by Maya Rodale
The light in her bedroom was low, giving a soft, barely there glow to the room. If ever there was lighting to flatter Daisy, this was it. She felt no shame, no second thoughts, no reservations, for what was about to happen.
“So this is your bedroom,” Theo said softly as he gazed around. The bed, of course. The windows overlooking the park, delicate curtains fluttering almost imperceptibly in the breeze. A desk, covered with her chemistry supplies and notes. A vanity table cluttered with cosmetics and a jar of Dr. Swan’s Midnight Miracle Cream.
Theodore Prescott the Third was in her bedroom!
It didn’t seem real.
Theo closed the distance between them, his footfalls quiet on the plush carpet. He cradled her face in his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. Then his gaze slowly drifted to her mouth.
She had expected a kiss, but with one determined motion of his thumb, Theo wiped the paint from her lips.
“You don’t need this, Daisy.”
He found a cloth and cool water on the vanity table and proceeded to wash away all evidence of the evening: the greasepaint and rouge that covered her skin, the shadow and liner around her eyes, the red paint upon her lips. She had been made up for the stage, in bright lights and an audience of thousands.
But here she was with an audience of one, who wanted nothing between them.
You don’t need this, Daisy.
Telling her she was beautiful would have struck her as a platitude; a thing one said in these circumstances. But telling her she didn’t need that covering, that armor, that mask, that disguise . . . that made her feel beautiful and cherished, just as she was.
“Theo?”
“Yes?”
“Kiss me already.”
Theo had been in women’s bedrooms before, but he had not been in Daisy’s. Of course. Obviously. Indeed. But here he was, stripped down to nothing but his wanting, and reaching for her in the dark. None of his experiences had prepared him for this yearning—wanting to act on his intense desire, desperately wanting to get lost inside her, definitely wanting to please her.
Theo pulled her into his arms. The last girl in Manhattan he expected. The only one he wanted.
Kiss me already, she’d said.
“Whatever the lady wishes,” he murmured.
So he did. Mouths claiming mouths. Tasting, teasing, taking, and giving. They had gotten good at this. Really, really good. Her taste and touch sent a bolt of pleasure rocketing through him and his cock hardened. Their clothes were removed and tossed aside. Taffeta dresses and wool trousers. Linen shirts and shifts. Until there was nothing left but just her and just him and this slow, burning passion between them.
They tumbled to the bed and she whispered his name.
The lady wished for a repeat of the events that transpired in the carriage that day. She fell back on the bed, a soft laugh from her lips, legs falling open for him, pulling him with her. He obliged.
He used his hands, his mouth, his everything, and took his time to bring her closer and closer to the brink until she was gripping his blond curls in her fists and crying out in pleasure.
And then the lady had other ideas.
“I want to please you,” she said softly. “The way you please me.”
This was not an invitation that Theo had to think twice about. Her eyes roamed over his naked flesh hungrily. Her soft hand closed around his cock. A soft hiss escaped his lips.
He clasped her hand in his and squeezed.
He’d already been hard for her but this . . . this was a level of arousal he’d never before experienced. Because it was her. And him. Together. It was as exquisite as it was unexpected. Then he guided her hand up and down showing her how he liked to be touched. How much pressure was just enough to send him spiraling toward the edge of oblivion.
Her hand. His cock. Her. She did this to him: a state of arousal so hot and intense that if he survived he’d be a changed man. Because it was her. And him. In an ever-more-complicated knot that would be impossible to untangle.
Or something like that.
It was hard to think when Daisy was clenching her little fists around his cock and stroking and making him feel things. He found her lips for a kiss, lavished his attentions on her breasts, and his fingers found her clit so he could drive her mad, too. His orgasm was a ferocious storm building up to an intensity that he’d be helpless to stop soon. Soon. Soon.
Unless . . .
“Wait,” he gasped. “Stop.”
Stop. He’d said stop. How could he want to stop at a time like this? Daisy had been entranced watching every stroke of her hand affect him: eyes darkened, then closed. Lips parted, breathing hard. Chest rising and falling. The length of him growing hotter and harder under her touch. She had brought him to this state. And all the while he’d been teasing her, too, stroking her sex, exploring her bare skin with his hot mouth. She was right there with him, on the verge, ready to really truly give in to all these feelings.
And then he’d said stop.
He’d been kissing her and stroking her, too, bringing her with him on this mad escapade.
And then he’d said stop.
Of course she stopped.
“I want you, Daisy,” he rasped.
“I want you, too, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I want you to be ready.”
“I’m ready, Theo. I want this—”
“No. As ready as I am. Ready to let go and lose control.” He murmured these things as he left a trail of kisses down her belly. “Ready to forget everything but you. And me. Us.” He kissed her, there, until a low moan escaped her lips. Then he was off the bed, fumbling with his clothing, searching for something. A moment later, she saw that he’d pulled a rubber sheath from his jacket pocket.
His heated gaze connected with hers.
It was a chance to say no.
To call it a night and send him home.
Her answer was a softly whispered yes. Her feelings for him were complicated and tomorrow was another matter entirely but right now, tonight, she wanted this connection with Theo.
He rolled on the sheath and then moved above her, pressing his arousal against her pelvis. He dropped a kiss on her lips. The ones that had always been unfashionably thin. Funny how that didn’t matter in the slightest now. How she looked didn’t matter at all, only how she felt. And she felt ready. Oh, so ready.
Skin met skin.
“Just you. Just me. Just us. Just tonight,” she murmured.
Theo hovered above her, kissing her, stroking her sex in a way designed to drive her wild. He remembered how she liked it and damn if that didn’t intensify her pleasure all the more. She writhed against his hand, eager—maybe even desperate—for more.
“You’re so ready for me,” he murmured.
She laughed softly. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“I’m so ready for you.”
She reached down and stroked his hard cock once more. “That’s your worst-kept secret.”
There was nothing to do but smile in the dark and sink fingers into hair and get lost in a kiss as Theo eased into her inch by tantalizing inch until it wasn’t clear where she ended and he began.
He thrust in and out, slow at first as they fumbled to find their rhythm. They kissed and laughed and figured each other out. She leaned into him, the warmth of his weight on her. There was the taste of him, like champagne and promises. The slight friction of the smooth expanse of his chest as it rocked against her breasts. The slick sheen of sweat on his back that she felt under her fingertips.
And then finally they clicked and found their rhythm. He thrust in, hard, and she was wet, so wet. So hot and wanting. Her heart was thundering. There were gasps and moans—hers or his, she didn’t know. She felt him on the verge of climax. His breaths came harder and faster now, roaring in her ear while his cock throbbed inside her. And just like that he thrust hard and his shout of pleasure was muffled by her hair, the pillow. He collapsed on her for one
sweet, sweaty moment before he rolled over, still gasping, and said, “Now let’s take care of you.”
And he did.
And it was a greater pleasure than she’d ever imagined.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Prescott-Swan wedding and reception will feature a million roses, at tremendous expense. To think, for this wedding one could have just ordered the bride’s namesake flower, the daisy.
—The New York Post
The next night
The Patriarch’s Ball
There was no question that they would both be in attendance at the annual Patriarch’s Ball. It would in essence be just another party—the usual champagne, small talk, and parade of fashionable people. Yet it didn’t feel like just another party. Because Theo was going to see Daisy for the first time since last night.
Since everything changed.
They had bared their bodies to each other. And even more significant, they had admitted, in their roundabout way, that they had feelings for each other. Theo had been turning the matter over and over in his head all day and had drawn no conclusions about what it all meant for him, her, them. Their wedding.
He couldn’t do that without talking to Daisy. He moved through the ballroom, looking for her, and when their eyes met across the crowd she excused herself from her conversation—she was speaking with some of the more political society ladies whom he was surprised to see here—and made her way toward him.
They stood off to the side of the ballroom, where one might stand against the wall and attempt a private conversation while a party raged on around them.
“Hello, Theo.”
“Hello, Daisy. Is that a blush you’ve created in the laboratory or are you thinking about last night?”
“I couldn’t very well admit to either, now, could I?”
“About that . . .” he said just as she blurted out, “Theo, we need to talk.”
“Yes, we do.”
“The wedding . . .” she started.
They had every reason to go through with the wedding. They had been intimate in the way that usually sent one to the altar sooner rather than later. They had a shared business interest. Plus, invitations had been sent, and nearly a million dollars in roses were to be brought in to Manhattan.
But there was also the not-insignificant matter of love.
A word that he wasn’t ready to say. It was too much and too soon. They had only just admitted to liking each other. He didn’t want to move too fast. Go too deep. Didn’t want to confuse unrestrained passion and the thrill of the moment with love.
All around them people chattered and laughed and danced to the orchestra. But a long, awkward silence settled between them. The kind that became even more acutely long and painfully awkward with each second that no one spoke. The kind that made it downright impossible to say anything serious or meaningful.
“We do have options . . .” Theo said, to be deliberately vague and to allow her to lead the direction of the conversation toward “I’ve made a list and I think option six on my list of ways to get out of the wedding is the most practical” or maybe “We might as well just go through with it.”
But when she paused and waited expectantly for him to speak, he had to say something. “The announcement in the newspaper. We could go down to the New York World building tomorrow.”
“We could leave now and write the announcement tonight,” she said.
Neither of them made the slightest move to leave.
If they left now and went off together, alone, they would not write a word. Which ought to have told him everything he needed to know. Perhaps they didn’t need to cancel the wedding just yet. Perhaps they could take more time to assess the situation.
“If we are going to pursue that scheme, then we have a little more time,” Theo suggested. “We might even want to wait until closer to the date. For maximum impact.”
“Yes, excellent! If we wait until closer to the date of the wedding to cry off, there will be less time for our parents to pressure us into reconsidering,” she said. This was sensible. Or did she want more time with him? “It wouldn’t really assure anything though. If we are truly serious about this, Theo, we have to do something permanent.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“One of us could fake our death.”
He choked on a sip of champagne. “One could do that.”
“Or one of us could elope with someone else. It would have to be you though,” she said and that made his heart clench in a somewhat painful way. He did not want anyone else. “After all, I have grand plans to be a spinster.”
“Yes, the stuff of many a woman’s dreams and fantasies.”
“Don’t laugh. It’s always been mine,” she said. She took a sip of champagne. The woman did know her own mind.
“There’s no one else I want to marry, Daisy,” he said. And it was the most he could bring himself to say in this crowded ballroom with everyone hovering around them, possibly eavesdropping.
“Perhaps I shall run off with a husband of my own invention. May I present Ned, my beloved fictional spouse?” She gestured to some empty space and air beside her. “Isn’t he handsome?”
“If you’re going to have a fictional spouse, at least give him a better name. Roderick Steele, for example.”
“That is better, Theo.” She smiled. “Whatever would I do without your talents for naming things?”
Well, for one thing, she might not have been tormented by that awful nickname he’d inadvertently given her a dozen years earlier. He decided it was best not to mention it. Not when they had come so far past it.
“You would rather wed a pretend man than me,” he said dryly. And if he had any questions about how she felt about him, they were answered. Marriage should be a choice. He believed that. And she chose no.
“Don’t take it personally, Theo. I would have all the benefits of marriage without having to actually marry. Honestly, now that I consider it, I don’t know why more women don’t try it.”
He took another sip of champagne.
Just pretend to be engaged, she had said.
It will be easy, she had said.
But now it was complicated. Hearts and happily-ever-after-on-the-line level of complicated. Because he was starting to think maybe and she was running in the other direction, so to speak.
“And what of the matter of our business concerns?”
“I hardly see how my fake husband will complicate that.”
“We both know you are not going to have a fake husband, Daisy. It will be more effort than it is worth and we have more important things to devote ourselves to. Soon you’ll have perfected the cosmetics and I’ll be busy packaging and selling them. Maybe it’s best if we stay in town and focus on our work.”
And that was how he convinced Daisy Swan not to invent a fictitious husband to get rid of him.
“If we are considering our business concerns, then it’s probably best if we don’t cause a scandal,” she said slowly. Carefully. He hung on her every word. “It goes without saying that calling off the wedding would certainly be a scandal.”
“It might actually be good if you were married. If we were married,” he ventured, giving every appearance of a bored society bachelor. But in truth his heart was thundering in his chest, under the coal black satin lapels of his evening jacket. “We’re embarking on a scandalous proposition for womankind. A little respectability might go a long way into making cosmetics sellable. Nothing is more respectable than a married woman.”
“Much as I’m loath to admit it, you do have a point, Theo.” She sighed. “But that’s still just a marriage of convenience, even if it’s one we choose.”
She didn’t need to say that wasn’t enough. Not for a woman who had ideas about love and freedom and wasn’t afraid of spinsterhood. And, frankly, he did, too. While neither of them would dare mention the word love, one had to consider the matter of lust.
Which one could not help but consider after the champ
agne they had just been drinking. Not that Theo needed the excuse. The memory of her soft skin and the warmth of her body entwined with his hadn’t exactly faded from his memory; it had only been last night. He’d been thinking about it all day.
This fraught and tense conversation didn’t diminish his desire; if anything, it made him want to kiss her and forget everything. To get lost in her and to think of nothing but how she felt beneath him, legs wrapped around his back, her moans of pleasure in his ear. To convince her to think about maybe forever.
He leaned in close to her and murmured, “There is another reason for us to go through with it, Daisy.”
“Is there?” she replied coyly.
“I know you’re a modern woman, Daisy, but . . .” But people tended to marry after they made love. Especially if they were women. Yet Theo didn’t want her by default. It was like winning tennis on a technicality. One was still victorious, but it was a hollow victory. No, he wanted to remind her that they had already joined together in the ways that really mattered. “We might want to do it again. And again.”
“To marry because of what we did one night is just another obligation,” she said. “It’s not a good enough reason. I told you, Theo. I never want to marry at all, and if I do, then it shall be for love and if I change my heart and mind and marriage becomes what I want most in the world, you’ll be the first to know.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The House of Adeline will be creating the wedding dress for Miss Swan. The department store Dalton’s will be providing her trousseau, which will be crafted of fine linen, embroidery, and real lace and will include numerous corsets, chemises, hand-embroidered handkerchiefs, and more. No expense has been spared.
—The New York Times
Two days later
The House of Adeline
If Daisy wanted to keep up appearances, then she was required to attend a fitting for her wedding gown even if she had told the dressmaker not to make anything. She hardly had the time given everything happening with Dr. Swan, but visiting her friend Adeline would be far more pleasant than explaining to her mother why it wasn’t necessary to go to a fitting mere weeks before the big day.