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Chapter Twenty-Two.
It was damn strange – spending his free afternoon spying on his best friend's wife. He wasn't hiding behind trees or following her two cars behind. Instead, he walked right up to the front door and Lori answered, looking surprised but smiling and inviting him inside where he asked if he could hang out with Little Asskicker for a while. If Lori was suspicious with his sudden appearance, she didn't act like it or if she had plans to meet someone else, she didn't act anxious or ask him to leave.
And when Daryl finally did leave, he went to the Sheriff's station and met with Rick and told him that Lori wasn't up to anything. Rick nodded but didn't look completely convinced and Daryl wasn't too sure what to say. Rick was just convinced that Lori was cheating on him and Daryl wasn't going to argue. He just supported Rick as the man had supported him with things throughout most of his life. It didn't matter to Daryl if Rick was right or not. If this was what Rick needed him to do, he would do it.
Rosita was staying at the farmhouse with Beth's family for her visit and by the time Daryl got back to the trailer, her car was gone and he heard music coming from inside. He smiled to himself as he locked up his bike in the shed for the night. He had seen the keyboard at the pawn shop for a couple of weeks now – the pawn shop next door to the garage and he would slip away to look at it every now and then. He didn't know shit about keyboards or music instruments in general. All he knew was Beth could play the piano and was damn good at it and thinking about her playing the piano at his brother's house, Daryl knew he wanted her to play in theirs, too.
He climbed the steps and opened the door and stepped inside but the playing didn't stop. Beth was sitting perched on the edge of the couch, her back straight, and her fingers were curled over the keys, hitting each one flawlessly and with purpose, and he didn't know if the song she was playing had any words because she wasn't singing but she hummed along and he stood there for a moment, just watching her.
She had on just a couple of lamps and the entire place felt warm and cozy and it was because of her. She had done this and he had expected to feel claustrophobic, living with another person in this tiny space but this was Beth and he should have known better because she was the one person he found himself always wanting to be around.
He didn't ask her to move in with him. They didn't have some big conversation about it. They didn't have any conversation about it. It was just one of those things that happened. One day, she was just spending the night there and the next, he bought a few more hangers for the closet and told her to hang her dresses up.
She finished the song and lifted her head and for the first time, she saw him standing there at the door. Her smile was instant and it damn near knocked him back a step that someone smile at him like that. Like he was actually someone who mattered to her. And maybe he did. Maybe he was someone special to her because he was still getting to know her but he knew that Beth just didn't smile like that for anyone.
She stood up without a word and came rushing around the keyboard to him. She threw her arms around him and she still didn't say anything as she hugged him tightly. Daryl didn't say anything either. He just wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly to him, nearly lifting her off her feet, her toes skimming the carpet. She smelled good. She always smelled so damn good and tonight, it was buttercream and… he couldn't help but turn his nose into her neck for a deeper sniff. She giggled softly when she felt his nostrils burying to her skin.
Chocolate. Buttercream and chocolate and he wondered what she and Rosita had been doing for the past few hours.
But before he could even think about asking her that, Beth moved her head and cupping his cheeks between her hands, she pressed her lips to his in a light kiss. It was soft and almost hesitant – as if she wasn't sure if he wanted her kissing him – and Daryl wanted her to know that he wanted nothing more than her lips on his.
He lifted his hands and framed her head, his fingers tangling in her hair. He tilted her head gently to the side and listened to her moan softly as he kissed her deeply, his tongue slowly thrusting into her mouth.
He had never really liked kissing that much. The girls at the dark bars who he had kissed when too drunk to even think about what he was doing always tasted like smoke and ash and cheap vodka and they always wore too much damn lipstick.
But Beth tasted as sweet as she smelled and for the first time in his life, Daryl found someone he wanted to kiss and touch for hours and do nothing but that. Of course, if she was looking for more to happen, he wasn't exactly going to say no. He would try but that was only because of Hershel and wanting Beth to still stay good. He couldn't fuck her in the back of his trailer – take her virginity in the back of his trailer – and look at her dad in the eye again.
Beth's hands slid down his chest and his fingers tightened in her hair as he kissed her a little harder. She was wearing it down and he had never cared about a girl's hair or had even noticed it before but he noticed everything about Beth and he really found himself a fan of her hair. He didn't know what it was. Maybe because it was so long and so thick and the color of sunshine and always smelled so good and he loved his fingers in it.
He froze though when he felt her hands sink lower and then her fingers were tracing the band of his jeans. He couldn't help but rip his lips away from hers and stared at her. She looked at him, slightly out of breath, and then she lowered her eyes and he noticed that her cheeks were stained a pink.
He cleared his throat, trying to keep his body from reacting to her touch. "You like the keyboard?" He asked in a gruff voice and he coughed a little to clear it.
Beth lifted her eyes to him and her smile was soft and slow across her lips. "I love it so much, Daryl," she said. "I can't thank you enough."
Daryl rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, glancing to the keyboard before back to her. "Guy at the store said a couple of the keys didn' work," he said.
Beth kept smiling faintly as she shook her head. "That doesn't matter to me. It's absolutely perfect."
He couldn't help but smirk. "Got low standards, girl," he said.
She just kept looking at him with those big eyes of hers and she lifted her arms, winding them around his neck. She stood so close to him, the front of her body was pressed to his, and Daryl was able to ignore the growing hardness in his jeans for the moment as he lifted his hands to rest on her hips. He noticed immediately the slight flinch throughout her body and he was quick to drop his hands. Beth shook her head and dropped her hands to his, twining their fingers together.
"I'm sorry," she was the one to apologize.
"Why?" He couldn't help but look at her with a frown. "I'm the one touchin' you-"
"I want you to touch me," she was quick to interject, squeezing his hands. "I just…" she paused and visibly swallowed. "I'm just really awful looking beneath my clothes," she said and she said it so softly, Daryl felt himself leaning closer to her so he could hear her and when he did, he pulled his head back quickly so she could see his confused and now surprised expression.
"You're crazy," he stated bluntly.
Her lips started to turn upwards in a smile. "I'm not," she shook her head. "I'm the one who sees my naked body every day. I just know, Daryl."
He shook his own head. "You don't know nothin', Beth."
He hadn't gotten the book from the library on anorexia and he wasn't going to pretend like he knew the first thing about her illness or what she went through – or what she was still going through – but he knew that he was attracted to her. He thought about her naked probably more than he thought about anything else. He wanted her. Her. Beth. And it didn't matter to him what she looked like beneath her clothes because no matter what, she would still be Beth.
He pulled his hands from hers and raised them to her cheeks. She was staring at him, obviously waiting for him to say something or to make a move and he had never been one for talking anyway.
He kissed her – probably a little too hard – but Beth didn't seem to care as her own hands cupped his cheeks and it was as if whatever had been holding him back completely fell apart and he couldn't hold it back. He opened his mouth against hers and she moaned, her fingers sliding back into his hair, as his tongue tangled with hers. He began pushing her backwards, gently and yet with urgency, and her arms clasped around his neck, moaning again. Every time she moaned, it shot right down to his crotch and he just wanted to shove her dress up and pound into her.
Instead, he gently pushed her onto the bed and knelt on the floor in front of her. His hands slid over her knees and up her thighs, beginning to push her dress up but Beth's own hands quickly covered his, stopping him.
"Wait," she said, panting.
Daryl immediately stilled his hands and looked up to her face. He didn't say anything; just waited for her to say something else.
"I love your fingers in me," she said, her cheeks tinting pink as she did. "But I want to try something else."
Daryl felt his heart drum a little faster in his chest. "What do you wanna try?" He could hardly believe that he had actually been able to form the words and get them out.
She looked at him for a moment and didn't say anything. Instead, she pushed her head to his, her hands on his cheeks as her lips pressed to his. She moved her mouth slowly against his as if she was acquainting herself with his lips and his taste and Daryl sat there on his knees, letting her do whatever she wanted to do to him. When it came to Beth Greene, he was pretty sure both of them knew he was completely fucked. He was powerless against her as any junkie would be and anything she wanted from him, she could take.
But then her lips were gone and he opened his eyes to see her hands moving behind her. He stared into her face and she stared into his and slowly, she pulled the zipper of her dress down and he swore that it was so quiet in that bedroom except for their heavy breathings, he could actually hear the hiss of the lowering zipper.
Beth never moved her eyes away from his face as she pulled her arms through the small sleeves and brought the dress down. He could see her trembling as she sat there with her dress bunched around her waist and in a simple white cotton bra. She was no longer looking at him and he couldn't look anywhere else but her.
She was skinny. Really fucking skinny and he had been expecting it and yet, he hadn't really been expecting this at all. He knew she had been in a clinic for her eating and they must have let her go if they thought she was better but looking at her now, he couldn't help but wonder what she had looked like before if they had let her out with her looking like this. But she was still her. Still Beth.
He heard a shaky breath and lifting his eyes, he looked to Beth's face and saw two tears slowly trickling down from her eyes – one on each cheek.
"Beth," he said her name and her eyes instantly lifted to look at him.
Without a word, he pushed himself forward and he reached out, his eyes locking with hers. She stared at him and he moved slowly, making sure that she had the time to stop him at any time if that was what she wanted. His hands slipped around to her back and his fingers found the clasp of her bra. She was breathing a little heavier but she wasn't crying anymore as she looked into his eyes. He unhooked her bra and slowly brought the straps down, Beth moving her arms back so he could take it off.
Her breasts were small, tiny mounds and her nipples were hard in the cool air of that trailer bedroom. Daryl stared at them for a hard minute, practically studying them, and he then looked up to Beth. She looked so damn terrified, trembling again.
His hands slowly went to her sides and began moving them upwards. She gasped softly, sharply, when his thumbs swiped across her nipples and they seemed to harden even more under his touch. He did it again, listening to the breath catch in her throat, and he lifted his eyes to hers.
"You're so fuckin' pretty, Beth," he said in a low gruff, his voice rough and deep, and his thumbs never stopped moving back and forth across her nipples – her hard, pointed, perfect nipples.
Beth lifted her hands and pushed his hair back from his face as he leaned in and fused his lips to hers. He kissed her hard again and his hands molded around her breasts, squeezing them gently, feeling her moan into his mouth, her own fingers gripping his hair. He nearly moaned, too, because he had Beth Greene sitting topless on his bed and her breasts were in his hands and he was getting so damn hard, he wondered if he would actually blow in his jeans.
"Daryl," she whimpered his name and tugged on his hair.
He pushed himself forward and kissed her harder and Beth pulled him closer to her. He didn't think about it and she didn't stop him and he pushed her onto her back as he settled himself on top of her. Their mouths didn't part except for each to take the occasional quick inhale of air before their lips molded together again.
He hadn't realized she was that close but when he moved his mouth down and closed his lips around one of her nipples and gently sucked, she suddenly cried out. She tensed beneath him and her back arched from the bed and then a tremor shook through her body as her sudden orgasm raked over her.
Daryl lifted his head and looked at her in wonderment, watching her panting.
"Damn," he breathed.
Her eyes were closed and she was breathing heavily, her chest heaving up and down as her fingers still tangled in his hair.
"You like that, huh?" He asked and he couldn't help but smirk a little because it was pretty damn obvious that she had.
Beth didn't say anything. She just nodded her head rapidly and his smirk slid into a little smile. He didn't say anything either. He just dipped down and put his mouth back to her breast.
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