Page 64 of The Rogue and His Flower

“I ignore red flags,” I whisper as he brushes his lips against mine, confessing my sins.

“I know, I’ve seen how many you’ve ignored over the years with other men. Fucking drives me crazy.”

“I crave physical touch,” I admit, my fingers curling into fists at my side as I try to stop myself from reaching for him and hauling him closer.

“Interesting,” he replies, his free hand sliding up and over the centre of my chest and gently resting around my throat, his thumb stroking the thrumming pulse in my neck. “Anything else?”

“No!” I snap, refusing to let him get any more insight into my damaged heart.

“You’re lying,” he goads against my lips, his fingers tightening a little.

It only seems to add to the pleasure building in my core. My airways thin, forcing me to drag in more oxygen between my parted lips, intensifying the thrum between my legs. His touch is both a taunt and a seduction that leaves me dizzy with desire. The heat from his body brands mine, searing through the fabric of my clothes.

I gasp. “Don’t…”

“Don’t what? Don’t hold your quivering pulse in my hand? Don’t lick your skin? Don’t taste your lips? Don’t press my thigh against your dripping cunt? Don’t what, Daisy?”

Don’t stop.

I know that I should push him away, put an end to this reckless game before it consumes us both. Yet all rational thought evaporates into thin air as an orgasm builds, gaining traction with every rock of my hips, every gasping breath, every teasing burn of his lips against my skin.

“Tell me what you’re hiding, Daisy. Tell me and I’ll let you come.”

“Don’t make me say it,” I whisper.

“Daisy, tell me. Tell me what’s hidden beneath that pretty smile, and those bright clothes you wear.”

“I can’t.”

“You will,” he insists, his eyes glinting with determination, his fingers tightening on my hips as he guides me to rock faster, to chase the pleasure.

I tremble uncontrollably from his touch, from the orgasm building within me, from the heartbreaking, desperate truth hovering on my lips. My fists curl tighter as I try to find the strength to resist him, but the pleasure he’s conjured is overpowering any semblance of sanity.

“Please,” I croak, my voice shaking as stars pinwheel behind my closed eyelids and the first wave of my orgasm begins to crest, “D-don’t make me say it.”

He pulls back slightly. “Open your eyes and look at me,” he demands.

My eyes snap open, and behind them tears tremble on my lashes.

“Daisy?” he gasps, the forcefulness of his need to know what I’m keeping hidden from him wavering at my distress.

I blink, and one by one my tears fall as I rip open my chest and admit the truth. “I seek out affection from the wrong type of man in my need to feel wanted, so I feel like I’m worth something, that I’mloved, because the right type of man never seems to want me.”

“What?” he questions, pulling back, his body going rigid.

Everything comes to a screeching halt, my breath, his body, the sound of Harlow singing inside, the goddamn universe. Any pleasure I felt disappears and is replaced with a sense of deeploss. Then, like a bottle of champagne uncorked, my secrets bubble out of me, and I'm unable to stop now that I’ve started.

“I seek out comfort and kindness, care and affection, love and respect,” I say, dragging in a tremulous, tear-stained breath, “So I can try to forget how badly I was abused and ridiculed, tied up and beaten, starved and abandoned by my birth parents.”

“Daisy…” Dalton’s voice softens, his eyes wide with shock.

“I was hurt so terribly by the two people who should’ve loved me the most that I accept the bare minimum from any man I’ve dated just to feel anything other than worthless.”

“Fuck!” Dalton shouts, stepping back as cold air dashes across my skin from his sudden absence. There’s a wild, almost unhinged look in his eyes as he stares at me. “Daisy, I didn’t know…”

Gripping the hem of my skirt, I pull it back down my thighs, then press my eyes shut on the hot tears tipping over my lashes whilst the ache between my legs pulses. It’s a dichotomy of pain and pleasure that tears me in two. “Why would you? We’re not friends.” I mumble, trying to find the courage to look him in the eye.

“Daisy, I’ve been an arsehole,” he exclaims, swiping a hand through his hair as he paces up and down before me.

---