Page 153 of Fake it ’Til Fall

I move harder, and she takes it with a sound that goes straight through me. Her fingers dig into my skin. Her mouth opens against mine, and the things she says are filthy, brilliant, breathless little insults that make me want to laugh and lose my mind at the same time.

She clings to me, forehead pressed to mine, breath coming in broken little bursts.

That’s when it changes again.

The heat stays. The rhythm stays. But something softer gets underneath it, something neither of us invited and neither of us can push out of the room.

Her eyes find mine.

For a second, she looks scared.

Not of me.

Of how much she’s here.

I slow without stopping. “I’ve got you.”

Her mouth trembles once.

She hates that. I can tell.

She hates needing it.

She hates believing it more.

“Don’t make that sound romantic,” she whispers.

“It is romantic.”

“No, it’s not.” Her fingers slide into my hair. “It’s . . . aggressively supportive.”

I almost smile.

Then she pulls my mouth down to hers and kisses me like she’s done arguing with herself.

After that, there is no clean thought left. Only Daisy under me, around me, wanting me with a kind of honesty that makes my chest ache. Only her name in my mouth, her hands on my back, her breath breaking each time I give her what she asked for.

I fuck her like I mean it.

Because I do.

That is the part I will have to survive later.

For now, she arches beneath me and says my name again, not like a joke this time, not like a threat.

Like she trusts me with the sound.

And I have never wanted anything more carefully in my life.

That is what breaks me.

Not the heat. Not the way she moves under me, taking every inch like she has decided to stop being polite about what she wants. Not even the way her nails drag down my back hard enough to make my breath leave through my teeth.

It’s the trust.

The terrible, quiet trust of Daisy Thorn looking up at me like she knows I could ruin her and believes I won’t.

I lower my forehead to hers.