“Only a few years older than me. I mean, I’ve dated guys in their late twenties, but we couldn’t have sex. I wasn’t eighteen yet.” And I wasn’t about to break the law and have a guy thrown in jail for sleeping with me.
“I’ve met most of the older guys you’ve dated,” he reminds me. “They were complete f**king morons by the way.”
“They weren’t that bad.”
“Julian?” he says. “You think he was better than a f**king rat?”
“Connor called him an ape.”
“Connor gave him too much f**king credit.”
“Connor also called you a dog,” I say with a crinkled nose. “Do you think I’m the cat to your dog or am I like a squirrel?”
“How’d we get to this place?” he asks like this is the stupidest ‘fucking’ conversation.
“I’m a hamster, aren’t I?” I stick out my bottom lip.
“You’re not a f**king hamster.” He rolls his eyes and runs his hand through his hair. I don’t think he realizes how hot he is when he does that. “You’re a bird.”
“A bird.”
“Yeah a f**king bird that won’t stop flying or squawking.”
“Like an eagle?”
“You’re prettier than an eagle.” He rolls his eyes again. “Fuck.”
“You called me pretty.” I poke his chest, my smile overtaking my face.
He stares at me hard. “Julian,” he finds the beginning of our conversation. “You still like him? Because if you do, we need to have a heavy f**king talk.”
I shake my head quickly. “No, I don’t like him.”
Julian actually really scared me. He went on a trip to the Alps with all of us. I didn’t realize how in over my head I was until I tried to break up with him, and he wouldn’t listen to me, as if I was too young to really understand. Maybe I was. I don’t know anymore. All I know is that I don’t want to be afraid of the person I’m with. That isn’t a danger I like.
“And just so you know,” I say, “I haven’t been ecstatic by some of the girls you’ve chosen. One of them called Lily a slut.” And behind Ryke’s back, she literally pulled my hair. Hard.
“I broke up with her the second she said that,” he reminds me. “You were with that idiot for months.”
“I tried breaking up with him,” I retort. “I even wrote him a letter. It went something like: Julian, I think we’re better as friends. Xoxo Daisy.”
Ryke groans, but his hand unconsciously rises from my knee to my thigh. The affection speeds my heart.
“The hugs and kisses were too much, weren’t they?”
“Who breaks up with someone in a f**king note?”
“Someone who’s scared.” I’m not as fearless as my sisters would like to believe.
“You’re not a f**king coward. You’re just with the wrong guys.” He glances at his hand and takes it off me. Then his brown eyes flit from the small space between our bodies to my gaze again. “Did any of them last longer than five minutes?”
I try to think back. “I think six minutes was the highest.”
“Were you seriously timing them?”
“I was waiting for it to end.”
He grimaces.
I pretty much dislike everything about sex. The before. The during. The after. No moment is fun.
I’ve kept trying to see if it gets better.
It doesn’t.
It’s just a load of uncomfortable and awkward. Nothing about sex gives me that fulfillment that other girls talk about. What is an orgasm? Nerve-spindling? Head-spinning? I’ve had that skydiving and racing my motorcycle down a steep hill alongside Ryke. That’s as orgasmic as I’ve ever been.
“Sex is stupid,” I tell him.
“It is when you’re with guys who can’t satisfy you.”
I flush at his words. “Rose just told me to try it with more guys and see what happens.”
Ryke looks ready to spring off the bike and go track down my sister. “Are you f**king kidding me?”
“I thought it was nice. She’s a proponent of experimenting.”
“Says the f**king virgin.”
“She’s not a virgin anymore,” I point out.
Ryke glares. “So she’s slept with one guy her whole life, and she’s telling you to f**k around to find someone. She didn’t f**k around, Daisy. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“She has no experience with experimenting, got it,” I nod. “I’ve tried to talk to Lily about it, but she’s uncomfortable discussing sex with me.” I shrug. “Sometimes she’ll open up though. It’s just hard finding a day where she feels good enough to do it.”
Ryke relaxes a bit at the mention of Lily’s sex addiction and her shame towards the whole subject.
“Maybe I’m doing something wrong,” I say. “Is it normal for guys to last so short?”
Ryke runs his hand through his thick hair. He’s never held back with me before, so I don’t expect him to now. “They’re probably really f**king attracted to you, and when they get you in bed, they just come early. It’s not a f**king reflection on you but them.”
“So I need to find a guy who’s not attracted to me?” That doesn’t make sense.
Ryke shakes his head. “No, Dais. You need to like the guy you’re with as much as they like you. That way, you’ll f**king come too.”
“But what happens when the guy I like isn’t emotionally available?”
“Stay single,” he suggests.
“Forever?”
Ryke’s whole body tenses. I don’t know if that’s a no or a yes. Inside I’m screaming, give me something! Blink once for yes, twice for no!
And then the garage door opens. “Hey,” Lo calls, “dinner is…” His voice dies when he catches us on the motorcycle together.
Uh-oh.
Ryke slowly climbs off the bike, acting like he did nothing wrong. I mimic his guiltless expression, and I follow him, swinging my legs over the seat and standing up.
Lo’s eyes flash murderously at his brother. “Did I interrupt something?”
“No,” Ryke replies coolly. “We were just talking.”
Lo nods like he’s trying to believe that. “If you were just talking, then why were her legs wrapped around your waist?”
“Lo,” I try to cut in, but Ryke holds up his hand to stop me. This is between them, I guess.
But I do care about Lo a lot. He’s always been another extension of my family in a sense. He started as Lily’s best friend. Then her boyfriend. Now fiancé. And she always brought him on Calloway vacations. He was her plus one.
To say he’s like a big brother to me would be accurate.
Which makes everything with Ryke a tiny bit weird, but at the same time, Ryke feels so disconnected from Lo—a barrier built between them from years of separation. So maybe it’s not as strange as it could be.
“We’re friends,” Ryke tells his brother.
“Friends don’t do shit like that,” Lo retorts, pointing at my Ducati like it violated me. I would actually love to be violated on that motorcycle by Ryke Meadows. I wonder how rough he would take me.
Or if I would even be able to orgasm at all.
Ryke pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “What do you f**king want me to say?”