Kate Hoffmann - Danny

He smoothed his palms over her shoulders and chest, then cupped her breasts. “You do have a very touchable body, boss.”

Jordan moaned softly as his thumbs rubbed across her nipples. She’d grown accustomed to this power that she held over him. When he touched her, she didn’t feel like a boss or Andrew Kennally’s daughter or the Kennally brothers’ younger sister or Kencor’s “decorator.” She was just a woman.

Her heart slammed in her chest and she arched to meet his caress. Danny circled the tub and pulled her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her naked body as his lips captured hers.

Jordan was always amazed at how powerful his kiss was. He was able to take her breath away, to make her body ache, to send her heart racing, by simply covering her mouth with his. He had a way of possessing her that made her feel weak and powerful all at once.

The kiss spun out in one long, delicious encounter, growing deeper and more passionate with every breath they shared. Danny’s hands smoothed over her damp skin but Jordan’s touch was hampered by his clothes.

A frustrated moan slipped from her throat as she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. She needed him naked, needed his skin touching hers. “Stop.” Pressing her hands to his chest she pushed him back. “Take off your clothes.”

“No,” he said.

Jordan frowned, shaking her head. “No?”

“No,” Danny said. “If I take off my clothes, then I’m not going to be able to stop myself. I think we should just take our time. We have the whole evening.”

“Am I the boss or are you?”

“You’re the boss,” he said.

“Then you’re supposed to follow my orders?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Take off your clothes, Danny Quinn. And make it snappy.”

With a reluctant smile, he slowly stripped. When his boxers were around his feet, he braced his hands on his hips. “Now what? Would you like me to fix that squeaky hinge or change the oil in your car?”

“Get in the tub,” Jordan ordered.

He did as he was told, sliding down into the warm water. Then Jordan climbed in and straddled his waist, his hard shaft pressing against the crease between her legs. She grabbed a sponge and lathered it up then ran it over his chest.

“Isn’t this considered sexual harassment?”

“Yes,” she said. “And I could get fired for this.”

“Really?”

Jordan nodded. “Really. But you’re not going to say anything, are you?”

“Never,” he said. “As long as you promise to keep harassing me, I’ll keep quiet.”

She leaned over and kissed him and when she moved back, Jordan shifted on top of him, slowly taking him inside her. A gasp slipped from her lips and she smiled. “I think we’re going to be getting into a little overtime tonight.”

“I’m ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done.”

DANNY AND JORDAN ARRIVED in Dublin by mid-afternoon on Saturday. Danny insisted on driving Jordan’s Volvo, making it from County Cork to Dublin in record time. As they raced over the curving highways, he felt as if they were setting off on a grand adventure, even though it was only a night in the city.

They weren’t boss and employee now. They were a couple having a little holiday together. She was his lover, his girlfriend, his date. And it felt good to be like everyone else in the world. Just two people falling in love.

They did some shopping for linens, then checked into a room at a nice hotel. Though Jordan tried to insist on paying for it, expensing it along with the sheets, Danny refused. He wanted the weekend to be his treat and Jordan reluctantly accepted. In truth, he had all sorts of things he wanted to show her.

They got dressed for the opening, then went out for a stroll before dinner. O’Connell Street was famous for its shops, but Danny had decided to take Jordan on a sculpture tour. They began with the statue of James Joyce and then moved on to Daniel O’Connell. James Larkin was next. The last sculpture was inside an imposing building.

“I used to come here all the time when I was at university,” Danny said, holding the door open for her. “It’s a pretty special place in my family history.”

“What is this, a museum?”

“No,” Danny said. “It’s the post office.”

“You spent time at the post office?”

Danny nodded. “I know. It’s a bit strange, but I’ll explain.” They stood in the center of the lobby, Danny holding tight to her hand. “This is where the rebellion began. This is where my great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side made his stand against the British soldiers. The Easter Uprising was kind of like your revolution.” He pointed to the statue. “That’s Cuchulainn.”

“Did he fight in the rebellion?” Jordan asked.

Danny shook his head. “No, he’s one of our mythological heroes. His big victory was the cattle raid of Cooley.”

“He stole cows?”

“No, he protected the bull of Ulster from Queen Maeve’s soldiers.”

“He protected a cow-”

“A bull. The bull.”

“And he gets a statue.”

“I guess he’s a martyr to cattle protection. Queen Maeve set her sorcerers on him and killed him after he saved the bull. The statue is in memory of the fourteen rebels that were executed after the Easter Uprising.”

“That makes much more sense,” Jordan said.

They stared up at the statue for a long time before Jordan slipped her arms around Danny’s waist and gave him a hug. “I like it. I think it’s the nicest one we’ve seen tonight. Except for yours, of course.”

“You are not required to like my work,” Danny said. “The sculptures you’re going to see tonight are pretty abstract.”

“I’m going to love your work,” she said. “I know I will.”

They strolled out onto the street. There was a chill in the air and Danny slipped out of his jacket and draped it around Jordan’s shoulders. “Have I told you how beautiful you look in that dress?” he asked.

“Yes. Lots of times. At least twenty since I put it on at the hotel.”

“Well, then this is twenty-one. You do look incredible. You’re going to be the most beautiful woman in the room tonight.”

“And you’re required to say that,” she teased.

“No,” Danny replied, shaking his head. “That’s the thing about you. You don’t have any idea how pretty you are. I think you’ve spent so much time trying to be one of the guys that you don’t have any sense of who you are as a woman.”

“I did feel that way,” Jordan said, stunned that he’d sensed it. “You make me feel…feminine.” She held up the sleeve of his jacket. “Like this. My brothers would never think to offer me a jacket if I was cold. They’d just yell at me for forgetting to bring my own along. And they’d never tell me I was pretty. They’d just make some stupid comment about my pigeon-toes or my knobby knees. Or they’d start in on my chest.”

“They make fun of your chest?”

“It’s often the topic around the Thanksgiving table. They think that teasing me is great family fun. I take a lot of abuse for being the only girl. Especially when my father encourages it.”

Danny frowned. “Next time you have a family dinner, you call me. I’ll come and stand up for you. I’m pretty good with my fists and I’m the master of the verbal put-down. Your brothers wouldn’t pick on you again. Truth told, my two brothers and I could best your four brothers in a good scrap.”

“That’s not the worst of it. My mother tells me if I’d just get married and bring a husband home, my brothers would show me more respect.” Jordan paused. “Not that I’d expect you to marry me. It-it’s just what my mother said.”

“Do you ever think about getting married?”

“Sure. I think every woman does. But it’s not something that I’m focused on. What about you?” It was the truth. Since meeting Danny she had thought about it more than she had before; but it still didn’t mean that she wanted to marry him. That would require a complete shift in her priorities.

“I don’t really think about it either,” Danny said. “But it’s a possibility. My brother Riley met Nan and now they’re going to get married and that was just this last summer.” He shook his head. “It’s a strange thing. A wee bit frightening. That things can change so quickly and there’s nothing to be done about it.”

“Marriage just hasn’t fit into my plans.”

“Mine neither,” Danny said. Not that it couldn’t, he thought. But he wasn’t ready to say that out loud.

A long silence grew between them as they walked down the sidewalk to the restaurant. He hadn’t felt so uncomfortable around Jordan since the day they’d met. Everything had come so easily these past weeks. But maybe this was a conversation that was unavoidable. How much longer could they go on ignoring the future? Sooner or later, they’d have to talk about it.

“You should come to New York sometime,” Jordan said. “We have a lot of statues and sculptures there.”

“You’ve got the big one,” he said.

“The big one?”

“The Statue of Liberty. That’s one thing I’d really like to see.”

“Then you’ll have to come,” she said. It was the closest they’d come to talking about a future together. And Danny was pleased. At least there was a possibility they’d see each other again after she left Ireland.

“What else would we see, besides the inside of your flat?” he asked.

“Depends on when you come. If you come in the fall, we’d go to Central Park. At Christmas, we’d look at the windows at Bloomie’s. In the winter, there’s skating at Rockefeller Center. In the spring there’s baseball at Yankee Stadium. And summer is weekends in the Hamptons. And then we’d eat hot dogs and visit museums and go to Chinatown for Szechuan. We’d take a carriage ride at midnight and go to the top of the Empire State Building and have corned beef sandwiches at the Stage Door Deli and see a Broadway show.”