Don't Let These Boots Fool You

Danny started kissing me again after telling me I would look good in his jersey, but I was taken out of the moment when I heard his phone start ringing. Danny obviously hadn’t heard the phone as he continued to kiss along my neck.

“Danny” I didn’t hear a response for him and figured I’d try a different approach, “Danny what if it’s one of your kids?” he sat up quickly reaching over to the nightstand and wrapping his long fingers around the phone.

“Hello?” his voice held little annoyance but his face gave away how annoyed he was at whoever was calling. “This better be fucking good Hartnell.”

He went silent as his body hovered over mine. I was hoping he sent whoever was calling away because I was sick of being interrupted, teammates just didn’t know when to quit. I liked Danny but he seemed to constantly have his mind in some other place. “Look Harts, I’d love to sit and hear you yell at me for what Giroux told you but I’m a little buys at the moment.” He put his lips back to my neck as he listened to whomever he had said he was talking with.

He kissed the hollow above my collarbone and sighed in defeat, “Yes she’s right here.” He lifted his head and rolled his eyes, “Here he doesn’t believe me.” He shoved the phone in my hands.

“Hello?” I was scared to be on the phone right now, especially since Danny’s hands and lips were roaming places I was afraid to go to while on the phone. I heard the gasp on the other end knowing the person put two and two together. I had to hold back a moan as Danny bit down on my ear hearing his friend start talking to me.

“Holy fucking shit, dude she’s with him right now.” I tried to not laugh either I knew the guys would think that I was going to talk to them. Danny’s lips moved along my neck and the moans I had been containing slipped out of my lips. “Oh, we’ll let you two go. Tell Danny to call after you leave.” The phone line went dead. I had never been so happy to toss a phone to the floor.

I pulled his face up to mine and looked at his dark eyes, they told so much about him that he couldn’t vocalize. I held his face between my palms, both of us in our underwear looking at each other closely. “Your friends need to get a life and quit calling you every five seconds. Is that just a hockey thing?” He looked at me as he pressed his soft lips against mine in a kiss for the umpteenth time that hour. “I swear if that phone rings again I’m going to hurt you.”

He laughed into the kiss he placed on my lips. How did I manage to move on from Sidney and Jordan to this? I went from two single guys to a guy nine years older than me with three kids and an ex-wife. I almost thought about telling Danny to stop because I wasn’t ready to play mommy, but I became distracted by the bra that was no longer clasped behind my back. He was so perfect, he cared he was doing exactly what I asked. I put all of my fears aside and started to listen to him.

My paling skin looked healthy and seemed to have trails of heat following the path his hands were taking. His hands were covering my bra cup as he looked up at me. The question in his eyes was evident. We were in bare minimums, if the small barriers we had disappeared then I knew we would both be in a situation but I wasn’t complaining. I nodded my head as he quickly disposed of my bra by flicking it across the room.

His hands had more calluses than I thought were possible. The feel of them on my smooth skin had me twitching. I closed my eyes as his mouth latched on to my skin making me wonder if he was like this with every girl he had. He had told me it had been a while. I was shaken from my thoughts when I felt his hand pushing up against my underwear making me moan louder than Mike had ever made me moan.

One hour and Danny already knew what was going to make me scream his name. I hadn’t ever felt this close to Mike, I was back to my thoughts of being in the moment with Danny. I looked down at him. “Danny?”

“Hmm?”

“Stop look at me.” He pulled his head up and looked at me with concern in his eyes. I knew it would be bad to cry but I couldn’t help it. His hands were on my face wiping away tears before I could even tell him what was wrong. He rolled on his side and pulled me close to him.

“I’m so sorry, I got too carried away. You don’t deserve whatever I did to you.” He held me close to him and just made sure I knew he was sorry. I felt the blanket on his bed as he pulled me closer to his chest.

“Danny it’s not your fault. I honestly should have told you. I have been comparing everyone to Mike because he was the only guy I was willingly with.” I saw Danny’s puzzled expression and knew that I had left out some details about what happened “Mike was the only person I’ve been with and that’s because we’ve been together since high school.”

His eyes were wide with fear as he looked at me. I knew he was feeling guilty for pushing me but really, I wanted what he was offering up until I started wondering if I could make him as satisfied as I made Mike. “What if I didn’t make you as satisfied as some of the girls have made you?”

He felt even worse, I could tell as he dropped his head down towards his chest. He sighed as he looked back up with sadness in his eyes. “Kelly, you’re perfect. Honestly a guy gets more satisfaction from a woman when she has all of the perfect things outside of the bedroom.” He pushed my hair behind my ear and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth, “You had me the moment you came to my doorstep last night. I would have taken you up here and done just that yesterday if I had the courage to do it.”

I smiled thanking him for being a gentleman to me. I looked up at him, smiled, and remembered he had said something about needing to do stuff before his kids got home. “Want to wrap those presents for your kids?”

He laughed and smiled at me, “You would remember my kids. I’ll go put some clothes on and you can too, then we’ll go wrap some of their gifts.” He kissed my forehead as he walked to his walk in closet. I sighed looking at myself, tucked under the sheets of one of Philadelphia’s favorite hockey dads.

I searched through his drawers as he walked downstairs, I needed sweat pants or shorts or something otherwise I would be in my underwear and I knew how his teammates liked to barge into his house. I had searched through four of the bulky drawers before I finally found some with overly large t-shirts that would work for what we were doing. I walked across the cool hardwood floors as I tried to find Danny in his large house. I stopped in my tracks as I heard him talking to someone. I knew he had to be talking about me if he had left his room.

“She’s so confused about what’s right and what’s wrong between you two. Why don’t you just let her decide on her own? I don’t know how you found out she was here either but all I’m saying is you need to back off some.” I could hear the protectiveness in his voice.

He was worried I would get hurt again. He was treating me as an equal not some princess who needed to be raised up on his shoulders and talked about every five seconds. He was treating me like another person not some girl he would gladly date if the chance arose. He was the perfect mix of Sidney and Jordan I needed.

“What do you mean she was raped?” Shit, Sidney told him. I hadn’t meant to tell Sidney in the first place and I most definitely didn’t want Danny to know. I didn’t want him to think that I needed to be watched over or that I needed no intimacy. “How the hell could someone do that to her,” He slid his hand through his hair as I watched him from the stairs, “I’m done listening. I’ll let her tell me when she’s ready but for now, seriously Sid you need to leave her alone so she can figure things out. Don’t call here; don’t call her let her come to you or Staal.”

I started crying as I sat there. I hoped he didn’t see me sitting there because I honestly didn’t want him to see me at all. I wanted to figure out what I wanted him to know about me. I heard him sigh as I let more tears roll down my face. I was a mess, I had three guys trying to win my affection, two of which I worked with, one who I was now working with. This had become one big mess and I wasn’t happy with it.

The tears were now drying up as I wiped them on the shirt. I looked down and realized you could tell I was crying. I turned back up the stairs to go find a different shirt. I had already forgotten which drawer held his t-shirts in them so I opted to go to the closet. Inside I found sweat pants, dress pants, dress shirts, shoes, hats, typical male wardrobe things. I found a flyers orange dress shirt and put it on. If I put myself in the stupid Hollywood movie situation, I might as well live it out.

I walked back down the stairs and found Danny sitting at the counter with his head in his hands. “You okay?” I asked leaning down across from him. He slowly lifted his head but not looking at me at all. “You know you can look at me Danny.”

He shook his head and put it back down on the counter top. “I can’t look at you though. Sidney called and told me things I didn’t want to hear. As much as I’d love to wait and hear them I can’t.” He looked up anyways and took in the shirt I was wearing.

“Well then I guess I’ll just eat and get my keys to try and find a place to stay.” I moved to the fridge looking for food, I quickly found fruit and took it over to the sink to wash. He had a window overlooking the back yard that was what a kitchen had to have in my eyes. I saw Joe running around with Danny’s dogs and smiled. This place fit but it wasn’t home and couldn’t be a home because Danny didn’t want me.

“You know that shirt makes my imagination run wild.” He whispered huskily in my ear as he wrapped his arms around me from behind.

“I thought you didn’t want me?”

He turned me around to face him and stared at me. “What’d you hear?”

I had just given myself up. He knew that I heard the phone conversation. He had to know since I said what he told Sidney. I was making stupid mistakes. “That you found out I was raped. Now you’re scared that I’m damaged goods. Aren’t you? You’re afraid that if you touch me I’ll break. So I’ve only been with two people, is that a crime now? I was raped by a good friend, but I said no to him, I’ve said nothing but yes to you.” I threw the fruit back in the sink and pushed Danny away.

He spoke up as I was about to walk through the kitchen doorway, “God do I want you so bad. I want to fuck you in every room of this house, your dog to stay around my dogs because your dog makes you happy, and I want to see you wake up in my bed again, without Giroux this time.” He had caught me up against the door.

His lips were close enough that I could touch them with my tongue and his eyes were staring at mine. I felt scared, “I want you to meet my kids, and I know you’d love them. Does that scare you like it scares me? You’re trying to figure out which guy you want a life with and I’m throwing the daddy card out there like you’ll want to be a mom.”

Scared wasn’t even the beginning to describe how afraid I was of what was happening. I looked down only to find his hand waiting to push my face back up to look at him. I was afraid of what my heart was starting to tell me. I wanted to be a mom so bad it hurt some days; I was 24 and ready to settle down, all my brothers had kids. Sidney seemed too focused on his career, and Jordan seemed like too much of a partier to settle for me.

I walked away from Danny knowing I couldn’t think about was right for me or his kids until I was away from him. I thought about my family and about who would be able to survive my family and their crazy shenanigans. Sidney would even out my crazy moments, be stable, and never leave my side regardless of how convenient of a girl I was. Jordan would learn to be there for me, he had already proven he could be a good guy once when he left his puck slut at the restaurant. That got me to thinking I hadn’t heard about any of his conquests for weeks, maybe he had settled down. Then I was left with Danny. He was sweet and amazing and understood what I was going through; the only problem was he came with baggage. I couldn’t try to take him away from his kids to be happy.

“What have I done?” I asked as I fell to the floor.