Chapter 9 #2
She turned toward me at the same time I reached for her. I got one look at her face in the dark, a vulnerable flicker of her wall going down, before I closed the distance and covered her mouth with mine.
She kissed back without hesitation, like she’d made a decision and wasn’t about to half-ass it. That alone almost wrecked me.
My hand found her jaw, angling her where I wanted her, and she let me. Opened for me, met me, gave as good as she got. A moan slipped from her throat, and fuck—yeah, I felt that everywhere. Straight down into my core.
Immediate problem for my cock.
I pulled back to look at her rosy lips, her breath uneven.
“I’ve been thinking about kissing you all night,” I whispered.
“Only tonight?” She quirked an eyebrow.
I huffed a quiet laugh. “You really want the honest answer?”
“I think I already know it.”
“Yeah, you probably do.” I dragged my thumb along her lower lip before kissing her again, slower this time. Because she was letting me. Because after a year of near misses and tension that never quite broke, I wasn’t about to undo this by moving too fast.
My hand slid into her hair, gripping just enough to tilt her head back when I needed it.
“Still thinking I’m a playboy?” I murmured against her mouth.
“Mm,” she hummed, fisting my sweatshirt. “Jury’s still out.”
“Yeah?” I nipped at her lip. “I’ll change your mind if it’s the last thing I do. There’s only one woman for me.”
“Big talk for a big man.” Her hand landed on my thigh, caressing there.
“Careful,” I muttered, voice dropping. “You keep doing that, sweetheart, and I’m gonna forget I needed to behave tonight.”
Her breath caught. “Why should you behave?”
“Because you’re not ready.”
“Knox… try me.”
Fuck. Where did that come from?
“What changed, sweetheart?”
She lifted a shoulder to her ear. “Tonight, you got me to have fun. Maybe I’m ready to kiss and find out what happens next.”
That did it. My lips landed on hers, crushing. One hand slid down her side, pulling her fully across the console this time until she was in my space, straddling my lap, her body melding with mine.
My hand found the hem of her shirt, and slipped under. She flinched.
“Cold hands. Sorry.”
“Don’t stop,” she urged. That was all the permission I needed.
“Yeah?” I brushed my mouth along her jaw. “That’s my girl.” Her skin warmed my hand, supple like silk, easy to caress. “I've been wondering what you’d feel like far too long.” I hadn’t let myself think about it too much because I knew once I did, I wouldn’t stop.
“You could’ve asked me out,” she shot back, though it came out thinner than she probably intended.
I smirked against the skin of her neck. “We both know you have plenty of reasons you would have said no.”
“True. Maybe you should’ve tried harder.”
I laughed under my breath, my thumb brushing over her nipple through the fabric of her bra. “Oh, I’m trying hard now. Very hard.”
Her hand dipped down, brushing over the bulge in my jeans. I about jumped out of my skin. Fuck, are her walls crumbling down entirely?
“Mm, Knox…”
The only sound I’d be playing in my head on repeat for the foreseeable future, was her moan of my name.
“Yeah?” I rolled her nipple between thumb and finger, watching her reaction. “Say it again like that and I might not last as long as I planned.”
My hips bare;y jerked. She moved with me. No hesitation, only heat from grinding.
Her fingers dragged through my hair, pulling me back to her mouth, kissing me like she meant it, like she wasn’t holding anything back anymore.
That alone nearly snapped my control. Where had this version of Daisy been hiding all this time? When my hand found the button on her jeans, it lingered there. “Is this okay?”
“I don’t think I can handle you going any slower,” she said, a little breathless, a little teasing.
I met her eyes. “Precious, remember? I take good care of what matters.”
“Yes, Knox.” She wrapped her hands around my neck, anchoring herself to me, her head tipping back as I rolled her nipple and dragged my lips down the side of her neck. She unraveled by the second, this woman who carried the world on her shoulders and never asked a single person for help.
My free hand returned to the waistband of her jeans.
She caught my wrist, but only for a moment.
She lifted up and tugged them down her thighs, an amazing feat in the cramped space we were in.
Then she moaned and let go when my hand caressed in, under the fabric of her panties, through her wet seam.
And when I found her clit, swollen and wanting, our hot breaths multiplied. We fogged all the windows.
I took care of Daisy the way I took care of everything that mattered to me. Methodically. Attentively. With a hell of a lot of focus and absolutely zero intention of rushing the process.
“Just like that.” She moved against my hand, chasing the pressure, her grip on my jacket tightening. I read every shift and hitch of her breath and squirm on my lap—a language all-Daisy I’d been waiting to learn. I adjusted until I found the rhythm that had her forgetting to hold anything back.
“You gonna keep pushing me away after this?” I teased, even as I kept the pressure exactly where she needed it.
“Hush, Knox,” she breathed.
I grinned against her skin. “That’s not a no.”
“Ooh, don’t stop,” she moaned into my shoulder, barely audible.
“I’m not even close to finishing with you.
” My thumb worked in slow circles around her clit while my fingers inside of her urged her higher.
I kept my mouth at her neck, her jaw, her ear, her lips, praising her, good girl, enough to keep her here with me, keep her feeling every point of contact all at once.
“Almost… almost, Knox,” she whimpered.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let me feel it. Don’t hold back on me now.”
Her hand pressed over mine to hold me exactly where she needed me, riding it hard until at last her entire body shuddered under my control.
Her tight walls pulsed around my fingers, and kept my hand in their grip.
That beautiful face of hers unraveled from intensity to complete satisfaction in a matter seconds.
She collapsed against me, her breath coming out in one long, unsteady exhale.
I eased my hand free. “Mind if I have a taste?” I licked my fingers clean and then shared a kiss with her. “Perfect. You’re fucking perfect, Daisy.”
I straightened her clothing with the care I’d always afford her from this day forward.
She tilted her head toward me, biting her bottom lip. Her hand drew lazy circles, sliding down my torso, finding me through my jeans. My cock formed a prominent bulge for her fingertips to outline.
I caught her wrist, not roughly—only enough to stop her.
“Careful. You start that, and I’m not stopping.”
“But what about you?” She asked.
“I’m fine, for now.”
“Why?”
There were several answers to that. I went with the one I could say out loud without sounding like a man writing vows in his head.
I growled, cupped her cheek, and dragged my thumb along her bottom lip again. “Because next time, I want you begging for me.”
“Next time, cowboy?”
“Hell, yeah, Daisy,” I murmured. “We’re just getting started.”
Headlights swept through the back window before I could log her reaction.
Another vehicle rolled into the overlook, its engine loud in the quiet, stereo thumping with modern music. Some kids pulled into the space two spots down with all the subtlety of a freight train.
Daisy laughed first, a short, surprised sound.
“Time to go?” She asked.
“Yep.” Didn’t want to go, but wasn’t going to sit here with her with teenagers watching nearby.
The house was dark downstairs when I pulled in, with only the porch light left on. My parents had called it a night.