“That’s quite all right,” she whispered. The spot of pink began to spread across her cheeks. Beckett watched, mesmerized by the change. Somewhere far away, an alarm sounded. Maybe it was in his head, telling him that holding Daisy like this wasn’t a good idea. There were lines a man shouldn’t cross with his best friend’s little sister. He’d blown right over them and his brain was sending a constant buzz-buzz to tell him to stop. In one swift move, he had Daisy back in her seat and his arms back to his sides and everything was back to normal. Except that nothing was normal inside of him. His heart pounded erratically and there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. And that alarm still buzz-buzzed in his head.
Vivian sighed heavily. “We’ll have to edit Quinton’s alarm out. I thought you told him to turn it down.”
Beckett tugged his ear, realizing that the buzz came from behind Quinton’s closed door. It didn’t matter where the alarm sounded; the important thing was that he had listened to it and put space between him and Daisy before Quinton caught them together.
Not that they were together in a bad way.
Not that there was a bad way to be together.
He and Daisy could date, hug, and kiss. It was more like they shouldn’t be together—for Quinton’s sake.
Daisy dropped the cotton balls back into the cream. Her leg brushed his under the computer desk. He didn’t dare look at her to see if she’d initiated the contact on purpose or if it had been an accident. Her pink cheeks had about done him in a few seconds ago. No sense eyeing up the temptation. In fact … “Here.” He grabbed the cotton balls, pressed out the excess cream, and plopped them over his closed eyelids. “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yeah,” she croaked. “I mean, yes, that’s right.”
He felt pressure on the cotton balls as she adjusted them. Her hand ran down the side of his face. His eyes rolled up in his head with the pleasure of her touch.
“You had a drip.”
“Thanks.” Thank goodness for the cotton balls.
Daisy did a quick summary for the audience. He could feel her move away when she went to the other side of the desk to watch video with Vivian. The longer he sat there, the more he felt like an idiot. Not necessarily for sitting there with cotton balls on his face, but for falling all over himself because Daisy bumped his shoulder. They’d been through bigger clashes than that as kids. Daisy was tough. She’d scrape half her knee off, push her bike back up, and chase after him and Quinton. He never used to worry over her like he had moments before. She probably thought he was acting weird.
A timer dinged and Daisy was beside him again. He could smell her deep, feminine smell. There were all sorts of scents mixed up in there. Coconut. Some sort of flower. Cinnamon … no, cloves. And more he couldn’t identify.
She explained that the ten-minute wait time was over and pulled the cotton balls off his eyes. He blinked several times. Before he could wipe or rub his eyes, she brushed a warm, wet cloth over them and then repeated the process with a dry cloth. Her ministrations were butterfly-wing soft and he found himself softening under her touch. It was like all the horrible moments in his life were on one end of a scale and this moment was on the other, and this was stronger, heavy enough to fill him with contentment. He could have sat there all day long, breathing Daisy’s perfume and experiencing his personal nirvana.
“… you can see that besides reducing the dark circles under his eyes, the cream has had a calming effect.” Daisy’s voice floated into his consciousness. He smiled without opening his eyes.
“I’ve got a tranquilizer that’ll do the same,” said Quinton from the doorway.
Beckett’s eyes flew open and he jumped out of his seat. The chair tipped and he held onto the back of it to keep it from crashing to the floor. “Thanks for everything, Daisy. I’m going to head out with Quinton and, you know, build something.”
Daisy twirled a section of hair around her finger. “O-kay. You have fun building things.”
Beckett squinted, checking her cheek to make sure there was no evidence of their earlier contact. Her skin was as clear and beautiful as ever. So soft and velvety-looking …
“Dude?” Quinton snapped his fingers in front of Beckett’s face.
“Sorry—Something in my eye.” He ducked into the hallway, pretending to work something out of the corner of his eye.
Quinton followed, shutting Daisy’s door behind him. When he caught Beckett watching, he lifted his eyebrows as if to say,You want to go back in there? You’d better think twice about that.Which made Beckett think twice about Daisy, right before he thought about her a third time, and he hadn’t even made it to the kitchen.
Just as they were about to turn the corner, Daisy’s door burst open. “Beckett?”
He spun around, his arms feeling like they could float away from his body at the sound of her voice. “Yeah?”
Daisy hung halfway out the door, her hair swinging free and her eyes glinting. “Can we go shopping tomorrow, or will you still be building stuff?”
He moved his focus to the doorframe just above Daisy’s head. “I can cut out for a few hours.”
“Great. I’ll text you.” She disappeared and the door shut softly with a click.
He exhaled.
Quinton clapped him on the back. Hard. “I don’t envy you shopping with those two.”
Beckett arched against the sting. “I think I can handle it.”
