mouth. He said, “We’ll get to the bed. We’re not getting there now.”
I shivered, and his face changed. Gentled. He said, “If you want that New Age fella after all, tell me. I can try.”
I said, “What? No.”
He smiled, then. Slow and sweet and wicked. And said, “Then let’s do this my way.”
Oh, bloody hell.
I nodded. I didn’t have breath to say anything.
He said, “Lie back, sweetheart.” And I did. My head over one edge of the big round ottoman, my hips at the other. He said, “I’m going to unbutton your trousers now.”
It was like that first night, in the ute, and it was nothing like that at all. He pulled the shirt out of my waistband, and then he unbuttoned the first of my sailor buttons.
Pop, and the silver button slid out of the hole. Then on the other side. Pop. His hand shoved the filmy shirt and camisole slowly up, and his mouth came down over my midriff. He kissed his way across my ribs, then down my belly. Going so slowly, his hand leading the way, stroking down my body. Finding the buttons again.
Pop. Pop. That was the second two gone. I was looking up at the ceiling, one palm behind me on the floor to hold myself up, the other one in Gray’s hair. Short, because he’d had it cut today.
His mouth was low on my belly, his tongue tracing a line between those two buttons.
Pop. Pop. Unbuttoned to my pubic bone.
He said, “Daisy. Don’t tell me you’re not wearing any undies.”
“I didn’t …” It was a gasp, because he was between my legs, unbuttoning my blouse, pulling the two halves apart. Stroking his way up my torso, taking the loose camisole with him, until I felt the softness of the silken fabric against my throat, and the weight of the blouse against my upper arms where it hung open.
“Pardon?” he said, his palm brushing over one breast, then the other one. “You were saying?”
I was burning up. I couldn’t see him, but, oh, could I feel him. I said, “I wanted to be … different. I wanted to be excited.” Would he please just touch me? All I was getting were those teasing brushes of his palm, and I needed more. Didn’t he know that?
When his tongue touched my nipple, I jumped. When his hand reached inside my trousers, I gasped. And still, he didn’t hurry. His mouth played at my breasts, and his fingers were exploring me. Under my clothes, the tight fit providing the same friction it had been giving me all night, teasing me past bearing. I was shifting on the ottoman, up on the balls of my feet, trying for control I didn’t have, starting to call out.
He said, “Shit,” against my breast, then, “I have to do this.” And then he was off me, pulling the tight trousers over my hips, yanking the cigarette legs over my heels, then all the way off me. He was up my body, then, pulling me up to sitting, shoving the blouse over my arms and camisole up over my head.
“Open your eyes,” I heard, and I did. Naked, sitting on the edge of a pouf, facing a fully dressed man kneeling between my legs. And all I wanted was all of this.
His hand, shoving back my hair. His mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth, and both his hands going to my lower back, pulling me into him.
I said, “I want to take off your shirt.”
He sat back. And he let me do it, the same way he’d done. One button at a time, and I kissed and touched every place I’d uncovered. Like my fantasy, but so much better. My palms running over broad slabs of pectoral muscle and the black whorls of his tattoo, down a hard midriff. My lips at his throat, his chest. My hands stroking the white shirt down his arms until it fell to the floor, and then running over bronze skin. Over shoulder muscle, over biceps and triceps, over forearms, all the way to his hands. He turned his over, laced his fingers through mine, pulled me close, and kissed me again.
“Jeans,” I said.
He got to his feet. Standing over me, his hands on his belt buckle, and it didn’t scare me. It didn’t. I put my hands over his and said, “Let me,” and he did.
Tongue of smooth leather through faded denim belt loops. Pulling back against the resistance of the metal prong,