Arvil growled, both at the way his name slipped from her tongue to the way she was responding to him with her tongue. Arvil pressed her harder against the wall, flicking her tongue with his, swirling around it before he pressed it against her teeth. He continued to explore her mouth, finally slipping out of it, pulling away with a gasp, mind completely blank and heart racing wildly.
Daisy gasped for breath, trembling from the force of the kiss. She couldn’t think, her mind was wiped completely clean save for one name:
“Arvil…” she breathed, her hands slipping down his chest to clasp his shirt in her weak hands.
”Daisy,” Arvil growled, eyes completely taken over by the desire for the woman before him. Her swollen lips, disheveled appearance—everything was driving him wild. And who knew his name on her tongue would sound so freaking good?
“Again,” he demanded with a growl, breathing harshly. “Say my name again.”
Daisy shivered at her name coming from his lips. She still hadn’t opened her eyes, she couldn’t yet. Everything would just be a blur, fuzzy shapes and colors.
“…Say my name again,” he demanded, and she had to comply. Heart racing, tongue numb, lips swollen, she had to comply. Her mind wouldn’t let her ignore it.
“Arvil… Arvil. Arvil. Arvil,” she groaned, leaving her lips parted as she tried to catch her breath.
Frick.
Arvil growled again, his eyes darkening as his name kept slipping from her mouth. Her wondrous mouth, at that.
“Beautiful,” he removed one hand to reach up to caress her cheek. “So goddamn beautiful. Do you know what you do to me, Daisy?”
Daisy’s eyes cracked open slightly, and she gazed at him between the slits. She leaned into his touch, loosening her hold on his shirt. Her arms wound around his waist, holding him close. She was still weak, so her grip on him wasn’t as strong as it could be normally.
“N-no,” she mumbled, still trying to get her mouth to work again. “Tell— tell me…”
Arvil pressed his forehead to hers, still breathing harshly. He rubbed slow circles on her waist, looking at her intently. From her swollen mouth to her barely opened eyes, her pink cheeks, her everything. She looked beyond gorgeous even in that moment.
Arvil opened his mouth to respond, the words he was dying to tell her nearly slipping out, mouth touching hers when the door to his office opened.
Arvil wanted to snarl. He really should have locked the bloody door.
Daisy froze at the sound of the door opening. If she wasn’t already flushed, she would be blushing from embarrassment at being found in this position. How they must have looked! Arvil pressing her up against the wall, mouths touching, breathing heavily. Her hair was likely a mess, and their clothes were probably disheveled. It was obvious what had just been going on, and if anyone had heard them…
Oh, gosh, no…
Arvil shot freezing glares at his employee, who stared wide-eyed at his boss and his future wife. The employee shivered, swallowing thickly.
“It appears I need to establish a new rule,” he started slowly, his voice dangerously low. He didn’t pull away from Daisy. Unlike her, he wasn’t embarrassed at being caught. No, he was more furious at being interrupted, though that should be a good thing. ”Do not enter my office without my approval, especially when my lady is visiting.”
The employee stammered, spoke some gibberish before he turned his tail and slipped away, shutting the door behind him.
Daisy shivered at the tone of his voice, though more from liking it than the fear his employee showed. When the door closed again, she opened her eyes all the way and took a deep breath.
“Arvil, I… Thank you, but I should probably get going,” she whispered, pressing lightly against his chest with her fingers. “I have a lot of work to catch up on. I just needed to… I’m sorry.”
Arvil’s eyes flickered to her fingers on his chest. He pulled her further into him, digging his face in her hair and breathing her in deeply. He didn’t want her to go, but he didn’t want her getting behind in her work.
“Why had you been crying?” he asked in a hoarse voice, remembering what had caused them to argue. “What made you cry, Daisy?”
Daisy let out a shuddering breath and leaned into him. She rested her head against his chest, taking a deep breath.
“I— I thought you were upset with me. I thought I had done something wrong,” she whispered, her voice muffled by his shirt. “You stopped initiating touches, and I thought you were maybe disgusted by me for who-knows-what-reason… I’m sorry…”
Arvil cursed under his breath. “So you cried because of me,” he murmured, tightening his hold on her. “I will never be disgusted of you, Daisy. I just wanted to make you comfortable. I’m sorry if I made you feel like that…”
“I should at least be trying to make this work. This obviously isn’t an idea position to be in, but I don’t have to act like such a jerk. I’m sorry, Arvil, you deserve so much better than I’ve been giving you,” Daisy mumbled. “And I do feel comfortable around you most of the time. I don’t mind hugs or hand holding or any of the things we’ve done. It’s just hard for me with this wedding because I’ve been dreaming of the perfect wedding with my perfect husband for as long as I can remember. So this… It’s been hard to realize that I don’t always get what I want in this aspect…”
Arvil pulled away to cradle her face gently in his hands. “I know I can’t provide you with a perfect husband and a perfect wedding, but I want to at least come close to that,” he started softly. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m caging you in, or plucking your wings. I don’t want you to look back on our wedding and regret it. I really, really don’t, Daisy. So I want us to do whatever we can to turn this into your perfect wedding—or close to it, anyway. So for the…” he paused, those words harder to speak than the previous ones, “Time we spend together, we can look back and be happy about it instead of being upset.”
Daisy blinked up at him slowly. His hands were soft on her cheeks, and he felt gentle against her even though they were still pressed against the wall. At his words, she blinked again, feeling her eyes begin to sting, and nodded slowly.
“Thank you, Arvil. Thank you. I don’t— I don’t deserve this. Not after the way I treated you. And yet you still manage to be kind to me,” she whispered. After a moment of just looking into his eyes, she pressed herself up and kissed him softly, murmuring her thanks again when she pulled away.
Arvil rubbed his thumbs against her cheeks, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “We live on misunderstandings. It’s okay, Daisy. And you’re right; you don’t deserve this. You deserve more than what I can give you,” and then she pushed herself up and pressed her lips against his and he wanted to pull her into a longer one again. Instead, he kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her nose and her forehead before he pressed their lips together again. “Let’s not get upset with each other without any proof, yeah?”
Daisy nodded, eyes still closed from when he’d kissed them. Her lips tingled from the intensity of their earlier kiss and now from the last one.
“Yeah… Yeah, okay,” she sighed, opening her eyes. “I’m— I'm sorry, Arvil.”
Arvil didn’t know what he was doing. At this point, he was sure she was attracted to him at least. But he didn’t want his feelings clouding his judgement.
“If you’re truly sorry, then enjoy yourself as best as you can,” he murmured, caressing her cheek again. “Yeah?”
“Mmhm. I’ll try,” Daisy agreed, giving him a small smile. She glanced behind him at the clock and cringed. “But I really do have to get going now. I wasn’t lying when I said I had work to do.”
Arvil nodded and stepped back to let her go. “I don’t want you losing that promotion because I held you back,” he joked. “Go.”
Then he paused, as if remembering something. “Wait, what about lunch?”
Daisy blinked and glanced over at the food. “Oh, right… Well, maybe I can work on things with my phone,” she mused, brushing herself off. “Do you want me to stay?”
“Is that even a question, Daisy Riley?” Arvil quirked an eyebrow, running a hand through his hair to fix it. “It might have gotten cold so if you want, I can have it reheated.”
“Oh, sure. It probably has by now. We spent a lot of time… doing other things,” she said with a slight cough, rubbing a pink cheek.
“Other things as in… arguing, or making out?” Arvil quirked an eyebrow in amusement, loving the pink on her cheeks. “Or both?”
Daisy rolled her eyes, lips quirking up in slight amusement. “If I tell you then I’ll have to kill you,” she declared.
“How are you going to kill me?” Arvil wondered, pretending to think about it deeply. “With your mouth, or your gorgeous looks?”
The blush in Daisy’s cheeks deepened slightly, and she huffed. “Oh, come on… That’s not fair,” she mumbled under her breath, stepping past him to get to the food.
Arvil chuckled, letting her sidestep him to get to the food. “Why is it not fair, I wonder?” his eyes twinkled mischievously. “Because it’s what you were planning to do?”
“No,” Daisy muttered, grabbing her food before making her way to the couch. “That’s not what I meant.”