Temporary Bliss (22 page)

I hear footsteps behind me and I start crying.

“I’m so sorry,” I sob, falling onto my side next to the claw footed tub and hugging my legs.

“Hey,” he says, squatting down in front of me. “Let’s get you in the shower. Then I think it might be time to put our talk on hold until morning, okay?”

“But, there’s still more to say,” I stutter.

“What you’ve told me tonight is enough. Now, we need to get you cleaned up and home to bed.”

“I don’t wanna go home, I wanna stay with you.”

“Okay, gorgeous. In the shower, and I’ll clean up in here. “

I lift my head and look around, winching at the mess in and around the toilet bowl.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I say, horrified.

Daniel chuckles. “It’s okay. We’ve all had these moments. You forget that I used to room with Noah in college.” He pulls me up to my feet, and leans around me to turn the shower on.

I step into the steaming hot shower and relish in the night being washed away from me. I sit down on the corner seat and rest my head against the side of the shower as I close my eyes just for a moment. That’s the last thing I remember until I wake up in Daniel’s bed a few hours later.

I roll over and realize that I’m still at Daniel’s apartment and that he obviously put me to bed after I fell asleep in the shower.

Through the faint moonlight that is sneaking through the curtains, I can see his gorgeous face angled towards me as he sleeps. It may be creepy, but I’m probably still half drunk, so I prop myself up on my elbow and just watch him for a while. There is nothing better than seeing someone without any pretense; without any masks or walls.

There are no frown lines, no stress. His face looks flawless, much like the way he was on the first night I saw him on the train. He was sex on a stick hot, every girl’s wet dream (yes, they can, and do, happen!)

I can’t resist touching him, so I don’t.

I run the back of my hand across his jaw, enjoying the roughness of his day old stubble as it scrapes against my skin. My body heats as I imagine other places where I’d love him to rub his prickly cheek against.

The tell-tale flush of desire rushes through me, my breathing increases as my hand drifts down his neck onto his chest which rises and falls steadily as he sleeps. I rake my nails through the small smattering of chest hair he has as he groans softly in reply.

Sitting up on my knees, I lean forward and trace my tongue around his nipple, gently sucking as it hardens in my mouth. Repaying the favor to the other side, my heavy breasts drag across his chest before I feel his hands reaching up and cupping them between us.

I look down and see two sleepy hooded eyes staring back at me.

“C’mere, gorgeous,” he whispers, his voice husky with sleep and need.

I move my body so that I’m lying on top of him, his hardening length pressing into my soft stomach as I gently grind my hips against his. And when I bend my head down, and our lips finally meet, I hold nothing back. Knowing he’s awake now, all I want him to do is feel how much I need him, how much I want this. I want to use my body to say the words that I feel but can’t yet say.

Stroking my tongue against his, I rest my elbows on either side of his head, dragging my fingers through is hair, pulling him closer to me as our lips continue to taste each other, unable to get enough.

I pull away and look down at him, arching my back as he runs his hands up my body and cupping my cheeks. “Are you feeling better?” he asks roughly, his voice laced with desire.

“Yes, and I want this. I really want this,” I murmur against his jaw as I pepper kisses down his neck. I hear him groan when I slide my body down against his, trailing my tongue along his abdominals, around his navel and down the ‘oh so happy’ trail to his rock hard cock which is waiting for me, calling to me. I continue my assault, licking his entire length down and up again before grazing my teeth lightly against the head and pulling it into my warm mouth. I feel his body shudder as I take him deep, bobbing my head up and down, easing him deeper with every stroke.

“God, baby, that is so fucking good,” he hisses between groans and words of encouragement. He hooks his arms under mine and pulls me up against him, taking my mouth with a desperate hunger. It’s like he can’t get enough of me.

“I need to be inside you, gorgeous. I need to feel you.”

“Yes,” I moan out as he lifts me up, taking my hard nipple in his mouth and laving it with his tongue.

He rolls me over and enters me in one smooth deep thrust. God, I’ve missed this. It feels right, like two lost puzzle pieces that click together.

“Fuck, yes,” I moan as he thrusts deep again. He leans forward, taking my mouth as our hips rock against each other in a slow and steady rhythm. It feels like he’s relishing in the feeling of us being together like this again, and God knows I can’t get enough of it. I don’t want this to end. This isn’t just sex, and it definitely isn’t fucking. This is slow, sensual...this is what it might be like to make love.

The feeling overwhelms me as I feel the exquisite climactic quivers deep inside me, the waves of pleasure roll through me, building up with every painfully slow stroke of Daniel’s body against mine.

“Come with me, baby. I can feel your pussy pulsing around me, come for me, gorgeous,” he murmurs before kissing me deeply, tangling his tongue with mine, stifling my cries as I fall apart, coming hard and fast as he groans through his own release, filling me to the hilt.

We lie there, still connected, not wanting to break away from each other. He rests his forehead against mine as he catches his breath. I look up at him, tears in my eyes as the emotion of the moment hits me.

“Hey, why are you crying?”

“I feel it,” I whisper, hoping that it wasn’t just me.

He lifts his hand to my cheek, wiping away my tears with his thumb and smiling down at me. “Gorgeous, you’ve finally caught up. We just made love, except this time you were totally there with me.”

I nod back at him, the right words for the moment escaping me.

“And just so we’re clear, I love you, Mac. I love you so damn much that even if you hadn’t come back, I would have come after you. I would’ve fought like hell until you realized that you wanted this too.”

My whole body flinches when it hits me that he’s just told me he loves me. I should be happy, my heart should feel full. So why do I suddenly feel like the walls are closing in on me? I start crying again.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“You didn’t, I’m not, it’s just… this is all kind of overwhelming for 3 in the morning. Especially when I’m stuck in the no man’s land between being half drunk and hung over.”

“Well then, some of that I can help you with. I’ll go get you a glass of water, and we can get back to sleep. Can’t have you caught in no man’s land all night,” he adds, kissing my nose before shifting off me.

“Okay,” I whisper, lifting my head to brush my lips softly against his once more. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asks with a puzzled look.

‘For being you.”

He smiles and kisses my nose before shifting off me. I wince as he pulls out and gets up out of the bed, not missing the opportunity to admire his fine naked ass as it walks past me.

“But for the record, Mac, you can wake me up like that anytime.”

I roll over on my side and curl my legs up.

He’s rendered me speechless. Unable to deal with the myriad of feelings rushing through me, I choose to get up and get dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed. I’ve just finished slipping my heels on when he walks back in the room, frowning when he realizes that I’m about to leave.

“Gorgeous, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Ah, I need to go,” I say quickly and shakily.

“Mac, sit your ass down and talk to me.” Well that surely got my attention. I look up at him and see him standing in front of me, naked as the day he was born, arms crossed in front of his chest and a stern look on his face. He almost looks pissed off.

“I ne...ed to go home,” I repeat, looking up at him warily. He’s God damn intimidating when he wants to be.

“You don’t know what you want, Mac. Is that what this is about? After what just happened between us, what you just felt between us, you’re going to run again?” He shakes his head and walks over to his closet, grabbing a pair of shorts and pulling them on. Thank God! I can’t think straight with his naked body on display like that.

“I need time. I thought I was ready, that I could do this, but I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m just...” I pause, trying to think about exactly what it is I’m trying to say. “Daniel, you are a forever guy, and I’m just not in that place to embrace whatever this is going on between us and run with it. I wish I could do that for you, but I can’t.”

I stand up and walk over to him, reaching up on my tip toes to brush my lips against his briefly. He wraps his arm around my waist and holds me close to him as he deepens the kiss. It’s a kiss of promise, a kiss with possibilities, and sadly, a kiss that represents everything that could lay before me if I could only trust it.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I pull away and walk towards the door.

“Not as sorry as I am. But Mac?” he says, making me pause by the bedroom door and look back at him.

“As hard as this is for me to say,
don’t come back to me until you figure out what you want and who you want it with because I’m getting sick of watching you walk away.”

And with tears in my eyes, I turn away from him and commence the walk of shame.

“He said what?” Kate asks when I see her at home later than morning.

I shrug, not trusting myself to say anything else without losing the fragile hold I have on my emotions right now. As it is, I’ve had to bite my lip a few times since I woke up to stop myself from crying.

I’m not a crier, but something broke inside me last night. Drunk or not, a booty call to Daniel was the last thing I thought I’d do, but yesterday was too much. Seeing him with Nikki made me jealous as hell, then when Zander kissed me at the bar, I was not in the right head space to deal with it. So I went to the place I felt safe, the place I truly wanted to be, with my Superman.

“So what happened?” she asks with a frown, snapping me out of my thoughts. One of Kate’s most endearing qualities is that she is fiercely protective of her friends, and especially me.

“I’m not exactly sure, because I am hung over and last night’s events are still kind of hazy. But I turned up on his doorstep drunk, then he made me talk. I told him about Beau, and why I haven’t wanted a relationship until now, and proceeded to throw up all over his bathroom before falling asleep in his shower. I woke up later in his bed, and I jumped him.”

“You jumped him? While you were still drunk? Mac!”

“It was more than just sex. We made love, like full on emotional connection, heart palpitations, the ‘L word on the tip of my tongue’ kind of sex. Hell, he told me he loved me, and I burst into tears!”

She gets up from the breakfast bar in the kitchen and walks over to me, sitting down beside me on the couch before wrapping her arms around me. And I lose it. I let it all out, my confusion, my heart ache, everything I’d been holding in for a good few years. “Hon, it is going to be alright. But you gotta admit, you do keep running and closing yourself off to him.”

“Seriously? You’re siding with him?” I ask her, pulling back and looking at her through my now red puffy eyes. A broken heart and a hangover. This day is going to suck.

“Mac, c’mon, he’s just trying to protect himself,” she replied, and suddenly it all made sense to me.

I knew what I had to do to get past this speed bump, this love life road block. I just hope I still get the chance to be with Daniel at the end of all this.