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  She held his eyes and allowed herself one last long look.

  I love you so very, very much, Danny.

  I don’t know how I lived all those years without you.

  And I don’t know how I’ll live the rest without you.

  Kat smiled up at him through her tears, half-hoping and half-fearing Danny could read her thoughts.

  Can you see it, Danny?

  Can you see how much I love you?

  How much I don’t want to let you go?

  How proud and honored I would have been to be your wife?

  That I would have loved every minute of our lives together?

  Her smiled faded as fresh, new waves of anguish washed over her – robbing her of breath and causing actual, physical pain in her chest.

  Do you promise that one day you’ll realize I did it because I love you so much?

  That I did it because I want more for you than what I can give?

  Do you promise you’ll forgive me one day, Danny?

  Kat’s arms went around him and tightened, as she opened her mouth to let the horrible sobs finally rise up and out of her.

  Do you promise not to forget about me completely?

  Do you promise to remember at least some of what we shared?

  Because I cannot bear to think about you not remembering, Danny!

  Danny’s brows lowered, eyes still holding hers. He caressed her jaw line with the pad of his thumb. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  Kat gazed up into Danny’s expectant, loving face, steeled her resolve, and delivered the most difficult four words she’d ever spoken:

  “I can’t marry you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

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  Danny’s brows dropped. “Why not?”

  Kat brushed the tears off her cheeks and exhaled a long, shuddering sigh. “Let me up, please, Danny. So we can talk.”

  “No. We’re not moving until you answer me. Why can’t you marry me?”

  “Danny, please…” Kat pushed at his shoulders, but he wouldn’t budge.

  She then wiggled her bottom half, bringing attention to the fact that they were still intimately joined – Danny still half-hard inside of her.

  “Oh,” Kat whispered, eyes wide and a light flush spreading across her cheeks.

  Normally the friction, and Kat’s adorable blushing, would have had Danny raring to go again. But, right now, he was way too stunned to focus on anything other than getting an explanation for Kat’s less-than-enthusiastic reaction to his proposal.

  “Kat, answer me,” Danny said, the uneasiness he’d been feeling since last night once again washing over him. “Why can’t you marry me?”

  She huffed, pushing at his shoulders again. “I’m not having a discussion in this position, Danny, so please get up and we’ll talk.”

  Kat squirmed and twisted beneath him, trying to break their physical connection, but Danny wouldn’t allow it. Because she was going cold on him again and he was suddenly very afraid to let her go.

  “It’s very simple,” he said, doing his best to sound calm, despite the raging chaos and confusion going on his brain. “You tell me why you can’t marry me, and I’ll let you up.”

  Kat searched his eyes, the stoic expression she’d been wearing a second ago giving way to a pained one. She whispered, “I can’t tell you like this, Danny…” Her breath caught. “It just wouldn’t be right. Please…just let me sit up.”

  A bunch of awful reasons for it not being “right,” flashed through Danny’s head…none of them good, reassuring, or calming.

  Through a tightened jaw, he said, “I don’t giving a flying fuck about right, or anything else right now, Kat. Just fucking tell me why you can’t marry me before I lose my goddamned shit.”

  When her only response was a blank stare, Danny’s anxiety cranked up a hundred notches.

  And then it slammed into him, full-force.

  You stupid, stupid son-of-a-bitch.

  Obviously, Kat was disappointed.

  And probably pissed.

  Danny didn’t know much about women’s emotions, but he’d heard they dreamed about this stuff from when they were little. And he was pretty sure Kat’s dream proposal hadn’t included being fucked on a work counter top by a guy with his pants literally around his ankles at 6:30 in the damn morning.

  Really romantic, asshole, and what a great story for her to tell her family and friends.

  Fucking idiot.

  Danny scoffed softly, head shaking. “I’m sorry, Kat. I guess I really fucked this one up, huh?”

  Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  Danny pulled himself out of her, wincing at the sensitivity and, stupidly, the absence of her body latched around his. He sat back on his haunches, shoved everything back into his pants, zipped up, and did up his belt.

  He braced his hands on his upper thighs and looked down at Kat laying there, his chest tightening at her beauty and how damn much he loved her.

  She is perfect.

  She deserved something beautiful.

  Why the fuck did you have to open your mouth right then?

  So. Fucking. Stupid.

  Danny forced a smile, extending a hand to her. As he pulled her to a sitting-up position, he said, “Let’s just forget that happened, okay. Give me a do-over? ‘Cause sometimes – no, a lot of times – my mouth gets ahead of my brain. I’ve just been dying to ask you, officially, and I guess I jumped the gun.” He met her eyes, smile fading, and quietly added, “I’m sorry if I disappointed you, Kat. I’ll do better next time, I promise”

  Kat’s gaze softened. “You didn’t disappoint me, Danny.”

  Heartened by the warmth in her tone and the loving way she was looking at him, Danny climbed off the counter and stood in front of her.

  He cradled her face. “Then why are you crying? And why are you saying you can’t marry me?”

  When she didn’t answer, Danny leaned in to kiss her, but Kat turned her head.

  Danny reared back. “What the fuck was that?”

  “I just told you,” she said evenly, turning back to face him, the stoic expression back in place. “I can’t marry you.”

  “Yeah, I heard you. And we’ll get to the bottom of that bullshit in a second. But right now, I want to hear why you just turned your head when I tried to kiss you.”

  She stared into his eyes for a few long moments before saying, “Because it’s over, Danny.”

  “What’s over?” he reflexively asked.

  But he knew what she meant. Deep-down, he knew.

  Because this wasn’t his first rejection rodeo.

  He’d felt all the feelings he was currently feeling hundreds of times.

  But he never, ever thought he’d be feeling them because of Kat.

  Not at this stage in the game.

  Not after everything that had happened between them.

  I must have misunderstood her.

  Danny shook his head in an effort to re-orient himself, the shock of her words knocking him off-kilter. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Kat. What’s over?”

  Kat paused again. “Us. This. It can’t continue. It was…a mistake.”

  Danny dropped his hands and backed up a few steps, eyeing her hard. He grabbed the back of his neck and squeezed. “I don’t…I don’t understand…”

  He watched as she slowly slid off the counter and picked her pants and underwear up off the floor. Kat pulled them on and turned back to face him, arms winding around her midsection.

  “You think you and me…us…” He gestured between them. “This…what we have going on between us…” Danny shook his head. “You think it was a mistake?”

  “Not a mistake, I guess. But not well thought-out. Ill-timed. Not given the proper amount of consideration before we jumped right in,” she replied quietly.

  Danny reared back, brows high. “Ill-timed?” He barked out a harsh laugh. “I can’t…” He shook his head, again. “I don’t even…” Danny scof
fed. “What the fuck, Kat? What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I think it’s best if we don’t see each other anymore.”

  Danny suddenly felt like he was suffocating. And going insane. His lungs wouldn’t take in air and they wouldn’t let any out, either. His stomach dropped, his chest ached, and his mind raced.

  The whole scene felt surreal…like he’d been dropped into the middle of the worst nightmare he could imagine.

  “You’re breaking up with me?” Danny finally breathed out, through jagged breaths and a clenched jaw.

  She swallowed hard before dipping her head into a nod.

  Danny rubbed at his forehead and then barked out a harsh laugh. He dropped his hands and leaned toward her, head still shaking. “You’re kidding, right? This is some kind of fucked-up joke?”

  “I’m sorry, Danny,” Kat whispered, tears spilling down both cheeks.

  “You’re…” He reared back. “You’re fucking sorry?”

  “This is all my fault. I knew better and…” She used her tee shirt to wipe at her face. “I got carried away and…I don’t know…I wasn’t thinking…”

  “This is bullshit, Kat, and you know it,” Danny said, walking up to her and taking her face between his hands. He stared down into her eyes, trying to see something, anything, to help him understand. “Talk to me. Don’t shut me out again. Tell me what’s really going on.” Tears formed in her eyes and fell and Danny brushed them away with the pads of his thumbs. “Because you and me? We love each other. And that means we can work anything out.”

  Kat squeezed her eyelids shut, forcing more tears down her cheeks. “I don’t…” She inhaled deeply, her breath catching on a quiet sob before she exhaled a shuddering sigh. Her eyes opened and latched onto his. “No, we can’t…”

  Danny felt her entire body start to tremble. Kat reached behind her and stepped back, grabbing onto the countertop for support.

  When Danny stepped toward her, she lifted a hand, head shaking, halting him.

  He stopped.

  “There is nothing to work out…” Kat tightened her grip on the counter and leveled a flat gaze on him. “Because I don’t love you, Danny.”

  After a stunned pause, Danny began shaking his head very slowly. “That’s not true.”

  “I thought I did. It was my first relationship…and those were my first…” Kat averted her eyes. “Well, sexual experiences and I…” She lifted hers eyes to his. “I guess I couldn’t differentiate between lust and love. I suspected it before…but I didn’t say anything…and everything was moving so fast…” Kat lifted a shoulder. “I waited, I guess, to give myself time to figure out my feelings. But then you…well, then today happened – which I never should have allowed. But…” She flushed and cleared her throat. “Like I said, the lust is not an issue and I let my attraction to you get the best of me. Again. But then you…you asked me…”

  Danny nodded slowly, trying to process what she saying, but feeling incapable of understanding what was happening here. “So, in the beginning, you wanted to fuck me, so you did…then you thought you loved me, but you don’t…but you still wanted to fuck me, so you did…but then, when I had the gall to ask you to marry me, you decided that was the time to drop me…” He ran a hand over his head and exhaled a hard scoff. “I’ve gotta tell you, I’m starting to feel like one of those poor assholes on that Punk’d show right now, Kat. ‘Cause you are not making a lick of fucking sense.” Danny lifted his hands. “What about everything we did? Everything we said? That was all bullshit? That was all because you were mixing up wanting to fuck me with loving me?” He exhaled a hard scoff. “You’re gonna have to come up with a better explanation for this shit you’re trying to pull right now, Kat, because – while I might not be as smart as you are – I’m too fucking smart to fall for this horseshit.”

  Except he was falling for it.

  Because it all made perfect sense now.

  Way more sense than thinking that she could love him.

  You should have known better.

  Kat leaned her lower back into the cabinet and wrapped her arms around her midsection. She was silent for a few agonizingly long moments before quietly saying, “I care about you, Danny, and, if it wasn’t for…other things…maybe something could have come of our mutual attraction. But, things are the way they are and it just…” She shook her head, eyes welling, again. “It just wouldn’t work out, Danny, I’m sorry.”

  Danny’s eyes narrowed. “What other things?”

  “Danny…”

  “No, no, no, I need to hear this.” Danny gestured for her to continue before crossing his arms across his chest. “Please, enlighten me about the other things that are preventing you from not only marrying me, but from continuing to fuck me, too, apparently.”

  Kat flushed again. She averted her eyes to the floor and shrugged. “I realized you are not a person I can see myself with long-term,” she said quietly.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  She slowly turned to meet his eyes, her expression detached. Flat. “I think you are a great guy, Danny, with a lot of wonderful qualities, but you just aren’t what I’m looking for in a husband. And I didn’t want to lead you on by continuing a relationship when I have no intention of marrying you.”

  When Danny didn’t respond, because he felt like she’d just reached down his throat, grabbed his heart, and yanked it back up his windpipe, Kat added, “That’s why I didn’t say anything the other night when you mentioned wanting to marry me. It was because I was already having doubts about…well…” She flushed. “Marrying someone like you.”

  Very old, very deeply-buried feelings reared their ugly heads, turning Danny’s stomach and igniting his anger. “‘Someone like me?’”

  She nodded slowly, prompting him to do the same.

  “Exactly what the fuck does that mean, Kat?”

  Kat didn’t reply, but Danny could think of a hundred reasons why someone like Kat wouldn’t want to marry someone like him, no input from her required.

  Didn’t mean her realizing it didn’t sting like a motherfucker. And didn’t mean agreeing with her wholeheartedly was going to stop him from lashing out.

  Danny backed up until he could lean his hip into the opposite counter, folding his arms across his chest, and then gestured for Kat to continue. “Come on, Kat…out with it. No turning back now. You’ve already told me you don’t love me and that you used me to, I don’t know, pop your cherry, I guess.” Danny pushed a hard scoff past the huge, painful knot in his throat. “Although, I’ve gotta tell you, for such a smart woman, that sure was a stupid decision. Could have gone real bad for you, sweetheart. ‘Cause career whores like me? Yeah, we’re not known for being the gentlest.” He shook his head ruefully, lips curling. “Or maybe you didn’t want it gentle, huh, Kat? Maybe that’s why you called me that night…why you crawled into my lap, just begging for it…”

  The way her eyes widened gave him a sick satisfaction Danny would have thought himself incapable of a few minutes ago.

  “Some of our…sessions…must have been a real disappointment to you, then.” Danny’s breath hitched in his chest, so he scoffed to cover it up, and shrugged. “Should have just told me you were looking to for a kinky fuck buddy. I could have popped you and then fucked you good, no strings attached.”

  More tears filled her eyes. “Danny, that’s not what I said…”

  “No, but that’s what you meant, isn’t it? Or at least that’s what you would have preferred once you had this epiphany about not loving me, right? Just a dick to get you off? Because, if you didn’t love me, that’s all you were looking for, right?”

  You’ve known that’s all you were good for since you were twelve years old. You gonna get pissed at her for realizing it, too?

  Apparently, yes, because Danny was about two seconds from putting his fist through something.

  “So, come on, let’s hear the other things. Because they’ve gotta be pretty damn bad to
keep you from getting off.” Danny’s stomach clenched up as his heart dropped, pieces of the puzzle seemingly falling into place. “Or maybe you already have your next dick lined up. Maybe that’s what was going on when I walked in this morning?”

  It all made sense now.

  Kat didn’t love him.

  Never had, never would.

  But apparently she’d liked Danny’s dick enough to keep seeing him even after realizing that little fact.

  But now she had Ben.

  And Ben’s dick came with a lot of other stuff Danny’s didn’t…

  He probably has two good parents who love him and I’m a fucked-up orphan.

  He is probably well-adjusted and normal and I’m a hot, fucking mess.

  He’s clean, I’m dirty.

  He’s smart, I’m not.

  He’s nice, I’m not.

  He’s husband material.

  All I’m good for is getting off.

  And getting off was the easy part.

  Dicks were a dime a dozen.

  But being someone worthy of love?

  Maybe that just wasn’t in the cards for some people.

  Danny’s head spun and his chest ached at the loss of everything he’d thought he’d somehow managed to get his arms around….everything he’d always wanted, but never really allowed himself to hope for.

  A person he was wondering if he could actually, physically live without.

  Breathe.

  Get out of here before you melt down in front of her.

  Go!

  He forced his lips into a half-smile. “Kept me hanging on until you roped your next one, huh, Kat? Now, there’s my smart girl. I always told Nathan you were as cold as ice and I guess I was right.” Danny pushed off the counter, gesturing to the mess they’d made on the floor. “I think you’ll understand if I don’t stick around to clean up. Or to hear about the other things that make me unfit to marry you.”

  He looked at her hard, one last time – unable, or maybe unwilling, to accept that, once he walked away from her now, it was over.

  That he would never hold her again.

  That he would never taste her again.

  That he would never make love to her again.

  That they would never say, “I love you,” again.