Fools Paradise (24 page)

He started over at her feet, never breaking eye contact, using both hands this time, working up from her arches to her ankles to her calves and she felt her back arching in spite of herself.
This is embarrassing.
She did want to look away. He watched her eyes unwaveringly.
He loves me,
she thought. Then a wiggly wave of something wonderful rushed up from her feet. And then another wave. She breathed carefully, trying to meet his eyes, but when the feelings got too strong, she couldn't help it.

She looked away.

“I'm too sweaty,” she said and jerked into a sitting position, fumbling at the fly on her shorts.

And quiet, obedient, well-mannered Bobbyjay put one huge hand between her breasts and shoved her down onto her back. “Let me,” he whispered.

With the look of a little kid trying to steal from every rack of the candy store at once, he deftly popped her fly, unzipped her shorts, and pulled them down to her knees. Daisy felt the print of his hand on her chest. That inner drumbeat rocked her with every breath. Her eyes drifted shut.

“Quitter,” he breathed.

Her eyes flew open. “That does it.” She lunged for his fly and he bounced backward, making the bedsprings sproing.

“Sshh! I'll do it!” he squeaked, and took exactly three and a half seconds to shuck his own jeans. Daisy seized the opportunity to kick her shorts onto the floor and peel off the flimsy little top he'd spoken so highly of. By the time she looked at him again he was naked except for his red and white boxer shorts, which had a big damp spot on the front.

Mostly naked, there was a lot of Bobbyjay.

And now she remembered she hadn't bothered with a bra.

Before she could feel self-conscious or even a little chilly, he slid an arm across her back and pulled her gently against his big chest.

She wasn't so sure of herself now. Their bare skins slid together. Their nipples poked each other's chests. “Daisy,” he murmured to her hair. “Want to stop now?”

She drew a long shaky breath. “Touch my bottom?”

That really big hand slid down her back, took a grip on both her buns at once, and squeezed. She couldn't help it, she yelped.

With her ear pressed to his chest, she heard him chuckle.
Tell me that means I don't have to coach you,
she thought. She didn't have the courage to say what she wanted. She could barely imagine it.

Pleadingly she met his eyes again. “I don't know what to do.”

One at a time, his hands kneaded her buns. Her thoughts evaporated.

“I think I got the basics.” He smiled anxiously at her as he squeezed her buns. “You sure this is okay?”

Daisy gave up. “Just do it,” she begged, and shut her eyes.

When she couldn't see his face, couldn't read the eagerness and yearning in his brown cow-eyes, it was easier to let go, just feel the sweep of his palms over her skin, smell the sweat on his neck, grab his hair when he did something to her nipple with his mouth.
Don't look,
she thought, and also,
Damn that Weasel for being right,
and,
Do that again.
“Do it!” she said too loudly when he paused in the middle of licking all around her right breast. Careful to keep her eyes shut, she reached behind him and tugged on the waistband of his boxers and he came closer, lower, heating her with his body, covering her, weighing her legs down, then her hips, then her torso and shoulders. His hands came up and clasped her face, one on each side, and he lay panting on top of her while her pulse thundered through her.

“What?” she whispered. “Please?”

“I'm not so sure about this next part,” he muttered.

“So dare to fumble.” She reached past his enormous shoulder to touch his hair. “We'll work it out together.”

With a quick peck on her temple, he rocked to one side and reached down. Daisy squeezed her eyes shut. Embarrassment and urgency and a feeling like a rising electric guitar chord crashed around inside her and she buried her face hard against his neck to keep from looking at his face and maybe ruining it because she couldn't stand for it to end, and the electric guitar fuzzed out and got louder and bashed back and forth in her skin while his hand wiggled and it was a good thing she bit his neck just then because her scream came out like a guitar note trying to poke a tiny hole in the top of her head, spraying music and colored lights and fogging her brain with the effort of trying to keep quiet.

His hand was still wiggling. She clamped it hard with her thighs, to stop him before she split in half.

“No more,” she gasped, taking her mouth away from his neck. “Please, not yet, no more.”

He lay absolutely still, weighing down her right leg while she waited for her insides to stop smashing guitars on the stage.

After a long minute, he put his free hand up to stroke her hair. “You okay?”

“You're not so dumb, Bobbyjay,” she whispered.

Take me now, Lord, before I mess this up,
Bobbyjay thought. His hand was going numb between her thighs. He knew it was ungrateful of him, she'd given way more than he had ever dreamed he would actually get, but his heart wasn't satisfied.

I want to be inside you. I want to die and leave the world behind and learn to fly looking into your eyes with my cock in your pussy and I want to know that you feel like this too.

Fat chance.
Take the good stuff and let the wanting go.

His erection burned like a separate animal, yearning toward her through two pairs of underpants, his and hers.

“Bobbyjay?” she whispered.

He trusted himself enough to grunt.

“Can you reach under the pillows?”

Reluctantly he pulled his hand from between her thighs and slid it under the pillows. His heart skipped a beat.

“Condoms?” he whispered. It felt like a whole fistful.

She pressed her face against his neck again and nodded.

“Let me guess. More hospitality from your Mom.”

He felt her nod again. Holy shit! “You want me to—” He stopped. “You're crazy.”

“I'm desperate,” she said clearly, and then cringed against him. “I'm not crazy,” she whispered. Her lips touched his ear. “Please, Bobbyjay. I've waited a long time. First I was a good girl and then I was choosy and then I—” she paused, “had a crush on Badger,” she said, her voice harder. “And now Goomba keeps me so busy housekeeping that I never meet any guys. Just my creepo cousins. It's gotta go sometime.”

So much for love,
Bobbyjay thought with a pang, facing his feelings and giving up hope in the same moment. His cock wilted a little.

She drew a shuddering breath. “And I trust you, Bobbyjay. I know you. I feel safe with you.”

C'mon, say it.
If she wasn't sure, how could he be? His arms tightened around her.

“I don't want to wait and wait and then marry some bad-in-bed jerk from the Local, like Mom did.”

His throat felt hot. “No, that would be bad.” Could he take it like this, half a loaf? This might be all he would ever get.

She squeezed his arm and twisted, pressing her sweet breasts against him, and he looked down into her anxious eyes. “You've been so patient,” she said. “I know it's asking a lot.”

Yes, it is.
“No, it's not.”

So he let her mess with the condoms. She broke two, trying to get them open and rolled on, and he made her put two good ones on him.
If I was Badger's age, I couldn't do this,
he thought, his heart breaking while they laughed as silently as they could over the ripped foil packets. He felt older than Badger. He felt a hundred years old.

But his cock was only twenty-four. He gripped the bedstead and made her do all the moves, so he wouldn't lose control and punch into her beautiful cherry and maybe hurt her, and he watched her face every second while she bit her lip in concentration, winced once, sank down over him, and swallowed his life, his soul, drawing his love inside her and wringing it dry with a thoughtful look on her face the whole time, like,
Am I doing this right?
She never once met his eyes. Eventually he accepted that she wasn't going to, and he let his tears leak into his ears.

When the crisis came, he bucked once and then just shuddered, holding himself rigid. She glanced at him then.

“Are you okay?” With a careless hand she touched the wetness on his face.

“It was a little...slow is all,” he said. “Are you okay?”

She smiled tentatively. “Piece of cake. I was—”

The door of the adjacent bedroom slammed.

Someone knocked loudly on their door. Bobbyjay almost jumped out of his skin.

“Kids?” Oh shit. Fran. “We're all going to the movies. You want to come with?”

Bobbyjay looked in panic at Daisy.

Daisy turned her head. She was still sitting on his cock. She cleared her throat.

“No thanks, we'll stay here,” she called.

“Say good night, boys,” Fran called in a warning voice.

Two grunts, one tenor, one baritone, came from the other side of the door.

Daisy turned back to Bobbyjay with an eyeroll. He had to laugh. Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Outside, a car door slammed. He felt her relax, straddling him, and, as the headlights flashed over the bedroom walls and the engine noise died away, she looked at him at last with more tenderness than he had ever seen in her face.

“You're a great guy, Bobbyjay,” she said softly. “You've been so good to me.” Her hands stroked up his stomach and chest and shoulders and back down again. “Isn't there something I can do for you?”

Speechless, he tried to convey with a shrug that what he wanted from her was unreasonable, and anyway she had already given him the equivalent of a million dollars' worth of diamonds and a red Corvette with vintage dash, straight pipes, and a V-8.

Her eyes lit up. “I know.” She got up and padded naked out of the room. He heard water running down the hall. When she came back she was smiling. “My cousin Vince takes this porn magazine, they're always doing this thing.”

“Guk.”

Then he found out how it feels to get a blow job from the girl you love who doesn't love you. But who likes you a lot.

“Daisy?”

“Mmm?” For the first time in her life Daisy saw why a woman would want boobs for herself. His side was warm and his arm lay heavily over her waist and his hand curled around to cup her breast. He snuggled against her.

He was so darned sweet. When she thought of how gently he touched her, how careful he was with those big hands, a big hot wind filled her heart and jammed tight against her throat.
Boy, the stuff I never knew.

With her back fitted against his belly she felt totally safe, maybe for the first time in her life.

His fingers tightened on her breast, found her nipple, and stroked its still-hypersensitive tip. She gasped and twitched. She snatched his hand and lifted it to her lips. His hand smelled like her, well, personal smells.

He pressed his fingers to her lips a moment, then stroked her hair once as if to say,
Okay, no more of that for now.

They wouldn't ever have to talk again if they just stayed here.

“Daze? Did your grandfather say he was renting an office for his election?”

How could he think about that right now? “Yeah. It's in a little office plaza on Caldwell Avenue.”

Bobbyjay sighed as if she had said something really depressing. He kissed her on the side of her neck and rolled over on his back, away from her.

“What's the matter?” she said, hearing herself quaver.

He stared at the faux marble ceiling. “I think my cousins are gonna try something on your grandfather's office,” he said in a dead voice.

“Try something?” She turned to face him.

He nodded. Wow, he looked good naked. He was huge, but she couldn't think of any part she thought was too much. Just acres of skin and muscle and blond hair.

“They won't tell me what.”

She put her hand on his chest. “Want me to warn Goomba?”

He sighed. “You'd better. God, I hate this. I thought they'd at least, like, try to behave better if we were engaged. Don't they ever think about the future?” He sounded frustrated.

Remembering that this wonderful night would end, tomorrow Goomba would be scary-jovial and Wesley glowering same as usual, and the scratch'n'fart twins were waiting back home with fifty loads of dirty laundry, Daisy felt unwilling to think about the future. She said, “Maybe there's something we can do.”

“I thought we were doing it,” he said. “This pre-show wedding stuff drives me bats. You must have it worse than me,” he said, looking at her with sympathy.

That hurt. “Is it so bad?”

He touched her face. “Naw. I'm just not used to being onstage during the show.”

She smiled. “You like hiding in the wings.”

“Sittin' on the rail.”