The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(35)

“Be safe, Fish.”

Erik waved the hand holding the condoms.

His manner stayed calm as he walked back to Daisy’s. He waited to be upset. He should be upset. He, who didn’t mind homosexuality as long as it wasn’t in his face. Will and James were not only in his face but in his bedside table drawer. He should be disgusted. Appalled and confused. Betrayed. Or at least a little sad.

He felt weirdly fine.

“I worried you got locked out,” Daisy said, moving the covers aside.

“No.” He shed his clothes and got in with her. “Those two bitches stole all my Trojans. I had to shake them down.”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t mind so much but I buy the expensive kind. Ribbed for her pleasure. Are they ribbed for his pleasure, too, I wonder? How does that work?”

“Stop. You are joking.”

“You know, I think Will is physically incapable of blushing. He didn’t even break a sweat. He barely blinked, for f*ck’s sake.”

“Are you serious?”

“Hand to God. A trail of clothes. My top drawer burgled. Will in a towel.”

“Quel queutard,” Daisy said, eyes wide, a half-smile around her incredulous mouth.

“Is that French for slut?”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I do. I had an epiphany walking back over here. Want to hear it?”

She nodded, still open-mouthed.

“James isn’t changing Will or making him act differently. James is just making Will act more like himself.”

Daisy looked at him a long moment. “And you’re all right with it?”

“I wasn’t all right when I didn’t know what was going on. Now I know something is unquestionably going on and I’m strangely all right with it. Furthermore, what I am with it doesn’t matter. Epiphany, part two.”

“So if he has sex with another guy it doesn’t count?”

“It counts. Sex is sex. It’s a betrayal on some level. Lucky trusts him to act a certain way when she’s not there.”

“But we don’t know which way it is. Maybe Lucky already knows what Will is about. Maybe they have an agreement while she’s away. Maybe they have an understanding even when she’s around.”

“Maybe.” He ran his finger over her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. She lay on her back, arms over her head and her temple tucked by an elbow. The light pooled under her high cheekbones and in the hollows of her collarbones. Moving the covers, Erik ran his hand down the length of her body. He knew how her breast curved to meet his palm. He knew where she was soft, where she was tight and where her bones pressed close to her skin. He knew this body. This woman. This love. His hand moved up, over her heart, feeling the beat of her life under his touch.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “And everything.”

She moved up on her own elbow, mirroring him. Her teeth curled gently on his bottom lip as she slid her hand between their stomachs, closing him up in her fingers. Opening them. Closing them. Sliding. Stroking. Making him hard. He licked his thumb and ran it around her breast, her nipple rising up to meet his touch. Her scent through his nose, her tongue sweet. Desire rich in the back of his throat. She reached past him for one of the condoms and tore it open. He watched her roll it on him as she had done… How many times now? A thousand? Two thousand? Another month and they wouldn’t need them.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” Her eyes found his and held still.

“I don’t want to sleep with anyone but you.” His finger traced her jaw as a strange vulnerability gripped him. “And I don’t want you to sleep with anyone but me,” he said.

She slid her hand along his, holding it against her face. “I only want you. No one could hold me in the dark the way you do.”

Then her hand glided over the top of his head, curved around the back of his neck and she pulled him to her. Her kiss opened all the way for him and he toppled, rolling onto and into her body.

Fingers in his hair, she ran her mouth up his neck. The secret skin behind her knee, like silk, as she hooked her calf in the small of his back and dragged him further down into her heat. “How many did they leave you?”

“Six,” he whispered.

“Oh,” she said, touching his mouth, then licking it. “It’ll be an early night then…”





Slightly Crushy


When mid-semester grades came out, James’s GPA fell below the cutoff at 1.94. He had the opportunity to appeal but officially he was out of the fall concert. To make matters more complicated, his understudy was injured, which meant Marie now had to scramble her casting and find someone to partner Daisy in No Blue Thing.

Daisy was ten scrambles ahead. No stupid girls were in ballet and she was not about to get saddled with a third-string cavalier. As she soaked in the claw foot tub, her eyes were hard and far away. Shaving at the sink, Erik looked at her through the mirror. He noticed when she was in her personal war room, all the green seemed to leach out of her irises, leaving them a flat, steely blue. The eyes told the truth. In any other situation, she might have more compassion. But when it came to dance, Daisy had no use for people who didn’t pull their weight. She had thrown all useless mouths overboard and was intent on sole survival.