“I need to get some pretty bras,” she said, her breath catching on the last word as his teeth lightly scored the side of her neck. “I have too many”—she lost track of what she was saying for a moment when he moved to just beneath her ear—“sports bras. They’re not very sexy.”
“Everything you wear is sexy,” he said against her throat. “You could make granny panties hot. Or a flannel, one-piece Union suit. Or those plastic clogs—even the orange ones.”
She was laughing again, and he caught the sound with his mouth, turning it into a needy moan. It was different than she’d expected. Even in all her daydreams, she’d never imagined that sex with Chris would be so much fun. When he nipped at her lip, making her gasp, she lost track of her thoughts and just felt.
Taking his time, he explored her body, touching and kissing and telling her why each part was his new favorite. He loved her ears because of the way she’d tuck her hair behind them, and her toes just because they were cute. Her elbows made him a fan when she’d jab him teasingly. He knew she could use them to really hurt him if she tried, but she never did, even when he was at his most annoying. The indentation above her breastbone reminded him of how vulnerable she was, and her biceps of how strong. Chris told her how he loved her knees and her shoulder blades, the back of her neck, and her belly button.
By the time he was finished cataloging her assets, she was panting and sweating and so worked up she was ready to scream. That was when he donned a condom and slid inside her, and she was ready, more than ready.
“God, you feel amazing,” he groaned, and then he kissed her fiercely. Locking her fingers in his hair, she pulled his head down, needing him as close as she could get him. Not breaking the contact of their mouths, he started to move, and the wonderful pressure began to build again.
Tangling her legs around him, she tugged at his hair, wanting to make him as frantic as she felt. His breath caught, and he pulled back far enough to study her face. After a few seconds, he bared his teeth in a wild grin and lost control.
His patience from earlier was gone, smashed to bits, but Daisy didn’t care—in fact, she reveled in his urgency. She clung to him and lost herself in the heat and pleasure of the motion. It was fast and hard and shoved Daisy over the edge into bliss before she even knew her climax was coming. She clutched at his shoulders as she rode the unexpected wave of ecstasy, aware that she was digging her short nails into his skin again, but unable to let him go. Chris didn’t seem to mind her roughness. In fact, he matched it with an intensity of his own, driving into her until he found his own pleasure.
After he disposed of the condom, they lay tangled together, sweaty and breathing harder than after their toughest cross-fit workout, and a breeze from the window swept over them. It would’ve been too cold if she’d been alone. Since Chris’s lax body covered most of her, Daisy felt the air touch only her cheeks and one arm. It was perfect, a sign that she was moving forward—with Chris, with letting go of her fears, with her life. Suddenly filled with such euphoria that she could almost feel her body floating off the bed, she tightened her arms around Chris, her rock.
He stirred in response, pushing himself up so he could look at her face.
“Okay, Dais?” He brushed a damp strand of hair off her cheek, and she remembered him telling her how much he loved that hair and that cheek. She smiled.
“I don’t know if I mentioned it tonight.” She mirrored his motion on his much-shorter hair. It wasn’t long enough to hang in his face, but she brushed it with her fingers anyway. “Since you were talking so much, I couldn’t really get a word in edgewise.”
With a mock insulted look, he began to tickle her. He seemed to instinctively identify all of her most sensitive spots, and he ruthlessly took advantage of that knowledge. When he’d reduced her to laughing, pleading exhaustion, he finally showed mercy.
“You were saying?”
Wiping the mirth-induced tears from her eyes, she tried to glare at him. It was difficult to do while she was still giving the occasional hiccup of laughter. “What I was saying, before that unprovoked attack, was that I love you—as in love-love you.”
“You love-love me?” He appeared to be holding back a smirk—not very successfully. “Is the double love different from the single love?”
When she shoved his shoulder, he didn’t budge. “I mean that I love you, and not in a just-friends way.”
“I know.” He rolled off her and stood next to the bed.
She frowned at his smug tone. “That’s not the right response.”
“Fine. I love you, too, in not a just-friends way. Is that better?” His grin was too contagious, and she fought returning it.
“Not really,” she grumbled. “Maybe in about twenty years, when we’re an old married couple, and this is old hat, but it’s pretty new hat right now, so I was hoping for a little more passion—eep!”
He picked her up and swung her off the bed, ending her monologue. “Shower?”
A shower sounded wonderful. Everything with him sounded wonderful. “Okay. Race you.”
*