Dangerous to Know & Love (25 page)

He scowled at her. “That’s a pussy name.”

“And ‘baby doll’ sounds like a sex toy.”

Daniel choked on his hash browns, and Lisanne blushed as realization dawned of
exactly
how that sounded.

Maggie wandered over to refill their coffee cups and stayed to shoot the breeze for a minute. Lisanne was starting to be less nervous of her. She particularly enjoyed hearing Maggie tease Daniel about things he said and did when he was a kid.

“You should have seen him when he was 14, Lisanne. He was the cutest lil thing. Musta gotten his first tube of hair gel ‘cause he had it all spiked up. He spent damn near an hour checking himself out in the window and fussing with it. And I swear he used to practice talking to girls by hitting on me.”

They both ignored Daniel’s muttered comment, “Hell, no!”

Lisanne laughed.

“What sort of lines did he use?”

“Let me see, oh pretty cheesy stuff, ya know: ‘You sure lookin’ nice today, Maggie. You lookin’ tired, Maggie, come and take your break with me. Did you get your hair fixed, Maggie, ‘cause you’re lookin’ mighty fine today’.”

Daniel shook his head, his eyes wide with embarrassment and the tip of his ears red.

“Jeez! Give me a break, Maggie! I was fourteen!”

“And a heartbreaker even then, Danny. But you should have seen him the day he came in after getting his first tattoo…”

Daniel groaned and stood up.

“Come on, Lis. We’ve got to get going.”

“But I want to hear the end of that story!” said Lisanne, trying not to laugh.

Maggie winked at her, then pinched his cheek and patted his arm.

“You bring your sweet girl back here soon, and I’ll tell her how
that
one ended with you passing out at the table.”

Daniel practically ran to the door.

As soon as they left the diner, he fixed Lisanne with a desperate stare.

“If you value my sanity, don’t ever mention this again, please, baby.”

“Oh, I don’t know,
Danny
, because you’re the
cutest lil thing
!”

It was wonderfully relaxing doing ordinary couple things like have breakfast together, and Lisanne was happy to enjoy it to the fullest. But too soon the world claimed them back. Daniel dropped her at the dorms, and left to catch up on his homework, while she wondered which pile of her own work to attack first.

Kirsty returned just before lunch, describing the fun day they’d had at the beach and the amazing, impromptu party at the frat house later on.

“So, what did you do?” she said, with an appraising eye. “Did you have a good time?”

Lisanne simply nodded, afraid that her voice would give her away.

“Oh my God!” breathed Kirsty. “You did it, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Lisanne mumbled, unconvincingly.

“You slept with him, didn’t you! You totally slept with Daniel!”

There was no point Lisanne trying to deny it – her face told the entire story.

“Oh. My. God!” repeated Kirsty, shaking her head. “So that was the
private
thing you were doing with Daniel! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

“It wasn’t planned,” said Lisanne weakly, but Kirsty didn’t believe her.

“Well,” she said, “how was it? Did you come?”

“I’m not telling you
that!
” gasped Lisanne.

“You totally did!” shrieked Kirsty. “How many times? Once? Twice?
Three
times? No way!”

Lisanne shook her head. “I’m not discussing it, Kirsty. It’s private.”

Kirsty giggled. “Not for much longer. Shawna will bust a gut! She’s been crushing on Daniel for like, forever!”

“No!” snapped Lisanne. “It’s nobody’s business but mine and Daniel’s!”

Kirsty just grinned at her. “Oh, take it down a notch, missy. And a word to the wise – morning sex is awesome. Just sayin’. Anyway, I won’t have to tell anyone: it’s just so
obvious
that you’ve been making the beast with two backs. I can’t say I blame you – I always said Daniel had a great body.”

For some reason Kirsty’s words annoyed Lisanne. Yes, Daniel had an amazing body, no doubt about that. But there was so much more to him.

“He’s a nice person, too,” she said quietly.

Kirsty threw her a look.

“Sorry, Lis,” she said. “I know you’re crazy about him.”

Which was the closest Kirsty came to an apology.

The week that followed was full on for both Lisanne and Daniel.

She had three evenings of rehearsals with the
32
^o
North
guys, and although Daniel insisted on giving her a ride home each time, they barely had a chance for more than a brief make out session as he dropped her off. Sometimes a whole day would go by when she only caught glimpses of him across the quad, or snatched a hurried sandwich with him in the cafeteria.

Daniel had a huge paper for one of his Economics professors, and as that was his major, he was taking it seriously.

Most of Lisanne’s lunch breaks were taken up with orchestra practice, something all music majors were expected to be involved in.

Kirsty was working hard, too, littering their dorm room with scraps of materials, and sketches of clothes designs.

Daniel texted Lisanne constantly, but she was amazed how much her body craved him physically. All the moments her brain wasn’t occupied with work or music practice, she found her mind drifting to all the things they’d done – which almost always made her blush – sometimes at immensely inappropriate times.

She hoped to have a chance to do more sexy stuff with Daniel during the week, but he simply said he couldn’t take her back to his place, and with Kirsty working hard at her desk, they had no choice but to wait.

Lisanne was stunned to wake up from an incredibly erotic dream on Friday morning with her body tingling.

“What’s the matter?” mumbled Kirsty grumpily, opening one eye. “Why are you making such a racket?”

Lisanne had no words to answer that question.

By Friday evening, she was exhausted and ready for some downtime.

Kirsty was staying with Vin, so she and Daniel had the dorm room to themselves. They spent the evening making out – as well as discussing, yet again, suitable topics of conversation for when Daniel met Lisanne’s parents the following day – and eating takeout.

“Is Harry coming, too?” Daniel asked, hoping that having Lisanne’s little brother there would make things a bit easier. It always helped having another guy around – he didn’t count Lisanne’s father as he definitely wouldn’t be on the home team.

But Lisanne shook her head.

“No, he’s got some basketball game to go to.”

There went Daniel’s first line of defense.

He sighed.

“And don’t tell them about Sirona,” said Lisanne, looking anxious.

“Should I tell them I like to ride her hard?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Lisanne ignored him.

“They’ll go crazy if they think I’m riding around on motorcycles,” she continued. “They think they’re dangerous.”

“I’m not going to lie to them if they ask me,” said Daniel, frowning at her.

“You don’t have to lie – just don’t tell them everything,” she pleaded with him. “You’re studying economics: be economical with the facts!”

He began to feel like he’d be better off facing Joe McCarthy than Ernie and Monica Maclaine.

“And try not to swear – or blaspheme. They don’t like that.”

“Why don’t you just give me a list of what I
can
say,” he said, with a sullen look on his face.

“Oh,” said Lisanne. “That’s a good idea.”

Daniel rolled his eyes, but luckily she didn’t see him do it.

“Economics – they’ll like that. And business studies. That’s fine. And the math, of course.” She chewed her lip, desperately trying to think of any other suitable subjects. “Sport!” she said, suddenly. “Do you play any sport? My dad’s always watching it on TV. He’s a sport nut.”

“I’m a champion at fucking.”

She smacked his arm. “I’m serious!”

“So am I!” He grinned at her. “I played football in high school.”

“Really?”

“Sure!”

“What position?”

“Quarterback.”

“You… You were a jock?”

Daniel laughed. “Your words, baby.”

“So how come you didn’t try out for the college team?”

“You’re kidding, right?” He rolled his eyes again. “Didja forget I’m deaf?”

Lisanne blushed. The truth was she was so used to being around him, making sure that she faced him when she spoke, that it
was
easy to forget he was deaf. He hardly ever made mistakes when he was lip reading her, and although she noticed he spoke far less when other people were around in case he’d misread them, nobody else had guessed his secret. She immediately felt guilty.

“No,” she said defensively, if untruthfully.

Daniel smirked at her. She
hated
that he knew when she was lying, but he didn’t call her on it.

“But you played in high school?”

“Lis, it was a
special
school. We got in the huddle and signed.” Tired of the topic, Daniel yawned and stretched. Lisanne couldn’t help being fascinated by the way his t-shirt tightened over his body. “Did you know the huddle was invented by a deaf guy?”

“I don’t know much about football,” she admitted.

“Doesn’t matter: not many people who do like football know that either.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling more ignorant and challenged by the second. “Aren’t there any deaf NFL players?”

“There’ve been two: Bonnie Sloan in the seventies, and  Kenny Walker was a defensive linesman for the Denver Broncos. That was over 20 years ago. Not since then.”

“Oh,” said Lisanne again.

“So, can I show you my other favorite sport now?” Daniel said, bored of the subject, his face alive with new mischief.

“What’s that?” she said, cautiously.

“I told you – fucking!”

He grinned as he tugged off his t-shirt.

As usual, Lisanne couldn’t help her eyes being immediately riveted to his chest – a fact that Daniel was more than happy to use to his advantage.

“Wanna play, baby?” he said, undoing the top button of his jeans, so they hung a little lower on his hips.

Lisanne nodded, then squealed as he dove at her, throwing her onto the bed.

After that, neither of them was capable of speaking in full sentences for several hours.

Chapter 11

Lisanne woke up to the delicious sensation of light kisses peppering her back. She giggled as Daniel’s hand slid across her hip and over her stomach, pulling her back tightly into his chest.

She felt his substantial morning wood poking her in the ass and couldn’t help wiggling her hips, making him groan.

She rolled over until she was facing him, and reverently traced the outline of his lips with her finger.

“Good morning,” she whispered.

“Yes, it is,” he said, happily.

She kissed him softly and a rumble of desire escaped from his chest. Kirsty was right to insist that morning sex was so awesome. Lisanne loved seeing his face softened by sleep, the hard exterior worn away with the night.

It was still such a novelty to have a man in her bed – and what a man!

She pulled back from him so she could fully appreciate his beauty, following the swirls of his tattoos across his arms, letting her fingers drift down the hard planes of his chest, over the muscles of his abs. Then she licked his nipple rings and sucked them gently, causing a soft moan to rise from his throat.

Smiling to herself, she pulled the sheet lower, letting her finger tremble over his belly button, then drift below.

He took a deep breath.

“When did you get to be such a bad girl?”

She turned to look at him, and smiled.

“About the time I met you.”

He laughed gently. “Good. I like it.”

Feeling brave, she reached down to stroke his erection, and heard the breath hitch in his throat.

She gasped a little when it twitched in her hand.

She pulled the sheet down to take a closer look.

“It looks so cute, when it jumps like that.”

Daniel’s voice was filled with horror.

“You did not just call my cock ‘cute’!” he huffed. “Come on! Awesome, amazing, enormous – those adjectives are fine – but not cute. Give my dick some dignity for fuck’s sake!”

“He’s sweet!” giggled Lisanne.

Daniel groaned and hid his head under the pillow.

“What are you doing to me, woman?”

Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door.

Daniel felt Lisanne’s body tense, and he pulled his head out from under the pillow.

“What’s the matter, baby?”

“Kirsty’s outside. She must have come back early. She
promised
she wouldn’t,” Lisanne complained.

“Damn cockblocker!” growled Daniel. “She has lousy fucking timing.” He sighed. “I’d better put my pants on.”

He half fell out of the narrow bed and scrabbled through their assorted clothes to find his jeans.

Lisanne couldn’t help watching the amazing floor show. Dear God! That boy could be a model. A nude model. An erotic model.

Her flesh heated at the thought, but another loud knock thudded at the door and, reluctantly, she turned to answer it.

“I’m coming!” she grumbled, pulling on her robe and padding to the door. “Kirsty, you…”

Her words cut off suddenly as the smiling face of her parents appeared in view.

“Surprise!” called her mother. “Oh, it’s so good to see you, honey. We were so excited we left early. Goodness! What are you doing in bed at this time of day? Are you sick?”

“Mom…” she stammered, as her mother pushed past her and entered the room.

Daniel had his back to the door, with no clue as to what was happening. He was still pulling his t-shirt over his finely muscled back, then bent down to buckle up his boots.

“Hey, Lis. What time are we meeting your folks? I want to go home and grab a shower – try and make a good impression – although you know they’re not going to like me, right?”

He turned around with a grin on his face: a grin that vanished when he came to face to face with Lisanne’s shocked parents.