41. FORTY-ONE
Perhaps Roscoe hadn’t meant to say it, but he didn’t regret it. Not now that he had realised it was true. And definitely not when Poppy looked at him the way she did, eyes shining all the way down to her soul.
She didn’t speak, but they moved apart, functioning on autopilot—or he was, anyway, his mind still gone, drunk on bliss and wonder. They used the bathroom in turn, moving around the room, around each other as though the moment was a brimming cup neither wanted to spill. She put on his t-shirt when she went to the bathroom, but he drew it slowly over her head and pulled her to him on the bed. They lay skin to skin, her head pillowed on the muscle of his arm, her breasts against his chest, her thigh over his. He ran his palm along it, back and forth, unable to stop touching her even now. He had been right to warn her he would be greedy. He would never get enough.
“You do?” she asked, as though there had been no pause at all.
The arm she lay on was curved around her shoulders. He tightened it, pulled her closer still, and kissed the top of her head. “Yes.”
“But…but how do you know?”
He smiled at that, because she sounded genuinely curious. “Aunt Mabel told me, so it must be true.”
She laughed, her breath warm on his skin. “She did?”
“Apparently it was obvious.”
“Was it?”
He frowned. “It should have been, but I haven’t… I haven’t been here before. Have you?”
She shook her head, hair tickling his arm.
“It was obvious,” he said. “If I hadn’t been so stupid. It will be obvious. Every day.”
She said nothing for a moment, but he could tell she was thinking hard. Maybe he should have been panicking that she hadn’t said it back. But in that moment, he felt too happy for worry. And part of him seemed to believe she felt it, too. They were too similar, too in tune, for him to have arrived here without her being at least fairly close behind him.
“But how do you really know?” she said cautiously. “What does it feel like?”
He smiled again at that, because it was precisely how his brain would have approached the situation. Wanting evidence. Analysis. Trying to find some identifiable trend.
“It feels like…like I’ve never been as close to another person as I am to you. Like…like I could fall inside you and fall through every layer of you and like every single one of them and go on liking you more and more forever. It feels like the sun comes out when you walk into the room. And it feels like life without you in it would be unbearable. And… Well. I also now say and think things like, ‘The sun comes out when you walk into a room…’”
She breathed a laugh. “That’s fairly damning, yeah.”
“Isn’t it just?”
“Is that…? Is that really how you feel?”
He kissed her hair again, then moved so he could see her eyes. “Yes.” He touched her cheek. “I’m sorry if this is too much too soon.”
Her smile was a little crooked, half sweet, half mischief. “We already live together. I think we skipped a few steps.”
“We could still do them. Would you like to go out with me, Poppy Fields? We could get dinner together.”
“Are you forgetting fried chicken from Cluck’N’Tuck?”
“No, how could I forget that?”
She grinned. “You ate filthy fried chicken for me. I should have known then.”
“And kissed you on the flimsiest of pretexts.”
“That, too.”
She grinned even more wickedly. “Maybe you’re only saying it now because you just got laid.”
He huffed a laugh. “It has been a while.”
“You only have yourself to blame for that.”
He let out a long breath, looked up at the ceiling, making himself feel the full regret of that. “I know.” Then he looked back at her, serious now. “But that’s not why I’m saying it.”
“I know,” she said quietly, serious too.
There was the liquid glow of tears in her eyes. He watched her wrestle them back, draw a smile onto her face instead. She was pleased, she was embarrassed, she was a bit frightened of this moment, had never been here before, didn’t quite know what to do with it, was scared of fully believing in it. He knew all that. Because he knew her, and because he felt it, too. Except the fear. Somehow, he couldn’t feel afraid. Not of loving Poppy.
“Was it worth the wait?” She said it with a slanted grin. Her hand was on his chest, ran slowly over his skin to his shoulder. She seemed to like the curve of muscle there, the dip where the ball of it met his bicep. He moved his hand up her body, from hip to waist, knowing it would make the muscle flex, watching her watching it. He smiled to himself, boyishly smug.
“Yes. Worth the wait. Though I also feel we have some catching up to do.”
“You once promised me all night.”
The words were followed by a deep blush. Interesting. Because he remembered the moment, too. But he hadn’t thought it was one she would want to recall.
“Did I?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
Her blush deepened, and she nodded quickly. “That first night, at your flat…”
“And what did I say?”
“You asked if I could take you all night.”
Maybe he was tormenting himself by making her say it out loud, because the rush of arousal he felt left his thoughts swimmy, his balls aching. Oh fuck, he wanted her again, needed to be inside her right that second.
“I was extremely horny,” he said lightly, as though his mind wasn’t already submerged in filth.
She lifted herself on her elbow, and the spark in her blue eyes, the curve of her smile as she pressed a kiss to the bare skin of his shoulder, told him he was fooling no one.
“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep,” she teased. And then, before his dumb brain could come up with a response, she was kissing her way down his body—down his ribs, his stomach, his hip. Ah, Jesus fuck… Her breath was warm over the tight skin of his cock. She looked up his body as she caught her hair up in one hand, pulled it out of the way over her shoulder. She smiled and then…
He groaned as she took him into her mouth, took him straight in, deep, her lips closing as far down his shaft as she could take him, her hand gripping the base, her tongue pressed to the underside, already moving, tight and warm and—
He didn’t even know what noise he made, but she seemed to like it, gave a small hum that vibrated through him and made his hips move, made his hand wrap into her hair. Don’t fucking stop, just like that, yes, fuck…
Pleasure took him, shattered his thoughts, left him fragments: Poppy’s head moving, her hair glinting, red copper against his fingers, the wet slide of her mouth, warmth and pressure and how the fuck had he denied himself this for so long and did it normally feel this good or was it just her, was it Poppy? Poppy Fields sucking his dick as though she loved it… She moaned again and—
“Stop…” He found her cheek, her jaw, guided her off him and back up. “I want you. I need to fuck you again.”
She just nodded, flushed, lips pink and wet. He kissed her a little wildly, crazily, praising her mouth with his tongue, then shifted position, found her pussy soaking wet and went to worship there with licks and kisses, technique out the window. Beyond thought, primal now, he flipped her onto her belly, held her down with one hand on her backside as he reached for the other condom—thank fuck there were three—
The hand holding her slipped between her thighs, plunged inside her as she bucked against the mattress, panting.
“Get on your knees,” he said. “Touch yourself.”
She did, as far gone as him. He watched her hand reach between her legs as he rolled the condom on, her backside in the air.
“The times I’ve imagined fucking you like this,” he said as his fingers joined hers. “Bending you over my desk and pushing up that skirt…”
“Do it,” she gasped, taking her hand away, face to the mattress. There was no skirt, of course, but he knew what she meant. He gripped her hip with one hand, held himself at her entrance with the other, teasing them both for an exquisite few seconds before driving himself deep inside.
She grunted, pushed back against him, forced him even deeper.
“Like this?” he said. “You want this?”
“Yes, yes…”
He moved, fucking her deep, hands on her hips, squeezing her flesh, sliding round to find her clit, trying to keep his touch gentle while he lost his bloody mind, took her as hard as he’d ever fantasised, Poppy moving to meet him, driving him harder still. She came, broke gasping, and he kept going, feeling her clench and flutter around him, still working her clit. “You asked for all night, Poppy.”
She made some noise, a moan.
“Don’t make promises…” he chided, “that you can’t keep…”
She moaned again, face dropping deeper against the mattress, and somehow, she opened even wider to him. Jesus, he wasn’t going to last five minutes, yet alone all night, but he wanted her to come again, felt that she could. She was tightening around him, moaning with every thrust. He teased her clit, moved his other hand to what lay before his eyes, the rosebud there, slicked it with her own arousal, teasing and circling. He already knew she liked that from the first time. He liked it, too, just the thought of it, of her wanting him everywhere.
“Roscoe…”
“Come on, Poppy, good girl, you’re almost there, come on my cock, with my fingers here, you like it, good girl…”
She came with a desperate sort of noise that sent him over the edge, too, sent his thoughts, his pulse, his cum rushing, and he emptied himself into her, everything he had.
They sank to the mattress, shaking.