Page 26 of Forever, Maybe
He tilted his head. “Thanks. I think.”
“Aren’t you supposed to live together first?” Nell asked, brow furrowed. It was a tricky subject. Danny’s ultra-religious Catholic mother, Trish, still considered sex before marriage a mortal sin. His increasingly creative excuses for staying out all night at Nell’s halls never failed to amuse her.
“So, Mr Murray,” she’d tease, “are you staying at Joe’s tonight because he lives closer to the office, or are you back to the old classic? Camping out at work with that sleeping bag you bought just to convince your mum that’s a thing you do…?”
Trish had been polite enough when Danny introduced them, but later that evening, she’d pulled Nell aside, her tone firm but painfully civil. She understood that Nell’s student lifestyle might come with… different values, but she’d be extremely disappointed if Nell led her son astray.
Now, ‘led astray’ had become their private joke, complete with its own shorthand. All Nell had to do was lick her top lip and purr, “Danny, d’you fancy being led astray…?” and he would stiffen at once.
“What if we move in together and discover we’ve got terrible habits the other person can’t stand?” Nell pressed, realising with some surprise that she was genuinely considering the idea. “But by then, we’re married, and it’s too late.”
Danny squeezed her hands, his voice steady. “I already know all your bad habits.”
He smiled then, and she could see it—that moment of certainty, the sense of lost-ness lifting as he realised that she was actually thinking about it.
“And you know mine,” he went on. “I’m a workaholic who puts in eighty-hour weeks. I don’t know any fancy big words, so I cannae hold an intellectual conversation like you do with your student pals. I get grumpy if I dinnae eat. And you fart like a trooper.”
Oh, outrageous!
Her jaw dropped. “Danny! I donot!That wasonebloody time, and I thought you were asleep!”
She yanked her hands from his and launched herself at him, giggling as she pummelled his chest. They tumbled back onto the bed in a blur of laughter and tangled limbs.
Before he could react, she straddled him, her bare skin grazing his stomach beneath the silk slip. His breath hitched as she pinned his hands above his head, her eyes flashing with playful fury.
“Take that back!”
“Only if you say yes!”
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, mock scandalised. “Are you blackmailing me into marrying you?”
“Aye!”
Single-minded, see?
She wriggled down, freeing one of his hands just long enough to undo his jeans. He shoved them down, and in the next moment, he was inside her, his back arching as she moved against him. She closed her eyes, sinking into the slow, steady build of pleasure, the heat of him, the way he filled her completely.
One man. Just this one man, for the rest of her life.
There were far worse prospects.
“You,” Danny panted, voice ragged, “squeeze your legs together—ahhh, keep going—Do. Not. Fart. Like. A. Trooper.” His head tipped back, a groan slipping from his lips. “Will you… marry me? Please, Nell?”
Sod it. It wasn’t just the sex. Danny was the dictionary-definition of a decent man. Solid, kind, hers.
“Fine,” she gasped. “Yes, yes,YES!”
Hours later, cramped together in the single bed, she traced lazy patterns over his chest as he tentatively suggested that if they married the following spring, they’d need to live with his parents until they saved enough for a flat deposit.
“What?” She jerked back, staring at him. Daily exposure to Trish Murray. Hmm.
“Honestly, it’ll be fine, Nell.” He pulled her back against him, his arm warm and solid around her shoulders. “My bedroom’s bigger than this one, Mum’s out at church and church groups half the time, Dad’s either in the pub or at the football, and my brothers and sister are always off at school or sports clubs.”
From the communal kitchen came a sudden eruption of shouting, as one student accused another of stealing their milk and putting the empty container back in the fridge.
Danny smiled. “Living with my mum and dad will bemuchquieter than this place.”
She chewed her bottom lip, doubt creeping in again.
