Trouble by Nadene Seiters Page B

I reach over and flick it off.
    As soon as the light goes out, Daisy inhales once deeply and rolls over to look at me. She smiles gently in the moonlight, letting one hand trail up and down my spine, like she did when I first broke down in front of her. I still haven’t told her about Ronnie, partly because I’m afraid she’ll leave if she knows what happened.
    “Are you mine?” She asks huskily, leaning in to kiss my good shoulder and straddling me from behind to kiss my ugly bruise. I feel the heat from between her thighs hitting the small of my back and try not to shiver under her touch.
    “I’m yours,” I whisper in the dark, my voice a low growl as she leans down to kiss the back of my neck. Her breasts brush against my shoulder blades, undoing me.
    “Then roll over,” she whispers in my ear, and I do as she says. Silly me, I actually think this is going to lead to me pinning her to the bed again. But tonight it’s my turn, and she does all the things I’ve been doing to her. Petting me, torturing me, without once taking off my pants, it’s like Hell and Heaven at once.
    “Goodnight,” she tells me with mirth in her voice as I lay there just on the brink of coming. Daisy rolls off me and lies on her back, her one knee in the air. It doesn’t take me long.
    The pain pills have kicked in, and I’m feeling nothing in my shoulder that resembles pain. I hurriedly pull off my pants and catch her just as she’s about to get out of bed. I swing her back down onto the comforter and straddle her. I know my eyes are hard in the dark, but my hands are gentle as I move the hair away from her neck and nuzzle my spot, the spot where she pants when I kiss her.
    “Are you mine?” I ask, meaning it. Daisy nods against my injured shoulder and I put my elbows on either side of her, looking down at her. “Then say it,” I growl at her, looking at her brown eyes in the dark. They’re wide, but it’s not with fear. Her pupils are dilated for an entirely different reason. I watch them dilate more with every breath.
    “I’m yours,” she whispers in the dark, and I lose control. She tells me over and over again how much she’s mine throughout the night; sometimes climbing on top of me and making me say it to her.
    When the first rays of sunshine peek through my curtains, I realize that all this time I’ve been having sex with women. A lot of it. But I’ve never truly been making love to them, claiming them. If someone tries to put their hands on Daisy again, I won’t hesitate to kill rather than maim.
    “Daisy?” She’s lying on me, her cheek on my chest and her ear to my heartbeat. I can feel hers quicken when I put a hand on her lower back, swirling it around and waking her up.
    “What?” She finally asks, groggy and tired.
    “I think I’m going to need another pill,” I tell her reluctantly, trying to shift my shoulder out from under her weight. She quickly moves off me and slides off the bed. I’m about to get up to get the bottle myself, but she grabs it from the ruined dresser and twists off the cap. She pulls out two and hands them to me.
    “You’re going to need them,” she tells me, patting my leg. I look at her warily and pop them into my mouth reluctantly.
    “Why?” I drag out the word and sit up in bed so I don’t look like a wimp.
    “Because your father’s dropping off your car today. They drove it home Friday night.” I lean forward with the sheet around my waist and put my hands on my face, rubbing them back and forth a few times. I want to cuss and swear, lock the door, and pretend I’m not here. But I pull the sheet off, pull on my pants, a shirt, and pad past Daisy to look at myself in the mirror of the bathroom.
    My hair looks like it went through a tornado, and then a hurricane. I’m going to have to shower again. And I’m going to have to clean up the pizza box from last night and make my bed, it’s like a military sergeant is going to come over. That’s how I view my