“I’m sorry he did that.”
“Not your fault,” Danny said.
“I came out tonight so I could see you.”
“I’m right here.”
“Tonight,” Liv said. “What about tomorrow? The day after that? You realize my life is planted here. I’m...” Liv turned her head and closed her eyes. “...stuck.”
There it was.
The one word Danny always feared about Bakersville.
Stuck.
That’s what happened. Time ticked on, second by second, and while it didn’t seem like much, it added up so fast. Danny knew his presence there showed Liv just how much time had gone by.
“Nobody is ever stuck,” Danny said. “You can feel it, but you never are.”
“I couldn’t do a thing with Dad,” Liv said. “The tiniest things send him off the deep end.”
“Liv...”
“If I move the remote, he panics. If his coffee isn’t right...”
Danny touched Liv’s legs. His two hands against her two legs. He touched her. He squeezed. She stopped talking, looking down at his hands.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Danny said. “There’s always something waiting... you have to believe that, Liv.”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
“I felt that way... except when I was on stage.” Liv looked at Danny. “And when I saw you.”
“Stop...”
“When I saw you walking towards me, it was the only other time, besides walking on stage for a show, that I felt alive. I felt excited. I felt... afraid...”
“Afraid? Of me?”
“Well, first, I expected you to hit me.” Danny smiled. He waited for Liv to partially smile. It warmed him over. “But then seeing you, seeing how time gave you so much... beauty, life... I felt like I didn’t deserve a second of your time.”
“You still use those same crappy lines,” Liv whispered and smiled bigger.
“They still work, don’t they?”
Liv opened her mouth to respond but Danny didn’t let her. His hands hurried up her legs to the small of her back. He pulled, forcing Liv off the back of her car. She stood an inch from him, their bodies so close. They stared at each other with an even more intense passion than in the bar.
Want, need, and regret bounced between them.
“You have a good life,” Danny said. “I just wish I was a part of it. That’s my regret.”
“My regret... not chasing you... and not hitting you when I saw you in my backyard...”
“You can hit me now,” Danny said.
Liv touched the corner of Danny’s mouth. She rubbed and said, “I think you got what you deserved tonight.”
“I’d do it again,” Danny said.
“Do what?”
“Get punched. If that happened every time I kissed you... I’d do it again and again and again...”
Danny moved closed, letting the tip of his nose touch Liv’s.
“And again... and again...”
Danny swallowed and kissed Liv.
Their lips touched for a second before the kiss became exactly what Danny wanted it to be. Their lips parted, tongues touched, and it was Liv who took the next step as she slid her hands into the front pockets of Danny’s jeans and pulled, forcing his body tight against hers. She too was the one who moaned first, filling Danny’s body with enough need and desire that he felt he could carry Liv across the world and back if that’s what she needed him to do to prove how he felt about her.
As they kissed, Danny found himself taking out his romantic frustration by making fists and resting them against the back of Liv’s car. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to hold her. He wanted every possibility the night could give, but he wanted to respect tomorrow.
And the next day
, as Liv had put it just a few minutes ago. Even still, he couldn’t help himself as his hands eventually made their way to her body. He touched her sides and moved up, feeling her, his thumbs very close to touching her chest.
Liv exhaled and inhaled with a whimper and the small gesture had such a hint of innocence within in it that Danny lifted Liv, placing her back on the trunk of her car. She was now a couple inches taller than Danny, but it didn’t matter. The kiss continued and for all Danny cared, the kiss could go on until the first lick of color came from the sunrise.
But Liv stopped the kiss, her hands holding Danny’s face.
“Danny...”
“Please, I can’t hear anything else right now,” Danny said. “This whole thing...”
“Just shut up and listen,” Liv snapped.
Danny looked at her, his mind counting the seconds ticking - wasting - the seconds they could be using to kiss each other.
“The house I bought, it sort of came with a surprise.”
“What are you talking about?” Danny asked.
“The Hartley’s also owned a cabin near Muck’s Pond,” Liv said.
“Yeah?”
Liv nodded.
Danny had an idea of where it was going, but he didn’t want to get his own hopes up too much. Not right then. Not in such a tender moment.
“It’s all mine now,” Liv whispered.
She had a seductive look in her eyes that could kill a man. And it came pretty close to doing just that except her kiss reminded him he was alive and certainly not dreaming.
“What do you mean?” Danny whispered in between kisses.
“What I’m trying to tell you, big rockstar, is that I’ve got a cabin three miles from here. It’s secluded and empty. It has one bedroom and one bed.”
Danny felt the dueling sides of himself fighting already.
Part of him wanted to lift Liv off the trunk of her car and carry her to the damn cabin. He’d do anything to have one night with her. One night to forget the past and one night to fix everything and one night to change the future.
“Liv... we shouldn’t...”
Danny winced as the words fell from his mouth.
It was the right thing to say but that didn’t mean it didn’t have to feel wrong coming out.
“Of course we shouldn’t,” Liv said. She moved Danny’s face so their eyes met. “But we’re going to. Take me... Danny... please.”
Danny saw a little bit of everything in Liv’s eyes as he pulled her from the trunk of her car. A little hope, desperation, need, and romance. Somehow it all worked. Danny took the keys to the car as Liv hurried off to make a quick phone call. He knew she was calling Lorraine and Danny made a mental note to give Lorraine a big hug and an autograph the next time he saw the woman.
It took all of about twenty seconds before the car felt awkward. The intentions were burning within the car and as much as Danny wanted to drive faster, he knew the dangers of the back roads in Bakersville. Deer, divots, or just the fact that Liv had his heart and mind racing so fast, he could barely concentrate on anything as it was. He was certainly glad he didn’t have too much to drink or the night would have ended back in the parking lot.
Everything felt wild and free, a tribute to the past Danny and Liv once shared.
“So,” Danny said, trying to break up the intense sexual tension in the car, “how did you end up with the cabin?”
“Family didn’t want it,” Liv said. “They were going to list it after the house sold and somehow it got brought up. I made an offer along with the house, more or less on a long shot, and they took it.”
“Wow, sounds pretty sweet.”
“Yeah, it is. I haven’t been out here in a while. I mean, I come out once a week to check on it. But to stay, to enjoy it...”
Danny gripped the steering wheel tighter. His foot wanted to become a brick and hit the pedal as hard as he could.
He turned onto an unnamed road and the drive became bumpy.
“Liv, I have to say something,” Danny said.
The car bounced and the rocks crushed under the tires.
“Don’t say anything that’s going to mess this up,” Liv said. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m not saying you don’t...”
“Then shut up and drive to the cabin.”
Danny closed his mouth and growled. Never in his life had he met a woman he couldn’t stand up to. Except Liv. She was the only woman who could rev him up and calm him down in the same breath.
He looked at Liv and caught her staring out the window. What he also caught was a smile on her face.
She really wants this...
The thought took over everything in Danny’s mind.
With the high beams on, the cabin came into view a minute or so later. Danny pulled up to the porch, damn ready to drive up the steps to get as close as possible. He turned the car off and Liv stole the keys from him. He watched her get out of the car and walk up the steps. His eyes were glued to her hips. The way she moved. The way she looked. The way the years gone by had put curves right at the spots where curves were meant to be on a woman like Liv.
She opened the door, turned on a light, and turned around.
She was like an angel just standing there, looking at Danny.
In that moment Danny wondered if he was trapped. It felt like no matter what he did right then, there was going to be some kind of regret. He wanted to fight it, but he knew that just a few short miles away, there were four guys who were preparing to leave Bakersville. They’d have to record music, tour, be Chasing Cross.
Danny opened the car door and got out. When he shut the door, the headlights died.
Tonight
,
he told himself,
I’m going to be Danny... just Danny.
**
Liv watched Danny hesitate and totally understood it. She felt herself running on adrenaline and hope. An odd combination, maybe, but it got her this far. Even as she stood in the doorway to the cabin, trying to look calm and seductive, her heart pounded like it only had once before...
Danny finally opened the car door and got out.
Liv watched his sexy figure climb the steps. He looked around, trying to be casual, pretending as if he didn’t know what was going to happen.
He was so coy like that... trying to be a bad ass and shy at the same time.
Same old Danny.
When he looked at Liv, she saw the way his lips were about to tremble, as though he desperately wanted to say something to her. Nothing could be said that would change the course of the night. Liv knew what she wanted and by the look in Danny’s eyes and the way he started to lean into her, he knew what he wanted to.
Liv knew she would never be
just another groupie
or
some woman
...
She mentally made peace that the road would take Danny where it needed to, much like the road seemed to end for Liv when her father had to move in with her. But that was okay. That was life. That was fate.
And this...
Danny’s lips touched hers.
It damn sure felt like love.
Danny took a step and pushed Liv into the cabin. She kicked at the door shutting it. She knew she’d have to guide Danny to the bedroom, but after that, he was on his own. She wanted to see what kind of man Danny had become.
No matter what, it would be amazing.
Liv knew that.
After all, whether Danny remembered it or not... he was her first.
And she never forgot her first.
(12)
Danny walked and Liv tried to keep up. He had no idea how to navigate a place he’d never been before. Even during his wildest of days, everything happened in a hotel room and those were pretty standard. It was always easy to look sexy and cool, like the kind of rockstar people thought him to be.
But with Liv it was a whole new set of rules. A whole revived set of feelings. And a completely different kind of place.
Liv stumbled once and started to laugh. Danny loved the sound of her laugh and how it seemed that dimples formed only when she laughed. They laughed with their mouths touching and finally Danny decided to become truly aggressive as his hands reached down and under, gripping Liv’s ass and lifted her.
She cried out and wrapped her legs tight around him.
Just feeling her...
right there
... his body against hers, even with clothes, it was enough to drive him mad. He looked around for a second and saw the couch. He carried Liv to the couch and lowered her.
“The bedroom...,” she tried to say.
Danny kissed her hard and then whispered, “Be quiet.”
Liv smiled, as did Danny, and his hands moved from her ass. He gripped the bottom of her shirt and lifted. At the first sight of bare skin, he groaned and couldn’t contain himself as he moved down to taste her. Liv moaned and thrust up, telling Danny she wanted it. He pushed her shirt up and he kissed directly over her belly button, remembering how ticklish of a spot it was for her. She cried out and giggled, begging Danny to stop. He smiled, loving the intense sexual tension between them, and then began to kiss just below her belly button. Danny’s tongue couldn’t get enough of the way Liv’s body tasted. All the way down to her pants and then some as he wrestled, forcing her pants down a little, his tongue flicking at the top of what felt like silky panties.