Not this time, though. And not with Danielle. Shit! Is she really going to break my mother's heart and tell her I lied? And does she really have a boyfriend? Naaa, she doesn't. She was lying about that Chris dude. She had to be.
Watching her brown hair swish over her puffy, marshmallow-looking, coat-covered shoulder, she stormed out of the shed and into the light of day with a renewed sense of determination, sending my stomach into a series of backflips. She IS going to tell my mother. Fuck!
"Danielle, wait!" I scrambled after her, trying not to draw attention to the fact I was about to piss my pants.
I loved my mother. She treated me, and my sister Laura, well. But she wanted what I hadn't been ready to give her - more grandchildren. Laura had recently disembarked the baby train, so the onus had quickly fallen upon me to climb aboard. And it wasn't that I was opposed to riding baby trains, I just hadn't wanted to ride them with the few girls I'd dated. The trains we'd been on were express trains to a destination of 'It was fun, but goodbye'.
Mum wanted more little Parkers running and crawling around. Badly. And she wanted me to finally tie the knot. Really badly. She was forever on my case about finding 'the one' and settling down, even having attempted to arrange a few blind dates on the odd occasion. Sure, she was meddlesome, overly pushy, and extremely annoying, but she meant well. Her only wish was to see me happy and in love, which wasn't something she'd been privy to during my adult life. She was also quite sensitive and excessively melodramatic, which meant that, in mere seconds, when Danielle delivered the news that I'd been bullshitting about us being engaged, my life was about to end, or at the very least be horribly miserable for the next umpteen years.
Falling into step beside the power-walking Yeti, I lowered my voice. "Please wait."
"No! We need to set the record straight!"
"We will. I promise. Just not yet. Please!" I took hold of her arm and spun her toward me, securing her to my chest.
She smelled like roses and oranges. And the way her hair curled like chocolate as it fell over her shoulder, she could quite easily be mistaken for a lavish dessert.
"Elliot, let me go," she hissed, her cheeks glowing.
"Hear me out first."
"No."
Danielle tried to pull free of my grip, but all I could do was hold her tighter and smile.
"Stop smiling like that. Why are you smiling like that? It's creepy."
I ignored her and smiled wider. "Remember that time when we were standing on the rope swing at the park together?"
Recognition blazed from her brown eyes and she, too, finally smiled. "Yes."
"It was a bit like we are now, huh?"
She shrugged and blushed, and I liked it.
"Neither of us wanted to let go first for fear of falling off the swing."
"That's what you think," she scoffed. "I wasn't afraid of falling, Elliot." Danielle bit her lip and tried to look over my shoulder, and all I wanted to do was take that lip into my mouth and help her nibble on it. I'd only ever tasted those lips once before, and by my very vivid memory, they tasted like she smelled.
Heat waved over my body, and my cock stirred. Shit!
"You weren't afraid?" I asked, bending just slightly to create less friction between us.
"Nope."
"So why'd you hold on to me for so long?"
"Because I didn't want you to fall."
I nearly laughed in her face; she was funny and still overly stubborn. She was also refusing to look at me, her eyes darting back and forth, fighting their pull toward me.
"Elliot, you need to let go of me, now. Reminiscing about the past isn't helping us in the present."
"You sure about that?"
Her eyes finally met mine, but only fleetingly, because they soon found my lips. I swallowed and lightly licked them for her.
"Oh no!" she objected, her tiny finger snaking its way between us and nearly poking me in the eye. "No, no, NO!"
"No what?"
She pointed to my lips. "No that."
Just as I was about to lick them again, teasingly, because I knew she both loved and hated it, my mother called my name. Fuck, not now.
"Elliot, I need your help lifting these logs."
Danielle snapped her head toward my mother's squawking voice before flicking her eyes to me then back to my mother, her enthusiastic eye-tennis a good indication that she was getting ready to confess.
"Please don't," I begged.
Her mouth opened, and I panicked and did what any normal, longstanding, lovesick friend who hadn't been in this position before would do.
I kissed her.
Hard.
Unashamedly.
A wave of heat hit me once again, but unlike before, nothing could compare to the inferno blazing up my legs and exploding into my heads the moment my lips touched hers. And yeah, it was definitely heads, as in plural, because the head of my cock was its own Survivor torch. It was life in a jungle of trousers and boxer briefs, and there was absolutely no extinguishing it while she was in my arms.