She kept glancing down the stretch of beach and her heart skipped a beat whenever the shadows lengthened. Perversely, her heart gave a thud of disappointment whenever it turned out to be only her mind playing tricks on her. Danny was so confused, she didn't know whether she wanted to see him or not, didn't know what she would do when she saw him alone. She was afraid of what she might do.
< Stop it! > She commanded herself. < You have decided what to do earlier, stick with the original plan, nothing's changed. He's still out of your league. >
"So the mermaid's finally came out to play."
< Damn! > Danny froze. She couldn't be that lucky could she? < What should I do? >
Nick swallowed hard. She was more beautiful than he remembered. His memory didn't do her justice, not at all. He had to work to keep his voice light and amused.
Nick seemed to read her mind, for he said, "Well, you can either turn tail and run away or stay here and face whatever I represent to you." He smiled and Danny's heart flipped over. She wished that he'll stop being so infallibly nice and charming. < Be an asshole, damn you! Don't be this charming and polite! >
"However," Nick confided with a wink, "considering the expression on your face now, I think you'll choose to run." He leaned in close, his breath fanning on her cheeks. "I've caught you at a vulnerable time once again, haven't I? Funny, that seems to keep happening between us."
Danny shoved him away from her in agitation. "Stay away," she warned, her throat felt parch, as if she just swallowed a huge piece of rubber.
Nick kept right on smiling, "Why? What are you afraid of?"
< You, dammit! > "Nothing," Danny refused to meet his eyes, knowing that if she looked into those azure blue eyes, she would be lost. Nick Carter was a dangerous man when he was in this teasing mood. He was a hunter now and Danny was his prey. < I refuse to be hunted and stalked, I refuse to play his childish games! > She vowed silently, staring at the white piece of paper in her trembling hands.
"Nothing?" He mocked. "Look at me then, if you're afraid of nothing why won't you look at me?"
"Why would I want to look at that detestable face of yours?" As an insult, it was sadly inadequate. It hardly qualify as a sting, just a pathetic, half-hearted swipe. But it was the best she could muster under his new form of attack. He was going to win this round, blast it!
"That was weak, Danette. Come on, surely you can do better than that little slap on the wrist?"
A shiver ran down her spine when he said her name in that caressing way. Danny jumped up, striving to put as much distance between them as possible. "Don't call me that." She said unsteadily.
"What? Danette?" Nick's smile faded slowly. "You're afraid of me. Why?" He asked softly. "You don't have to be afraid of me, Danette, ever. I won't hurt you."
Danny turned away from Nick and laughed, it was a bitter sound. "No? What about those verbal attacks you launched?" < What about that time I walked in on Jade and you making out? > Danny shoved that thought away resolutely.
Nick stepped around to face Danny. "You started it, remember? I was defending myself. True, a few times I started it, but then, I'm only human, I can't remain impassive when you were trying your damnest to goad me. I couldn't disappoint you now, could I?"
"You were definitely no saint." She answered, still not able to meet his eyes, still wishing she could run away from him. The fact was that Danny wanted to run, but her legs refused to. She didn't know why she was torturing herself by remaining and listening to this bastard. Didn't know why her body was tingling with a new awareness evoked by Nick Carter. She knew she didn't want to feel this way, didn't want to feel anything, not anger, not hatred towards Nick Carter.
Nick grinned, "Believe me, you look like an angel, but your behavior is anything but that."
"Yeah, unlike Jade. She looks and behaves like one doesn't she?" Danny said bitterly and Nick thought he caught a wisp of jealousy in her voice.
The image of Nick and Jade making out on the sofa came to Danny's mind unbidden, sending a fresh assault of pain in her heart, propelling her feet to move.
Nick reached out and clamped a hand around Danny's wrist to prevent any more advancement. "Don't go, at least not yet." He said quietly.
"Why?" she asked without turning to look at Nick. If she had, she would have seen the plead in his eyes. "So I can listen to you tell me how wonderful Jade is? You don't have to, I know everything."
Nick exerted a little pressure on her wrist, enough to ensure her to glance back at him in annoyance. "Let go of-"
"No," Nick interrupted. Danny raised her eyes to Nick's face, feeling her temper rising. Burning gray eyes clashed with shinning blue ones and Danny felt her anger melt away with her resolve to keep Nick Carter at bay. Her heart was screaming for her to run, to wrestle her hand back from Nick and get away from him. From the moment she had known him, Nick had lied to her, flattered her and hurt her. Nothing good ever came out of their relationship.
"Danette," Nick groaned and his gaze dropped to her slightly parted lips. A moment later, his lips settled on the pair of lips that had been haunting him for as long as he remembered. They still tasted as sweet as the last time. Tasted of starlight and magic and morning dew. Of Danny and everything she represented to him. Danny's initial outrage soon gave way under Nick's very persuasive and skillful mouth. She felt a dam burst open into her and all her anger draining out from the channel. Danny made a strangled sound deep in her throat as the pleasure intensified. Her mind swirled and fireworks exploded behind her eyes. Her mind went blank, concentrating only on how strong Nick felt, how sweet he tasted and how exquisite this feeling that was compassing her entire being was.
She didn't know when she closed her eyes, when she first started responding to the heated kiss. She didn't know when she surrendered her defenses once again, didn't know when her legs turned to melted ice-cream and only Nick was supporting her. All that she was aware of was the man she was kissing, the feelings he evoked in her, the aching pain, hollowed feeling, her longing to finally be love by him.
When Nick broke the kiss, they were breathing heavily and Danny was clinging on to him as if she'll fall if he wasn't there to hold her up. Nick decided that he liked that feeling immensely. Danny laid her head on Nick's chest, listening to his heartbeat thudding faster than usual. In the aftermath of that explosive kiss, neither knew what was the right thing to say as not to shatter the mood between them.
Nick felt her slender-fingered hands stroking his back lightly, drawing intricate designs at the small of his back. He smiled tenderly down at the golden-haired girl and rested his cheek in her fragant cloud of hair, his hands settled possessively around her, clutching her to him, trying to brand her with his body.
Danny didn't know how long they stood like that, two entwined being trying to fuse themselves into one. She knew she was the one who broke the silence. "This is so wrong," she whispered, regret and guilt threatened to choke her. She pushed herself out of Nick's strong embrace, making herself stay a respectable distance away from him. Inexplicably, her eyes filled with tears. She wanted this so much. She wanted Nick so very much. Why couldn't she have him? Why did life have to be so unfair? All her life, she had been denied love? She had learned to live without it, but now, there was this chance, Nick was offering this chance, yet, there was Jade. There was always Jade.
Jade had everything, the wonderful parents, the protective parents, the loving parents. Jade had everything, including Nick. What did Danny have? A broken family, a crippled father, a dead mother, a cynical uncle who was currently the toast of the business world. Danny had nothing! Frustration and anger over-rode other emotions.
"Damn you! Damn all of you!" Tears with as many facets as diamonds slipped down the rim of her eyes, catching on her cheeks. "Why are you doing this to me? Showing me this possibility when you know it's impossible between us! You have everything going for you, your life's perfect. You have a money-spinning career, a whole and loving family and Jade. You already have Jade, what are you doing out here with me? Why can't you just leave me alone. I don't want to feel this, I never asked to feel anything for you. If I had a say in my life, I would never choose to feel anything for anyone, much less you! Everything was fine before you came back, my life was boring as hell, which is the way I like it. Every time you appear in my life, cosmic hell breaks loose, why can't you stay away from me? Why did you have to come back and spoil everything? Go away! Please, just- just go away..." Danny slumped down on the sand, utterly defeated, her shoulders racking with silent tears.
Nick's heart broke. He never wanted to break her indomitable spirit, but that's what he had done. He had made her lost her carefully cultivated control. He had known from the onset that she was a proud girl. She would never allowed anyone to see her crying, or even see her angry. Everything had to be in her control.
He had succeeded once again to break through her wall. < Congrats, Carter. You've done it once again. > He berated himself harshly.
"God, Danette," he said hoarsely, moving towards her huddled form on the sand. "don't." He pleaded, cradling her body in his, trying to absorb her pain. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come to you, but Danette, please. I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to see you so much, you have no idea how much I missed you. I thought of you every waking minute and when I'm sleeping, you were in my dreams. I'm not lying to you, I swear. I thought of what I would say to you when I see you, alone, like this. I thought I would confess to you what I was feeling inside. This aching feeling here," he pressed her hand against his chest, over his heart. "everyday, the feeling just intensified. I feel it most especially when I'm with Jade. Knowing that while I'm with her, I could never have you, yet at the same time knowing that if I'm not with her, I would never get to see you.
"I wanted to forget you, I tried just about everything to do so, but you wouldn't leave my mind. That night we met is engraved into my memory, it refuses to be erase, it persisted in tormenting me. At night, I lay in my bed and think about you. Not about how gorgeous you look, but about how empty and frightened your beautiful gray eyes looked. I wondered about the cause of it, wanting to so desperately heal that wound inside, you have no idea how much I want to take you in my arms and never let you go. I wanted to bring you somewhere I could be alone with you with no interference from the outside world. Just the two of us, forever."
Nick looked down at the now silent beauty in his arms and he kissed away the tear tracks on her cheeks. "I want to do all that, but if you want me to stay the hell away from you, then I will, even if it kills me, because you matter to me more than anything else. Because what you want matter to me more than what I want. Tell me, what is it you want me to do?"
Danny looked into Nick's tortured blue eyes and knew she could never banished him from her life. She tried once, but he tormented her every time she came out here, every time she closed her eyes, she could feel his lips on her, moving so insistently, so tenderly. She raised a trembling hand to cup his cheek, "I want you," she started tremulously. "I have wanted you from the first moment I saw you. You were like an avenging angel out of the night, sent here to protect me. I want you with me, for always. I want to go to sleep at night in your arms and wake up with you kssing me. I want you to be there when I'm sad, when I'm happy, when I'm excited. No matter what I'm feeling, I want you there to share it with me. And I want to share your life too, your ups and downs, everything that matters to you, matters to me. Because you mean the world to me."
The relief was so stark on Nick's face that Danny would have laughed if the moment wasn't so poignant. He turned his mouth into her palm and lightly kissed it. "Thank you," he murmured, so touched that that was all he could managed at the moment.
"I want you, but Jade does to. You know I can't-"
"Stop!" Nick commanded. He tilted her face up to his with the force of his thumb and fore-finger on her chin and gazed into her eyes, letting her see his determination. "Jade has every damn thing in this world. She grew up surrounded by love, taking that emotion for granted, but you," his blue eyes softened with something akin to heartache.
"You grew up aching to be loved. Aching to know what is love, how to love. Don't you think it's time you know? Don't you think it's finally your turn to know?"
"But Jade-"
"Jade doesn't care about me, you do. I like her, but you are the one for me. Jade will not crumple just because I break up with her. She will have substitutes lining up for my position faster than you can say you're sorry." Nick leaned down and lightly brushed his lips against her, sending a shiver down her body. "Trust me."
Danny didn't hesitate, her hand slid to his nape and into his soft blond hair, pulling him down to her, "I do," she said, moments before his lips covered her and the fireworks start all over again.
Chapter Seven
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