It had taken him a moment to realise that the difference was Daisy.
Or, more particularly, the fact that at some point during the night her soft body had curled against his. And he hadn’t pushed her away.
For a moment his mind had stalled. He had felt wrong-footed by the sudden, new and unsettling state of affairs. As a red-blooded male, wanting sex was hot-wired into his DNA. But waking up beside a woman was something he’d taken extreme care to avoid throughout his adult life.
Yet there she’d been, legs tangled between his, her hand curling over his waist—
From somewhere in the forest the sharp cry of a bird jolted his mind back into real time. Leaning forward against the railing, he stared dazedly across the water, trying to make sense of his behaviour.
It took several minutes for him to concede that it might have something to do with Daisy. Or rather sex with Daisy.
His skin tightened and he felt an almost unbearable tug of sexual anticipation, just as he had during the night, when it had been impossible not to reach over and pull her into his arms.
It had been wild, heated, mind-blowing, and she had made him want more, give more, feel more than any woman he had known before. Her feverish demands had matched his, her hands, lips, body had been like quicksilver. Even now, with the cool breeze blowing across the water, he could feel the white-hot imprint of her touch on his skin—
But nothing had really changed, he reassured himself. Daisy might look like a sleeping princess, with her long, blonde hair spread out over the pillows, but there would be no fairy-tale ending to their relationship.
Yes, he would marry her. But only because he needed a wife to persuade Dunmore to sell to him. Although after last night, she felt more like a compulsion than a necessity.
Remembering her smooth, naked body, and his own speechless, almost savage exultation at the way she had melted into him, he felt himself grow instantly and painfully hard.
Breathing out slowly, he frowned. There it was again: that same nagging uneasiness that had woken him. The sense that Daisy was different.
That he was different when he was with her.
But why? It wasn’t as though he’d lived a life of celibacy. He’d had many women. All beautiful and sexually eager, and at the time he had wanted them—some of them badly. But never like this. Never with this relentless, excruciating hunger. And never once that hunger had been sated. Walking away had always been easy. Only not this time. Not with Daisy.
His mouth twisted. He’d had to force himself to get up this morning. And he’d only done it to prove to himself that she was an indulgence he could resist.
But instead her absence was like an actual physical pain. Every nerve, every sense focusing in on it, like a toothache.
He frowned. Sex with Daisy was supposed to cure his sexual frustration, not exacerbate it. Only it appeared that instead of having his appetite sated he had grown instantly and intensely addicted to her.
Probably it was because he’d never gone without sex for so long, or had to deal with so much intimacy. And so what if it was taking longer than usual to work her out of his system? He had a whole year to wear her out in his bed.
In the meantime, however, he needed to be careful. Disciplined. Pragmatic. It would be easy to lose himself in his desire for Daisy, but he must not lose sight of the real reason she was in his bed. Or the fact that once Dunmore signed over that building to him she would be gone from his life for ever.
And turning away from the lake, he began a leisurely jog back along the jetty towards the lodge.
* * *
‘What’s this?’
Gazing up at Rollo, Daisy stifled a yawn. ‘What’s what?’ she asked sleepily.
He never seemed to tire of touching her, and now he was caressing her leg, his hand moving slowly down from her hip.
After he’d returned from his run he’d showered and woken her impatiently and they had made love for most of the morning. Now they were lying in bed together, their skin hot and damp, their bodies exhausted. Or rather she was exhausted. Rollo seemed energised by the morning’s activities.
‘What’s what?’ she said again.
‘This.’
She felt his fingers stop and slowly trace a figure of eight on the skin above her knee, and instantly she forgot her question, forgot his answer, forgot who and where she was. Her whole body was trembling, nipples tightening, a soft, liquid heat spreading inside her so that she could hardly breathe, could barely control the longing spilling over her skin.
She stared at him dazedly, hardly daring to believe he was there beside her, all sleek, warm muscle and smooth, golden limbs. He was just so gorgeous, and he made her feel gorgeous too.
Not just gorgeous, but somehow freer and truer to herself.