By the Book

by Scarlett Parrish

His words made my spine tingle, but when his cock touched me, sparks exploded at the nape of my neck.

  “Oh fuck.”

  Daniel froze. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Which was almost the truth.

  “Sure?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

  He went deeper, kept his eyes closed, and above the bridge of his nose, two vertical lines appeared, the ghost of a frown. “God, you feel so, so…”

  I couldn’t decide whether to hold on to his shoulders or touch his neck, but when my palms moved up and brushed his stubble at the exact moment he slid in another inch, I was gone.

  Whose gasp was louder I didn’t know, but his eyes opened, and they were darker—or deeper—then.

  “How do I feel?” I pulled him down toward me, desperate to kiss him again, though distracted by the sensations his every movement inside me caused. Like lightning or sparks or feelings so intense they threatened to cross the border between pleasurable and uncomfortable.

  “You. Feel…” Daniel’s cool breath against my face punctuated his speech with a cross between gasps and moans, and I couldn’t decide whether I most wanted to listen to his struggle for air or feel the way he moved inside me. When Daniel Cross was involved, I was hopeless, absolutely hopeless, at making decisions. All I knew was that I liked what he did to me and I wanted him to keep doing it.

  “This is fucking unbelievable,” he whispered against my mouth, rocking back and forward, only pulling out a little way but pushing in deeper every time he moved forward. “Jesus fucking Christ, Reece, there’s nothing like…” He moaned, his lips parting with each exhalation until I arched my neck just enough to kiss him. “Fuck, there’s nothing like… Oh God, I…”

  Daniel couldn’t have moved more slowly if he’d tried, but his restraint did nothing to lessen the ripples up my spine or stop my eyes watering.

  “Fuck, that’s intense.”

  “You like that?” He looked down at me, his eyes smiling as much as his lips ever did. “You like it when I fuck you this way?” Without waiting for my reply—as if I was capable of giving one—he kissed me again, his tongue moving as slowly as his cock did.

  Daniel tried to break off the kiss, but I liked what his tongue did too much to let him go, and held him tighter. His stubble rasped against the palms of my hands, almost burning, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care how foreign these physical feelings were; it was Daniel’s stubble under my hands, Daniel’s kiss I tasted, Daniel’s cock inching back and sliding in, each stroke easier and deeper than the last. As if his cock was made to do this to me, as if—

  “Jesus.” His head fell forward, and he ended up whispering right in my ear, “I can’t decide whether I want to fucking rail you or—”

  “No.” I gulped. “I want… Go slowly. Don’t stop the way you—Oh Jesus, just like…” Couldn’t catch my breath, even though he’d never moved like that ever before, so…so tenderly. “That…” The single word exhaled with my breath, a plea for him to never stop.

  “You like that?” Holding himself up on his forearms, hands in my hair now, Daniel kept speaking, gasping into my mouth every time his cock moved all the way inside me. “You like it when I move this way?”

  Something in his tone pleaded, desperate for an answer, but his slow strokes gradually took my breath away and with them my ability to speak. All I could do was slide my arms round his body, grab ahold of his hips, and pull him into me or follow his movements. I wasn’t sure which one of us led; all I knew was every stroke drove me closer to the edge of something.

  Christ, he can’t be making me come this way, he can’t, it’s not poss—Ah, Jesus—

  Daniel smoothed my sweat-dampened hair off my forehead and stared, his gaze occasionally flitting to my mouth whenever I licked my lips, gasped, or tried to speak. But mostly he looked into my eyes, and I didn’t know if it was the intensity of how he fucked me or looked at me that did me in.

  “God, you’re…” He moved from the hips, his every withdrawal making me want to say no, don’t, and when he pushed back in, every part of me said fuck yes, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

  He sped up almost imperceptibly, the only giveaways being the way his breath became shallower, his hands tightened in my hair, those bolts of pleasure shot up my spine even quicker than before.

  I couldn’t speak, but that didn’t matter; instinctively Daniel moved in the way I wanted him to, gradually speeding up though not enough to cause me any discomfort. Holding back enough to leave me wanting more.

  The bed creaked beneath us as we fell into mutual silence, the only other sound in the room being the brush of skin against skin. My hands dug into his back and caressed a tattoo I couldn’t see anywhere but in my mind’s eye.

  Daniel’s breaths moved from gasps to moans to helpless whimpers to the merest exhalations against my face, his eyes falling in and out of focus every time he drew back from kissing me.

  God, yes, he’s really gonna make me—

  I threw my head back, fighting for air, only aware of how tightly I held on and the warmth of Daniel’s breath on my neck, his occasional throaty growls telling me he was nearly there.

  And every time he moved, his skin was more slippery with sweat than the last time he drew his hips back and fucked me. “Oh God, I’m gonna…”

  So you’re the first of us to regain the power of speech?

  The desperation in his voice drove me closer. “Wait. I…” Though now I spoke, every word reduced my reserves of energy even further, bleeding me dry of my strength or ability to think. “I’m gonna—”

  He looked at me, right at me, into me and slowed momentarily, checking I was all right, I assumed, but something in my face must have told him not to stop.

  “Daniel.”

  “Reece.” He leaned in to kiss my jaw, his breaths warming and yet tickling my neck. “I need to come, but oh fuck, just tell me…”

  “Just—just keep… Jesus, Daniel, I—” The closeness of orgasm choked any words in my throat, and with just one more stroke inside me, my eyes watered. A second and my vision clouded over. A third and I let go of him. Every nerve ending in my body tingled far too much for me to hold on, and when he moved into me again, a fourth, deep thrust, my back arched off the bed and I came. “Fuck, oh fuck, Daniel—”

  “You…” He pulled back, then slammed his cock back into me, riding the aftershocks of my orgasm to his own. “Feel. So. Fucking…” Back. And forth. “Good.” He collapsed against me, panting a few times, then moaning. His heart thudded hard enough for me to feel the quiet vibration against my chest, and to silence him for a minute while he got his breath back.

  I looked at him, his eyes heavy-lidded with exhaustion, and ran my fingers through his hair. “Well.” I laughed although no one had told me the joke. “I didn’t think that would happen.”

  A lazy smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Fucking hot when it does though.”

  “Mmm.” Lying back and closing my eyes, I murmured, “I guess I should get up for a shower.”

  “And I should get rid of this.” Easing out of me, Daniel continued to look me in the face, and the smile melted away as his brow furrowed. “That really was something else, you know.” And he kissed me.

  “Yeah. Yeah, it was.” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and let them fall back onto the pillow behind me.

  “Listen.”

  I met his gaze, waited for him to speak again.

  “I know you were…are upset about Georgia.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but didn’t bother in the end because he spoke the truth.

  “And this might have just started off being about making you feel better, but whatever happens with you and her, you should know something.”

  My curiosity piqued, I hauled myself up, propped up on forearms, still reclining but comfortable enough to easily watch Daniel as he moved away from me and sat on the edge of the bed. “Oh?” I laid a hand on one of his win
gs. And it still didn’t move, no matter how realistic his ink was.

  “I do love you, you know.” He glanced over his shoulder for but a second, and before I could decide whether I wanted to keep touching him or lift my hand away, he stood and left the room.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Needles of water as hot as I could stand performed a twisted acupuncture on the back of my neck, doing nothing to ease my headache or distract me from thoughts of Daniel.

  Difficult at the best of times, but here, now, so late at night? Impossible.

  He said it, he said it, he said it, I reminded myself, needing no reminders. He said it…first.

  Wincing, either in pain or shock at my own realization, I wondered if cranking the dial up another notch would result in scalded skin. Didn’t care. Did it anyway.

  He’d said it first, which suggested he’d beaten me to the punch and I would have done so myself eventually.

  Turning to the spray and rinsing the last of the shower gel away, I heard the screen slide open, inclined my head until it closed again, only then releasing my held breath.

  Somehow, somehow, Daniel managed to make his breath on the side of my neck hotter than the water pouring down on us both. And still I shivered.

  An instant later, his hands came to rest on my hips and his kiss whispered across my skin, right behind my ear. “Hey, you.” A greeting that wasn’t needed. I already knew he was there; his hands were on me. And he didn’t need to touch me for me to sense him; Daniel Cross was unavoidable if he was anywhere in the vicinity. Just two words to break the ice that shouldn’t have formed underneath a scalding hot shower.

  His fingers twitched, tightened, flinched against me, either pulling me against him or holding me steady while he stepped closer.

  Bracing the palms of my hands against the shower wall, I released a long, slow breath, hanging my head, letting the water run between my back and Daniel’s torso.

  “I didn’t think you’d mind if I joined you,” he whispered, just loud enough for me to hear him over the running water. “At least…” He lessened his grip on me as I turned to face him, but maintained contact somehow. Always, always his hands were on me. “I hoped you wouldn’t.”

  “No.” I eyed him with a degree of nervousness, wondering what I’d find in his eyes, but there was nothing on his face but a sly smile bordering on a smirk. “Why would I?”

  He leaned in, his lips as close to mine as they could be without touching. “I have a desire to get clean.” Those lips curved into a smile as they made gentle contact with my skin, and I imagined their heat instantly evaporating any droplets of water with which they made contact. “Honest.” He held his head at an angle, regarding, studying, scrutinizing me, someone he’d seen a thousand times before. But whatever he saw was something reborn, because the look in his eyes was different. A wrinkle at the bridge of his nose, deepening under the weight of his frown, divided his eyes. “Would I lie to you?”

  The noise that came out of my mouth when he let his palm rest against my hip was somewhere between a gasp and a sigh. His lips curved into a self-assured smirk at the same moment his fingers curved against me, just as slowly, just as tortuous.

  Daniel moved closer, as close as he could get. The shower rained all around us, but there was no water, no daylight, no air between our bodies. “Would I throw a casual assurance your way even though I had other intentions?” he whispered against my mouth, just nipping my bottom lip to punctuate his words with a whimper. I thought it came from me. I wasn’t sure. “Would I palm you off like that?”

  “Dan…”

  He didn’t let go, didn’t pull back. No rewind. We were on pause after so many instances of fast-forward.

  The very silence he maintained urged me to speak. Anything to fill that imaginary space. “I…” Reaching up to brush my sopping wet hair back, I closed my eyes and saw far more in my mind’s eye than I was prepared to deal with right then. Looking at him once more, I held his face in both hands, tentatively, like it was my first time touching him.

  Discomfited by something I couldn’t define, I lifted my hands away. And he frowned. Questioned me this time, and still without speech. Amazing how a man whose business was words didn’t need them when he was with me.

  When I touched him again, one hand on each of his shoulders at the genesis of the curve of his neck, he exhaled. Not with pursed lips or a heaving chest or tension suddenly absenting itself from his shoulders. Just with a whisper of warm air against my mouth.

  I wanted to get something out into the open, but even standing in the shower with him, both of us naked, I held back for fear of further exposure. Even though he’d laid it on the line and said—

  He loves me.

  A nanosecond before his lips made contact with mine, the memory of the way he’d said it made me gasp. With uncertainty. Not of his feelings, but—

  “Christ, I can’t get enough of the way you feel,” Daniel murmured, nearly kissing me every time his lips moved, but not.

  —of my reaction.

  I moaned, a strangulated sound somehow more than that of usual desire, a twist of something new appearing in the cocktail of feelings Daniel stirred up. He pulled away, frowned as he drew me into focus.

  “Something wrong?”

  My hands still on his shoulders, I tightened my fingers every time his thumb moved back and forth on my hip. Biting my lip, I shook my head no, knowing it was a lie.

  He loved me. I loved Georgia. Such a tangled fucking web. I believed Georgia still loved me deep down. No one could walk away from what we had and just switch it off. There had to be a way—

  “Reece?” A question, not a call for my attention. He cradled my neck, tracing his thumb back and forth over my wet skin.

  Ticktock, ticktock, time’s a-wasting.

  My heart skipped, and as if he too realized we were broken, his gaze flicked over to the thumb on my neck. He broke contact, braced his palm against the wall, and my gaze followed it, my head turning just as he leaned in. Whether he’d been about to kiss me, I didn’t know, but his words sent a shiver up my spine. “What I said.”

  I sucked in all the breath I could, which wasn’t much. Hoped the sound of running water would mask my uneven breathing. Knew it probably wouldn’t. Daniel could read me like one of the books he wrote so well.

  “I meant it.”

  And speech was impossible. And maybe that was the point. Maybe that was what he wanted, for me not to speak. Maybe he knew what I’d say better than I did. My throat swelled, rendering me unable to get any air into my lungs.

  I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at anything. The gleaming white of the tiles hurt my eyes; at least that was what I told myself. I only screwed my eyes shut to stop them being blinded.

  “I know it scared you.” Daniel’s touch, his voice were the only elements of sensory input I had, and waves of intense, guilty pleasure exploded at the nape of my neck. “It scared me too. Damn it, Reece, I know…” His breathing became shallower, his throaty moan warming my neck.

  I was naked and so fucking exposed I couldn’t remember my own name.

  “Reece.” My name on his lips, a reproach. Even as he spoke softly, the word reminded me of my divided loyalties. My lips parted a split second before he spoke again. “I know. I. Know.”

  Widening my eyes, trying to get used to the brightness of the room again, I heaved in a deep breath and turned to Daniel. Only then did he let go of me, bracing both hands against the shower wall. One hand on my left, one on my right and he wasn’t touching me. I was still trapped though. “What do you know?”

  He cocked his head and dipped his gaze to my mouth then up to my eyes again.

  “I know your mind’s been on Georgia ever since I said I love you.”

  I wondered if he expected me to say something then. Or wanted it.

  He shifted his weight to enable one hand to lift off the wall and brush my hair back. He held his hand an inch from my face, shrugged, and leaned on the wall
again. “I also know what it means that you said nothing.”

  When I opened my mouth to speak, I had no idea what I was going to say, and the gratitude when he interrupted to save me the trouble made my blood run cold. Gratitude, because it wasn’t necessary for me to say a word?

  “I wasn’t expecting you to say the same thing. Just a little acknowledgment wouldn’t have gone amiss. But you know what I saw in your eyes when I told you? Something you tried to cover up but couldn’t? Fear. Don’t deny it, Reece. You didn’t know what to say. Or do. And if someone reacts with fear to being told… You got that look. The ‘oh God, how am I going to handle this’ look. As if you owed me something. As if I expected anything of you for it.”

  “No, I…” My feeble words trailed away on their own, defeated. I had nothing to return, nothing as strong as he desired, anyway. Without Georgia, I only had half of me to give away.

  “But here’s the thing. I don’t expect anything from you.” His eyes clouded over for a moment, then refocused. “I know what you want. What you need, I should say.” Daniel hung his head, and I got a hint, just a hint of color from over his tense shoulders. Sniffing once, he lifted his head. “I need to leave.”

  All—most—of the breath whooshed out of my lungs, leaving me just enough oxygen to ask, “What?”

  “Now you know how Georgia and I both feel, and…look at you. I say her name and you flinch. Oh I know you still want me. But Georgia? You need time alone to figure things out. She wants you to choose one. You want both. I’d be happy either way as long as you were still part of my life, but there’s one thing I don’t want.”

  “Daniel.”

  “I don’t want to be with a man who blames me for not being someone else.” Another pause. He turned away, and the water glistened on his skin. Wet feathers, animated, on a drowning angel’s back.

  The shower screen slid open, and I screwed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to watch it close again or see Daniel go.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Hey.” I usually greeted Georgia with more warmth, but worn down by weeks of imitating a human pendulum, swinging between two lovers, I’d opted to stop. Unable to have both, I’d said okay, neither and given up all attempts to muster enthusiasm for what remained. It was hard to get excited by bitter ashes and cold memories anyway, even if one stood on my doorstep looking far more colorful than the rest of my monochromatic life.