Chapter 14
14
BENNY
D aisy says yes. She’ll meet me for a late-night picnic. It’s been two weeks since we’ve had more than an hour together. I miss her, but it’s not just that. I don’t want her to feel like a hook up when she’s far from it.
I order everything from new Korean restaurant near my office. I’ve been there a couple of times and it’s delicious. She’s always been adventurous about food and I want to share the experience with her. If I got all her old favorites and brought them it would send a message—that I was nostalgic and wanted to recapture something from our youth. But I want her as she is now, and she needs to know that. I just can’t tell her out loud, not just yet.
The stricken look on her face when I saw her and called her name in the street—that sticks with me. She wasn’t overjoyed to see me. She didn’t walk back into my life feeling the same way I do. The way I didn’t know I felt until she held out her frozen Coke and I took a drink, and it all came flooding back to me.
I want Daisy to see that every minute we have together is special, a gift I never expected. That it’s not a relic from our past but something brand new, made of the bits and pieces we didn’t destroy the first time.
I cut the lights when I turn onto her mom’s street. I text her when I’ve parked down the block. I walk to the house and wait for her. She quickly slips out the back door. She’s silent, perfectly still and listening for a second before she grins and breaks into a run.
I open my arms, lean down a little and catch her as she throws herself against me. It’s a fierce hug, warmth rolling through me like I’ve been frozen until now. With her legs around my hips, I carry her to the truck while she tries to muffle her giggles against my neck. Once I set her down on the passenger seat, I lean in and kiss her.
I feel the curve of her smile against my lips. I have to deepen the kiss now, no more sweet greeting. I part her lips and lick inside with one long stroke. She melts, sagging against me, fingers gripping the front of my shirt as she meets me stroke for stroke. A tidal wave of how much I’ve missed her crashes over me, and I gather her against me, press her close. I bend her head over my arm so I can kiss her more fully, my hand caressing her breast, making her nipple stand up stiff in response. I nip at her lower lip and pull away with a groan.
Unless I want to do this halfway out of the cab of my truck within sight of her mom’s house, I have to drive. Even though walking is difficult with a hard on like I’m currently sporting.
Once I’m in the truck, I make myself drive to the park where I planned to picnic with her, and not turn toward my place and the soft bed that waits there. Special, I tell myself, make new memories. My cock doesn’t want to be persuaded, but I stick with the plan.
At the park, I unload the cooler bag and a basket, and when she offers to carry something, I let her take the blanket. While she spreads it on the ground, I retrieve two lanterns from my truck and light them, so we have candlelight.
“Okay, that’s genius. I love this,” she says appreciatively as she settles on the ground.
I open containers of cucumber salad, bulgogi and bibimbap. Daisy grabs a fork and digs into the BBQ bulgogi. “So good!” she says, “I used to get pork bulgogi from a food truck when I lived out west, but this is better.”
“Everything’s better here, Daze, don’t you know that?” I tease. She flashes me a mischievous smile.
“Is that what you’re trying to convince me?” she asks.
“Always,” I tell her, hoping she’ll think I’m just flirting, that I’m not pushing for more than she might be willing to give.
“Well, I’m starting to believe it,” she falters and then offers me a bite off her fork. I can’t resist, so I don’t even try.
I notice she’s sitting on her knees, then shifts to leaning to the side. She’s not comfortable. I put down my food and move to the other side of the blanket. I lean against a tree trunk and beckon her to join me. She grabs my food and hers, sets it beside my right leg and then scoots up so she’s sitting between my thighs and leans back against my chest.
I no longer want to eat. I want to hold her like this. I shut my eyes and wonder what force in the universe I’d have to persuade to let this be my whole life, right now. This alone would be more than enough.
After we eat, I open the champagne I brought, tell her that I want to make a toast.
“Is it to frozen Coke or mosquito repellent? Because I should’ve brought some.”
“New beginnings,” I say.
“Old friends,” she replies, tapping her glass to mine.
I lean in and kiss her softly. We drink the champagne and she whispers in my ear, “Take me home, Falconari.”
“Your mom’s?” I ask. She shakes her head.
“Take me to your place,” she says.
The glow I feel is insane. In no time we’re in the truck and heading to my home. My hand rides high on her leg as I drive. I want her so much I’m not sure how I’m concentrating on the road.
I hand her the key to my front door. While she unlocks it, I stand close behind her, kiss her neck and wrap my arms around her. She leans back into me for a second and looks up, kisses me.
We don’t even turn on the lights once we get inside. My shoes and shirt and belt, her little green sundress and sandals litter the floor as we peel them off on the way to the bedroom. In the doorway, I catch her around the waist and kiss her. Daisy lifts her arms to drape them over my shoulders and I feel her tits against my chest. The dart of arousal it sends through me is incredible. I dip my head and capture a stiff nipple in my mouth. I suck and lick, scrape my teeth along her sensitive bud. Her fingers clench in my hair, pulling as I nip at her flesh again.
I trail my hands down her sides and drop to my knees, kiss my way from her sweet nipples down the curve of her belly. I bury my face between her legs, inhale her scent. I give her a long, lush lick from her core before flicking the tip of my tongue under her swollen clit. She grabs my hair and holds my head, presses me hard against the place where she needs me. I could come from that alone.
I’m shaking now, and I feel the tremble in her hands when she touches my face, my jaw, my hair. I make her come with my tongue, then surge upward to hold her in my arms while she cries out and clings to me. Somehow, I get us to the bed, press her down into the mattress and kiss her again. She unfastens my pants and I kick them away, impatient.
I move her backward toward the bed and lay her down on her back. I lever myself above her, braced on my forearms. When I dip my face to kiss her, she reaches for me, holds me and kisses me back, sweet and languorous, nothing urgent. I lick into her mouth and rock against her core. I hold as still as I can, wait for her to give me a sign.
She opens her eyes to meet mine and slides one of her hands down my back all the way to my ass. Daisy gives me a squeeze there and breaks our kiss to whisper, “What are you waiting for?” I grunt against her neck, amused and annoyed at the same time.
I push forward, work my way into her. I move slow, rocking into her, savoring her slickness, the grip of her tight body. She holds my gaze, and the intimacy is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. I stroke her cheek with the backs of my fingers, kiss her lips softly, her temple, her forehead. The union I feel with her, the connection is shaking me to my core even as I try to keep control of myself.
When I think I’m going to lose my mind, just pound into her with a roar, my patience and determination unspooling in pleasure, she reaches for me, kisses me again. She matches my rhythm, rocks into me with every thrust. Daisy meets me stroke for stroke, kiss for kiss. I feel the pull at the base of my spine, the sharp knowledge that I’m about to come, sheathed in the body of the only woman I’ve ever loved.
I roar when the pleasure hits me, pumping into her wildly. Even in blinding ecstasy, I try to make it good for her, grinding against her clit just above where we join. Her short nails scrape my bare shoulders so I do it again. Then her inner muscles clench on me sharply, an iron grip, and she bows up off the bed. I catch her around the waist and roll onto my side, hold her still for my thrusts as I give her the friction she needs for completion. She comes apart for me, and feel her lips at my throat, sucking until she throws back her head and cries my name. That sound, the knowledge that I’m hers nearly undoes me.
I gather her against my chest and let her burrow in. I kiss her hair, tell her how beautiful she is, how perfect she is. She lifts her face to kiss my cheek. Daisy smiles at me, strokes my hair as if I’ve done very well at something I might deserve praise for.
“I love you,” I say without thinking. She freezes and stares at me for a second, but I have the courage to brazen it out. “I never stopped, Daze. I didn’t know it till you came back, and the minute I saw you. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
There are tears in her eyes when she looks up at me.
“Are you okay?” I ask. She nods. A tear slipping from the corner of her eye. I kiss it before it can fall, kiss her temple again, my eyes dropping shut, I know I shouldn’t ask but I have to know. This could cost me everything, but I’ll ask anyway.
“Did you stop loving me?”
“Never. Not even close,” she admits quietly. “There’s no one. There never has been. No one but you.”
I cradle her head in my palm, kiss her lips. “Stay,” I say. “Let me learn to love you the right way. Whatever it takes. Don’t run again. Please.”
“There are things you don’t know about me,” she whispers, anguish in her face as she pulls away from me.
“Doesn’t matter. Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you. Don’t you see that? I lost you because I was an arrogant bastard and didn’t know what I had till you were gone. There’s nothing you could have done that would make me question this.”
“You don’t know that,” she pleads. I shake my head, stilling her.
“There’s not a damn thing you could say to destroy this. You’ve got to trust me. I’ve only ever loved one woman, and you’ve come back to me. Don’t imagine there’s anything that could threaten us, not as long as you want me.”
With tears ears in her eyes, “You don’t know that.”
“I know everything I need to know,” I say, and I kiss her until her tears stop, until she’s pliant and slick beneath me once again. When I take her, I tell her I love her as I make her come again and again, until all she can say is yes.