Hate to Lose You

She snorts and rolls her eyes again. “No, that.” She waves a hand at me. “Deflecting. Every time I try to get you to talk about your place in any serious kind of way, you dodge my questions.”

“Interior decorating just isn’t my thing.” I shrug one shoulder.

“And what exactly is your thing?” She rests one hand on her hip, and cocks it to one side. My eyes drop right to the target zone. I hate that she knows exactly how to use this weapons-grade body of hers.

Well. Hate it and love it in equal measure, actually.

“What are you talking about?” I lift one eyebrow.

“You never tell me about your work. ‘Work from home,’ you always say, but whenever I try to ask more about it you just say—”

“It’s classified,” I reply with a shrug of one shoulder. I try my best to look apologetic.

“Even CIA operatives and FBI agents get to tell their partners hints about what they do, you know. ‘Criminal counter-intelligence for the government,’ or something. You’ve given me absolutely no idea whatsoever.”

“I’ve been told women like a man of mystery.”

“I don’t even know what your plans are.” She flings her hands wide. “What are your dreams, your aspirations, anything?”

“We talked about that Sunday, remember?” I flash my winning grin. The half-smile that always distracts her. “You and I are going to learn how to sail, and then we’re going to sail down to the private island we’ll buy in the Caribbean after we win the MegaMillions—”

“I’m talking about real dreams, Bronson.” She takes a step closer to me. Reaches up, as if she’s going to catch my hands. But before I can grab hers, she lets them drop to her sides again. “I’ve told you everything. How I want to work in marketing, make enough to save up for one of the nicer houses out in the countryside around here—”

“And I told you you’d make enough to do that in about half the time if you moved to a bigger city to try your luck. LA or New York, where a smart girl like you would be making triple the salary you’d be able to get at a company here.”

She raises her voice and keeps going. “I told you how I want a family and kids someday; how I want to raise smart girls and kind boys and I want to marry someone who’ll be a good father, who won’t ask me to stay at home with the kids but who will be an equal parent in the equation, the way I want.”

“Again, I really think the options are going to be broader in LA, even when you’re searching for husband material—”

“And all you do is give me advice on my choices,” she finishes, and suddenly there are tears glittering at the corners of her eyes, and my heart feels like it’s ripping down the center. I’ve never seen her cry before. “You don’t tell me what you want. Which leads me to believe that you don’t want the same things I do, or else wouldn’t you have told me before now that you agree?”

My chest aches. So does my throat. I want to tell her. I want to shout it from the hilltops. I want all of that. With you. I want you, and I want that future.

Because I do. I long for it so badly it makes me see red sometimes. Late at night when I’m lying wide awake, listening to her slow, steady breathing beside me and wishing I were someone else, anyone else. The kind of man who could give her the future she so desperately deserves.

“Hold up,” I say. I gesture around us. “I really thought we were going to pass the Ikea test with flying colors, but I’m worried if we start a real serious conversation in here, the magical evildoing powers of this building might get under our skin.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Only if you think you’re about to say something I won’t like,” she points out.

Touché.

I run a hand through my hair and manage to hold in a sigh, just barely. “Rustic,” I finally say.

Her eyes narrow. “What?”

“Rustic, I’m looking for rustic style. Log cabin-y, something that’d look like it belonged in a house out in the country. Scandinavian, maybe, since I guess that’s where outdoorsy woodsmen and modernists intersect…”

“You really think you’re going to talk your way out of this conversation by answering the question about what you want your apartment decor to look like?” She arches one single, perfect, deadly eyebrow.

“You wanted me to tell you something real, Daisy.” I step closer to her again. This time, at least, she doesn’t back away from me. Not yet. “So I’m doing that. This?” I gesture back and forth between us in midair. “Whatever it is, it’s real, okay? It’s happening crazy fast, and it was unexpected as hell for both of us, I know, but please just believe me when I tell you, this is real. You want to know what I dream of? Well I want to know how the hell you escaped from my brain, okay, because you’re the kind of girl I’ve always dreamt of and never thought I’d have. I’d never even imagined a future before I met you.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” she asks, her voice a whisper now. Suddenly we’re just a hair’s breadth apart, and my hands catch her shoulders, trace up until I’m cradling her face between them, my forehead coming to rest against hers. Her lips are so close I can practically taste the mint lip-gloss she’s wearing. “Why wouldn’t you dare to imagine a life, a future? Everybody does that.”

“Not me.” I smile, just a little. Enough to cover the pain. “I was just a dreamless drifter until I met you, Daisy. Totally unmoored.”

She snorts, but she doesn’t pull away. With my forehead pressed to hers, I can feel it when both of her eyebrows arch this time. “What are you now, then?”

“Anchored,” I reply. Then my lips find hers, and we stop talking and start putting our mouths to better use. My hands slide down the curve of her back, come to rest on her hips. I pull her against me, and she arches up, crushing her upper body to mine, her breasts sandwiched between us, nipples already growing hard, which I can feel because god dammit, she didn’t wear a bra today, under that slinky dress she has on, which leads me to believe from past experience that she probably isn’t wearing any underwear either.

I run my hands from her hips down to her ass, pressing just hard enough to check.

She gasps into my mouth and pulls back, a grin on her face that makes me want to devour her all over again. “If you’re looking for panties, I left those at home,” she says.

“I’m not,” I reply, dropping my hand. “At least, not anymore.” I step back from her and turn to glance around us. “Now, I’m looking for the nearest supply closet.”

She slips her hand into mine. “There was a handicap stall back by the kitchen supply section.”

Before she even finishes speaking, I’m already steering us that way. The Ikea gods bless our journey because we don’t run into any innocent bystanders when we reach the bathroom. Only one employee in sight, and he hurries off in another direction after a moment’s hesitation. Then I wrench open the handicap stall and yank Daisy in after me. The door is barely latched before she grabs my belt, tugging to unhook it with one deft stroke.

“So, do you want that spanking we talked about now or later?” I ask as I grab her waist and hoist her onto the edge of the sink, one of those low-placed, sturdily built ones.

“Mm, I’d say now, but I’d prefer to be able to squeal properly when you do it,” she replies with a sly smirk.

“Guess I’ll just have to punish you the old fashioned way, naughty girl.”

I run my hand up her thigh, under her dress, all the way up to the bare crook where her leg meets her hipbone. I trace it over and down, toward the hot, wet place between them.

Her pussy is already drenched. Which is good, because as she undoes my belt and shoves my pants down, I can feel that I’m already rock hard, too.

“Just make sure you give it to me hard, bad boy,” she replies, peering up from beneath her lashes with that sexy little pout that always drives me wild. She pushes my boxers down next, and my cock springs free, thick and flushed with desire. The veins stand out on the sides, and she traces her fingertips along them, in a soft, delicate motion that nevertheless makes an involuntary shudder run through me.

“I plan to,” I reply, my finger stroking along her slit, collecting her juices, swirling them around the entrance of her pussy, teasing. “But first, I want you to give it to me.” I step back, then, and she makes a little mewl of protest when my hand breaks contact with her pussy. “Kneel down,” I say.

Her eyes flash hot with lust—I’ve learned by now she loves it when I tell her what to do. But she always wants to resist, first. “Say please,” she counters.

I take another step backward, away from her. “Or we could just behave,” I point out.

Her gaze drops to my cock. “You clearly don’t want to.”

I raise my hand to my mouth. Place the finger I was just stroking her pussy with between my lips, and slowly, deliberately lick it clean. “And you don’t?” I arch one eyebrow.

With a playful scowl, she hops off the sink and sinks to her knees instead.

“Good girl,” I reply.

“Not a chance,” she answers, winking. “But then, you love that I’m not.”

I step toward her, and she reaches out with eager hands, grasping my cock once more and drawing me toward her eager lips. “I really, really do,” I say, just as her tongue lashes out to stroke my length, up one side of my cock and then down the other, coating me until I’m slick with her saliva. She circles one hand around the base of my shaft and puts pressure on it, the other hand between my legs toying with my balls.