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She stood next to the bed, smoothing her dress. “Yes?”
“Did you sleep with me last night to forget?”
After a beat, she nodded, and my chest cracked in two. I felt like I’d lost something, but I couldn’t name it.
“Did it work?” I shoved out of my tightened throat.
“For a little while,” she whispered. “Thank you for being there for me. Always.”
When she was gone, I got up and showered off her scent like I was getting rid of evidence of a crime. Last night had been…unwise, but also inevitable. I hadn’t had time to consider what I’d thought it was, but Daisy losing herself in me to take her mind off the man she loved marrying someone else had never crossed my mind.
Not when every second we’d spent in bed together had been all about her. Nothing beyond these walls had existed. That was my problem. Hyperfocusing on the wrong thing. Not seeing the forest for the trees. If I’d paid attention, I would have seen she wasn’t with me for me, but the distraction I could provide—the ability to make her feel good after the man she really wanted had crushed her to pieces.
With anyone else, I wouldn’t have minded being used in such a way, but this was Daisy. For her, in a different world, we’d have more than one night together. For me, if conditions favored us, I’d have all my nights with her.
The next time I saw Daisy, she greeted me with a smile that was unnatural on her. Lopsided. Not meeting her eyes. Like it was only there because it was held up by a string.
I’d taken her to a social event at my parents’ club—after ensuring they were off-continent on a wine tour in Italy with close friends. The way I was feeling, if I had a run-in with either of my parents, none of us would come away unscathed.
Daisy wore a navy blue sundress with one side of her hair pinned behind her ear. I swallowed the urge to stroke her bare skin with my fingers, my tongue, my lips, my cheeks. The only concession I gave myself was one light touch no sooner than ten minutes apart. My boundaries were the center of her back and the length of her bicep.
Daisy laughed at something the man we were speaking to said. Her arm brushed against mine, and she shared her crinkly smile with me. When she didn’t move away, keeping her arm aligned with and pressed against mine, I had to step to the side. We’d had several of those incidents already, and each time, I became more sure she was doing it on purpose.
She looked up at me, her crooked smile fading. “Should we go for a walk? I’m told there’s a lovely lake outside.”
“Man-made,” I replied.
“I think I’ll check it out. I could use some fresh air.”
She turned, heading for the doors leading outside. I gave myself a few minutes to decide: stay or follow. It was safer to remain where I was, but night had fallen, and now, Daisy was on her own out there, so it wasn’t safer for her.
I followed a path I’d taken a few times before. The gardens were ostentatious in their verdancy. Red rocks and sagebrush would have been more appropriate for the area, but I wasn’t a member shelling out the big bucks for the water bill so my opinion didn’t matter.
Daisy was standing on a short ledge, her elbows propped on a wooden railing overlooking the lake. Fountains shot water up in several spots, and colored spotlights made it somewhat of a show.
I stepped up behind her, bracing my hands on either side of her arms, allowing myself to do this on a technicality. We weren’t touching, but I was close to her, almost embracing her.
Her breathing shuddered, and her eyes fluttered closed.
That was all it took for me to be reckless once again.
Her breathing.
Something her body did automatically, without any effort or conscious thought.
Dear god, was I easy when it came to Daisy Dunham.
She leaned her head on my shoulder, and I gathered the back of her skirt until it was at her waist. Smoothing my palm down her lower back, I cupped her ass, hooking one finger around the barely-there floss between her cheeks.
“Miles,” she whispered, arching into me. The softness of her backside met my rigid cock, grinding against me.
We weren’t alone. People were outside, their voices carrying from the balcony of the room we’d just left. Anyone could walk the same path we’d taken and stumble across us, finding a couple wrapped in each other. A man in a suit, his jacket open, flanking a woman in an A-line dress, her skirt fluttering around her shins. They would not see her bare backside or her thong shoved to the side. Nor would they see me sliding my fingers through her folds to roll her swollen clit.
If they took one look at her face, tilted upward in the beginnings of rapture, they’d know. As it was, I was the only one being tortured by Daisy’s parted lips and huffing breaths as I toyed with her clit and ground my cock against her.
“Do it, Miles,” she breathed. “Fill me up.”
Rotating my wrist, I stuffed two fingers inside her. She bit down on a moan, her insides squeezing me.
