She read the tension in his jaw, saw the way his fists clenched, blanching his knuckles white. The war between desire and fear played across every nerve in his body, and she saw his struggle, read every unspoken word.
“It’s okay.”
Still, he hesitated. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her hands found his jaw, pulling his gaze back to her eyes. “You won’t. I trust you, Jack.”
Four words. Four syllables that carried the weight of his entire soul.
She trusted him. Not blindly, not naively, but with the fierce, clear-eyed certainty of a woman who understood exactly what she was offering and to whom.
His breath left him in a shudder that traveled from his chest to his fingertips.
He captured her wrists and pressed them gently into the pillow above her head, holding them in one hand while his other gripped the base of his cock. She didn’t struggle or ask why he needed it to be this way.
She already knew.
Looking up at him with those brilliant green eyes, completely open, completely still, she surrendered. “I’m ready.”
His breath hitched as he notched himself at her tight entrance. The broad crown of his cock parted her slick folds, making one shallow dip before meeting resistance.
The heat of her radiated against his sensitive tip like a furnace, and the restraint required to hold himself there, on the threshold of heaven, nearly split him open.
No pain. No screams. Only the pleasure of her welcoming him.
“Don’t close your eyes.” His voice was a raw plea. “I need you to look at me.” He needed to stay grounded in her presence and not get lost in the past.
Her gaze locked with his. “I see you, Jack.”
Her words squeezed like a fist around his heart. She was so real with him, so patient. If only she knew?—
No. None of that mattered anymore. She brought new meaning to his existence. “Daisy,” he whispered, dragging his lips over her soft skin.
“Jack…”
He pressed forward.
The softest whimper passed her lips, and he kissed it away.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad it’s you.”
Emotion reared inside of him, fierce and protective. “Me too.”
This was a first for both of them in more ways than she could have possibly realized. And he was determined to make sure her first time was nothing like his own.
He pushed a little deeper, and the initial resistance faded as her body yielded, opening around him in a slow, tight embrace that stole coherent thought from his skull. He sank an inch and stopped, his jaw clenching so hard his molars ground together, every nerve ending screaming with the effort of not driving deeper.
Long and trembling, her breath washed across his collarbone.
No pain, only pleasure.
The rightness of a lock finally meeting its key.
“More,” she whispered.
He sank a little deeper, and her walls fluttered around him, adjusting, accepting, drawing him closer with a pulsing warmth that made his vision blur at the edges. She was tight in a way that bordered on unbearable, her inexperienced body gripping him with fierce natural instinct.
