“I knew what you meant. Do you want to go to bed?”
“Maybe we should… before…”
“Before?” I prompted, lifting the whiskey glass to my mouth and waited for her to reply.
“We do something we’ll both regret… well, I may anyway.”
“You may do something? Or you may regret it?”
“Jesus, Jamie. I never knew you were such a ball breaker—both, I suppose.”
“I wouldn’t regret it. How could I? Look at you. You’re a very beautiful woman. Kind of perfect in fact. My regret would be leaving you behind.”
Squinting her narrowed eyes, Daisy cocked her head to the side as she stared hard. After a few seconds she took a deep breath.
“My regret would be leaving you behind? Tell me, do you even know roughly how many times you’ve said that line to a woman?” she asked.
“I know exactly how many times. Once… just now, to you, but I guess I’ll go to bed since you still think… what was it? I’m blowing smoke up your ass.” I placed my empty whiskey glass on the counter and shuffled around to the other side of the bar. “If you’d be so kind as to give me access to a device and the internet, I’ll arrange to get out of your hair.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the lack of sleep or food, and the drink, that made me suddenly tired and irritated by her protests, or if I hated her rejection and lack of trust. But I knew I couldn’t afford to get bogged down by my feelings.
Tidying up in front of me, Daisy placed the newly clean glasses back in place beside the others and turned the lights out behind the bar.
“Sure, you can go up to your room and I’ll drop my tablet off when I’m done in here,” she said. She turned her back to me and just like that I’d been dismissed.
Fuck her I thought as I quickly made my way back to my room. Either I was a coward for not handling her better, I’d gone soft because I wasn’t thinking straight due to a lack of everything, or I felt something for her I wasn’t used to feeling.
Chapter Six
When Daisy was a no-show half an hour later I went looking for her, thinking she’d forgotten to bring the tablet. I hadn’t heard her come up the stairs. Then again, I’d been in the shower and thought I could have missed her.Apart from my door there were only three others on the floor.
Reaching the first door, I cracked it open and looked inside. Family bathroom. The second I came to was ajar, revealing a sitting room with modern soft furnishings and a woman’s touch. The décor suited Daisy—light and airy primrose and cream decor. She had great taste.
By process of elimination I figured the last door was her bedroom and stopped outside to listen. When I heard nothing, I knocked softly, but there was no reply.
Gingerly, I opened the door just enough to peep into the room. A silver streak cast over the bed from the light of the moon, just bright enough to let me see no one was there. Closing the door, I turned, sighing deeply from exhaustion.
I considered for a moment whether contacting someone could wait until morning, but quickly dismissed the idea. I still had further to travel, and it had started snowing here in Dublin. With no way around my situation, I had no choice but to chase her again to use her internet.
Three steps from the bottom of the stairs I heard Daisy talking and stopped in my tracks.
“I’m telling you. I’ve never made such an arse of myself in my life as I have with this guy. Talk about star struck, I’m a fecking mess. I wish we could go back to the beginning, but even then I doubt if my head would be clear enough to think.”
My heart clenched at how distressed she sounded and I knew I was as guilty of those kisses as she was, but I was damned if I‘d let her take those back because they were instinctive, true reactions, to how I made her feel.
“I know,” she replied to whatever the person on the phone said, “here I am with one of the hottest men in the world under my own roof and I’m coshed by my own convent values. For a night I wish I was Trena Calianti,” she said.
Who the fuck is Trena—
“I know she was the college whore, but just once I’d like a bit of how easy she was,” she said answering the thought before I’d finished having it. A smile cracked on my face because her dilemma had a certain comedy value. I caught a laugh that brewed in my throat, but not before I’d made this weird animal sounding noise.
“Feck, he’s coming, I need to go… yep I’ll call,” she added hastily before she hung up. I stepped out in front of the bar doors and she ran straight into me. My arms automatically wrapped her tightly around her waist and rested at her lower back. The force of her against me made my cock stir in my jeans and I tried immediately to distract myself with football scores, automobile engines, and my local dog shelter. Nothing worked—except for the blood flow to my cock.
“Holy fuck. What are you doing lurking? You frightened the shite out of me,” she admonished with eyes that were the size of saucers.
“When you never came back I had to come find you. I need your tablet remember?”
“Shite… right.” She replied and frowned, rubbing both of her temples. I imagined she was mentally scolding herself for getting sidetracked.
“I should go get that for you,” she said, but instead inhaled my scent deep into her lungs. She made no attempt to move and neither did I. My eyes were focused on her mouth. Her soft lips shone with just the right amount of lip gloss applied—those red plump ones that had welcomed me within seconds of meeting her.
“You should,” I agreed, leaning my face closer to hers. Diverting my mouth to her forehead I pressed a soft kiss there because not kissing her at all wasn’t an option.
We stood half in the doorway, our hug lingering between us, and my heart felt heavy when I heard her swallow roughly. I was as torn as she was which was an unusual position to be in, given I’d had many one-night-stands with girls I had liked but I’d had no problem leaving them later.
This is ridiculous, you’re tired. I knew my thought was a lie; there was nothing ridiculous about Daisy or me. What I wasn’t sure of was whether it was me she was into or my rock star image.
Daisy’s small hands slid around my waist and it felt like a high current volt had jolted my body. Her touch wasn’t meant to be sensual yet the chemistry I felt from that one small gesture sent electricity coursing through my veins. Reacting on impulse most of my self-restraint toward her melted in a heartbeat.
Suddenly my mouth was on hers, my fingers tangling in her hair, her hands clinging to my t-shirt over my shoulder blades. My mind said, kiss her slow and languid, savor her taste in a wet slow kiss; wait for her cues, but my dick argued, are you kidding me?
Next thing I knew I’d lifted her up, her legs locked at my hips by her ankles and I stumbled towards the stairs with her in my arms. Neither of us were willing to break the kiss, and I attempted to stagger up the stairs with our lips and tongues almost fused together. Needless to say, I stumbled, turning quickly to shelter her from the fall.
Daisy’s legs had untangled as she fell and she laughed, but her eyes searched my face, concerned.
“Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“You’re lying on top of me, so I’d say… yes,” I replied playfully and chuckled. She buried her face in my neck and laughed with me. The sound of it and her hot breath on my skin made me hornier than ever before; her laugh was ever infectious and incredibly sexy.