Ransom(106)

“And what’s that?” I hold my breath.

She looks up at me, her green eyes blazing. For one second, I think I see a glimmer of fear, but then it disappears as if she pushed it away. “I want you, Daltrey.”

I pull her into my arms, the need to feel her there, safe and whole, overwhelming. She wraps her arms around my back, squeezing me tighter than I would have thought possible.

“I love you,” she says.

“God, Daisy, I love you so much.”

Her hair is pressed against my cheek, the soft curls that I’ve always loved somehow making me want to weep. Then she goes up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine. Her mouth is warm and demanding, and I’m pretty sure I let out some kind of strangled, triumphant cry before I’m kissing her back.

We’re on the bed within seconds, her hands tugging on my shirt. After I help her pull it off, she leans forward to kiss the daisy on my chest. I return the favor, taking off her shirt and running my lips gently across the tattoo of my song lyrics on her side, making her skin erupt in goose bumps.

“I can’t tell you how much I love that this is on your body,” I whisper, “that my words are with you forever, no matter where you go.”

She shakes her head, her eyes warm and full of something that looks like joy. “They always were, Daltrey.” She places my hand directly over her heart. “Right here.”

Then she’s kissing me again, and I lose my ability to think clearly. All I know is Daisy, the taste and smell and feel of her. I need to be inside her, need to consume her the way she’s consuming me.

When I finally move inside of her, it’s everything I remembered from that one perfect night we shared. Her skin soft under my hands. Her body arching up to meet mine. My name on her lips. Her breath in my ears. There’s nothing that I need more than this, nothing in the world that could compare to loving this girl.

We come apart together, clutching each other tightly, crying out. My last cognizant thought is that Daisy will be here when it’s over to help put me back together again.

***



“We need to get up,” she says into my chest twenty minutes later.

“No way.” I tuck the sheet more firmly under her arms. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“You have sound check.”

“Fuck sound check.”

“Terrible language,” she admonishes. “What are you, into that evil rock and roll music or something?”

I laugh. “I want to stay right here, all night.”

“Me too. But you really do have to get out there. You have a show.”

I groan. I know she’s right. In fact, I should have been there ten minutes ago. But how am I supposed to move when Daisy Harris is here, naked in my bed? It’s cruel and unusual punishment.

She leans up to kiss me, her long hair trailing around my face. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

“Well, that’s pretty motivating.”

She laughs and kisses me before rolling over and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

“Where are you going? I thought you were going to be here when I got back?”

She looks over her shoulder at me, a little line of confusion down the middle of her brow. “I’m going with you. To the show.”

I sit up, pulling her into my lap and wrapping my arms around her. “There’s a lot of press. Outside and at the venue. Maybe you should stay here.”

She straightens her shoulders. “I told you, Daltrey, I’m done hiding. If I see reporters, I’ll deal with it. But I’m going to be wherever you are.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, you know.”

She smiles. “Actually, I do. I want to show everyone in the world that it takes a lot more than some assholes on the Internet to break me.”

I thought I couldn’t love her more, but I was wrong. Every time she shows me just how brave she is, just how beautiful, how kind and perfect, I fall a little more. “I love you.” But the words are inadequate. I could tell her a million times, write a hundred songs to her, make love to her every day, and it still wouldn’t be enough to really show her.

But when she grins, her green eyes alight and happy, and says, “Well, duh,” I get the feeling that maybe, somehow, she really does know.