The Long Road Back Ch. 05

"That conceited ass." I said as I pulled into her driveway." He may like me and that's fine but he doesn't need to scare off my friends."

Amy laughed. "It's okay. Really." She got out of the car and leaned against the passenger side door leaning in the open window. "So I'll see you at 7 down at the multiplex?"

"I wouldn't miss it."

"Great." She waved at me then moved towards her door while I backed out of the driveway and headed towards home.

During the 15 minute drive I decided that I had a few words to say to Danny Anderson the next time I saw him.

As it turned out I didn't have to wait long to have my confrontation with Danny after all. He was sitting on my front porch when I pulled into the driveway. I got out of the car and looked at him. He had a huge smile on his face which slowly faded as he saw the look on my face. "Um...hi."

I walked slowly towards him. I was so furious I could barely speak. "How?...When?...Why?..." He looked at me. "How did you know where I lived?" He opened his mouth to speak but I held up my hand. "Never mind I don't want to know." I moved closer to him. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged in a nonchalant way. "I wanted to see you."

"You wanted to see..." I couldn't continue. I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to say.

He shrugged again. "I rang the doorbell but there was no answer."

"No, Nancy and Andrew aren't home yet." If he thought it was strange that I called my parents by their names he didn't say. Instead he just stared at me as I unlocked the door and moved into the house.

I dropped my backpack on the couch then turned around to face him again. I was suddenly surprised to see him standing in the doorway to the living room. I hadn't noticed him follow me into the house or close the door behind him.

"I figured you were probably taking your friends home so I sat on your porch and waited."

At his words, my fury came back in full force. Walking over to him I poked him in the chest. "Would you stop intimidating my friends? I mean I know you think you are a big shot and all."

"I'm not a big shot." He said quietly.

"OH." The words and tone of his voice took the wind out of my sails. I tried to bring back some of the fury but all I could do was stand there and look at him for a minute.

A strand of hair fell down into his eyes and I resisted the urge to reach up and push it back. I looked away from him and once I composed myself turned back to him. "Look if you like me just say so but don't..."

"I like you."

Once again it was like he had knocked the wind out of me. He stood there looking so sedate. A slight blush covered his cheeks. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move. All I could do was stand there and stare at him.

For the last three months he had been the bane of my existence and my biggest fantasy. I imagined the two of us together, doing things. Every time Amy and Jericho would lose themselves in each others arms I would close my eyes and imagine it was Danny and I. I would dream of him at night. Of us running down the beach together, or just laying in bed holding each other. Some nights the dreams had been so erotic that I had woken up in a cold sweat. "You like me?" I knew my voice sounded weak but somehow there was nothing I could do about it.

Danny nodded, his eyes never leaving mine. I felt him take my hand in his and looked down then back up into his face. I didn't protest as he slowly pulled me towards him until he could wrap his arms around me.

"I've liked you since the first time I saw you at the meeting. You looked so scared and so confident at the same time that I knew I had to meet you."

I looked up at him. "I...I..."

"Shhhh." He placed his finger softly against my lips. I watched him for a minute then closed my eyes and I saw his face slowly lower towards mine. The first touch of his lips was like a butterfly kiss but I felt it all the way down to my feet.

He brushed his lips slowly against mine and I just stood there in his arms for a minute, not sure what to do. I had been kissed before but it had never affected me like Danny's soft kiss did.

Danny pulled back and looked at me. There was a question in his eyes. A question I wasn't sure of the answer to. My body seemed to know because my arms reached up behind his neck and I slowly pulled his lips back down to mine.

This time the kiss was deeper, more seductive. I answered it as if I needed his kisses like I needed air.

When his tongue touched my lips gently probing for entrance I slowly opened my mouth and let my tongue duel with his. I heard him moan deep in his throat as his arms tightened around me.

"Oh god Crystal, You drive me crazy." He moaned pulling his lips from mine and moving his lips over my face and neck. "I can't stop thinking about you. Everywhere I look you are there; whether it is in class with you sitting next to me or at the dinner table. I dream about you at night and wake up hard as a rock and wonder why your not there next to me." He kissed me again deeply while slowly pushing me backwards towards the couch.

I knew I couldn't let this go too far. I had never and he seemed to sense this because once we were seated on the couch he just kissed me softly then held me in his arms. "I have wanted to ask you out for so long." He said against my hair.

I pulled back slightly looking up at him. "Why didn't you?"

The blush that had tinged his cheeks was back. "Would you believe I was scared?"

I looked at him skeptically.

He pulled back so he was sitting next to me but held my hand in his like he was afraid to let me go. "It's true. Me, the guy every girl wants. Me, the captain of the debate team, and one of the most popular guys in school couldn't tell the girl I liked how I felt about her."

He took his hand from mine and put his head in his hands. "I've been with other girls. I've flirted, I've ya know done what most high school guys do. But they were all superficial." He looked at me as if begging me to understand. "None of them every meant anything. I always came away from them feeling empty." He looked down at his hands.

"Then I saw you, and somehow I knew you would be different. It was like you were the other half of my soul." He reached out and took my hand in his again. "I had to know who you were. I had to know you."

He reached up and stroked my face with his finger. "I figured you would be just like all the other girls. I would turn on my charm and you would fall into my arms."

He laughed sourly. "When you rejected me that first day I didn't know how to act or what to think. I had never been rejected before. It was a new experience and I wasn't sure I liked it. I figured you weren't worth my time and I vowed to put you out of my mind. The only problem was I couldn't get you out of my mind. You weren't just in my mind you were a part of me. It was like you were a drug in my veins I couldn't get rid of.

When I first saw you with that guy Jericho I wanted to walk over and put my fist through his face. Then I realized he was interested in Amy and was stunned at the force of my jealousy."

I just sat there and stared at him. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to comfort him but had a feeling that if I tried he would pull away. So I sat there with my hands in my lap and just watched him. Waiting for him to get whatever was on his chest off.

He suddenly stood up as if he couldn't stand just sitting there and started pacing the room. "I finally discovered that no other girl would do. If you wouldn't have me then I would spend the rest of my life alone. I needed you by my side." He stopped pacing and looked at me. His eyes were so full of fire I suddenly felt as though I had been burned. I tried to look away but somehow I couldn't.

It was Danny who finally looked away first. He started pacing again. "I thought for so many hours how I was gonna ask you out. How I was gonna ask you to be mine. I rehearsed it in my head so many times I was sure I had it down pat. But every time I came close to asking you, I would chicken out." He moved back over to the couch and sat down next to me again taking my hands in his.

"Finally today I decided that somehow someway I would ask you to be mine. I watched you all through school and decided on the way home that I would come over to your house and beg you to be with me if I had to. I knew if you rejected me I would accept it but I had to know how you felt about me. It was then that I realized I didn't have the slightest idea where you lived. So I called my friend Brad. His girlfriend Jessica is a friend of yours. She told me where you lived.

The whole time I sat on your porch I was scared to death. I must have stood up to leave at least five different times. I was actually in one of those positions when you pulled into the driveway. I was scared at first. What would I say? How would you react? I was stunned at the anger that flew off of you but I knew if I didn't do this now I never would." His hands tightened slightly in mine as he looked into my eyes. "Crystal Miller, will you be my girlfriend?"

I wanted to crack a joke; I wanted to break the tension in the room. But I saw how earnestly he waited for my answer. How important it was to him. I couldn't do it; I couldn't just act like it was no big deal. I had wanted this moment to happen since the first time I saw him staring at me in class. Pulling my hands from his, I wrapped my arms around his neck. "Yes." I said softly.

Danny let out his breath in a whoosh and smiled. I felt him reach behind me and pull my backpack onto the floor before he slowly pushed me back onto my back on the couch so he was laying over me with his body covering mine.

I started to say something but he just put his finger to my lips then pressed his lips to mine. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. For the first time in months I felt completely at home. That was the way Nancy found us an hour later when she returned from work.

Danny went with me when I met Amy and Jericho at the movies later that night. It was like he was afraid that now he had found me he didn't want to let me out of his sight. He had stayed close to me all day, while Nancy and I talked and all through dinner.

Even when we went upstairs to listen to my stereo, with the door open of course, he couldn't stop touching me. It was like he was a starving man and I was the feast. His hands roamed all over my body and I quickly returned the favor.

Amy was unsure when she saw Danny and I walk up together holding hands. She looked at him critically, until he looked at her and sighed. "I'm sorry I have made your life such a hell the last few months Amy. I've been an ass. Is there anyway we can start over?" He looked over at me. "For Crystal's sake I want us to be friends."

Amy looked at Danny in shock. She looked over at Jericho who just shrugged, then looked over at me. I just smiled and nodded. Then she turned back to Danny. "Okay. I guess we can do that."

Danny visibly relaxed and smiled. As the four of us walked into the movie theatre, I thought life couldn't get much better then this.

* * *

"Over the next few months Danny and I were pretty much inseparable. Jericho, Amy, Danny and I quickly became the fearsome foursome. At least that's what the kids at school called us. We were seen everywhere together. We would hang out at the mall or just hang out at each others houses. If Amy and I were spending the weekend at my house Jericho and Danny would suddenly show up. They were never allowed to stay all night, but Nancy and Andrew never seemed to say anything when they would leave the house at 2Am.

It was Valentine's Day when Danny first told me he loved me and the middle of April when he asked me to marry him.

We were lying on his car up at Rooster's peak. It was just the two of us as Amy and Jericho had gone to visit his grandmother for the weekend. I was lying with my head on his chest staring up at the stars. "Crystal?"

"Hm..." I said drowsily.

"Will you marry me?"

I sat up suddenly wide awake. "What?"

He sat up and pulled a ring box out of his pocket. Opening it up he looked at me. "Will you marry me?"

I looked at him. The way his eyes sparkled in the moonlight then looked down at the ring in his hand. It was a diamond with small amethysts surrounding it. "I...I...Uh..." I didn't know what to say. He reached out and took my hand in his. "Yes." I said finally.

Danny just smiled broadly as he slipped the ring on my finger. Then he kissed me softly and lay back on the car pulling me back down with him. "We are gonna have such a good life together Crystal. I promise. We'll get married after graduation, and I'll go to work for my father and you can go to college." He leaned down and kissed the top of my head. "We'll have a great life together."

As I lay there in his arms, I thought to myself. "Yea a great life, just no children."

The night Danny told me he loved me, he also told me that he couldn't have kids. When I asked him why he told me the story. When he was six, he was in the car with his parents coming home from a party. His parents were arguing over something and didn't see the truck swerve into their lane until it was too late. Danny's father Paul tried to swerve out of the way but there was no missing the truck. His mom was killed instantly and Danny was paralyzed from the waist down for over a year. His mom had been six months pregnant at the time and they weren't able to save the baby. I had known for a while that Danny lived with his father and grandmother and that his mother was dead. I never asked the details. I had sat in my bedroom holding him that day as he told me the story. When he got the use of his legs back, everybody was thrilled. But the doctor wanted to do some tests, just to make sure that everything down there still worked. He was seven years old when the doctors told him he was sterile. Danny didn't understand at the time what that meant, but his father had gone off the wall.

"What do you mean he's sterile? He's my only son? If he can't have kids, how am I going to continue on my line?" The doctors and nurses had just looked at him but didn't say anything. Danny was taken to three more specialists before his father accepted the fact that he wasn't going to be a grandfather someday.

Danny was sixteen and crying in his bedroom one day when his grandmother explained to him that he couldn't have kids. It seemed he had had sex with a girl from school and they hadn't bothered to use protection. He was afraid that he had gotten her pregnant.

The night he told me, I just held him as he cried. Thinking to myself that it didn't matter, I loved Danny and I would continue to love him. So I couldn't have children. So what?"

I stopped talking and wiped a tear from my eye. "Why do I have a feeling this story isn't going to have a happy ending?" Suzanne asked.

I looked over at my sister in law lying against my brother and smiled. "No actually it doesn't. But actually Danny and I were happy." I looked over at Hawk. "At least at first."

He looked into my eyes. I knew there were hundreds of questions he wanted to ask. "Why didn't I tell him? Why didn't I leave Danny when I realized the child I was carrying wasn't his? Why? Why? Why?"

I just shook my head. I knew that all his questions would be answered when I finished my story. I just hoped he didn't turn on me like almost everybody but Nancy and Andrew in LA did.

"The wedding was a small affair. Nancy asked if I wanted to invite my family but I just shook my head. I was 18 now, out from under the states control but I didn't know what kind of reception I would get if I contacted you guys and I hadn't heard from anybody in over a year. Not since the day I left. I looked at Nancy and said, "You and Andrew are my family now. That is all I need."

I heard my mom burst into fresh tears but ignored her. I knew if I didn't continue talking, I would never get all this out and there was still so much left to tell.

"As I said the wedding was a small affair. There was just Danny and I, my friend Amy, who was my maid of honor, Danny's father and grandmother and Nancy and Andrew. We felt like we didn't need anybody else. We had a small reception at Nancy and Andrews house then boarded a plane to Honolulu. Paul had bought us a weeks honeymoon in the finest hotel in Hawaii. He told us that it was the least he could do."

When we arrived in Hawaii, it was a little after 8. There was a limo waiting to take us to the hotel and both Danny and I were tired after the day's escapades." I chuckled. "I have to admit I was a little bit leery about that night's event. I mean Danny and I had played around, touching and stuff like that and I had even seen him naked but we never went all the way. When we arrived at the hotel we had dinner in the hotel restaurant then made our way up to the honeymoon suite. We took a bath together in the Jacuzzi size bathtub, splashing each other and just having a grand old time. Then suddenly I knew it was time to go to bed, Danny's eyes were full of heat and I felt my body's reaction to it. He lifted me out of the tub and drying me off slowly, carried me to the turned down bed." I stopped talking. I couldn't go into details about my sex life with Danny. This was my family after all. But that didn't stop my mind from replaying every moment of that night as if it were yesterday. My eyes glowed and I heard Suzanne whisper as if from a distance. "I think she is remembering her wedding night."

She was right, and what a glorious night it was. I closed my eyes as the memories flooded over me.

Danny lay me down on the queen sized bed and stood looking down at me in the near darkness of the room. It was the middle of August and the French doors leading out to the balcony were thrown open to let in the light breeze. There was a fire burning in the fireplace to keep out a slight chill in the air, but other then that there were no lights on in the room. I looked up at Danny and watched him move his eyes over my body. From my medium sized breasts, to the small patch of curls that covered my womanhood. He didn't touch me but I could swear I could feel him all over my body, his gaze was that intense. When his eyes finally met mine again, he smiled. "You are beautiful." He said leaning down and kissing me softly, while he lay down beside me on the bed. His hands moved slowly over my throat, down my chest to my breast, where he ran his fingertip all over it. I moaned deep in my throat as I felt him tease the nipple with his finger. He just smiled more broadly then moved his mouth down to replace his finger. When his mouth touched my breast I jumped. The pleasure was so intense I didn't think I could stand it. It got worse when he took my nipple between his lips and suckled hard. His hand moving over my other breast and making sure it got as much attention. I moaned deeply and ran my fingers through his hair. We had done this much before but I never got tired of feeling his mouth on my body. He moved over to the other breast and proceeded to give it the same treatment until my nipple contracted beneath his roaming tongue.

I was so intent on the pleasure he was giving to my breasts I didn't realize that his hand had roamed down my body until I felt him pull apart the lips of my womanhood. I gasped as the cool night air touched me intimately. I felt his hard cock pressing against my thigh and reached down with my free hand and took it into my hand stroking it lightly. Danny moaned against my breast and pushed against me with his hips. I smiled as I continued to slowly stroke him. He continued suckling on my breast while his finger found my source of pleasure and started rubbing it rapidly. "OH GOD, Danny." I moaned pushing up against his hand. He tightened his mouth on my breast and continued up the assault. I lengthened my strokes on his cock and heard him moan but by now I was so far in heaven I thought I would never leave. I felt him move his finger from my source of pleasure and moaned in disappointment. He just leaned up and kissed me deeply while moving his finger slowly down to my opening. I spread my legs further apart to give him more access as I kissed him back. When I felt his finger enter me, I stiffened for just a minute. We had never gone this far before and I wasn't sure what to do. "It's okay baby." He whispered against my ear. "Let me love you."