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  “We could just as easily have a bunch of little girls, babe.” Julie snorted, throwing out the one thing that shook her husband to the core every single time. “Then it’ll be you doing all of the talking when they have you wrapped around their little fingers.”

  Placing his muscled arms against the Ranger, one on each side of her head, amusement danced in Danny’s hazel eyes. “Only talking I’ll be doing is with the punks that try to date my daughters. But I won’t need words for that. My Louisville Slugger will work just fine.”

  “Danny…” Julie sighed, flattening her palms against his sculpted chest. “I’m sorry too. I think I was so busy trying to support your decision, trying to be okay with it, that I forgot to challenge it. I forgot to be your partner and ended up being your ladder instead.” The lines between his brows told her he needed more of an explanation. “My fear of losing you in the beginning was debilitating. The last thing I wanted to do was push you further away by holding on too tight. I felt like you would have resented me if I expressed any disapproval about your career path. I was wrong.” Saying the words made them hit harder inside her chest. “You needed me to push a little. To question your choices when I saw they weren’t making you happy. And if we argued, then we would have worked things out the way married couples do…with lots of make-up sex. Trust me, Danny, I’ve learned my lesson. And I won’t forget it.” Even with the cold air whipping around them, the heat from his body warmed her from the outside in, melting the frost that had formed even before Allan’s life-altering phone call.

  His lips touched hers gently at first, a tentative greeting after a long absence. Then his tongue breached her mouth, his hands gripped her head, and the kiss went from sweet to seductive, tender to ravenous in a blink. Julie felt her insides melt into a puddle right there on the side of a quiet road somewhere between North Carolina and Maryland.

  “Fuck,” Danny murmured, his soft breath sending tingles up her spine, “I want you so bad, honey.”

  Feeling weightless in his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist, and he pressed her against the cool metal of the Ranger.

  “Feels like we’ve been straight to hell and back, Julie.” He nipped her earlobe while grinding his hardened groin to her sensitive one. “Now the only place I wanna be is in your heaven.”

  Oh my God, his words, they undo me every single time. Her hips undulated against his. The groan that came from deep in his body vibrated through his chest, making her smile, but not as much as the car that sped past, honking.

  “Fuck,” he repeated, although his meaning was significantly different than the first time. His eyes slid shut before he slowly placed her feet on the pavement. “Lost my goddamn mind. Jesus, Julie, I’m not sure I would’ve stopped had we gone much further.”

  Her heart thrummed with excitement. Danny’s desire was contagious. If she didn’t already crave him all of the time, his hunger for her would be her downfall. “I’d like to believe I would have stopped you.” He lifted a single brow, and she laughed. “Fine, maybe I wouldn’t have stopped you because I would have loved to have you inside me, but I know there’s no way you’d lay me down on the cold, dirty asphalt to fuck me.”

  “Shit, honey.” Danny grabbed her hand and pressed it against his hard shaft. “You know you make my cock hard when you talk dirty.”

  “Mmm, you are hard.” She stroked him twice through his jeans before pulling her hand away. “It took me how long to make out with you in public?” She shook her head as a smile stretched across her face. “No way am I going to have sex with you where others can see. Nope.”

  Danny’s gaze grew dark. The muscle in his jaw ticked as he tilted her head back, once again bringing them eye to eye. “Julie, eyes.”

  She hadn’t heard that tone more than a few times, but she’d named it his don’t-fuck-with-me voice. When he used it, he was dead serious.

  “Look at me, baby,” he said. “I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. Men stare at you and wish you were theirs. You are not; you’re mine. You chose me, and that makes me one lucky motherfucker. Will I kiss you in public? Touch you in public? Fuck yeah, I will. That’s me claiming you. However, you chose me. Your sex is a gift you give to me. Only me. That’s something I cherish, and I don’t share things I cherish, Julie. I worship them.”

  His molten gaze turned her muscles into mush as her knees slowly gave out. Danny wrapped his arm around her waist in a steadying hold, opened the passenger door, and lifted her into the seat.

  Before closing the door, he said, “Honey, I’ll make it my mission to let any man know just how damn lucky I’m getting, but they’ll never see anything more than we’re both willing to show. Got it?”

  She blinked twice, then nodded.

  “Words, honey. I need words.”

  “I understand,” she answered softly, unable to form anymore syllables.

  A devilish grin split Danny’s face as he nodded and closed the car door. As if being contained alone in the small space could sever the sexual tension that tethered the two of them, Julie breathed deeply and exhaled slowly. She had mere seconds to pull herself together. “You’re mine, “he’d said. “Your sex is a gift... you chose me.” My God, he feels the same way about me as I do about him. Knowing that she was loved just as hard as she loved was a heady feeling. While Julie had always known that Danny was in love with her, on that day, at the side of the road, after four years of marriage, and at the end of a God-awful week, she learned her husband wasn’t just in love with her. She owned his soul, the same way he owned hers.

  “You okay, baby?” Danny asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat, a sexy smirk still firmly in place.

  Was she okay? Her nipples were drawn into sensitive pebbles that sent goose bumps down her legs each time she twisted in her seat. Her panties were wet with arousal from both his delicious friction and his dirty words, and her heart was pumping overtime from the knowledge of how deep his love went. She was a beautiful disaster about to come undone, and she wouldn’t fray unless she took him with her.

  She licked her lips. “Yeah, I’m better than okay.” She smiled as a plan formed in her mind.

  Once Danny pulled back onto the road, Julie popped in a mix tape she’d made not too many weeks before. Madonna singing about being “Crazy For You” filled the car. She had the order of the music memorized, and Julie’s hand found purchase on her husband’s knee, slowly teasing up until it made contact with the thick bulge between his thighs.

  “You starting something you intend to finish?”

  “Yep.” She popped the p at the end of the word before popping the button on his jeans and releasing his erection from his underwear.

  “Nice.” Danny sighed with a shit-eating grin.

  When the bass line of George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” pounded through the speakers, Julie took Danny deep in her throat.

  “Fuck me,” Danny roared as he grabbed the steering wheel with both hands.

  Chapter Nine

  Wanderlusty

  AFTER RETURNING HOME from North Carolina, Danny tendered his resignation to the station. They offered him counseling, offered him more time to grieve, but Danny had already left the position before he entered the station. In the end, the captain and other firefighters said their good-byes and wished him well. Danny walked out of the firehouse without a weight on his shoulders or a plan for the future. Not his brightest idea, but one he and his wife had come up with together.

  He entered the café where he and Julie had planned to meet after he left the station.

  “How’d it go?” Julie asked, already sitting at a small table with his coffee waiting.

  He shrugged, approached the table, and kissed his wife’s soft cheek. “Actually, it was easier than I thought it would be.” Straddling the empty seat she’d saved for him, he quickly recounted what had happened at the station, and how the captain suggested grief counseling. When the Captain said, “If you truly love the job, Marcus, you can’t just walk
away,” it hit him yet again how little love for it he actually had.

  A proverbial light bulb glowed above his head as a plan began to take shape. “Jules, you and I never went on a honeymoon because I started at the academy immediately.” Another thing, looking back, that he could kick himself for. What’s that saying? Hindsight is 20/20.

  “I know.” She winked and picked up her mug to sip what he knew was decaf with too much creamer and too much sweetener.

  They had gotten married in a simple service at the Baltimore County Courthouse, attended by no more than his father, Neal, and Chester, followed by lunch at a nearby restaurant. Even though the occasion hadn’t been marked with frills and cake, it had been the most important day of his life.

  He’d never forget the sheer bliss, followed almost immediately by complete anguish, on her face when he went down on bended knee before her.

  “There’s nothing I want more than to marry you, Danny Marcus.” She’d touched her throat as her eyes filled and great big tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Honey, if you’re so happy, why are you so sad?” Rock-hard fear gripped his gut.

  “I’m gonna marry you”—the tears continued to flow—“and my parents won’t be there to walk me down the aisle. My mom won’t help me pick out a dress, my dad won’t get the father/daughter dance we always planned…”

  He had never heard Julie sob the way she had that night. Other than when she first opened up to him, she only spoke of somber but positive reflections of her parents. He knew she grieved and he saw her cry, but he’d never seen her in such raw pain.

  “What can I do, baby?” he had asked as he knelt on both knees with her small hands wrapped tightly in his.

  She turned her head, breaking their eye contact. He thought in that moment that she knew what she needed from him but was too afraid to ask. He rose to his feet, swept her up in his arms, and carried her to the sofa, where he sat down with her planted on his lap.

  “Julie, I wanna spend every day for the rest of my life with you. There’s something you need, something that will take away the sadness that’s tearing you up right now; tell me, honey, and I’ll give it to you.”

  Nodding, Julie’s gray stare met his. “I do want to marry you, but…” The but nearly killed him until she completed her thought. “But I can’t go through with a wedding. I can’t do it without them. I know you’ll try to convince me that it’s every girl’s dream or that I’ll regret it later. It was my fantasy once too, but now the thought is a nightmare. I have enough of those to last a lifetime.”

  Relief, then heartache. That’s what he felt, but it wasn’t what he said. “Honey, you wanna marry me?”

  “Yes,” she answered with confidence.

  “It kills me you don’t get to have your fantasy wedding and your daddy/daughter dance. I hate seeing your heart breaking when I know how happy you are with us, but I’m not gonna convince you that you’ll regret anything, baby. I’m gonna marry you, and if at any time in our lives you wanna have that big dream wedding, just let me know, and we’ll do it.” He used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “You’re taking my name. A man has never been so lucky.” He touched his lips to hers. “Whatever you want, as long as it’s in my power to give you, it’s yours. Forever.”

  She’d smiled brightly on their wedding day. A real smile, one that declared true happiness. The only thing that had stood in the way of their union was work. Danny was set to start training, a twenty-one week program, and Neal and Julie had needed to request time off from their jobs for the wedding. Within two months of Danny sliding the engagement ring on Julie’s finger, the wedding band followed. There was no time for a honeymoon, but she didn’t complain.

  “Where did you go just now, sweetheart?”

  Julie’s question popped his memory bubble, dropping Danny back to the coffee shop. “I was thinking about the day we got married, how beautiful you looked.”

  Julie’s eyes got soft the way they always did when they discussed that day. Blessed and bittersweet, she called it.

  “We slipped right into married life and never looked back.”

  “Are you complaining?” she teased. “’Cause it’s too late to return me, and I wouldn’t go quietly.”

  Danny’s laugh filled the quiet café. “No, babe, no one else in the world I want. However, I’d love to be able to finally take you on that honeymoon.”

  Julie subtly covered her mouth, but Danny saw the happiness radiating from the tiny lines that appeared on the outsides of her eyes.

  “I know you’ve always had a serious case of wanderlust with no outlet,” he said. “My dad gave us all of that money when we got married. I’m thinking we could take some of it and plan a two-week vacation to the destination of your choice. Other than a couple of sick days, you haven’t taken any time off since you started managing O’Brian’s. I’m sure you can get the time off…if you want.”

  ***

  HE WASN’T WRONG. Julie had started as a waitress at O’Brian’s Ale House the week after she left Chester’s Bar. In fact, Chester Murray had gotten her the job. With Danny attending the Fire Training Academy in Baltimore and hoping for a job in a station in Baltimore County, Chester’s was a hike and a half. Chester and Sheila O’Brian were friends, which meant Julie got hired sight unseen. After six months, Sheila was grooming Julie for a management position. O’Brian’s was work, but it was also fun, and it was her safe place when Danny worked days at a time. Sheila’s brother was a firefighter, and her husband was a volunteer firefighter, so she knew the ropes and showed Julie how to keep her shit tight when Danny was on duty.

  Sheila would be more than happy to give Julie two weeks off because she’d already “okayed” four weeks of leave.

  “Jules, do you want to go away for a couple of weeks?” Danny asked.

  “Yes and no, Danny,” Julie answered in a sing-song voice, pleased when she saw confusion on his gorgeous face. “I absolutely want to take our long-awaited and well-deserved honeymoon, but I don’t think two weeks is enough.”

  “Wha—”

  Julie lifted a finger to her lips. “Shhh…” Danny’s pinched brows and dropped jaw made her laugh. “Sheila and I had a long chat last night after my shift. We think that O’Brian’s will be fine without me for at least four weeks.” She stood and stalked over to his chair to plant herself on his lap. “Effective as of today, you’re unemployed, so how about it? Wanna take a month and get wanderlusty with me?”

  “Fuck me,” he growled, making her core pulse and her panties wet.

  “I plan to do that in several different countries,” she purred.

  “Let’s get out of here, woman,” Danny commanded quietly.

  “You lead, I’ll follow.”

  ###

  COORDINATING THE PERFECT excursion took several weeks. Julie knew that while her husband was excited to travel and explore the world with her, the magnitude of the trip had more to do with her than him.

  Traveling with her parents had been her post-high-school-graduation plan. They’d planned three months of explorations before she settled into the “real world,” as her dad had referred to it. At the end of her freshman year in high school, they mapped out a journey that would have taken them through Asia, and they tweaked it throughout the fall of her senior year. While the trip was meant to be her parents’ graduation gift to her, the expense was astronomical. Julie wanted to pitch in as much as possible, so she worked any job she could find, from babysitting to serving ice cream at the local Friendly’s. As the vacation expanded, she stopped serving ice cream and got a job at a local restaurant. The minute she was old enough to serve alcohol, she started working in a pub. After all, with alcohol came bigger tips, and each tip was money set aside for their dream vacation.

  Her dream ended the day her nightmare began, and world discovery became a memory that was both wistful and cruel. When she and Danny got married and they realized there would be no time for a honeymoon, her disappointment was less sharp and
quick to fade.

  But when Neal died, paralyzing fear struck Julie in ways that far surpassed what she’d felt after she lost her mom and dad. She had mourned and struggled after the earthquake that consumed her parents, but part of her knew that she would be okay, that she’d move forward, and while life would be painful, it would continue. When the news about Neal hit, all Julie saw was Danny. Danny running into a burning building. Danny succumbing to flames or to damage the flames caused. Danny no longer in her life, in her world. Terror clawed through her gut like nothing she’d ever felt before.

  So when her husband told her that he no longer wanted to be a firefighter, she could almost envision the orange flames being suffocated for the last time, hear the sizzle as the oxygen left the fire and the embers turned to ash. They were safe, free. Alive. And there was nothing she wanted more than to celebrate their existence by experiencing all life had to offer. Starting with the globe.

  ***

  IF BEAMING SMILES, frequent Post-It notes, and a never-ending supply of destination pamphlets didn’t clue Danny in to how happy his wife was, her expressions of joy would have done it. He thought he’d seen her happy, blissful, even thrilled in their years together, but this school-girl side of Julie was brand-new, and he loved it.

  “Eeep, I can’t believe we’re finally going,” Julie squealed, her round eyes glued to the window facing the plane at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

  “The world is ours, honey,” Danny promised as he stood behind her with his arms wrapped around her shoulders. He planted a kiss on the top of her silken strawberry-blonde hair.

  And for the four weeks that followed, it was.

  The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace was something he’d seen on television, but that wasn’t nearly as cool as seeing it in person. Snuggling in the high-speed train to Paris felt luxurious—even a bit naughty when he draped a blanket over them and made Julie come quietly so as not to disturb the other travelers.