I keep my eyes locked on hers as I place my lips over her clit and suck. She throws her head back as she shouts incoherently. I nip at her thigh until her head tips back down at me. “Eyes on me if you want to come.”
She nods frantically as I get back to work, swirling my tongue over and around her bundle of nerves, keeping the same cadence I quickly learned she liked before.
Her fingers run through my hair as if to keep me in place. It’s cute that she thinks I’d rather be anywhere else. “You’re coating my tongue. Give me more, Daisy. I want it all.”
The sting of her pulling my hair only riles me up further as I relentlessly work her over with my tongue. She comes seconds later on a scream that sounds like the most beautiful symphony.
She slumps back on the couch as I lazily run my hands up and down her thighs, feeling the little body twitches the orgasm has left in its wake. I force myself to cover her up with the pathetic scrap of material and ignore the raging hard-on in my joggers.
I don’t bother moving us as I reach back for the bottle of lotion and start reapplying over the redness that’s burning a touch brighter than before. “Look what you made me do. Now I’ve got to start over,” I chastise.
“Dammit, Luke. You really have created a monster,” she mumbles to herself, and it takes me a moment to realize I haven’t stopped grinning.
“In you go, you sexual fiend.” I pull up the comforter and guide Daisy into bed.
“Who, me?” She bats her eyes innocently as she settles on her pillow.
I round the bed, tossing all the pillows I know we won’t need onto the floor. Because tonight I fully intend on sleepingwrapped around her. Hope she’s okay with the amount of cuddles coming her way.
I turn off the lights, and we’re basked in the midnight moon’s glow. These windows can be set to go completely blackout, but I’ve always enjoyed feeling like I’m sleeping outside, under the stars. Not being caged in by the four walls that always seem like they’re one bad headline away from closing in on me.
I lean back, and before I’m able to call her to me, Daisy rolls over and drapes herself across my chest, burrowing into my side like a perfect puzzle piece.
I exhale deeply, relishing the feeling of my hands roaming freely over her back as her fingers trace over my tattoos.
Some of them have deep meaning and others I got when I was young and stupid. I haven’t inked myself in five years, and I’ve missed the feeling of the needle on my skin. Of coming up with an idea and having an artist bring my vision to life, even if it’s a simple doodle.
Over the last year, I’ve had to stop myself on multiple occasions from getting new ink. I even walked out of an appointment after telling myself I would look like a complete lunatic for getting a certain flower tatted on my chest.
But having the real thing, the woman currently rambling sleepily between yawns, is better than any ink I could have gotten.
Besides, this woman is buried under my skin far beyond where ink can reach.
Her musings stop and her breathing evens out. Her cheek is pressed to my chest with her arm wrapped around my middle.
I realize in this moment what a gift I’ve been given. To have a woman like Daisy trust me with her body, and hopefully her heart as well.
Unfortunately, it’s also in this moment that the dark thoughts decide to rear their ugly heads again. I try to take a few deepbreaths without waking her and think of a few things I can see, feel, and smell.
Daisy, Daisy, Daisy.
But it’s no use.
I should have known that true peace could never exist for a person like me.
It’s the reason I ran away all those years ago.
Why I don’t keep close relationships and prefer my solitude.
It’s how I know for a fact that I don’t deserve someone as amazing as Daisy, but fuck if I’m too desperate and selfish to make myself walk away when I know I should.
So instead, I close my eyes and let the demons come for their pound of flesh as my mind replays that horrible night on a loop. I suppose it was only a matter of time before they threatened to drown me whole, even as I try to focus on every one of Daisy’s exhales.
The hours pass in agony as I relive the past while trying to cling to my future.
But I guess that’s the life I’m due when I’m the reason two people are dead.
twenty-four
