seven

There was only so much gentleman in Danny.  He was also flesh and blood, lust and desire.  If that was what Sara wanted, he wasn’t about to turn her down.  He took one look at her in her lingerie, standing before him like some kind of gift, and imprinted the sight in his mind.  

Then he pasted himself to her body.

She kissed him hungrily.  There had been a hint of it in the way her mouth moved during their single private encounter in his garage, with his kids waiting for them on the other side of a door.  But nothing prepared him for a deep and urgent kiss from the woman he’d been obsessing over for a month.  He wanted this so badly he’d almost forgotten about actually getting it.

Sara pulled at the remaining buttons on his shirt, tossing it to the floor.  Danny’s hands moved over her waist, small in his hands, and up her bare back.  It seemed exquisite and forbidden to touch her like that, even as she slipped the end of his belt free from the buckle.  Danny pushed his hands down again, over her ass.  She was all firm and toned and the smooth skin made him doubt the feeling that reached his brain.  His belt clinked open, the button on his pants easily thumbed open.  Then she was tugging down the zipper and sliding her hand inside.

“Fuck,” Danny swore under his breath, too aroused to be embarrassed.  He let his head drop back at her touch, like he was a kid getting to third base for the first time.  He forgot where he was and everything except the promise of feeling something even better, and soon.  Her sexy giggled brought him right back to reality.  It was more than a fantasy - there were so many things he didn’t know about her yet.  Stroking over his contained hard-on, Sara purred appreciatively and dropped his pants to the floor.  

“Bed,” Danny said, “now.”

He dumped them both onto the mattress, rolling into each other until Danny was on top and they were both laughing, nervous, anxious, smiling.  It all melted into another deep kiss.  Danny pushed his leg between Sara’s and she spread her thighs for him.  

It wasn’t easy to go slow.  Danny worked his lips down her neck, feeling her purr at the pressure of his mouth of her skin.  His fingers cheated south and brought the cup of her bra with them, revealing a perfect pink nipple just starting to stiffen.  His mouth took care of that and Sara’s body responded quickly.  By the time he shifted to her other breast, her nipple was already taut.  It rolled beneath his tongue, anchoring all the things he was feeling into one tiny point of perfection.  He moved on, centering his kiss in the valley between her ribs while he unsnapped her bra.  

Sara ran her fingers through Danny’s hair and willed him to stop, to keep going, to do everything at once and make it last forever.  If his mouth got any lower she was going to scream - which was definitely the point and probably going to happen either way.  His hands caressed her skin so gently it tickled.  Each kiss left a pool of heat.  Danny was making his way across every inch of her  body like he’d never encountered something so perfect.  It was intoxicating and intimidating.

Danny’s heart pounded.  The closer he got to her navel the harder he struggled to keep himself together.  She was perfect - better than he’d let himself imagine - and he wanted to memorize every detail so he’d never fail her with guessing again.  But his own body had ideas that didn’t involve taking all night.  Not the first time at least.  He looked up.

“Danny, please,” she said, as if she’d been waiting for him to ask.

His fingers dipped beneath the lace that stretched across her hips, and tugged down.  His eyes followed the black fabric as it slipped away to reveal her - she was perfect, he knew she would be.  Danny backed right off the edge of the bed and carefully slipped the panties free of her feet.  She lay tossed against the white comforter like his own personal fantasy photoshoot.  Danny hustled out of his shorts, right onto the pile of his clothes, and came up with a condom from his pocket.  No point in being shy - he obviously knew how babies were made.  

Sara watched him unroll the thin film, straining against the physical kick his own touch delivered.  It made her smile.  “Come here,” she said.

Her arms looped around his neck as her legs hitched around his waist.  In one motion he was over her and onto her, pouring his weight down on her body.  Everything lined up, everything knew right where it wanted to go.  The brush of his tip against her slit anchored Danny and he pushed.

Sara gasped.  One little noise that said she’d been waiting for this, she wanted this, she’d never felt anything so good as Danny slowly screwing himself inside her.  It was the sexiest sound he’d ever heard.
____

Being with Danny was unlike anything Sara had known.  The simple truth of him was still a string of exclamation points: He’s the father of a student! He’s Danny Briere!  He is divorced with three kids!  But in reality it was much more.  For however many first times Sara had experienced - awkward, fumbling, drunk, sweet, careful - those were sex, mostly physical with a little mental.  She’d expected the opposite with Danny: because she liked him so much, because it scared her shitless.  But as the top of his thighs pressed to the underside of hers, taking the last inch from her body, he was kissing her again and Sara was grateful to have something to stop her tongue from speaking.  

She moved to match Danny and the impossibly perfect felt even better.  Danny wasn’t just older, he was infinitely more experienced than Sara and her mostly single life.  He knew exactly what he was doing in bed.  The nerves she’d seen before disappeared and this confident Danny made love to her for the first time, their first time.  His breath against her face, his mouth against her skin - when she risked a glance at him, those dark brown eyes never wavered.  It wasn’t long before bubbles were rising in her blood.  

Danny groaned as her body squeezed, drowning out her own small cry.  He slowed, drawing out the sensation, until her body involuntarily rocked a second time.

“God,” he said under his breath.  Sara pulled him down and kissed him hard.  She didn’t want to wait.  Maybe he could keep her on a tightrope for hours but she’d had that nervous-sick-excited feeling  since the day they met.  Now was not the time to draw it out.  Locking her heels tighter, she drew him in deep just as her body twanged again.

“Danny,” she whispered.  He stroked forcefully, driving the air from her lungs in a little sob.  Another twist of pleasure passed between them.  Sara arched her back into his next thrust, spurring her body on.  Danny did it again and she moaned.  He mumbled something in French that she didn’t understand, but it sounded so fucking sexy it didn’t even matter.  Like oil near a flame, she caught and burst.  

Sara’s eyes fluttered closed and her body shuddered, taking Danny with it.  He groaned, pressing his face into her neck, and she felt him release.  A few ragged gasps, trembling, and they were both still.

She blinked, inadequate words on her tongue, but Danny kissed her again.  His mouth was forceful and sure, as if he had something to say.  But when the last of their energy was spent and he rolled off, they simply twined themselves together.  The urge to sleep was powerful but Sara didn’t want to miss a moment.  instead she allowed herself to look at Danny’s face close-up for the first time.  His slightly pointed, upturned features were always about to break into a smile.  She lifted her hand to the scar on his jaw, the one she’d traced without thinking that first night in the pizza parlor.  It seemed like a hundred years ago, when she had known for certain they would never make it to this point.  

Good thing I was wrong, she thought.

Danny watched her eyes as they moved over his face, trying not to betray his fear.  As if Sara would regret her decision even now.

He knew he wasn’t the best-looking guy - the playboy swagger of a Jeff Carter or the easy, masculine grace of Giroux had always made such more noise.  He was older, too small, his eyebrows too far apart and a pinch to his lips that looked prissy if he wasn’t careful.  It didn’t help with the elf comparisons.  As their marriage was ending in anger, Sylvie had told Danny that he’d never do any better than being with her.  He proved her wrong, more times than he cared to admit, in the first six months after she left.  He knew it was the reason his porn star-text message scandal had gotten so much play.

Really?  Briere? they all said, and not just behind his back.  Must be the money.  Only way he could land a hot chick.

Years of being photographed, or stitched and patched by the nearest person who could stand the sight of a little blood should have made Danny immune to the attention.  But a small, hard sphere of self-consciousness rose in his throat.  He didn’t care what Sara saw, only that she liked it.  Her touch lingered on the crescent-shaped scar beneath his left eye.

“You’re beautiful,” she said.  Danny laughed, embarrassed.

“Don’t laugh,” she dug two knuckles into his side, twisting them in warning.  “I make the decisions around here, and I say you are beautiful, Danny.”

He felt shy, a silly reaction when laying naked and twisted in bedsheets.  The small of Sara’s back was a bare hollow beneath the palm of his hand.

“I mean it, you know that.” Her voice was quieter, more serious.

He’d heard compliments from women since his divorce.  But he’d never before said, “I believe you.”

Sara smiled in victory.  “Don’t worry.  You’ll get used to hearing it.”

She closed their eyes.  Laying with her head on Danny’s chest, Sara listened to his heartbeat.  The slow, steady thump was comforting - he’d felt the same intensity between them.  His fingers gently twisted in the ends of her hair and grazed her back as she fell asleep.  
____

Sara passed from one dream to another.  Naked and warm, cuddled between a soft bed with billion-threadcount sheets and a hard body with strong arms, surely she hadn’t woken up.  Perhaps Danny hadn’t either.  In the darkness they came together - mouths and bodies and before long, release.  In the morning she couldn’t recall saying anything but his name.  But she had definitely heard him call her “love.”
____

“No,” she said.

Behind her, Danny laughed and tightened his embrace.  “Quit.”

Her eyes weren’t even open and she was laughing.  “You’d rather keep me in bed than have your son graduate fifth grade?”

“I would let you out of bed to teach him.  Then you’d have to come right back.”  He punctuated the thought with kisses on her shoulder.

“What about Caelan and Carson?”

“The boys can read.  That’s more than some of my teammates, and they do fine.”

The idea was wonderfully tempting.  The lips nibbling at the curve of her neck were very persuasive and her body was beginning to consider early retirement.  But the clock on the table said 6:30AM and she was due at school in thirty minutes.  Sara steeled herself for the inevitable, then rolled to face Danny and lost all her nerve.

“Hi,” he said with a sweet, gorgeous smile that managed to be innocent at the same time it remembered everything about the night before.  It was the first time she’d ever seen his long hair a mess.

“Hi,” Sara whimpered like a puppy.

Danny kissed her pouting lips quickly, knowing any more than that and she’d be ringing his bell about the time she was no-showing at homeroom.  He couldn’t bear Cameron knowing why Ms. Cardenne was late for class.  They untangled from each other and got out of bed - then Danny sat right back down.

“Wow,” he said.

Sara turned, already grinning.  She was naked except for the panties she’s picked up from the floor.  With a teasing look she swung them casually around one finger while searching for her bra.  Looking at her bare skin in the light of day felt even more real than waking up wrapped around that same body.  Danny stared unashamedly as she stepped into her lace thong and drew it up her slender legs, those soft thighs and hips he’d used for leverage only a few hours before.  He coughed - no use getting a hard-on now, but it wasn’t easy to stop.  She turned halfway so he could see the perfect curve of her ass.

“Fuck.”  Danny flopped back onto the bed in surrender.

“Hup!” She jumped right on top of him, straddling his lap, hovering an inch shy of touching him.  Her hair fell forward and her breasts bounced - it was definitely a private fantasy moment.  Only this one was slowly lowering her crotch and lightly, barely touching, gliding the strip of lace against him as all the blood in his body raced south....

“Stop!  Stop!”  He toppled her down and rolled to his feet.

Sara had a terrible, wonderful urge to lay right there and touch herself until he came back to bed.  Maybe he’d rather watch her take care of the fire that was spreading through her belly, tingling all the way down to her toes.  She didn’t know what Danny liked, not yet.  And whatever it was, Sara already wanted to give it to him.

“Mmmm, Danny,” she cooed, sliding two fingers over her mound and into the cleft between her legs.  Even the lightest touch shivered right up her spine.  His eyes were locked on her hand, pools of black, obviously struggling against the desire to....

“Okay,” she jumped up.  “Let’s go!”
Sara deliberately stepped into her stiletto heels before bending at the waist and leaning way, way down to retrieve her bra.  She arched her back and fastened it while he watched hungrily, then walked right up until her chest was touching him.

“You’re torturing me,” he said.

She smirked.  “Want me to stop?”
____

Danny stayed in the car while Sara ran up to change.  If he went into her place they’d never make it out.  Coutourier had agreed to drive the boys to school so it was strange when Danny turned onto the same road, the backseat of his SUV empty for once.

“You should...,” Sara started.  He automatically pulled to the curb a block away.  

“Sorry.”  She was genuinely hurt to have to ask him to be stealthy, when she really wanted to to scream.

Danny shrugged.  He’d rather the whole world knew, but his life came with as many problems as hers - maybe more.  Stealth had its advantages.  He pulled her in for a kiss, sliding his tongue into her mouth and not stopping until they were both thinking about her laying on that bed, hands starting a job he was eager to finish.  They separated with a gasp.

“Can’t do that in front of the school,” he said.
_____


Sorry for the delay! And I made you wait for the good stuff too! Life got a little bananas there for a bit, but it should be settling down again. Everyone's watching the NHL Awards right now, except me. I'm supposed to be working. ;) - Juliet
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