Page 51 of The Summer I First Saw You
Liam couldn’t possibly hate it as much as I do. “You need to be with someone who cares about you enough to make it worth your while but who isn’t expecting the performance of a lifetime. Someone who will take his fucking time building up to—” I stop myself. A description of how this mystery guy should take his time would get way too graphic, and would basically just be a list of all the things I’ve pictured doing to her. “Someone who realizes foreplay is ninety percent of it. And if you can’t tell a guy that what he’s doing isn’t working, you shouldn’t be with him in the first place.”
She glances at me. Maybe she’s asking why I can’t be that guy.
I guess there’s a part of me asking why I can’t be that guy too. All the answers I once had are mattering a little less by the minute.
28
DAISY
I’m lying in bed, but I don’t see myself falling asleep anytime soon.
All the things he started last night still beg for completion. My nipples ache for the sting of his teeth. I picture his weight above me, his cock grazing my clit, and I buck upward against the air. That’s how real the memory is.
You just need the experience of being with someone who cares about you enough to make it worth your while but who isn’t expecting the performance of a lifetime. Someone who will take his fucking time building up to—
Building up to what? There was a clench in his jaw as he said it, a flicker of what seemed an awful lot like…frustration. As if, perhaps, he was thinking ofhimselfand the wayhe’dtake his fucking time building up to whatever it was.
Maybe he doesn’t care about me the way he’s supposed to, but hedoescare. And I bet he knowsexactlywhat he’s doing in bed—those fingers of his moved with expert precision last night before my moral compass came in to cockblock us both. So why shouldn’t it be with him? Why shouldn’thebe the onewho proves this supposed truth to me? He made it abundantly clear last night that he wants to.
I flip on a light, climb out of bed, and come to a halt at the sight of my reflection. My pajamas are as unsexy as they could possibly be—tank top, flannel bottoms. If I actually had sexy lingerie here, I’d consider putting it on, but it’s better this way. How humiliating would it be to prance in there wearing lingerie and still get rejected?
I take a deep breath, as if I’m about to jump into ice-cold water, and then I pad down the hall to his room.
“Harrison?” I tap lightly. “Are you up?”
“Yeah.” His voice is already wary. I should take that for the warning it is and turn my ass around, but instead, I open the door.
He turns on the lamp beside him as he sits, all the visible parts of him deliciously bare. I glance at the bunched-up covers, hoping for a glimpse of his lower half, while he fumbles on the nightstand for his glasses.
When he turns to me, that knot in my stomach tightens. Jesus Christ. Harrison, shirtless in those glasses, should be his own category of porn. There’s nothing he could ask of me right now that I wouldn’t agree to.
I cross the room and take a seat on the end of the bed. “I didn’t know you wore contacts.”
He raises a brow. “Is that what you came in here to discuss in the middle of the night?”
“No. I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
He shakes his head, something miserable in the gesture. “No. I couldn’t fall asleep. So, what’s up?”
I take a deep breath, tugging nervously at the hem of my tank top. “You know how you said I just need to meet someone who knew what he was doing but also knewme?”
He freezes. I haven’t even stated my request, and it’s already clear this is going to end badly.
“Well,” I continue with a forced shrug, “what if it was you? I mean, I know you don’t like me that way, and you’re still getting over Audrey, but you seem like you could perform if youchoseto, and you aren’t dating anyone, so…”
He places a palm over his face and keeps it there for far too long. “Oh my God, Daisy. Did you seriously just come in my room to ask me to fuck you?”
My eyes narrow, and I cross my arms over my chest. “Well, notjustthat. You’re the one who talked such a good game about foreplay.”
“Daisy,” he groans, “if Liam and your mom knew we’d even had this conversation, they’d never speak to me again, and if we acted on it, they wouldn’t beableto speak to me again because I’d be dead seconds after Liam learned about it.”
I brace my hands on my knees and stare at the ground. I knew I wasn’t going to be great at seducing Harrison, but I’m not sure we could possibly be having a less sexy conversation than this one.
“I wasn’t asking you to have sex with me amilliontimes. Just the once. Maybe twice, if there’s really as much to sex as you’ve implied. Okay, three to four times to cover most of the basic positions, but it’s not like I’m planning to give Liam the play-by-play in the morning.”
“These things have a way of getting out eventually.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, as if I’m a child who’s frustrating him. “I think you better go back to your room.”
Great, and now he’sdismissing melike a child, but the situation is a thousand times more shameful because I basically threw myself at him first.
