“You’re taking this the wrong way. You don’t get it. You should feel lucky you don’t have to work as hard as I do just to stay afloat.”
She shakes her head. “No, Carter, you don’t get it. You think the world owes you something because so far you haven’t had the best luck. Well, guess what? You’re not the only person who thinks you were jousted by life. I’m twenty-one, I’ve never been on an airplane, and I’ve never been out of the state of Colorado. Friends? Didn’t know what they were until a few months ago. Being intimate with a man? Yeah, have no idea what that’s like. I’m so sheltered, so cut off from this world. For each new experience I have to constantly deal with high anxiety and the constant questioning of myself, making sure I’m not coming on too strong or being insensitive because the only true human interaction I had was with my grams. This is all new to me and don’t you think I feel like I’ve been missing out? Because I have. I’ve missed out on everything. Prom, first boyfriends, sneaking out just to spite my parents, and doing stupid stuff every teenager does just for the heck of it. That’s all foreign to me. You might feel like life owes you something, but it owes me too. Life isn’t all cotton candy and rainbows over here.”
“Then let’s change that,” I say, staring her down, like a wolf eyes his prey.
“What do you mean?” she asks, looking like a scared little lamb.
“You want reality? You want to fall from the clouds? How’s this for you?” I take a few steps toward her, closing the distance between us. “When I first saw you at Dear Life, in those hideous overalls and a turtleneck, all I could think about was what you might be hiding underneath. And then you opened your mouth.” I take another step. “Your voice, so innocent, so pure, it hit me straight in the gut like nothing I’d ever experienced before.” Another step. “Then you smiled, and I thought I got sucker-punched in the goddamn jaw. You were so bright, so untouched.” Finally reaching her, I cup her cheek. Is she this soft everywhere else? “And then I saw your heart, and I thought it was a fucking dream. How could this intricate snowflake, so crystal clear yet complex, how could she even want to talk to me?” Reaching with the other hand, I cup the back of her neck. “But you did, and fuck if I haven’t thought about you every day since then.” I take a deep breath and leap forward. “I like you, Daisy, more than I should, because we both know you should be hanging out with someone a whole lot better than me, but hell if I’ll let that happen, not when you still find me interesting. Call me a selfish prick, a fucking asshole, but you make me forget everything around me. You’re an authentic beauty, but not the everyday kind. You only meet a Daisy once in a lifetime, and fuck if I’m going to let this chance pass me by.”
Before she can answer, I crash my lips to hers. My fingers dig into her skin, electrifying our connection, forcing her to do the same.
Tentatively, her hands shake in the best way possible as she presses her palms against my roughened jaw. Her lips, so soft; her touch, so gentle; the light mews coming from her mouth, so fucking bone jarring because they’re not fake. They’re real. She’s so real, from the innocent look she gives me when she’s about to learn something new, to the way she smiles while joking, to the lustful look I see right before I’m about to kiss her.
So fucking real.
And that right there, that is what has me clinging to her. As if I can’t let go.
Her innocence, her purity, the way she sees this world unfiltered. I’m addicted.
Pushing her up against the sheet-covered window, I press my hips against hers, pinning her. She doesn’t try to move. Instead, she sinks into my touch, her body melting like butter against me, fully giving herself over.
There are no walls, no boundaries between us. From her face, I move my hands down her neck, past her shoulders to her rib cage, my thumbs dancing dangerously close to her breasts. On a sexy gasp, her lips disengage from mine, her eyes wide from the way my thumbs are gently caressing the skin right below her breasts.
“Carter,” she says breathlessly, searching my eyes. She bites her bottom lip, a nervous look about her. “I’ve never, um, done anything of the sexual nature.”
Deep in my throat, a bark of laughter wants to come out from her phrasing. “The sexual nature.” Only Daisy would say something like that. But to avoid humiliating her, I tamp down my reaction, swallow hard and say, “I kind of guessed that, Snowflake.”
“Is it that obvious?” Her cheeks stain red. Of course it’s that obvious, but that’s not a negative thing. Her purity, I love it.
I press our palms together and hold them up by our shoulders, looking in those beautifully shy eyes of hers. “It’s not obvious. I just know your past, where you’ve come from.”
“Do you think I’m a loser?”
“What? No,” I respond angrily. “Why the hell would I think that?”
Her shoulders move, unsure as to why she would ask me that question.
“Being cool is not defined by how provocative you’ve been in your earlier years, but by the kind of person you are on the inside. And after hearing about the stories with your grams and the way you treat everyday life occurrences with a smile, makes me believe you’re pretty fucking cool.”
Her bright smile eats me alive. “You’re pretty cool yourself, Carter.”
“I damn well better be in your eyes.”
“You are.” With trepidation, she stands on her toes and presses a kiss against my lips, our bodies settling against each other once again. I love how she reached out to me this time. She pursued me. Me. “I have a question or you,” she says when she breaks apart from my lips.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
Her fingers play with the back of my head, twisting and turning in my short strands. “Would you want to maybe meet my grams? Just because she wants to know who I’m hanging out with. You know, she’s very protective and since—”
“Sure,” I say to silence her. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?” she asks, that smile becoming impossibly bright.
“You make out with me on the couch. This talking is driving me fucking crazy. I just want your lips on mine.”
Nervously, she says, “Um, okay, but I’m not . . . ready, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, neither am I,” I answer.
“Wait, what?” she asks, looking a little insulted, which only makes me chuckle.
“Yeah, that’s right, I’m not ready to go much farther with you either. Just because everything about you turns me on doesn’t mean I’m about to bone you up against the window. When you have a connection like ours, you cherish it. Don’t worry about me pushing things past making out and some heavy petting.”
“Heavy petting?” she asks, a rise of her eyebrow. So fucking cute.
“Well, yeah, you can’t make me stay away from your tits for too long. I’m a man, for fuck’s sake.”