Page 87 of The Rogue and His Flower

“That was different.”

“How?”

“It just was,” I reply lamely.

“Do youwantto see me come?” she asks, her voice a mere whisper.

Her question burns like a brand, igniting fire in my belly. “Yes,” I choke out, my voice barely audible as she blinks up at me. “But I don’t know if I can stop myself from taking you in my arms and fucking you right here and now if I do.”

“If you touched yourself too, would that stop you from doing that?”

“You want me to touch myself?”

“If that would help?”

“Daisy, we’re crossing a boundary here,” I say, not understanding why in this moment I’m the voice of fucking reason. Not so long ago I was intent on making her mine in every way possible. My selfish need would’ve overridden any sense of right and wrong, but now that I know her like I do, I’m questioning everything.

“We’re going to be married soon, Dalton, and after that we need to make a baby.”

“Without fucking. You said that, remember?” I remind her.

“I do.” She sighs, glancing up at me, her eyes filled with a mix of embarrassment, confusion and desire. “But what if we… Never mind.”

“Say it. Just say what’s on your mind,” I demand, realising how close I am to sayingfuck itto it all.

“I know what I said about you donating your sperm in a cup, but that was before,” she says softly, wincing a little.

“Before?”

“When we weren’t friends, Dalton. When I hadn’t told you about my past, and you hadn’t revealed your own pain. When you hadn’t put me first, and walked away when I’d offered myself to you. When we hadn’t spent time together, when we hadn’t kissed the way we did…” Her voice trails off as she frowns. “It seems so clinical now. Wrong somehow.”

“What are you saying?” I ask, my head fucking spinning.

“If we can’t make a baby because we’re in love with one another, bymaking love…” she adds, her voice wobbling. “At the very least I want us to both feel mutual pleasure, even if it’s by our own hands,” she continues on.

“This isn’t something I can do,” I say.

“Yet you can make me come on your motorbike,” she argues, hammering the point home.

“That was for you.”

“You don’t pleasure yourself?”

“All the fucking time,” I admit, with a shake of my head. “But I’ve never masturbated with a woman that hasn’t then led to fucking them. That’s the part I’m struggling with.”

“Will you at least try. For me?”

Jesus, she really doesn’t understand what she’s asking. “And if I can’t do this without wanting to step over the line you insisted on, one that has us both trapped in an impossible situation?”

“But what if I’ve changed my mind?” she whispers.

“You’re regretting saying it?” I ask.

“All I know is that I can’t bear this tension between us any longer. It’s too much, too overwhelming. You need release. I need release. For now, maybe this will be enough?”

For long moments I consider her request, oscillating between wanting to leave, wanting to stay and do what she’s asked, and wanting to haul her out of the bath, bend her over the lip and fuck her hard and fast.

“Dalton?”

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