This fic is rated R
The night passed by much too slowly for Michelle's liking. Danny's pain came and went all through the night. He had awaken several times in a panic and then settled down when he saw that she was still there with him.
She had had to get him some more medicine for his pain but she had to use regular Tylenol this time because he didn't have anything on his stomach anymore and she didn't want stomach troubles added onto the suffering he was already going through.
Michelle had shed a lot of tears during this night. Tonight had given her a clear picture of exactly the kind of agony Danny had gone through for three years along with the emotional agony of feeling deserted. She had held on to him tonight and realized she would never let him go. She didn't care anymore about the circumstances of her being here. She should have fought for him three years ago but she hadn't.
Could Pilar have been right a little bit?? Could she have been responsible for his accident because she hadn't had faith in them? She was willing to consider that as a possibility. She didn't directly cause it, but maybe indirectly she had.
Whatever the case, she was committed to Danny wholeheartedly now. He was her husband and when he felt better she needed to tell him about last night.
She watched him sleep. The covers had slipped down more and since the sun was just coming up and shining in from the window, she was able to examine his scars more closely.
They had healed the way they should have. She had seen injuries that hadn't been taken care of and had gotten infected. Since he had been in a coma so long, they had been treated daily and therefore no infection had set in from what she could see.
The longest one ran from his neck, down his chest and to mid thigh barely missing his private parts. It occurred to her that this was the first time she had ever seen Danny totally without clothing. She was examining him openly and freely. He was beautiful, scars and all. She saw all of the scarring on his hip and that concerned her very much. She needed to talk to him about having the other operation on that hip.
He had been in so much pain and she knew knew now that he had overdone it last night. He had gone through so much to make sure they had a perfect evening and she had ruined it inadvertently by blowing out that candle.
She had to get him to understand that she truly had been shy. He was such a powerful man and Carmen had told her once that Danny had had more than his share of women and that he usually preferred them to be tall, Hispanic and with long legs. Danny loved long legs, Carmen had emphasized looking at Michelle's petite 5'0" frame. Carmen went on to add that she didn't think she would be able to hold Danny's attention for very long.
She had thought about those women with the long legs alot but last night when he had been about to make love to her, she had felt very inept. Her only experience had been with Jesse and it hadn't been what she expected. She had thought it would be skyrockets and all of that jazz, and it had been more disappointing than anything.
But with Danny, just when he kissed her, things started happening to her body that she knew was synonymous with those perverbial skyrockets. She could just melt right into him. She needed Danny to understand that she hadn't felt like that with Jesse. Only he could evoke such passion from her and she was a little embarrassed at how she lost control of herself with him.
Danny started to awaken. He moaned. It was a moan of pain but it wasn't as tortured as last night.
She reached up and placed her hand on his forehead. At least he wasn't drenched in sweat again. "Hi Danny" she said. "Can I get you anything?"
"Michelle?" he asked not certain what was going on.
"Yes?" she asked.
"What's going on?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"
"Don't you remember Danny?" she said hesitating to bring up the angry way he had left their bedroom.
"Yeah, I remember now" he said and a painful expression crossed his face for an instant and Michelle probably would have missed it if she hadn't been looking right into his face. She didn't think this particular expression had anything to do with the pain in his hip.
"Listen Danny, when you are feeling better we can talk about all of this, Right now you should probably go back to sleep" she said tenderly.
"Yeah" Danny agreed but he made no effort to close his eye and go to sleep. They lay there in silence for what seemed like forever until Danny spoke "Michelle?"
"Yes Danny"
"I'm sorry about last night. I was a bastard" he admitted.
"No, no Danny, it was me, I'm the one who is sorry. I didn't realize how you would interpret my blowing out the candle. I really was shy" she said.
Danny just shook his head in understanding. Michelle was here with him, had come to him in his hour of need. He hated showing such weakness around her but the pain had totally emasculated him. She hadn't used it against him though he had to give her credit for that.
"Okay Michelle, we'll call it even" he said and smiled at her through his haze of pain. His damn hip was still hurting. He wanted to stay awake and talk to her but the pain was bad and he needed the sweet relief only unconsciousness gave him.
Michelle smiled and laid her head on his chest. "Go to sleep Danny" she said while she herself yawned. "We'll talk later" and she began to drift of to sleep.
Danny held her close. Her head was lain directly on one of his scars. She definitely didn't seem to be as effected by them as he had thought.
He closed his eye and willed for sleep but it would not come. He brought his mind back to the events of the previous night. Everything had been going so well. The dinner, the dancing, everything. He had gotten hung up on his scars again and left her.
But she had come back. Why? He remembered being in agony after his little stunt of carrying her up the stairs and all that bopping around didn't help either.
She had come to him last night. Had she heard his agonized moans? She must have. She had taken care of him during the night. She had lain with him and calmed him. She had..hummed, that was it. She had hummed Amazing Grace. What a choice of song. It fit his miserable self to a tee.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Truer words were never spoken. Danny Santos was a wretch of a man and it was of his own doing. He had turned into the creature he had become all by himself and he could blame the scars if he wanted, but he knew the answer lay with himself and the scars were just a convenient excuse. If someone thought he was a jerk, it was because they were turned off by his scars and they could just go to hell for all he cared. If they didn't want to do business with him, it was because he was a cripple and they were too shallow to look past his injury when in actuality, it was his own temperament that kept people away.
Danny Santos had not been a very popular man before and even less so now. He could count on his one hand the number of friends he had. That was a pitiful testimony to what kind of man he was. He knew he could be a better man if he had Michelle. He had been so crushed by not having her that he had ceased to try to become the man he knew he was inside.
I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see. Danny was blind alright and it had nothing to do with his sightless eye. He was lost but now he was found. Michelle had found him three years ago. He was a worthless man who had somehow been granted the greatest gift of his life and he hadn't known how to accept it. He was blind, but now he saw. He saw all too clearly. He had seen his life without Michelle and it wasn't worth living. He had prayed to die so many times in the hospital simply because he hadn't wanted to go on without Michelle. The doctors had refused to let him die though and that was the only reason he was here today.
He finally drifted off the sleep and when he woke up Michelle was still in his arms. She also began to stir.
"How are you feeling?" she asked with genuine concern.
"Better, thanks" he said. "Come here" and she went back into his embrace.
He simply wanted to hold her. Nothing more. Hell, if all he ever got to do was hold her for the rest of his life, he could be content with that. His love for her was so much more than just the physical attraction he had for her.
She began to wiggle and his grasp loosened on her. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing Danny" she said as she began to sit up a little and rest on her elbow so she could look at him.
She scrutinized his body from head to toe and Danny was immediately aroused. She was looking at him the way a woman looks at her man. "What are you doing?" he asked playfully.
"Oh, um, I have to make sure you are okay, you know, I am a doctor and everything" she said with a husky voice.
"That's not a professional gleam in your eye doctor" he said clearly amused.
"Guilty as charged" Michelle said and then sat up completely. She placed her hands on the hem of her nightgown and lifted it up and over her head and then shook her hair out of it.
Acting totally on instinct, she straddled Danny. The covers had been put back on him during their nap so they weren't making direct contact but Danny hissed through his teeth and the sound was amazingly similar to the agonized moans he had made during the night.
She reached down and placed a kiss on his largest scar. She continued until she had kissed each and every one of his scars even those perilously close to the object of her desire.
Danny was a lifeless mass lying there. He was totally caught in her web and never wanted to be freed. He allowed her access to his body and stifled the urge to gain control back. He was going to do this at her pace and her way.
Michelle had kissed all of the offending scars that Danny had thought were so awful. She reached for the bandage covering his blinded eye.
His hand came up to stop her. He knew what she was going to do and he couldn't let her. He couldn't let her see that mangled part of himself.
"Danny, I love you" she said. "I love all of you, scars and all. Please let me" she said and he saw that she was sincere. She didn't want to see it strictly from a doctor's view, she wanted to see it as his woman.
He kept his hand on hers for a moment and then he let them fall away. Very tenderly, she removed the bandages. She saw the scarring immediately as she began to slowly remove the bandage. The eye had healed and looked much better than it did in the photo from his file. She finally had his eye freed. She reached onto the bedside table and took the washcloth from the night before and cleansed the residue that had built up in his eye. She finished that task and placed the washcloth back on the table with the bandages.
It was then that Danny saw her crying "No tears" he demanded.
Her tears continued to fall. "Stop it" he demanded.
"Danny, you don't understand." she started to say.
"I don't want your pity" he said.
"Why wont you let me feel your pain? She asked. "Its only human for me to cry when I think of what happened to you Danny. You have had three years to deal with what you have gone through and all of this has just now hit me" she explained.
She reached down and placed a gentle kiss on the damaged eye socket and then she felt the wetness coming from the eye she had just kissed.
She leaned down and then kissed Danny on his lips. It was a tender, healing kiss. They both had been hurt during the last three years and this was their healing time.
Danny put his hands on her hips and went to move her onto her back when she stopped him. His eye grew wide but she quickly calmed him. She shifted her hips up and then he realized what she was doing. He removed the covers that was the only barrier between them.
Slowly, gently, Michelle sank down on him. Little by little until he was fully inside her. The pleasure was exquisite. Never had she felt so complete. The pleasure was insurmountable. Danny was breathing at a very uneven pace. His mouth was contorted in a painful expression but she knew he wasn't in pain, he was struggling for control.
She watched his face as she tentatively rose up on him and then came back down. Several times she did this until a force she hadn't recognized as her own took over and she was brought to completion. She had never felt that way before and she cried out his name in wonder and amazement.
Danny clenched his teeth and struggled not to lose the last shred of control he had. Nothing had ever felt this good and he never wanted it to end. He felt them then, the tiny little tremors from within her and the breathy sound she made signaling her satisfaction. He lost his fight then and buried his head into her neck as she held on to him and he poured his love into her and let the union drive away the tears of yesterday and let the new beauty they had found begin to heal them both.
* * * * * * * * * * *
They fell asleep in each other's arms, both of them blissfully happy. They were awakened two hours later by Sarah's insistent knocking on the door.
Damn, Danny thought, He had a good mind to forget about that bonus he was going to give her.
"What is it Sarah" he called through the door.
"Mr. Santos, I am so very sorry to interrupt, you know I wouldn't unless it was very important." she tried to explain.
"Just tell me what it is please Sarah" Danny said with an agitated tone.
"You just received a phone call from Ms. Pilar, She was calling from jail"