Chapter Seventeen #2
“So this is what I think we should do.” She straightens her back and lifts her face to meet mine, confident and so achingly perfect. “We should have sex.”
“Say something.” Daisy sits at the other end of the sofa, hugging her shins like a shield.
My mind is a hurricane of a million thoughts, so I steady myself by leaning my elbows onto my knees. She poured us two whiskeys, neat, but they remain untouched on the coffee table. I spin my glass, flirting with the idea of drinking like we’re both flirting with the idea of this.
I’m not convinced I’m even awake right now.
“There’s been…tension,” Daisy says. “Ever since that day at your parents’ house.”
Desire stirs deep within me. Daisy had crawled onto my lap like she belonged there.
“And rather than tiptoe around each other,” she goes on, “especially with a project that’s important to both of us, let’s just take care of it. You made it sound like maybe you wouldn’t hate having sex with me, either.”
The corner of my mouth quirks up. Sex with Daisy—what alternate universe have I landed in that this is not only a possibility, but something we’re talking about as casually as grabbing a drink after work?
“Wouldn’t be awful.”
She thwacks me with a pillow before I have the chance to blink, and we both laugh—deep, genuine laughs, like the ones we shared over ice cream cones and late-night phone calls.
“So…just tonight?” I croak out, making sure I understand her correctly.
“Get it out of our system, then back to business as usual.”
We’ve spent the last twenty minutes nursing our undrunk whiskey, discussing what “usual” would look like.
Daisy’s a pro at compartmentalization, so she laid out the terms. The museum would remain the priority.
Also, we wouldn’t have sex again, which would minimize further complications with me living here—all the more reason to make sure I don’t mess this up.
Tonight only, and only tonight.
My chest aches knowing that this is the only way Daisy would ever want me: a single night, a memory as transient as my time in Harlow.
“You can tell me no,” she says. “But if we’re both feeling some attraction, and we’re both curious, then we don’t have to put the pressure of a relationship on ourselves, or anything beyond one night. But once we know what it’s like being with the other person, we can stop imagining it.”
“And…” I turn the idea over in my head, trying to understand where Daisy’s coming from. “It wouldn’t be this big unknown anymore.”
“Exactly. Not a missed opportunity. Just…a reality of our friendship.”
“What if you regret it?” I ask.
“Would you?”
“If I hurt you, I would.”
I let Daisy down once in my life, and I never want to again.
She has only ever been mine in the wild imaginings of my mind, so as much as I might want this, I don’t want to douse our friendship in gasoline and throw a match over my shoulder.
With reality knocking, all the reasons we shouldn’t do this have me second-guessing.
“What about you?” I ask once more. “Would you regret this? Me?”
“No, but I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
Would one night with her be what I need?
Maybe I’ve unknowingly placed Daisy on a pedestal all these years, and I could learn something from the way she packs her feelings away.
With all the women I’ve dated, I knew in my heart that I held back from them.
Breaking up and staying friends was easy because there was always a niggling part of my brain wondering, wishing…
If I close the door on that for good, then maybe I could move on.
“Okay.” My heartbeat pounds like a drum in my ears. “But if it gets too intense, then we stop. No questions asked.”
“Agreed.” She nods. “And no matter what, we stay friends.”
“No more six-year silences?”
A smile plays on her lips. “Deal.”
The joy and terror of the unknown swallow me. We won’t be able to go back to who we were before tonight. But I’ve always kept my emotions in check with past girlfriends and hookups, and I tell myself Daisy doesn’t have to be any different.
“So should we…?” She looks at the couch we’re on.
“Eager.”
“Max,” she says with a laugh, rolling her eyes.
“I get it. No time like the present.”
She smacks my arm. “I just figured I’ll call a food order in, we can do our thing, and we’ll have a delicious pizza waiting for us once we’re done.”
“Already planning the post-sex meal? Thorough.”
“Thank you.”
“But what makes you think this will take the twenty minutes tops it takes for a pizza to get here?”
She stutters out a tense laugh. I’m not joking, though, and when I don’t reply, she goes quiet. What guys has she been with if she expects to wrap things up, start to finish, in under half an hour?
If this is our only night together, then I’m going to make it one to remember.
“Let me be clear,” I say, leaning back on the couch, my body angled in her direction.
“We’re doing this your way, your rules—and I agree to them.
But it’s still sex, and I don’t do sex with a timer.
It’s not even about an end goal for me. It’s about feeling good—about making you feel good.
” My cock is already hardening at the thought of what Daisy will look like and sound like when we’re together.
“If you and I are doing this…getting each other out of our systems, then I think another rule should be that we don’t hold back. ”
“Okay.” She licks her top lip, then nods. “Then pizza can wait.”
“Good. The bedroom’s better.” I stand and offer her my hand. “In the common area we share, it might make things weird.”
She leads the way, running her hand over Freddie, who’s passed out on the back of the couch.
Her room reminds me a lot of how she decorated as a teen, but more refined.
A gallery wall of framed images and concert tickets has replaced magazine clippings and vision boards.
Instead of a beanbag chair, she has a red vintage armchair and an ottoman.
She’s added a cute touch to every lamp, covering them with silk scarves to diffuse the lighting.
I pause between the doorway and her bed, and she turns to stare at me. We’re standing on the edge of something, ready to fall together, but we have to jump first.
“Is this strange for you?” she asks, bathed in the golden light.
“It’s more formulaic than I’m used to.”
“Sorry. Alex and I were so busy most of the time that we had to schedule sex, so I talk about this like I’m making brunch plans.”
“Don’t apologize,” I say. She has some strands of hair dangling in front of her eyes, so I brush them behind her ear. “But please don’t mention Alex right now.”
“Sure.” She swallows, and her eyes dart down to my mouth for a millisecond. “Are you going to kiss me?”
“Maybe. Are you going to laugh at me again?”
“If I can find an air mattress on its last breath, then probably.”
I grin. “Let me run a quick errand.”
“Max, would you kiss me already and—”
In an abrupt swoop, I dip my head down so our lips meet.
The connection is sweet and simple—the kissing equivalent of reading the room.
Our mouths together feel like coming home after a long trip away, comforting and right.
We both take tiny steps to close the space between our bodies, and my hands lift to cradle each side of her jaw.
Daisy wraps an arm around me, her hand snaking under my shirt while her cool palm on my back makes me shudder.
Our lips find each other again, this time parting so our tongues reach out, seeking and searching.
She releases the softest moan against my mouth, and the sensation travels directly to my dick.
All the nagging worries—that this will change our friendship forever, that I won’t be good enough for her, or that Tate is too far away from Harlow—escape my thoughts whenever I’m around her.
They all shift to the background as we become two entangled bodies, heat and breath and need.
She tastes minty and sweet, overpowering and gentle, and the flavor instantly becomes my favorite.
“We’re really doing this,” she murmurs, trailing her hands to my chest.
I grunt in response. All that talk before about not racing to the finish line, and I can’t wait for what’s next.
I’m overwhelmed by her—her curves, her soft lips, her satiny hair, and the way my skin turns to fire under her touch.
She coaxes me to the mattress and we fall onto it, enmeshed in each other.
I’m here with Daisy Johnson, my childhood fantasy. My adult fantasy, if I’m being honest. She’s perfect, and I’m in bed with her.
“I can’t believe I get to do this,” I say between kissing the clusters of freckles and beauty marks on her neck. “In high school, I dreamed of this.”
“You could have told me. I always liked hearing you talk about your dreams.”
“Even if you hadn’t been dating someone, I didn’t stand a chance.”
“Don’t do that.” She pulls back an inch so we’re breathing each other in. “Don’t make me some unattainable thing. I’m just Daisy.”
The Daisy I rode bikes with and broke into neighbors’ pools with. The Daisy I always looked for first at house parties. The Daisy who, whether I liked it or not, I compared every other woman I dated to.
“Just Daisy.” My breath hitches, and she hooks one leg up and over my hip.
“Good.” She fights a coy smile. “So when you fuck me, it’s like fucking any other girl, okay?”
That will be impossible, but I gulp and nod anyway.
She presses into me for another kiss, and my chest explodes.
“Since we’re sharing,” she says, “remember when you ran me that bath earlier this week? I, um, I had a solo session thinking of you.”
I immediately prop up on an elbow. “Seriously?”
Her yes sparks through me. Daisy was thinking of me while she was getting off. I’m pretty sure I can die happy now.
I look at the ceiling as I recall that night with new information. “Guess that explains the humming and splashing sounds.”
“You heard me?” Her jaw goes slack in half amusement, half horror.
“I suppose so,” I say, resting my hand on her hip. I can’t believe I get to put my hand here.
“You let me walk around all week after you’d overheard me masturbating through the bathroom door?”
“In my defense, I didn’t know you were masturbating. Or thinking about me.”
She crushes me with another kiss, and she’s laughing into me—melting into me.
My hand slips underneath the hem of her tee, searching for her bra.
I cup her left breast and my brain hits a snag because this is all too good.
We’re back to wrapped limbs and wet kisses, and I’m sucking on the crook of her neck while she’s gripping my butt.
In the organized mess, she lifts my shirt up and over my head.
I’ve never been the guy who works out all the time, but Daisy scans my body while her strawberry-pink tongue darts out to wet her lower lip, like I’m all she craves.
I help her shimmy out of her T-shirt, revealing more tattoos—a rabbit perched atop one hip bone, a coyote howling above the other, and a hissing snake at her breastbone. My fingers skim each design as I commit them to memory. They’re miniature pieces of art, just for me. Just for tonight.
She’s draped in front of me in jeans and a semi-sheer bra, so see-through I could trace the outline of her pert nipples.
I’ve seen her before in bikinis, and I stole glances that time we went skinny-dipping—images of her naked body are seared into my brain for life—but seeing her partially undressed has my cock pressed so tight against my pants I could come right now.
Reminding myself to breathe, one of my hands works its way up Daisy’s lean torso.
I take one nipple in my mouth, bra and all, and she lets out a sharp breath.
Daisy writhes next to me, and in a fleeting moment, I tug the undergarment out from between us.
Her skin is as smooth as still waters, and her nipples are rock hard.
My tongue trails around one, but I barely get a taste before she pushes me into the mattress and perches atop my erection.
The pressure is too much, too right. She scooches her hips back and fumbles with my fly to give me some room.
Then, Daisy grinds against my crotch, and I let out a guttural groan.
“What do you like?” she asks, pinning me with a hand on each side of my head.
“Whatever you just did.”
Her laugh is a hit of dopamine, and I’m already riding the high of every touch and burning gaze.
“What turns you on? We’re not holding back. So, any certain positions? Kinks? Blindfolds?”
“No blindfolds.” I don’t want a single thing getting between my eyes and Daisy coming undone. “Any position.” I free my hands so my fingers trace a path to her breast again, outlining her pillow-soft curves. “I guess…I like dirty talk, from time to time.”
“Dirty talk?” Her pupils expand, and I can’t tell if she’s surprised or turned on. “Giving or receiving?”
“Both. But only if it feels right. Only if you’ll let me.”
“Mhmm.” She nods, eager. “Yeah, I…that sounds nice.”
“Okay.” I smirk and settle my hands at the dip of her waist. “What about you?”
A wicked smile spreads across her mouth. “Coming.”
“Yeah?” I pull her down to my level, mouth to mouth, and her breasts mold to me. She’s a dream, and that’s what tonight will always be: a dream. I can handle that—I can do just one night.
I’m going to savor every second, though.
She juts her hips forward, sending a jolt of pleasure from my cock to the rest of my body.
Electric. Breaking our kiss, Daisy shifts to my left and gropes around near the nightstand, seeking, I presume, a condom.
I follow the line of her arm into the drawer and notice an oblong, bright fuchsia object tilted on its side.
“What’s that?”
“Just…it’s my vibrator.”
I lift an eyebrow and reach, needing to hold it myself. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing,” she says, shutting the drawer.
“C’mon.”
She huffs. “Fine. Go for it.” She shrugs and motions toward the nightstand.
Curiosity piqued, I pull out the toy and examine it. The outside has a velvet-soft touch, and it has a long shaft and bulbous tip. I press a raised button on one end, and the device hums to life.
“It’s got different speeds. You can rotate through with—”
“I’ve used vibrators before.” I situate another pillow behind my head as I familiarize myself with the intensity and vibration patterns. Daisy fidgets, obviously getting impatient.
“Can I use this with you?” I ask.
“You want to?”
I might lose my mind, but I’m willing to risk it.
“I’ll only use it if you want.”
“Sure. I just…” She bites at the wet, thick bottom part of her lip. “With any guys I’ve been with, they seemed kind of threatened by it. I don’t use it with other people.”
“Well then, I guess I’ll be your first.”