wild, around me. His body, taking me over. Careful, and so strong.
His voice, finally. Not controlled, not like Gray. A little rough. A little demanding.
“Come on, Daisy,” he told me. “Come on. Do it for me. Give it up. Come on.”
My muscles were contracting around him, and I suddenly realized what Kegels were for. They were for this.
Oh. Bloody. Hell.
His breathing got louder, and he was saying, “Yeh. Do that. Oh, fuck. Do that.”
He was over me, driving into me, pressing me down. But I was the one in charge. I was the one pushing him past his limits. He was trying to wait for me. I could feel it. And he couldn’t. He was beyond trying.
The triumph made me surrender.
The orgasm was sudden and sharp this time, and hard as iron. I was jerking forward and back, my cries muffled by the mattress, because my face was buried as deep as he was buried in me. He gave a shout. And then he groaned and spilled into me, over and over again.
I felt like the queen of the world.
Gray
That wasn’t one bit what I’d expected. And I couldn’t move.
I had to move. Condom. I couldn’t anyway. I was pressing Daisy into the mattress, breathing hard, feeling her shudders beneath me, knowing I’d thrilled her, and excited her, and satisfied her all the way to her depths. All the way to her heart. And surely, there’s no feeling better for a man than that.
Even when I finally managed to lever myself off her, I didn’t get far. Instead, I was running my hand down her slender back and back up it again, needing to touch all of her, to claim it for myself. And I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
Neither did she. She was sprawled, boneless, beneath me, quivering a little as I touched her. I pressed my lips between her shoulder blades, and she gave a sigh. And my heart filled with something, an emotion so strong and so sudden, it knocked me sideways.
Condom, I thought dimly, and headed to the bathroom to get rid of it, trying to process whatever that had been. Too much wine, except that it hadn’t been. I’d barely had a glass.
Too much of somebody else. Too much of Daisy. Or never enough.
When I got back, she’d rolled to her side again. Not away from me. Toward me. I slid into bed, pulled the duvet up over us, got a hand on her cheek, stroked her hair back, and kissed her mouth. Slowly. Sweetly. And asked her, finally, “All right?”
“Mm,” she said, and put her own hand against the side of my face. “You’re a very good lover, aren’t you?”
I wanted to say, Compared to who? I didn’t. This wasn’t the time for comparisons. Instead, I said, “So are you.”
“Oh, yeh,” she said. “Right.”
I laughed, snuggled her closer, so her head was on my shoulder and my arm was around her, which felt just bloody brilliant, and said, “Do you know what a man wants? Or, rather—what this man wants?”
“No,” she said. “Tell me.” Her palm was flat against my chest again. Feeling my heart beat, I knew. Wanting to get closer, to climb inside me, the same way I wanted to do with her.
“I want to know that I’m pleasing you,” I said. “I want to know that you feel carried away, overwhelmed, and you feel safe, too. Which is a nice way of saying that I love to feel you come.”
“Funny,” she said, kissing my chest, “because I find I love it, too.”
You couldn’t have stopped me smiling if you’d tried.
48
Joy
Daisy
We took a shower together, and it was a revelation.
I’d always dashed in and out of my showers. Always something else to do, somewhere else to be. When I was being held under the warm, pelting spray, though, pressed against the wall, my legs around Gray’s waist and my arms around his neck, our bodies illuminated only by a light far away on the bedside table, while he kissed me? There was no “something else to do.” There was no “somewhere else to be.” Nothing to do but this, and nowhere to be but here. He kissed me and touched me and told me I was beautiful, and when he turned the water off, he was still holding me. He grabbed towels with one hand and carried me out to the bedroom that way, after which he tumbled me onto the bed, dried me off, got both little tubes of high-end body