Falling for Fitz (19 page)

“
Are you comparing me to
beef?”

He winked. “To the very best
beef.”

She grinned at him. “What a crock.
With all the rich, beautiful women in Haverford, that’s hard to
believe. I’m just a simple girl from Jersey.”

“
No one holds a candle to
you, Daisy. Not for me.”

She blushed and even though the words
were true, he didn’t want to lose the lightness of the moment
between them.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “And
simple, my ass. You make calculus look like child’s
play.”

She gasped, reaching across
the table to swat his arm. “
You
were the complicated one. I was an open
book.”

“
All right, Open Book, tell
me something about
you
that nobody else knows.”

She brought the beer bottle to her
lips, sucking on it slowly and seductively and yes, it made him
instantly fantasize about those lips wrapped around something else
long and hard later.

“
That orgasm I just
had?”

Jesus
. All she had to do was say the word “orgasm” and the
perma-erection he’d maintained throughout dinner flinched in his
pants. “Yeah…”

“
It was the first one I’ve
had with another human being since I was seventeen.”

It was his turn to be shocked. And
awed. And so goddamned turned-on that his arm actually pushed his
plate to the side reflexively like he was clearing space on the
table for them.

“
But, Glenn—”

She shook her head back and forth
slowly.

“
How long were you
together, Daisy?”

“
Three and a half
years.”

“
How is that
possible
?”

“
He wasn’t very creative, I
guess, or into pleasing me. He was sort of a slam, bam, snore sort
of guy.”

“
Christ, do I even want to
know this?” He hesitated. “Dr. M.?”

“
Are you sitting
down?”

“
As you see.”

Daisy took a deep breath. “We were
never engaged. We were never even together.” She said it fast,
cringed, then picked up her beer bottle and took a long, unsexy
gulp as she watched him nervously.

***

Fitz’s face registered shock, then
confusion, then she watched as he sorted through some memories and
thoughts, weighing things, reviewing things, before finally looking
at her. His dark aqua eyes slammed unerringly into hers and he
didn’t look happy.

“
Damn it, Daisy, I
knew
it.”

“
Are you mad at
me?”

“
I’m a little confused.
Why’d you do it? Why’d you show up with a fake fiancé?”

She looked down at her plate, away
from the disappointment on his face. She wanted him to understand,
but wasn’t sure that he would.

“
The last time I saw you,
you’d come to my hospital room and I perceived that you were
grudgingly offering to marry me because you felt an obligation to
me. Your letters from London had been sterile. And once you left
that hospital room, you never looked back. That’s how I saw
things.

“
When I decided to move
back home to be near my family, I knew it meant that I’d have to
see you. Emily and Barrett are together, and there would be
inevitable instances— weddings, baptisms, parties—where we’d both
be in attendance. I just…the first time I saw you again I wanted to
look like I really had my life together. Sexy dress. Solid
business. Respectable fiancé.

“
I knew I still loved you,
but I also believed in your indifference. I thought my feelings
were something I needed to ‘get over.’ I never considered that
there was an actual chance we’d end up together. I just didn’t want
your pity or guilt, Fitz. I wanted you to see that I had my act
together and that I wasn’t irreparably scarred by what had happened
between us. Having Josh by my side just felt… safer.”

“
Josh?”

“
Josh Miller. Dr. M..
He
is
a dentist.
He’s also a friend from my acting group in Wilbur.”

“
So it was about me. You
fabricated an engagement as a buffer for seeing me
again.”

She nodded.

“
God, you must have thought
I was such an asshole.”

“
No,” she said softly. “It
wouldn’t have been a crime not to love me. That summer was epic.
And you were good to me afterwards. Offering me a ring. Writing.
Coming home when I was in the accident. Even saying you still
wanted to marry me was your version of a stand-up move.”

“
No,” he answered. “It was
my crappy way of trying to hold on to you. I should have just told
you I was in love with you.”

Yes, he should have told her. No, he
didn’t. The twenty-year-old he was at that time hadn’t been ready
to tell her how he felt about her. He’d tried to show her, and she
simply wasn’t able to see.

“
I should have seen,” she
whispered. “If I’d been older, or more mature, or not in crisis, I
would have seen, Fitz.”

“
What did you say before?
This is what is takes?”

She nodded, feeling a little sad, but
mostly relieved to be reconciling these long-painful moments, and
relieved that the past could be left behind as they looked toward
the future together. It was liberating, and though she might always
feel sad that they missed out on years together, she’d always be
grateful they found their way back.

“
Hey,” said Fitz, looking
at her thoughtfully, “tell me this: What was with the way your
friend was behaving toward you on Saturday night?”

She stared at Fitz, heat
creeping into her face, feeling more than a little ridiculous about
the whole thing. “He was being so weird and jolly about his dental
practice. I took him out to the lobby and reminded him that he was
supposed to be my fiancé. I was trying to inspire him to be a
little more manly and possessive, you know? Anyway, we just
performed
A Streetcar named Desire
a few weeks ago at the Wilbur Country Playhouse.
I told him—I told him to channel Stanley Kowalski.”

Fitz sighed, dropping her
eyes to look down at the table and Daisy’s embarrassment was
complete until she noticed something: his shoulders were
shaking.
Shaking
.

“
Fitz?” she asked,
uncertainly.

He looked up, and she realized that he
was laughing hysterically; so hard that he was making that
high-pitched wheezing sound people make when the laughter bypasses
the voice box. His whole body shook and trembled as he flattened
his palms on the table to brace himself.

“
Oh, h-hell, Daisy,” he
finally managed to say, through more wheezing laughter, “y-you
definitely keep th-things interesting.”

He took a deep breath and sighed. He
was trying not to laugh anymore, but short bursts still escaped
him, and Daisy wasn’t sure what to do with herself.

She played with the label on her
bottle. “He was pretty upset that you punched him, although I guess
it convinced him that he’s a pretty good actor, so he said to tell
you that he forgives you.”

Fitz launched into another bout of
full-on, wheezing laughter.

“
S-s-s-stop! P-please!” he
choked out, using his napkin to wipe his eyes. After several
moments, he was finally able to take a deep breath, and cleared his
throat. “Oh, man, so I basically assaulted some poor guy who was
just here for an acting gig at your request.”

“
Pretty much, Rambo,” she
answered.

His eyes cleared and he stared at her
from across the table, his lips still tilted up in residual
amusement. “You know, I love you so much right this minute, I don’t
even know what to do with myself. I haven’t laughed that hard in
years, Daisy.”

“
You’re not mad at
me?”

“
I’m not mad at you. I’m
sorry you felt like you needed to do that, but I understand why you
did.” He pushed back from the table a little. “Come sit with
me.”

She got up and circled the table,
letting him pull her into his lap as her legs dangled over the arm
of his chair. She nestled into his arms, and he pressed his lips to
the top of her head, lingering there for a moment.

“
What’s with you English
girls always posing as fake fiancées?” he asked, referring to
Emily’s “arrangement” with Barrett before they started legitimately
dating. “Hey, speaking of… did you mean it before? About Emily
finally saying yes to my brother?”

“
Mm-hm.” She nodded against
his chest. “But we keep ruining it.”

“
We
like you and me?”

“
Emily was going to tell
him at the Ball, but you punched Josh in the face. Then she was
going to tell him at Sunday dinner, but we ran off and your Mom was
in a snit. Then on Thursday, she arrived at Barrett’s office in a
trench coat ready to put on the ring and take off everything else,
but you burst into his office about the contracts for
Daisy’s Delights
.”

His mouth had dropped open as he
listened to her, but then he cringed. “God, she must hate us.
When’s her next opportunity? We’ll be on our best
behavior.”

“
I don’t know,” said Daisy.
“Sunday night? She said she wanted it to be special. She doesn’t
just want to just pop the ring on her finger while they’re alone.
She wants it to feel like a celebration or a declaration since he’s
had to wait.”

“
Barrett’s had it bad for
her forever.”

“
I know how he feels,” said
Daisy.

He shifted her in his arms so he could
look into her eyes. “Do you?’

She nodded. “Definitely.”

The vibe between them had changed in
an instant, and Fitz’s eyes flicked to her lips before looking back
up at her. “What do you want, Daisy? I want to hear you say
it.”

Her cheeks flushed with heat. “I want
you inside of me again. Now.”

***

Fitz didn’t bother kissing her at the
table. He stood with Daisy in his arms and headed straight to his
bedroom, her wickedly erotic words fueling the fire in his body,
and he knew that their joining together was the only way to quench
the flames.

“
I’m not going to be gentle
or slow with you,” he said, his jaw tight and tense against her
cheek. “I can’t.”

“
I don’t believe I
mentioned gentle or slow when I just told you what I wanted.”
“Jesus, Daisy! When’d you get so bold?”

She didn’t answer as her tongue darted
out and licked a line from the base of his throat to his chin, the
firm pressure making his heart beat impossibly faster.

He strode into his room, backing up
against the bed and sitting down so she straddled his lap. His
fingers immediately moved from her ass to the hem of her T-shirt
which he pulled over her head without a word. She pulled at his
too, so he reached back and yanked it off, then leaned forward to
attack her mouth with his, plunging his tongue into the hot
recesses without teasing, without courting or permission. She was
his. And tonight, he was claiming her again after waiting almost a
third of his life for the chance.

Her tongue met his stroke for stroke
as his hands slid up her back. Finding no clasp on the back of her
bra, his finger skated around the side to cup her breasts. They had
changed since she was seventeen, fuller and rounder, but her
nipples, which had always been sensitive, pebbled immediately for
him as he brushed his fingers across them. Still kissing her
savagely, he flicked open the tiny plastic clasp between them and
she moaned into his mouth, rolling her shoulders so that the straps
sailed down her arms.

He groaned as his thumbs found her
aroused nipples. Taking her lower lip between his teeth, he pulled
from her until it slipped from his grasp, then dipped his head to
her left breast. The full pad of his tongue brushed over the stiff
nub of flesh before he pulled it into his mouth, soaking it with
the hot wetness of his lips. She arched against him, her hands
entangling in the hair on the back of his neck, whimpering as he
sucked harder, finally releasing the bud to find its twin. She
pushed his head to her right, moaning when he took her other nipple
into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth before leaving a wet
circle around it, feeling it pucker even tighter as he sucked it
into a point.

“
Fitz,” she moaned, her
nails digging into the skin of his scalp as he slid his hands to
her sides and picked her up, setting her feet on the floor between
his legs. He looked at her eyes once, which begged him not to stop
as he reached for the waistband of her skirt, pulled down the
zipper in the back and bared her to him with one yank of his
hand.

He seriously wondered if he
was dead and already in heaven when she dropped to her knees naked
in front of him. She reached forward for the belt buckle in front
of her, opening it urgently before moving her fingers to the button
on his pants. He tried to breathe normally as the zipper skated
down with a quick
whish
.