He moved her knees to the side and quickly discarded the condom, tossing it into a wastebasket next to the bed, before spooning behind her and holding her tightly against him while they both trembled through the shattered remnants of their orgasms.
Their bodies cooled down slowly, and the chill air started raising goose bumps on Daisy’s skin. Mason reached for the duvet cover and tugged it over them, before snuggling behind her again.
“Are you okay?” he asked after nearly a half an hour of comfortable silence.
“Hmm.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. You were tighter than I expected.” There was a questioning lilt to his voice, and she turned around to face him.
“I’m kind of new to this,” she admitted, and he forked his hands through her curls, pushing them out of her face so that he could see her expression better.
“How new?” he asked softly.
“I’ve never really done this before.” He looked unsurprised and ran a knuckle over her cheekbone.
“Never?”
“Not even once.”
“So your ex-boyfriends were even dumber than I suspected.”
“Mason . . . I’ve never had a real long-term relationship with anyone.” And wasn’t that just the saddest thing ever? How humiliating to reveal that to him. “I know that makes me a bit of a freak.”
He snorted.
“Yeah, I was just thinking that the guys in Riversend are the freaks. How could they not have seen what was right under their noses all these years? And what about college? I mean, isn’t that what students usually get up to? Parties, drinking, and lots of indiscriminate fucking, right? How did you get left out of all that?”
“Is that what you got up to at college?”
“I was a grown man. Getting laid wasn’t my number one priority.”
“It wasn’t mine either. By the time I got to college, all my insecurities were pretty much set in stone; I didn’t think any of the boys would be interested in me. I got through my studies by keeping my head down and staying on the fringes of everything. Nobody saw me. It was partly my own fault; I was happy enough to remain invisible. And when I got back home it was just more of the same. Until I walked into a bar two weeks ago and there you were.”
“Daisy, I’m not . . .” He sounded uncomfortable, and knowing exactly where this was leading, Daisy nipped it in the bud.
“Yes, I know, you’re not my Mr. Right or whatever. But today I decided that you’re Mr. Okay for Now. I’ve decided that my shell is getting boring, and I’m a little sick of it, so I’m branching out. Trying new things. And you’re a pretty good teacher. I mean, what was that thing you did earlier? I’ve given myself lots of DIY orgasms, but nothing of that caliber.”
He was quiet for a second as he processed her words, obviously trying to figure out if she meant what she was saying.
“Uh.” He cleared his throat, deciding to go along with it. “I guess you never found your G-spot when you were diddling yourself.”
“Oh, so that’s what that was,” she whispered reverentially, and he chuckled. “I guarantee it’ll be a part of my self-pleasuring repertoire from now on.”
She felt him hardening against her thigh as her words turned him all the way on in an instant.
“Why don’t you show me how you mean to include it, and I’ll give you a few pointers on how to improve your technique?”
“You’d do that for me?” she teased, and he laughed.
“Damned straight I would.”
“Okay, but only if you show me your technique. I’ve always been curious about male masturbation. Maybe I can help you out?”
“Jesus. Yes and please.”
It was the last thing either of them said for a very long while.
An obnoxious buzzing sound interrupted Daisy’s sound sleep, and she groaned. She felt warm and comfortable and snuggled deeper under the covers, her foot automatically searching for Peaches’s comforting weight at the end of her bed. Instead she collided with a warm, masculine shin, and memories of the night before came flooding back. She went very still as she tried to orient herself. They were spooning, his crotch at her butt. One of her feet was trapped between his knees, and he had an arm curled beneath her head and the other slung across her waist, his hand cupped over her stomach. She automatically sucked it in, and he chuckled knowingly, his chest shaking against her back and his breath teasing the hair at the nape of her neck.
“Too late, I’ve seen everything there is to see,” he said, his voice a sexy morning rumble that made her want to climb on top of him and have her wicked way with him again.
She didn’t respond to his teasing words, simply let out her breath and relaxed.
“In Iraq I had this company commander, a very distinguished older guy.” God, his morning voice was gorgeous, deep and with just a bit of gravel. She could listen to it all day. “He had a collection of classic movies. Whenever we got any downtime, tedium would set in pretty quickly, and we’d all get into one another’s stuff. E-mails were read and reread, books were swapped around, games, cards, everything you can think of to stave off boredom. We often had movie nights, and when we ran out of the newer stuff, our commander would break out his movies. The old guy had a thing for fifties bombshells. He had Marilyn Monroe flicks, Sophia Loren, Jayne Mansfield . . . I remember the first time I saw Marilyn Monroe—I was about twenty at the time—I thought she was the perfect woman. Killer body. I printed out a picture of her in this white one-piece swimsuit—she was just standing on the beach with the wind in her hair—and kept it in my wallet. I hit the jackpot with you, Daisy; you’re a dead ringer for Marilyn.”