Chapter 27
Jake
I wake in the morning with Daisy curled into my side, and I have zero desire to move. I should get up and get going, start the day, but I don’t. My thoughts keep circling back to last night. It’s been a long time since I told someone I loved her. Years, in fact.
Once, back before I made the teams, I said it more to keep the peace than from any real feeling. In high school I said it and probably meant it—as much as a seventeen-year-old can mean anything. But this, what I feel for Daisy, happened fast but it’s real.
She shifts, stretching, and her lashes flicker. Her sleepy eyes fall on me, then she smiles, and rolls so she’s facing me on the pillow.
“Morning,” I say, letting my hand slide along her smooth hip.
“Morning.” She pushes up to look past me at the bedside clock. “Shouldn’t you be up?”
“Nah. Bed felt too good.”
Her smile widens and she lies back down on the pillow. “We should check your horoscope. Wait,” she holds a hand up and her eyes close as she shakes her head in the negative. “Nope. You can’t tell me. I don’t want to know your birth year or month. Not for a while.”
“Why is that?” I let out a low chuckle.
“Because I’ll instantly look us up to see if we’re a match, and if we aren’t, then I’ll sabotage everything.”
“And why would you do that?” My hand slides along the curve of her waist and I tug at the sheet, wanting to feel her skin.
“Because.” Both her eyebrows lift and she presses her lips together.
“I definitely do not understand.”
“Astrology. It’s a gift from my mother that keeps on giving—she got both my sister and me hooked.”
“You close to your sister?”
“Not really. She lived with her father a lot. But then as she got older she’d spend more time with us—I think mainly because it was more freedom. There’s a pretty big age gap—seven years.”
“So, you two had different dads. What was yours like? I know you said your mom changed your last name…” I let it hang there. I didn’t ask at the time as we’d just met, but now I want to know everything about her.
“My dad split when I was young. He didn’t really want anything to do with me.”
That hits hard. The thought of anyone walking away from this woman—hell, from that kid she must’ve been—makes my chest tighten.
“It’s okay.”
The forced brightness tells me it’s not, or at the very least, there was a time when it wasn’t.
“I’m good. Lily’s dad was different. He fought for her. Wanted full custody but didn’t get it. Honestly, after the court case, I never heard mom fight with her dad about custody again. Lily spent months at a time at her father’s.”
“Was he a good guy? Lily’s dad?”
“I guess so. He never lived with us, so I don’t know him.”
“But yet you’re helping your sister out?”
“She’s in college. He pays her tuition, and Mom is supposed to pay her expenses…”
“Let me guess. You cover her expenses?”
“Mostly. Yeah. It’s fine. I can afford it, Mom can’t.”
Yeah, but her sister isn’t her daughter. It stirs something protective in me, the thought of anyone taking advantage of her.
She lifts my hand and presses her palm against mine, lining our fingers up. My fingers are quite a bit longer than hers.
“And…that horoscope thing? What’s that about? I’m gonna need a little explanation.”
The sheet falls away, and I take in her breasts.
“Mom’s big into astrology.”
“I’ve noticed you like to read horoscopes.”
“Well, they’re fun. But you can take it pretty far. Study the alignment of the planets at the time you’re born, learn your node and your house and your past lives and how those past lives influence your soul’s choices today.”
“Past lives?”
She grins. “You’re not a believer?”
It’s hokey, sure, but… “I’m not going to knock what anyone else believes. Whatever gets you through works for me. But if you’re saying you could research my nodes and find that we shouldn’t be together…I’m all for keeping my birth date a secret.”
“It’s fine. One day I’ll learn. After all, I'll need to make you a cake, right?”
I release her hand and fondle her breast, letting the pad of my thumb lazily circle her nipple.
“Nope. I’ll skip the cake. This is too good to let you go sabotaging anything.”
“I won’t. Promise. I don’t buy into it.”
“But yet you check the horoscopes.”
“For fun,” she says, lifting my hand and pressing her lips to my knuckle. “Sometimes they feel right. In a lot of ways, it’s like having a therapist on hand to give you suggestions for how to handle tough situations.”
“Doesn’t sound bad at all.”
She twists my wrists and presses her lips to my palm. “It’s not bad.” She inhales deeply and grows thoughtful. “My biggest issue with them is that they sometimes let people believe things are outside of their control.”
“That’s not what you believe?”
“It’s not what I want to be true.”
“But what do you believe?”
“I believe we all have weak and strong moments, and horoscopes play to that—the vague applicability is why they always seem divined. But at the end of the day, I’m like Uncle Alvin.
I want to believe that sometimes we cave to the devil on our shoulder, but sometimes we stand strong, and whether we cave or stand, it’s on us.
It’s our choice. We control our destiny.
Not the stars, not the planets. We’re all made of star dust, sure, but we’re conscious beings. My choices are mine to make.”
“Not a big believer in destiny?”
“Maybe in past lives I was, but now, I think I get my power from taking control.”
I growl—grinning, teasing. “I like the sound of that. There’s nothing sexier than a woman who knows what she wants and goes for it.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Why is that?”
Her fingers lightly graze my chest, down my abdomen, until they wrap around my erection. My eyelids flutter closed, loving the feel, her grip. She shifts on the mattress, moving her mouth closer to her hand.
“Because I’m about to take what I want.”
The pad of her thumb smears the precum and then she licks.
Oh fuck.
That feels divine.
Her tongue traces a slow circle, and I groan, my hand threading through her hair.
“Daisy…” I manage, but she’s already moving, positioning herself over me with that confident grace that drives me wild.
“Taking what I want, remember?” she murmurs against my skin.
The morning light filters through the curtains, casting everything in gold, and I think about what she said—about choice, about controlling your destiny. Watching her take charge, seeing the strength in her eyes, I realize she’s already proven her point.
We make our own choices. Maybe failing a physical wasn’t a choice, but my actions certainly have been a choice. And this—us, right here—is the best damn choice I’ve ever made.
Later, as we lie tangled in the sheets, her head on my chest, I press a kiss to her hair.
“So what does your horoscope say about today?” I ask.
She laughs, the sound vibrating against my ribs. “Haven’t checked yet. But I think it’s going to be a good day anyway.”
“Even without the stars telling you so?”
“Especially without them.”