When his fingers had plucked at her breasts, she'd drawn as tight as the bowstring before firing.
His mouth, hot and wet and hungry on her nipple had shot her flying into the sun, her whole body finding the goal of release as naturally as any of his arrows found their target.
She collapsed into a shuddering mass atop him and his arms wrapped around her in welcome, allowing her to feel that the same convulsions ran through his body.
That they had found their release together this time sent a warmth of contentment through her that she wished they could luxuriate in.
Carol wanted to speak, but sensed that a "thank you" would come out in place of the "I love you" she felt and neither phrase had a place between them in that moment. The silence was enough as their bodies slowly returned to normal breathing and heartbeats.
The feel of his hand, awkwardly at first, stroking up and down her spine made her want to cry and she pressed her mouth to his shoulder to stifle the urge. As if sensing the heightened state of her emotions, his stroking stopped and he simply pressed the flat of that hand to the dip of her spine and anchored her to him.
Her head raised to look into his eyes but found his lips waiting instead. There was a celebration and sentiment in the softness of his mouth moving beneath hers that she knew she'd never need the words from him.
That their hunger for one another seemed to have increased now that it had been exposed and fed this bit was something she marveled at.
Sex had never been…
…but then, this hadn't been sex, so she really had no call to try making comparisons with her past.
She let go of that annoying little habit then and there and embraced the moment and future with him.
From here on out was uncharted for them both and they'd have to fumble through it together.
The knowledge of that thought was in them both as he shifted her gently to his side and allowed her to rest there for a while longer. The cooling breeze on their bare skin told of the approaching sunset and they moved apart slowly, knowing they needed to return to camp.
Needing then, even more than before to clean up a bit, she looked out over the water for the abandoned bottle of soap. It bobbed along peacefully toward the center of the pond and she grinned at that. He stopped her when she would have gone in after it, diving cleanly into the water instead to swim out after the object.
He tossed it up on the dock, once retrieved, with an audible huff before climbing back up from the water.
Remembering how the first attempt had gone, she opted this time to dip her shirt in the water again to get it wet before lathering it like a wash rag with the bodywash. He stayed her again, though, before she could begin the motions to wipe the days of grime and sweat from her body.
Wordlessly, he took the material from her and she surrendered it with a questioning frown.
His eyes were downcast, though, nervous almost, as he began to move the cloth over her body, spreading suds as he went. She let her hands drop down to her sides and shivered at the wonder of his touch as it grew bolder. There wasn't a place on her body that he didn't skim with the wet material and there were several he returned to without the excuse of a cloth in hand to simply caress and explore.
Her body was on the brink again when he finished coating her with the soap and dropped, unexpectedly, to rinse the garment out.
She wanted to tumble him back and straddle him again, seeing him erect again, but he lathered the shirt up again and handed it to her. Given the unspoken invitation to cleanse and touch him, she could do nothing else.
The scars on his flesh drew her fingers like flame did moths, but she had the sense not to ask. Instead, she simply tried to replace some of the old hurts with a better memory, by touching each mark with gentle strokes of cloth and finger. She would have tried kissing them, too, were it not for the tension that invaded his muscles at just her caressing, reminding her that there was a limit to the gentleness he would or could accept from even her.
She knelt to wash his feet and legs, working upward. Her scrubbing hands went to his butt, weighing the small, tight cheeks in her palms for a moment. The position put her mouth at level with his shaft. She remembered the hesitant want with which he had guided her mouth to take him inside and she wanted to pleasure in that way when she'd always before hated every aspect of the act. Her tongue was curious for the taste and texture of his release, not content to have just lapped a sample of it from his stomach earlier.
He didn't allow her the chance to do that, though, toppling her backward with a muttered oath from which she could decipher only the words "killing" and "me."
Her body rejoiced in the rush with which parted her legs and knelt between them. He didn't drive home, though, as she would have expected and she arched her hips upward in silent summons for him to get back inside her.
At his hesitation, she looked down the length of her body to see him between her wantonly sprawled limbs. The sight made her blush and she could practically hear her old-fashioned mother shrieking at the sluttish abandon, but she stifled it as he placed a hand on her knee then began to slide it along the inside of her thigh.
There was an uncertainty to his touch that froze her breath in anticipation of what he may have planned for her. His fingers skimmed over the curls that shielded her most vulnerable place and he raised his eyes to hers in askance before he allowed a single digit to slip between the moist folds that awaited his penetration.
Finding her wet, embarrassingly so to her thinking, he looked down to where his hand began to move between her legs and then he looked back to her with another question in his gaze. Blushing with equal parts mortification and excitement, she simply nodded with no idea what he intended, bite down on her lip and tipped her head back to look away from the vision of him there.
His finger moved from her and she wanted to cry out in protest, but it returned after just a moment in which she felt his body shifting. A second finger joined the first, slipping between her lips and v-ing to spread her open. She felt the bristles of his beard first, sensed them tangling with the short curls covering her and tensed in shock. The first touch of his tongue was so quick and hesitant that she didn't even feel it while her mind was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he was even thinking of 'going down on her.'
No one ever had and she'd never even thought of wanting anyone to do it. Even in this so-called enlightened age, it still seemed something that her mother would say "simply wasn't done."
Thankfully, Daryl didn't seem inclined to care what Carol's long dead mother may have thought or said and Carol was inclined to forget most everything else in the world when his tongue firmed and swiped with more confidence from the bottom to the top of her slit. There was no denying the electrical current that shot through her at that lick and it shocked a cry from her lips as her fingers scrambled to find his shoulders.
She wanted to push him away and hold him down at the same time and could only cling as her body fought the conflicting urges. He seemed intent on achieving some goal in his own head and paid no attention to her hands, whether they accepted or rejected.
Over and over, he licked and lapped at her, sometimes thrusting his fingers or tongue inside her to make her clench in want of the more solid length of his shaft. Her head thrashed on the wooden planks beneath them while her thighs clamped down to hold him immobile against her core.
At some point, her hands had given up any thought of pushing him away and they were both locked in his hair to insure he wouldn't go further from her flesh than was required to draw the occasional breath.
It was maddening and addicting and she felt like her body was going to tear or snap in two. Then he locked his lips around her clit, applied the faintest suction and gave the hidden nub just the hint of pressure from his teeth and she found herself shattering into more than just two simple pieces.
*This* was supposed to be the last chapter. I started off writing it all excited thinking I could see just the perfect place to stop this one and call it to focus on my other incompletes and I was feeling such a sense of accomplishment to have written so much on this one over the last few days. All premature, dammit. My Daryl muses have apparently taken offense to my daring to even hint at him being anything but perfect at all things oral back in last chapter-if you missed it, please pretend like it never happened because he's easily embarrassed and *so* hates it. But, anyway, I started typing this up and they hijacked the scene to drag it out and I can't be upset with them for that even if it means I have to think up another Daryl POV chapter to end the series on. I kind of already have it in mind, but have to get to bed for work in the morning and can't write it yet, especially since I'm sure Carol will want more to say after whatever the next chapter brings and they're just not going to let this thing be and stay finished.
And I'm really growing a little concerned with how I refer to them like actual people in my life...