “As if I’m a sad sack loser.”

  “Sorry,” she said hastily. “But it is sad. Do the owners know?”

  “Do the owners know what? That the guy hefting bags of mulch on their lawn once spray painted their master bathroom tub blue when he was ten, because he thought it’d be like an indoor pool?”

  She felt her eyes widen.

  He chuckled, and she was positive it was the first time she’d ever seen him find anything about the past amusing. “My parents hired a professional cleaning crew, but…” He shrugged. “Paint was permanent. It faded but never disappeared. They eventually replaced the thing.”

  “I can’t believe you painted their tub. Why not your own?”

  He gave her an almost pitying look. “Amy, have you ever seen one of the master bathrooms in Coco Plum? The tub was practically the size of a pool.”

  They both laughed, but the moment was broken by the coffee maker clicking to signal it was finished. She turned to pour herself a cup then some for him. She expected him to head back to his room with it as he usually did, but instead he remained in the kitchen watching her doctor her coffee with plenty of cream and two sugar substitute packets.

  “That stuff will kill you,” he observed, watching her shake the contents of the packets into her coffee.

  “Maybe, but it’s my drug of choice.”

  Silence.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Bad choice of words.”

  “Nah. It’s an expression. If I’m going to stay clean, I have to be able to hear the word ‘drugs’ without everyone worrying that I’m running out to score.”

  She stepped closer to him and her braless body was inches from his bare chest. “Good for you. I believe in you, you know. And I’m always here if I can help in anyway. I’m not a professional counselor or anything, but if you need something…” She shrugged and felt her cheeks heat. After last night’s bedroom naked Olympics, it was totally awkward to offer her friendship and support when she really wanted to offer her body for his to taste or fuck, but it was what she could give.

  Last night she’d spent long sleepless hours staring at her ceiling and creating a mental list of why it was important she stay in her own bed and not walk the few feet to Danny’s bed. It all boiled down to the future. Someday she wanted marriage and a family, and none of that was likely to happen with him. He’d be a temporary fling who had the potential to break her heart. He looked as though he’d had a great night’s sleep. Curse him.

  “About last night,” he started, when she took a step toward the kitchen door.

  “Nothing to talk about,” she said, again in her fake chipper voice. “It was fun, but we’re agreed it was a one and done.” She left before he could agree. Or disagree.

  Danny came in the door of the house, a pink box of gourmet donuts in his hands. He’d debated staying out late after work to avoid seeing Amy and hearing her say yet again that it was over between them. He’d had to hear it on repeat in his head all day.

  Yes, he’d been the one to basically kick her out last night, but the moment she’d fled his bed, he’d felt empty and lonely. The best he’d felt in five years was being with her. And it hadn’t been the sex, not that that wasn’t spectacular. It had been the intimacy. Talking with her, listening to her throaty giggle. The feel of her soft skin under his rough fingertips.

  He’d passed the one-year mark on sobriety, so strictly speaking, relationships were okay. Why shouldn’t he go after the prettiest, smartest, sexiest women he knew? Oh yeah, because she didn’t want him. He’d probably fucked up his living situation too if this morning had been any indi
cation. Amy had been noticeably uncomfortable. Usually in the morning, she could barely grunt without her coffee, but this morning she’d sounded like she was off to cheer for the Hurricanes.

  A fake, uncomfortable Amy wasn’t someone he wanted to face tonight, but he’d come home because he needed a shower and he had no place else to go. He didn’t have the twenty bucks to go sit at a movie and get popcorn, and a bar was off limits. Here he was in his doorway with donuts as a peace offering. Amy’s car was in the driveway, but since she normally walked to work, he didn’t know if she was home or not.

  “Danny?” Amy’s voice came from behind him and he spun to see her walking up the driveway holding a white plastic take-away bag. Her long, thick brown hair was in a loose bun on top of her head, and her skin glistened from the heat of walking in the Miami sun. She wore a sheer white tunic over a pair of leggings with a crazy floral pattern. Strappy purple sandals covered her feet.

  “Hey.” He gave the donut box a heft in her direction, stunned at how damn happy he was to see her, and stupidly hoped she was equally happy to see him.

  “Might there be a donut for me in that box?” she asked, hurrying up the driveway.

  He grinned. “Maybe.” She breezed past him as he held open the door for her, then followed her to the kitchen where they both lay their respective food packages on the counter. “I need to shower before eating.”

  “Can you wait? I’m starving,” she said. “I brought both of us dinner.”

  “Depends. What’s in the bag?” He made a grab for her bag, trying to peer in, but she laughingly pushed his hands away.

  “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine,” she said.

  “On three.” His mouth was actually sore from smiling this much in a twenty-four-hour period. She was happy to see him. He knew it. No girl bought dinner for a guy she was indifferent to.

  “One,” she said.

  “Two,” he continued.

  “Three,” they said in unison.

  Danny flung open the lid of his box to reveal two perfect donuts. Cinnamon sugar for him, chocolate ganache for her. Her favorite.