and feeling it give. Sliding the leather through the buckle, and watching it part.
A metal button, opened. My fingers, deft as they would be with a patient. A woman’s fingers, not a girl’s. Taking the metal tab of his zip delicately between thumb and forefinger, and pulling it all the way down. Taking my time. Getting my hands under the denim, under the soft fabric of his briefs, and sliding everything with me, all the way down his thighs, over his calves. Watching as he stepped out. One foot, then the other, and he kicked the jeans away.
I was still sitting on my ottoman. I knew he wanted me to lie back, so I didn’t do it. Not yet. He could play? So could I. I drew my hands down his quads, feeling their bulk, the light rasp of hair. I reached around to his bum, then, more daring still. Tight. Hard, asking for my palms to be there, so I did that, too.
He was standing rigid, only his chest moving as his breath came hard. Wanting to give me the power.
Finally, I touched him. The same way I had in the car, and different, because he was right here. A finger stroked down the length of him and back up again. And he took hold of my wrist.
“Normally,” he said, “I’d say …” He cleared his throat. “Probably wouldn’t say much, to be honest. But I need to do this first. Lie down, baby. Let me see you. Let me touch you.”
My heart was beating like a drum. Like a hummingbird. It was vulnerable, especially stretched over the ottoman like that. It was trust.
He didn’t say anything. He waited.
I lay down. One hand behind me on the carpet. Now, I was the one waiting until I felt his hands pushing my knees apart. Then his mouth was on my inner thigh. And moving up.
I’d never, ever done that. I’d never done anything close. It was too much, and the panic I hadn’t felt yet tonight was here. I tried to close my legs, to twist up and off the ottoman, and he sat back and said, “Daisy? What?”
I said, “I don’t … you don’t …”
He said, “You’ve never done it.”
“No. I told you. Disappointing.” I tried to laugh. It was hard. I shivered, suddenly cold in the air conditioning, and said, “Can’t we just do it … regular? I don’t know how to do … uh, any special things.”
His face softened, and he stepped into me and pulled me close. “Never mind. It’s all good. Come on.” He took me over to the bed, pulled the duvet back, and said, “Lie down. We’ll take a pause.”
“Sorry,” I said, as I climbed in, and he climbed in after me. “I told you. Heaps of trouble.”
“Daisy,” he said, got onto an elbow, and kissed me. Gently. “I should’ve thought.”
“We should’ve just done it,” I said. “I told you. If you’d done it fast, I could’ve … I would’ve …”
He lay down beside me, wrapped both arms around me, warming me up, kissed my shoulder, and said, “But don’t you see? I didn’t want you to have to do it fast. I wanted you to know you could relax and enjoy it. I still do.”
“I can do it now,” I said. “Really. I know I can.”
“Sweetheart,” he said, and kissed me again. “Let’s sleep on it. No worries. I’ve got you. And we’ve got all the time in the world.”
47
Never Enough
Gray
She’d want to talk, I knew, but I didn’t know what else to say. I’d listen, I guessed. I’d listen, and try to decide how much of my fury to betray. What kind of a man was given a warm, strong, loving woman like this and responded by crushing her spirit? So much so that twelve years later, after everything she’d accomplished and everything she’d pushed herself to be, she was this scared of not pleasing me?
You’ve done exactly one romantic dinner, I reminded myself. She wasn’t scared any other time, was she? Not when we’d been running together, and not when she’d been teasing me. All the many times she’d teased me, sexually and otherwise.
That was what to say. I’d remind her of that.
Except she didn’t give me a chance. She was quiet beside me, my hand on her shoulder the only point of connection between us, and after a while, I drifted off. I dozed and woke, dozed and woke, and when I drifted up to consciousness for what I