Chapter 30
THIRTY
DAISY
How was I supposed to just leave? Walk out after he had touched me the way he had and know that he was suffering the same?
I could feel it radiating off him.
Lust.
Greed.
A violent hunger that rippled across his flesh and seeped from the palms of his hands and into me.
It was all mixed with that steely despair that chipped away a little of my heart every time I looked at him. This man who held himself in reproach as if there was a chance that he wasn’t good and kind.
I knew him.
I knew him.
I recognized those old parts of him every time he interacted with my children. Every time he gave a little more of himself to me. I recognized how difficult it was for him when he put his mother’s ring on my finger.
What it cost him.
And I wanted to give him this.
Steam filled the bathroom.
Viscid and hot.
But I could see him standing beneath the spray.
Rivulets of water slicked down the glorious edges of his body. Streams that curved and weaved and rippled over the cut, defined angles of packed muscle and glinted over the designs painted on his flesh.
And his hand…his hand was fisted around his enormous cock. Huge with the head bulging in his fierce, hard grip. My name tumbled from his mouth as he stroked himself once.
A shudder ripped through me, and I nearly tripped over my own feet.
So close to coming undone all over again at the sight.
Desire tumbled in my belly and a desperate throb ached between my thighs, and redness streaked over every inch of my skin.
Timidity tried to urge me back into hiding.
But I didn’t want to hide from him.
I didn’t want to hide from this.
Too many years had been lost for that.
He turned his face in my direction as if he felt the shockwave of need I exuded.
It brought me to my knees, and the air began to pant from my lungs. Hot water poured from above, instantly soaking my hair. Running down to saturate my tank and underwear.
Cash groaned, and I looked up at him through the spray to see his jaw clenched like he was trying to find restraint.
Only he had none.
He stroked himself once again.
“You need to get out of here, Daisy.” The words ground out of him.
“I can’t. I need this.”
Hazel eyes darkened to pitch. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I do. I know exactly what I’m asking for. I’m asking you to let me give you a little of the pleasure you gave me. I want to show you that I’m not afraid of who you are. I want to taste you, too. Watch you come apart.”
My plea was jagged. The confession heaving from my juddering chest.
The sound that came out of him could only be described as feral, and I swore, I saw something inside him snap.
Greed took over every inch of his expression.
“Is that what you want? You want me to fuck your sweet little mouth? You want to feel my cock stuffing it so full you won’t be able to breathe?”
There was nothing gentle about his tone.
“Yes.” It quivered out, and the hard tiles bit into my knees.
Fisting himself, he turned so he was facing me, and he ran the tip of his dick across my lips.
“This? This what you want?”
“Yes, please.” I hoped I didn’t squeak it because on all things holy, I was nervous.
I wanted to be…good for him.
His hand fisted in my wet hair, and he tipped my head back. Water pelted against his shoulders. The man a fortress that towered. His skin was slicked, and every muscle in his body rippled with brute strength.
He was so brutally beautiful, I couldn’t breathe.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” He murmured that. Soft and filled with regret.
It was. It was always supposed to be like this. Didn’t he know?
“I told you that you’re every fantasy I’ve ever dared to have.”
“Is that so?” His voice slipped right back into possession.
I nodded frantically.
“Every single one?” His hand tightened in my hair, as if he were challenging me, while he continued to rub himself back and forth across my lips.
Need spun through my belly, and chills lifted on my skin. “Every single one.”
It was you. It was always you.
“You always imagined this? Being on your knees for me?” Each word was gravel, and I gave him another erratic nod.
“I thought once you were finally mine, and it never went away. I always wanted it. I always wanted to know what it would be like with you.”
Not only this.
Everything.
This fantasy he’d been weaving since we came here. The idea of what he agreed to. The ring on my finger.
I choked off the dangerous thoughts.
There was no chance that fantasy would ever come true.
He already broke my heart once. I was a fool to beg for it again.
But I’d always been a fool for him because my heart leapt when I saw the swell of emotion rush him.
Greed.
Possession.
An age-old want that still burned.
“You never did know what’s good for you, did you, Little Wallflower?” It was both praise and a threat.
I should be afraid.
Afraid of all he was.
Of the scars that lined his body and the violence that skimmed his flesh.
Well that, and the giant erection that he kept running over my lips.
Instead, a pulse of desire throbbed through my middle.
I shuddered as I stared up at his beauty. Trembling in want and this old love that would forever hold me hostage.
“You were always what was good for me.” The confession wheezed out of me.
It was almost a snarl that he released, and his hand tightened in my hair. “Then take it, Daisy. Open that sweet mouth and show me what you’ve been imagining.”
Nerves rattled through my being, but I reached out and curled my hand around his penis. Having no idea what I was doing because I sure hadn’t enjoyed it the times Ethan had coerced me into it.
But this? I wanted to experience it.
I raised up higher on my knees, and I tentatively swept my tongue over his tip.
Cash hissed. “Fuck. Don’t know if I can handle you. Not when you were my every fuckin’ fantasy, too.”
It might have been glee that ricocheted through me with his admission. Knowing that he thought of me for all these years while I’d been missing him like I was missing a viable, beating part of my body.
“Suck me, Daisy. Take it like you want it.” He nudged himself deeper, and I opened to him, lightly sucking as I drew him into my mouth.
My insides fluttered as I was overcome with sensation. Lightheaded at the feel of his cock.
So hard and powerful, but I was the one who felt powerful right then.
Bold as I sucked him down as deep as I could.
With every inch that I took him, his teeth ground so hard that I was worried they would crack.
I garbled around him, the man so big even though I only had half of him inside.
He was right. I could barely breathe. Could barely see.
My mind muddled with the intimidating outline of his mercilessly gorgeous body.
“Fuck me, Daisy. There is nothing like you. Never has been. One second of you, and already I feel myself splittin’ apart. This perfect fuckin’ mouth.” Every word rasped from him. “I’m afraid I’ll lose myself in you.”
I could feel the fear come out with the last, so I rose up higher, tongue licking the length of him as I withdrew before I dove back down.
Sucking him all the way in until his head hit the back of my throat.
I struggled not to gag, and saliva ran out from my mouth as the water continued to pelt my face.
Cash groaned a long sound, and I could feel it when he surrendered. When he completely gave. When the dwindling control he’d been fighting for completely severed.
Two big hands came to my jaw, and he tilted my face back so I was forced to look at him.
The shower rained around us and the steam made it feel like I was fading into a dream.
“You want it like I want to give it?” he grunted.
I nodded around him.
A puff of hot air ripped out of him. “Not going to take it easy on you.”
A moan of pleasure ripped through me at the thought, and I pressed my thighs together like it might sate the glow of need that instantly strummed through my being.
That time, it was Cash who pulled out. Then he surged back in.
So deep I choked.
My hands flew to his hips to steady myself.
“Fuck. Nothing so good as this,” he rasped. “Nothing like the feel of your mouth wrapped around my cock. My Little Wallflower on her knees for me.”
He pulled out then plunged back in.
Hard and possessive.
“Good girl,” he mumbled.
I smoldered at the growl in his voice.
His thumbs stroked on either side of my mouth, and I could feel him tremble. The muscles of his abdomen flexed and bowed with barely hinged possession.
“Such a good fucking girl with my cock stuffed down your throat. Is this what you wanted? You wanted to push me over the edge so it would come to this?”
He withdrew then drove back in. I garbled and swallowed around him, trying to adjust to the onslaught.
To the force of Cash letting go.
“Just like that. Take it. Show me what you’ve got.”
My lips stretched around him as I struggled to take him deeper. To give him everything he’d given me.
Pleasure and a promise and the most profound kind of hope.
He picked up a rhythm. It wasn’t fast. It was deep, long, hard strokes.
“You like it, Daisy? You like me fucking this mouth? You like the feel of me consuming you?”
I could only hum and nod around him, my face soaking wet. I wasn’t sure if it was from the shower or the way tears pricked at the edges of my eyes.
“Did you know it? Did you know how badly I wanted you then? How I tried to keep you a friend because I was terrified of losing you? How I felt like I was going to die every time you came through my window if I didn’t have you?
Then I finally was gonna give and look what happened. I lost you. I lost you.”
Grief struck me with his admission.
Heartbreaker.
Because I’d wanted it so badly for so many years. And I’d waited. Waited on him to return what I felt.
But I was tired of waiting.
I’d felt a change coming for so long.
Maybe it had started when I left Ethan and stood up for what was right.
Maybe it started the moment I turned my car in the direction of this small town in search of Cash.
But the one thing I knew?
It ended today.
No more.
I was finished being afraid.
I wanted to live.
I wanted to bloom.
It was time I claimed what I needed.