The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(23)

“I think I was waiting for you.”

He slid all ten fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck. “What is happening,” he whispered. “I only met you a week ago.”

“Do you feel it’s going too fast?”

“I’m feeling a lot of things. But doubt isn’t one of them.”

“I’m feeling so much. I don’t even have names for what I feel.”

“I know.” He wrapped his arms around her slender body. She fit him. Fit him perfectly.

“I’ve never wanted something so bad, Erik.”

“I’ll wait. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll wait, I don’t care how long.”

She put her hands on his face, her eyes wide and shining, a cluster of Christmas tree twinkles pooled in each iris. “I’m so happy,” she whispered.

He stared down at her, transfixed and transformed. “I love seeing you happy.”

She was all up in him again, her mouth wonderful. She kissed like a dream, kissed him like she was born to. Born to, he mused, lost in her. I would move in her like I was born to.

He pulled her tight against him. Let her feel him hard for her. Let her feel his want while his hands stayed soft and patient on the bare skin of her back. Let her know he couldn’t wait. And yet he would gladly wait. It was all there for the taking. Time was plentiful, a spilling basket of golden minutes and hours. Time was a gift from this girl who had waited for him to find her.





Your Clothes Against My Skin


“Do you have good memories of your father?” Daisy asked. She was lying on Erik’s chest, playing with the little gold fish on his necklace. His hand moved slowly up and down her back underneath her shirt. His, rather: she had taken to buttoning herself into his clothes at night, wearing one of his flannel shirts and her underwear and nothing else.

It was a sweet look.

“All my memories of him are good,” he said. “That’s what made it so bad when he left.”

“What did he do, what was his job?”

“He owned a construction company, did some carpentry on the side. He built my and Pete’s bedroom. It’s a good memory.”

“Tell me.”

“He knocked down the wall between our rooms, made one big space for us. Then he built these beds—mine was a loft, and he cut tree shapes out of plywood, screwed them onto the front, so it looked like a forest. I had a swing, an actual rope swing hanging down from the bed. Pete was young so his bed was down low, but it had the trees all around it, and a little hammock for him.”

“Sounds like something you’d see in a magazine,” she said. She was making the boat charm sail in and out of the hollow of his throat.

“He built it all one summer. I remember watching for hours. Watching him work.”

“So he was a set designer.”

“Huh.” Erik smiled. “Didn’t occur to me. You’re right.”

“Do you remember his voice?”

“Sort of. He said Prosit when I sneezed. Sk?l for a toast. Those were the only Swedish words he used. I can hear them in my head. In his voice.”

“What did he look like?”

Relaxed and warm, Erik thought about how to answer. He loved lying in bed with Daisy, in the gold haze of the Christmas tree lights, talking. She asked him the funniest things. Unexpected questions often startling him into thoughtfulness. He found himself opening up in a way he never had before, telling her everything, answering anything she asked.

“Like me,” he finally said, laughing a little. “I don’t know how else to describe him. He looked like me. But with blue eyes. Dark blue.”

“Was he tall?”

“I was a kid. Everyone was tall.” He gathered her hair up in his hands, then slowly let it fall. “If you come to my house someday I’ll show you his picture. I have a few I kept.”

“I’d like that.” She dropped the charms and pulled herself up and onto him. “And I like you.”

“I can’t keep my hands off you…”

It was their honeymoon.

With the rigors of the fall dance concert behind them, and no other stage productions on the docket, life had downshifted into a more relaxed pace. Only classes and homework demanded their attention, and a heady surplus of free time was available to be together and evolve into a couple.

They went out often with Will and Lucky. The four of them laughed and carried on, all around Philadelphia, ambling through museums and galleries, going out to dinner or the movies. Sometimes David came along, sometimes with a date. But usually it was the four of them on the town, young, crazy, high on life and each other.

The nights passed in slower, quieter hours. Being alone. Falling in love.

And fooling around.

Spoiled by Lucky’s regular sleepovers at Will’s place, Erik and Daisy had the room to themselves, and together they were constructing a sexual fortress. She was still a virgin, spoon-feeding Erik her body. He ate what she offered, relishing it. He knew the pace wasn’t set out of mistrust or teasing, but from her own desire not to throw any of the journey away.

“It’s not that I’m totally inexperienced,” she said, the first time he spent the night with her.

He tucked her hair behind her ears. “I’m stunned you’re not with someone. And I’d be more stunned if there never had been anyone.”