Beyond Eden (11 page)

“In the car. I’ve got a few errands to run.”

“I’m in Ybor, come meet me for lunch. I’ll buy you a Cuban sandwich.”

“You’re kissing my ass because you know you were an asshole about Evie,” Paul said knowingly. “You’re going to have to think of something better than that to make it up to me.”

“I’ll buy you flowers,” Danny said in a singsong voice. “You want me to buy you flowers, Paul Guy?”

“Yeah, right after you bottom for the twink,” Paul said in annoyance. “I suppose I could meet you for lunch.”

“Good,” Danny said with a pleased smile. He dropped his voice and whispered into the phone, “What do you want to make it better about Eve?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone before Paul spoke again, his voice suddenly soft and breathy, “I know my back’s off-limits for a while but you’re a professional. You can probably think of something while it heals.”

“Yeah?” Danny asked curiously as he felt himself get hard at the notion of Paul wanting him again when they had spent the entire weekend playing and fucking after Eve had left. It was a very abrupt change after months and months of being pushed away. “What happened to breaking the addiction?”

“Maybe—” Paul started in a way that told Danny he was choosing his words wisely. “Maybe I was going about it wrong. Instead of breaking the addiction, I think I should try to exhaust it. Just totally wear myself out on it over the next six months until I’m sick of the notion.”

“You’re the biggest fetish whore I know and I know many,” Danny said in surprise, aching for Paul when he realized what he was suggesting. “It would take a lot to exhaust that addiction.”

“I realize that,” Paul’s voice was low and hesitant. “Are you willing to help me?”

Danny laughed sardonically. “I was born willing for you. It’s fucked me up completely. I can’t even buy flowers without making the florist stutter and blush because I scared him.”

“How’d you scare him?”

“I told him I could break him as easily as blink,” Danny said blandly. “I wanted to and he knew it—asking me to bottom, I would love to get that little fucker on his knees.”

“That’s hot. You should do it and give me the details. I like living vicariously through the innocent. That’s what you can get me.”

“Asking me to be an asshole to unsuspecting college boys isn’t nice, Paul Guy,” Danny taunted. “That makes you guilty by association.”

“Not if he loves it,” Paul shot back. “And you know he would. They all do.”

“I’m being loyal to Evie. I can’t fuck with the florist. I’d love to, but I can’t. I have to get you something else.”

“Danny Boy,” Paul said with a broken laugh. “What about me?”

“What about you?” Danny asked, taking another drag off his cigarette. “You’re sexy. I want to get you on your knees instead of the florist. You know how to behave.”

“I hate to ruin this little vanilla fantasy you have going, but getting me on my knees makes you very disloyal to Evie. Any judge would convict you. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

“You’re exempt from the rules,” Danny said, feeling his heart hurt as he thought about Paul and the fact he was getting married in six months. “I breathe air just to make you happy. Nothing changes that, not even Evie.”

“Where are you?”

“On Seventh. I’m waiting outside the florist for my flowers.”

“I’m parking. Don’t leave until I get there,” Paul said, amusement thick in his voice. “I wanna see the twink. I like to watch ‘em sweat around you. It turns me on to watch you work.”

“You’re a twisted bastard,” he said, raising his eyebrows as he looked down the street expectantly, his body humming with the need to see Paul. “But sure, he’ll die when he sees you and realizes what he was competing with. That’s fun for all concerned.”

“For you.”

Eve stood at the open door to Danny and Paul’s house, looking at the beautiful bouquet of wildflowers in Danny’s hand that was filled with every color in the rainbow. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I love them.”

“I saw them and had to get them,” he said, pushing the door open with his back, inviting her to walk in. “They fill the world with beauty and color, just like you.”

Eve rolled her eyes and took the bouquet as she walked into the house. “They’re quite unique. Where’d you get them?”

“I was in Ybor this afternoon.” Danny tilted his head to look at her as he stood with his back still against the door. “I thought I’d cook for you instead of going out. I picked up some fresh Cuban bread. It’d go well with
ropa vieja
. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Eve said, staring at the bouquet of flowers that were beautifully arranged in a wild, untamed way that appealed to her. “When’s Paul getting home?”

“He’s working late tonight,” Danny said, closing the door and avoiding her eyes suspiciously. “He’ll probably be gone until midnight.”

“Convenient,” Eve said skeptically as she eyed Danny in his tight black jeans and fitted black shirt, making him look dark and tempting in a way very few could achieve. She admired his long, lithely muscular body and then lifted her gaze to his face that was as gorgeous as any male model. Yet the way he stared at her, his eyes running over her body the same as she had done to him left her feeling exposed and nervous in a way she hadn’t in a very long time. “This is probably a mistake.”

“You’re thinking too much,” he said, taking the flowers back from her and walking into the kitchen, leaving Eve standing there with her eyebrows raised as she admired the way he walked with a predatory grace that both scared and thrilled her. He grabbed a vase out of the cabinet under the sink and started filling it with water. “We’re friends. We’ll eat dinner and hang out. If you don’t feel like doing anything else, that’s fine by me. I just like being with you.”

Eve heard the sincerity in his voice and felt a warm hum of happiness roll over her. She considered the empty house and the fact that Paul worked late most nights. Danny really was lonely. Eve was lonely too. Finding him again was a nice treat she hadn’t counted on because his company had always been enjoyable to her.

“Okay.” Eve kicked off her sandals by the front door and followed him into the kitchen. She sat down at the table as Danny set the flowers in the center of it. “Does that mean you don’t want to see my report card like you asked?”

He smirked as his gaze ran over her hotly once more. “You’re looking pretty sexy this evening. You should probably show them to me just in case.”

“You’re really something,” Eve said with a shake of her head as she set her purse on the table and pulled out an envelope she had brought with her. She handed it to him. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,” he said as he walked over to the counter and grabbed his own envelope and handed it to her. “Here’s mine.”

Eve took it and tossed it on the counter as Danny sat down across from her and pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket. He lit one casually and then actually pulled the papers out of her envelope and started reading them. Eve watched him in amazement as he sat there smoking and reading her blood tests with actual interest he didn’t bother to hide.

“These are eight months old,” Danny mused, a dark look passing over his face. “You don’t have any more recent?”

“No, I don’t,” Eve snapped at him. “The only reason I got those was because I found out that my fiancé was fucking around on me. I’ve never had a man actually ask to look at my blood tests. My word should be good enough for you.”

“The circles I swing in have made me cautious. I can’t risk getting anything, even for you,” he said, lifting his eyes to her. “How do you know you’re clean if you haven’t had tests in eight months?”

“Oh my God,” Eve said, gaping at his audacity. “I’m about to tell you to fuck off.”

Danny just arched a dark eyebrow, taking a long drag off his cigarette and blowing out the smoke slowly as if he had all the time in the world to wait for her to get over her irritation at him.

“Why don’t you go back to the circles you swing in if you’re not satisfied?” Eve said smartly, still very unimpressed. “What circles are they, exactly?”

“Let’s just say I have a lot of very sexually liberated friends who discovered the hard way that not being careful has terrible repercussions and I have learned well from their mistakes,” Danny said, his voice stern and serious. He looked at his envelope she had dropped on the counter pointedly. “I’m not trying to be a dick. I offered you my tests too. You should look at them.”

Eve studied the somber look on his face and realized he could have known someone who had gotten HIV and she supposed that could make him cautious. She reached over and grabbed his envelope, opening it with her eyes downcast as she sighed in defeat, “Mine are accurate. I took them about three months after my fiancé and I broke up. I haven’t been with anyone since him.”

“Three months after you broke up,” Danny repeated, gaping at her in surprise, his cigarette held halfway to his mouth as he studied her intently. “You haven’t been with anyone in eleven months?”

“When you put it like that, it makes it sound so pathetic. First I was angry with him and busy with work, and then the gallery closed down and I moved back home. I just haven’t—” Eve huffed in defeat as she saw Danny’s tests were only three weeks old, making it obvious he got laid constantly. “I guess it is pathetic.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really,” Eve mumbled, still staring at his tests, seeing that he was clean, which wasn’t a big surprise when he was obviously very cautious. “I ate a late lunch.”

“Good,” Danny said, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Even waiting through dinner to fix this problem is too long.”

Danny suddenly stood and walked around the table. Eve’s entire body tensed as a plethora of emotions surged through her bloodstream. “W-what happened to hanging out?”

“Change of plans.” Danny reached down and used considerable strength to pull her reluctantly to her feet. Eve’s heart jolted in fear when she felt that surge of sexual magnetism Danny always pulsed with suddenly wash over her. She still fought him, resisting his tug on her hands as he tried to pull her closer, his voice smooth in a way that sent shivers down her spine as he said, “Eleven months of celibacy ends now.”

“Danny Boy,” Eve whispered as she placed her hands on his chest to hold him back, not knowing how to convey that it was more than having gone so long without a lover. It was the fact this was with Danny, a man who should have never been interested in her and was so far out of her league she felt as if she were caught in a dream. More than that, it was about Paul, who still owned a large portion of her heart. Becoming involved with his best friend was asking for heartache. “I’m scared.”

“Fear can be a potent aphrodisiac.”

Danny grabbed both her hands, pulling her closer until Eve suddenly found herself flattened against his hard chest. When she sucked in a gasp of surprise he leaned down and kissed her. It was the shock of it that had her yielding to him, her lips parting to his

simply because she had never had a man kiss her like that, his tongue sliding into her mouth as if it belonged to him.

It was his scent, expensive cologne and tobacco. It was the feel of a hard male body against hers when it had been so long. It was his beauty and magnetism that had her melting into him, heedless of his mouth conquering hers or his hard grip on her wrists. Her moan was breathy, stifled by Danny’s powerful kiss as she arched into him. The fire of desire sparked through her veins and flowed through her body in a dizzying rush she hadn’t felt since she was a teenager when the naïveté of youth and the pulse of the forbidden made everything much more exciting.

With a jolt she realized Danny was making her ache like Paul used to make her ache. She had searched for ten years for some way to capture the essence of something so surreally transcendent she would literally smolder for a taste of it. She had sworn to herself if she could find another man who made her burn like Paul made her burn she would seize him and never let go—not again.

Eve kissed Danny back, swallowing his groan as her tongue followed his, sweeping into his mouth hungrily as she wrenched her hands out of his and tangled her fingers into his dark hair. She held tightly, pulling the silky strands roughly as her body leapt ahead of her mind and soul and sought to hold on to a taste of the divine.

Danny held on just as tightly, his arms wrapping around her, his hands sliding underneath her t-shirt to run up her back. The feeling of his fingers on her bare skin made her languid in his arms. Her head fell back as she broke the kiss with a breathy moan of desire. Danny’s lips fell to the line of her neck, nipping and kissing their way down to the curve of her shoulder as he effortlessly unhooked her bra.

Her body was aching, her pussy wet and throbbing for attention. Her fingers tightened in his hair, tugging impatiently. “Need you,” she gasped out urgently, hoping to convey her desperation with those few words because she was suddenly breathless. “Please.”

“Since you asked sweetly,” Danny breathed against the sensitive skin behind her ear. “Sure, sweetheart.”

Eve groaned when Danny suddenly let go, her body mourning his loss instantly. He reached behind him and tugged at the neck of his shirt, pulling it off in one fluid motion and tossing it aside.

“Oh, wow,” Eve rasped, staring at Danny’s bare chest with wide eyes. After eleven months of celibacy was the wrong time to be with a man as handsome and sexually potent as Danny. She leaned back against the table to keep from falling to her knees as her eyes ran over him hungrily, taking in the beautiful lines of his defined chest. “You’re gorgeous, Danny Boy.”

“So are you,” Danny whispered, his gaze running over her in a hot, possessive sweep that made her feel as if he were touching her with a look. He stepped closer and Eve was so desperate she arched into him before he touched her. “I’ve wanted you

forever—you’re the only woman I ever really wanted, Evie Girl. This feels too good to be true.”

She felt herself get weak, tilting her head to stare at him in disbelief. “Is that true?”

Danny leaned into her, one hand resting against the table, trapping her against the wood. He bent down, capturing her lips again as he pushed her palm against him, forcing her to feel the long, hard outline of his cock through the rough material of his jeans.