me and laid his forehead against mine. He was breathing harder, too. It wasn’t just me, and the knowledge gave me a surge of power. I held his head, and this time, I was the one kissing his mouth. Tasting. Nibbling. I said, between kisses, “I think we should … go somewhere.”
His whole body stilled. I felt it. I pulled back and said, “Please. All right, maybe Outside, you wait between times, or whatever. I don’t want to wait. I’m dying.”
He started to smile, and then he smiled more. He eased himself back into his seat, tugged some at the front of his jeans, laid his head back, blew out a breath, and said, “One second.”
I’d never done this. Not voluntarily. I did it now. I reached my hand out and drew a finger down the length of him, and then I cupped my palm over him and held him there. He said, “Daisy. Don’t.” It was a groan.
“Oh?” I asked, and got another of those surges. “Thought you liked it when I teased.” I touched him again. I didn’t know much about men in a personal sense, but I knew them in a nursing sense, and there was a lot of Gray.
He put a hand around my wrist and said, “Wait. Seriously. Wait.”
“All right,” I said. “But I thought that was a bit of a fantasy.” It wasn’t like I actually knew how to do it. I could give it a go, though. How badly could you get it wrong?
He laughed, even though it still sounded a little strangled. “Yeh, your first time with me’s going to be going down on me in the carpark. How about no. We’ll save that for the second time. If you’re sure, though …” He lifted his hips from the seat and grabbed the phone from his back pocket.
“What are you doing?” I asked. My mouth felt swollen. My neck felt tender and sensitive. My entire body felt wound up to breaking point, but without the breaking. Where was my bloody breaking? “I don’t want to wait until tomorrow,” I told him, “or next week, or whatever you’ve decided is the right timetable. I’m not sixteen, and I want to go somewhere we can do this now.”
He scowled at me. “I’m trying to be tender.”
“Well, stop being tender,” I said. “You’re meant to be a … a leader of men. A decisive, take-no-prisoners tough guy. I’m here waiting for you to do it. I’m ready to be swept away, damn it!”
He looked gobsmacked, and then he grinned. And finally, he started to laugh, and after a minute, so did I. He leaned over again, grabbed the back of my head, kissed my mouth, and said, “Right. I’m sweeping you away. I just need five minutes.”
“For what?” I asked.
“To find a room.”
46
All the Time in the World
Daisy
I should have been nervous. I couldn’t be.
Less than ten minutes, and Gray was pulling into the valet area beneath the wedge-shaped bulk of the Distinction Hotel, built atop the stonework of the old post office. I said, “This is ‘getting a room?’”
He said, “I couldn’t take you to some cheap place with a plastic shower, could I? Nothing says ‘special effort’ like a plastic shower. Stop talking and come on.”
Another valet, then a cavernous lobby full of polished stone. A sleek, dark reception desk, and minimal fuss. A quiet, smooth lift that deposited us on the eighth floor. And Gray, stepping through the doors of that lift and pulling me into his arms. More than that. Lifting me straight up and saying, “Wrap your knees around my waist.”
We were still in the corridor. Down the hall, I heard a door close. Right here, Gray had one hand under me, holding me up, and he was headed down the corridor. And kissing me. A tap of the keycard against the door, and he was shoving it open, somehow still holding me up. The door slammed shut again, and he hit a light switch in the foyer and toed his shoes off. After that, he was carrying me across the room, but not to the bed. To the ottoman in front of the couch.
“I want to … do it, though,” I said when he set me down there. “On the bed.”
“No,” he said. “We’re here first.”
“Gray,” I said. “Come on. Please.”
He was on his knees in front of me, slipping off my sandals, one after the other, but he took time out to glare at me. Dark eyes. Hard