Page 125 of The Rogue and His Flower

“But I think I’m falling…”

“Please, Daisy. Not yet,” I whisper, catching her mumbled words with my lips, kissing her deeply, overwhelmed by the eddying emotions swirling inside my chest. When I reluctantly pull back, her expression falls, and I see a hint of disappointment in her eyes.

“Let me wash you clean,” I say, grabbing the bottle of shower wash and squeezing some into my hand, needing the distraction from my own tumbling thoughts as the scent of jasmine and coconut lifts into the air.

“Okay,” she whispers, a soft sigh parting her lips as I slide my hands over her body, my touch gentle, my heart pounding, my chest heaving as I battle with myself and the tumultuous feelingsthat are beginning to overwhelm me. There’s nothing sexual about the way I touch her, it’s more of a comforting feeling, for me, for her, and somehow it’s way more intense.

“Loving someone is also taking care of them,” she had said to me, her words echoing in my mind as I lather up more soap and gently wash her hair. “Sex is wonderful, of course it is, but kindness, care, empathy, tenderness, that’s a huge part of it too.”

She’s right. She’s so fucking right.

The truth of her words hang sodden between us. They rain over my skin, cleansing me, washing away all the past hurts, the loneliness I’ve felt buried deep beneath my arrogance and vanity, my selfishness and greed. The old me, the man I was, is shredded with every water droplet, leaving someone shiny and new, someone achingly vulnerable.

“You’re right,” I murmur.

“What?” she questions.

“Nothing, just thinking out loud,” I reply, tucking those thoughts deep within me, holding them close, keeping them safe until I’m ready to set them free.

Once she’s thoroughly clean, I wash myself as Daisy watches. Her gaze is heated, filled with so much longing that I almost drop to my knees and beg for her forgiveness. There are so many unspoken words between us, but I don’t need to hear her say that she thinks she’s falling in love with me, when Ifeelit. I feel her tentative love, and it scares me to death. It scares me to death because, God help me, I think I’m falling too.

“Can I get you anything?”I ask half an hour later as I step back into Daisy’s bedroom, dressed in a pair of loose linen shortsand a white t-shirt. She’s lying on the bed, dressed in her cotton pyjamas, her bedside lamp filling the darkened room with a soft glow, a thin sheet pulled up over her body as she looks over at me.

Outside the air trembles with thunder as sheets of rain fall heavily, the sky through her window lit momentarily with lightning.

“I’m fine. I think I might just go to sleep if that’s okay with you?” she replies softly.

“Daisy, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. I understand. This is overwhelming for me too. I need to just sit with this for a moment. I need to…” She heaves out a breath, looking so fucking vulnerable that I hate myself for not being honest with her. I should tell her I’m falling too. Why am I so fucking terrified of speaking the truth?

Maybe it’s because I’m still uncertain that what I’m beginning to feel is actually love. Maybe it’s because I’m not certain that what Daisy feels for me is love, but simply a culmination of lust, desire and her desperation for it. I want her to be certain.Ineed to be certain, and I won’t say those three words until I am. I won’t make love to her until I am.

“Rest. I’m going to sit in the living room for a while, okay?”

“Okay,” she nods.

“See you in the morning?” I add in hesitation.

“Sure,” she replies, then she rolls over onto her side and closes her eyes.

For the next couple of hours, I watch the storm roll across the ocean. The waves churned up by the wind, crashing against the shore in a hypnotic rhythm as the sound blends with the rumble of thunder overhead. Lightning brightens the sky in erratic bursts, illuminating the darkened living room briefly, the only other light coming from the lamp that’s still switched on in Daisy’s room.

As I drag in a shaky breath, the air seems to be suffused with a heavy kind of tension, mirroring the conflict raging within me. I can’t seem to shake the memory of Daisy’s vulnerable expression, etched as it was with hurt and confusion. It makes me question everything. Am I truly falling in love with Daisy or is this just a fleeting infatuation that will fade with time? Even as I think those thoughts, my gut churns, the thought of Daisy ever leaving me causing a sharp pain in my chest as I’m reminded of my own mother walking away and never looking back. I loved her too… I see that now. I see that I had once loved, that I knew how, and my mother’s abandonment turned that love into something bitter and painful until I couldn’t help but run from it, closing myself off from the possibility of ever loving someone despite searching for the feeling every time I fucked a woman.

That’s the truth of it.

“Fuck,” I mutter, swiping a hand through my hair.

Needing some fresh air, I push up from my seat and open the patio doors, the wind whipping through my hair, carrying with it the scent of rain and storm-churned ocean. Just as I’m about to step out onto the deck, a sudden bolt of lightning strikes somewhere close by and the whole area is pitched into darkness, the lights in the neighbouring bungalow suddenly cut out. I glance over my shoulder, noticing the light in Daisy’s room has gone out too. Seconds later I hear her scream out my name.

“Dalton!”

I bolt towards her, knocking into furniture as the fear in her voice propels me forward. With my heart racing in my chest, I burst into her room just as another flash of lightning lights up the space momentarily before pitching it back into darkness once more.

“No, no, no,” she cries, reaching for the bedside lamp, flicking the switch on and off. “It’s so dark.”

“Daisy, I’m here. You’re okay,” I say, climbing onto the bed and reaching for her. She grasps for me, the darkness enveloping us both. “It’s the storm. I think it’s taken the power out.”

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