Page 43 of Apple of My Eye

She took my hand.

After everything, a year of circling around each other, of walls and careful distance and two steps forward and three back, Daisy May Wylde took my hand in the dark from her porch swing and led me inside and up the stairs like we were going to bust down that wall between us once and for all.

I followed her and didn’t say a word, because I had learned the best thing I could do at times was let her lead…

The bedroom smelled like her—the faint lavender stuff of Sage’s bath oil. I could never smell lavender and not think of Daisy now. She turned to face me.

In the low light of her bedside lamp, with her red hair loose around her shoulders and her jacket still on over her nightgown, at last, she was everything I had been waiting for. And I had been very patient.

“You’re here now with me, and all you can do is stare?” She fluttered her eyelashes.

“I’ve earned the right, haven’t I? Been a good boy, waiting for you to come around?”

She played her lower lip between her teeth and nodded. She shimmied the jacket off her shoulders and let it fall. All that remained between me and her body was the long quilted gown with the zipper in front. I chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” She asked.

“Nothing. I’m simply wondering what you’re wearing under this granny robe.”

“Granny—? Hey, I’ll have you know that this is a very comfortable gown to wear around the house.”

“I don’t doubt it. I’m a huge fan. Drives my fantasies wild, curious to get a peek underneath.”

“Me first. I need a peek at you and all your muscles,” she complained.

“You could have looked any time you wanted over the past year. Just asked, if you’d have noticed me.”

“I noticed.” Her chin lifted slightly. “Didn’t want you to think I noticed.”

“It worked. But now?” He quirked a brow.

“Now take this off.” Her fingers curled into my Henley, pulling me down to her mouth. She kissed me the way she had kissed me in the cottage earlier this afternoon, like she had stopped arguing with herself about it and was simply doing the thing she wanted to do all this time. It was the best version of her I had ever encountered, and I intended to encourage more of this side of her considerably.

She lifted my Henley up. I removed it overhead and tossed it to the side, flexing my pecs for her. The way her eyes and fingertips roamed over my body did things to my already strained self-control.

“My turn.” I walked her backward to the bed and reached for the zipper of her nightgown. Inch by inch, I unzipped herand slipped it off. My Daisy—yes, the practical woman—did not disappoint, with her white cotton panties and matching bra. I stripped those from her, too, at last… leaving nothing between my eyes and her body.

“Beautiful.” I ogled her, although my fingers ached for a tour. Breasts, a pleasant handful with rosy erect nipples, greeted me. I ducked my head and kissed each one of the freckles on the creamy skin of her shoulders. A glance lower afforded me a view of her thick thighs and neatly trimmed pussy. My tongue darted out to wet the center of my lower lip. All of her relaxed under my admiration.

“I can’t believe you’ve been hiding a body like this from me,” I complained, taking in her beauty, memorizing her figure.

“Knox.”

“Give me a second, sweetheart.” I set my knee on the bed and brought her down with me, like a dip during a dance, and she laughed at the surprise. My mouth found her pulse at her throat, sucking there, and her laugh became breathy and then… something else entirely.

I took my time with her. Daisy made for excellent study, from the particular catch in her breath when my hands moved over her ribs, to the way her back arched with my mouth on her nipples. Her fingers slid into my hair, gripping when I worked her nipple with my tongue until she made the sound I was cataloguing alongside everything else, the one I intended to pull from her as many times as the night allowed.

“You’re still in your jeans,” she informed me.

“Yep. Working on it.”

“Work faster.”

“Sweetheart, I have been waiting for this moment with you. Don’t rush me now.”

She made a sound of frustration that I felt in my chest like a victory, because I wanted her to finally need me so damn bad. And here we were. Her hands went to my belt buckle, and I let her. I was patient, but not a saint. She undid the button and the zipper, reached in and wrapped her hand around my cock. I growled as she lightly stroked me. Her lips caught between her teeth the entire time.

“You bite your lips any harder, you’ll draw blood,” I warned.