29. Harrison
29
HARRISON
Oliver
Just landed in Paris. How is my future wife?
I have no idea because neither of us have met her.
If you let the luscious Miss Doherty leave for DC without making a move, I assure you I will fly there directly and refuse to leave until she’s mine.
That’s referred to in this country as “stalking.” It’s frowned upon. And she is NOT available.
You finally grew a pair? Maman will be so pleased.
You did not tell Mom.
You brought a young Brigitte Bardot with you on our weekend trip and couldn’t take your eyes off her. Of course I told her. I also sent pictures of her to both Maman and Matthew. Matthew has called dibs, which is patently ridiculous as he can’t even afford a ticket to DC.
P.S.: Do not lend him money for a ticket. I’ve already said no.
F uck. The last thing I needed was my family aware of my current situation, but what’s done is done. So, like the infatuated sap I am, I make the situation worse.
What photo?
He forwards a picture he took of Daisy on the beach, grinning at the camera as she walks alongside me, the wind whipping her hair. She’s so lovely that she’s hard to look away from.
I had the best of intentions when I went to her room, but Jesus—when she slid her hand into her waistband, I was a dead man. Just remembering it has me hard as nails, so I don’t know how the hell things can ever be normal between us now. They can’t be. And if I were a better man, I’d tell her I was going out of town for work and get the fuck away before I made things worse…except I’m not a better man.
I don’t want to lose the rest of the summer with her. I don’t want to be in that house if she’s not going to be out on the deck, torturing me in blue leggings. I don’t want to be there without her off-key humming as she slices apples, the way she dances in the kitchen when she cooks, the sound of her quietly cursing as she walks into things while getting dressed to surf in the dark.
I can’t let her go. But how the hell am I going to survive having her walk past me in nothing but a towel now? How am I going to watch her dance around my kitchen in a bikini and keep my hands to myself after what happened? I can’t do that either.
I was thinking about how tight it would be, how you’d barely fit.
Goddammit. I can’t go home to her, and I can’t not go home to her, so what the fuck do I do?
I pick up my phone to reply to Daisy, but I’ve got no idea what to say. I wish there was an emoji that said I’ll never lay a finger on you again, even if I’m dying to. Also, please don’t leave.
Perhaps it’s for the best that no such emoji exists, because I’d be selfish enough to send it if it did. I barely recognize myself around her anymore, but I’m certainly not the man I thought I was. Every high-minded principle goes right out the window when I think of her the way she was in her room, coming with my name on her lips. Looking up at me from under her lashes while my cum dripped down her stomach.
A tap on the door grabs my attention as Baker walks in for the second day in a row. He’s furious that I didn’t come in Monday and probably furious that I went away for the weekend, but since he can’t technically begrudge me a sick day or a fucking weekend, he’s simply going to unload on me in a more general fashion, just like he did yesterday.
“I need you to go to this client happy hour in San Jose,” he announces. I’m too in my own head about Daisy to even form a response as to why I can’t.
I know I need to get home and talk to her. I know I need to apologize and see if we can fix things. I just can’t come up with a good way to do it when all I really want to do is peel her clothes off and pick up right where we left off Monday night.
My phone vibrates and I glance down at it…Daisy is texting.
Baker raises a brow, annoyed that my gaze flickered even briefly toward the phone while he’s delivering this vital lecture. “Do you need to get that?” he asks, his voice sour with sarcasm.
Yeah, take a seat. I’ll just be a minute. I barely hold the words in, but I’ve spent my entire life being the responsible son, the responsible friend, the responsible spouse, and reining myself in is second nature.
Aside from when Daisy’s involved, anyway.
“It can wait,” I reply, flatly. “I assume you were nearly done.”
This pisses him off, of course, and he proceeds to reiterate the same goddamn points he’s already made: that he went to bat to get me this position, that he never had to worry about me in the past, that he knows divorce is hard—he’s done it twice—but we didn’t even have kids so I really need to pull my shit together if I plan to remain at the firm. I always thought Baker and I got along great, but the second I started actually enjoying my life, he decided it was a problem. I’m billing as much as anyone here, but he wants the return of Harrison the Robot, who set a standard no one else came close to. And why would I do that? Why especially would I do that for him when he’s been such a fucking prick the past month?
Fuck it. I’m not going to fucking San Jose. I’m going to surf with Daisy and talk this out and—
“You’re on thin ice, Reid,” he says, leaving. “Pull it together or find a new job.”
I sink back in my chair. There’s a reason he’s used that as his parting salvo—because there’s not another reasonably sized firm in Elliott Springs, and I wouldn’t have clients to bring with me even if there were. I’d be starting from scratch, and every case I took would be the worst of what I deal with now. Disputes between neighbors or defending a guy on his fourth DUI.
I spend the afternoon and evening driving to fucking San Jose and charming Baker’s clients. It’s after nine by the time I head home, working on my apology to Daisy the entire way. I shouldn’t have come into your room. I shouldn’t have asked you to take off your pants.
No, not that. I can’t reference specifics. Because if I do and she gives me that look, as if she’s remembering…I’m probably going to fuck up again.
“I shouldn’t have come into your room , ” I’ll say. “ It was a mistake and I really hope we can just go back to the way things were. I like having you here, but if it’s uncomfortable, I can help you find somewhere else.”
Better, but still insufficient somehow. Mostly because I don’t want to find her somewhere else to stay. I want her with me for as long as I can keep her.
Her car is on the street when I arrive at home, but the lights are off inside. The house is entirely silent as I climb the stairs and my gut is in knots. I don’t want to discover that she’s sick. I also don’t want to enter her room and fuck up everything I’ve resolved to do if she’s not sick.
Her door is open, the room is dark, and the bed is still made.
A chill runs down my spine. She went surfing. She went surfing alone because I was too goddamn busy jumping through Baker’s hoops. I take the stairs two at a time to the garage, my heart hammering, and sink to the stairs in relief when I see her surfboard is leaning against the wall.
Except…she’s still missing. As much as I didn’t want to have the conversation we still need to have, this is worse. And I’m annoyed, even if I shouldn’t be.
Where the fuck are you?
Daisy
The way you ask a question leaves much to be desired. The way you answer one does too.
My teeth grind as I type my next text.
I apologize. Where the fuck are you?
Daisy
Oddly, that’s not much of an improvement. I’m nearly home. Chill.
I go upstairs and pace the family room, watching the road until a car stops in front of the house and Daisy climbs out of the back. A moment later she is clambering up the stairs in the same oversized sweatshirt she always wears.
But there’s also a hint of makeup, which she almost never wears.
I swallow. “You went out?”
She sets her keys on the counter and lifts a piece of paper. “I left you a note,” she replies.
I was too agitated to even look for a note. “Where’d you go?” I snap.
Her arms fold across her chest. “How very paternal you’re acting, under the circumstances. And how demanding, given that you couldn’t even bother to answer my text. I went to a bar with a few of the guys who surf across the street and took an Uber home.”
I’m the one who told her she should have a social life. I’m the one who suggested she should probably fuck around for a little while. But it turns out I was full of shit because I can’t stand the idea of her dating, and I sure as hell can’t stand the idea of her fucking around .
I fill a glass with ice, pour the bourbon to the top, and take a healthy swallow. “Was it a date?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know that tonight was a date, but one of the guys asked me out to dinner tomorrow.”
Pressure builds at the back of my head, dimming the sides of my vision. I set the bourbon down too hard on the counter. Liquor seeps from the bottom of the glass, and I don’t give a shit.
“I mean, that’s okay, right?” she asks, pouring herself a glass of water from the fridge. “You were the one who suggested it, and it seemed like the best way to keep your virtue safe.”
I’m supposed to say yes . I’m supposed to ask what kind of guy he is and insist that she drive herself just in case. But I can’t fucking stand the idea of anyone seeing her the way she was last night. I can’t stand to have her saying, “ I was thinking about how tight it would be ” to anyone but me.
The thought sends every ounce of responsibility I’ve ever possessed flying out the window.
“No,” I say, stepping toward her. I take the water from her hand and set it on the counter before I press her to the refrigerator. “No, Daisy. It’s not fucking okay.”
And then I kiss her. I kiss her hard, the way I wanted to last night. The way I’ve wanted to every goddamn day since she arrived. Her mouth is even softer than I pictured it would be, and when it opens beneath mine, the desire for more hits me like a hammer. It’s as if every version of myself who’s been denied over these past few weeks has formed an army and is storming the castle. I will never get enough of her tongue, her inhales, her curves beneath me.
My hand slides inside her sweatshirt to cup one breast through her bra, decadently heavy in my grasp. God, the number of times I’ve dreamed of doing this…hundreds? Thousands? She gasps as my palm glides over one nipple, then the other.
Jesus fucking Christ. I never imagined myself to have a particular type, but I do, and that type is Daisy. It’s the exact weight of her breasts in my hands, the tiny waist, how tight and wet she’ll be when I’m finally inside her. Her proportions defy logic, and being with her is going to ruin me for other women, but so be it.
“We need to close the curtains,” I grunt, grinding against her helplessly as her hand reaches for my belt. We should go to my room, but I can’t. I can’t wait the length of time it would take to get her up the stairs.
“Just hit the lights,” she says, as impatient as I am.
I find her mouth again, pushing her shorts to the floor. “No. Lights on. I want to watch you stretch to take every fucking inch of me.”
“Alrighty then,” she says, pulling my belt free at last. I groan as her hand slides into my pants and grips me. “Forget about the curtains. Let everyone watch.”
I want to agree to this because I’m already so hard it hurts, but the sight of her naked is something I want to keep to myself, always.
“Couch,” I growl against her mouth. “Now.”
I march to the far wall to hit the curtains, and she saunters to the couch, removing her sweatshirt as she walks. I move fast toward her, pulling her against me, finding her mouth again.
Her fingers tug at my tie then start to work on the buttons of my shirt. I need her skin against mine faster than she can get it there. Buttons skitter across the floor as I wrench the shirt off myself.
She reaches inside my boxers and I have to stop her, jaw grinding as I try to regain control. “Give me a minute, Daisy, or this just won’t last.” I pull the tank over her head. She reclines on the couch in nothing but her panties.
Fuck. Yes. She is definitely going to ruin me for anyone after her.
“Take everything off,” she purrs. “I want to see you.”
I push the pants and boxers to the floor, fling the T-shirt somewhere behind me, and drop to the far end of the couch on my knees. “Spread those legs, Daisy,” I demand, and she complies with a quiet gasp.
I run my index finger over her, from her clit to her entrance and back. “You’re dripping for me,” I say, sucking a finger into my mouth.
“I’ve been like this for weeks,” she says with a shaky laugh, and Jesus Christ, those words alone could probably make me blow.
I push her thighs farther apart and bury my face between her legs the way I desperately wanted to the other night.
“You don’t have to,” she breathes.
“Why not? Am I missing your clit like everyone else?”
Her laugh turns into a gasp as my tongue resumes. “No. No, I’m pretty sure you’ve found it. Jesus.”
My tongue flickers as I circle her entrance and she moans, so I do it again, applying more pressure. I slide one finger inside her and then a second. It’s such a tight fit that I hiss between my teeth at the idea of getting inside her.
“Let me make it good for you,” I tell her. “Too hard? Too soft? I want you to tell me exactly what you need.”
She sucks in a breath. “I just—oh God, Harrison. That’s good. Like that. You don’t have to keep going, but—”
I push two fingers in again, against her inside wall, and let my tongue resume.
“Faster,” she pleads. “With your fingers. Oh, fuck. Yes. That’s perfect.”
She’s arching to get closer to me, her hand palming my scalp, tugging my hair. Her breath comes faster and faster. My tongue picks up speed, in time with my fingers.
“I’m already close,” she whispers. “Oh, God.”
She clamps down on my fingers as she goes over the edge, her head falling backward. There are certain things you can’t fake, and the way she’s convulsing against my fingers is among them.
My pride in this is almost indecent. It’s every best moment I’ve ever had combined—my biggest wave, my first aerial, graduating. It’s all of them together and twice as good, and I’m so fucking hard as she curses and tugs at my hair that I can’t even exult in it too much.
Her eyes open slowly, and she gives me a crooked grin. “ Okay, that was worth it.” Her hand slides down to stroke me. “I wanted to be the one doing this Monday night,” she says. Her thumb runs over the head of my cock, spreading the moisture there. She strokes me again, and I wrap my hand around her wrist.
“You’ve got to stop,” I groan.
She frowns, already wounded, and I laugh. “I’m not saying I want you to stop. I’m just saying I’m going to come if you keep going, and I’d rather be inside you.”
Her mouth curves and her legs open. “Then by all means, get inside me.”
Fuck . I can see why the men she’s been with have been such a disappointment. Who could possibly last when she’s smiling the way she is, when she’s demanding I get inside her in that raspy voice?
I climb above her. “Do I need anything?”
“No,” she says, suddenly breathless. “Just please—” She raises her hips, urging me to hurry, and I slam inside her in a single hard thrust that knocks the breath from us both.
My mouth finds hers as I thrust again, my hand sliding up to palm a breast, to pinch her nipple. “Fuck, Daisy, this is not going to last.”
“I don’t care,” she says, and it frees me to stop caring too. We become tongues and teeth and grasping hands, and when my teeth clamp down on her nipple and she cries out, I nearly lose it right then.
I want to watch, but I know it’ll put me over the edge. I want to make it last, but it’s too wet, too good, too urgent. I come hard inside her with a low groan against her neck. I can’t say I’ve ever had sex I’d consider bad, but this is something else entirely. When I collapse on top of her—still hard and certain that I’ll need more from her in a minute or two—it’s as if I’ve come home.