Alastair crushed his mouth to hers.
It was impossibly perfect. A dream. A memory. A homecoming.
The kiss ignited fathomless longings, the ache of lost years, the despair of a decade spent apart. The dam had held for too long, and when it broke, it wasn’t gentle. It was desperate, consuming—an urgent need to reclaim what had been stolen from them.
Nothing existed but her. The taste of her, the feel of her, the heat of her pressed against him.
“I missed you so much,” she murmured against his jaw.
Alastair’s insides clenched. “Too long,” he rasped, lifting her into his arms.
Daisy gasped but didn’t protest, her fingers tangling in his hair as he carried her effortlessly toward the staircase. He took the steps two at a time, his body charged with a new, electric kind of energy. A certainty.
Was this what they’d had before? This all-consuming, demanding, insistent need for one another?
He kicked her door open, pausing only long enough to take in the small, tidy room—a modest wardrobe, a desk, a carefully made-up bed. The air was thick with honeysuckle and her.
Daisy.
His Daisy.
Alastair stepped inside and shut the door, sealing them in a world that belonged only to them.
Before he even set her on her feet, she was working the buttons on his shirt, her fingers quick and determined while he hastily unfastened the ties of her gown. Of all the questions in his life, she was the only answer.
His gaze roved over her delicate features, memorizing every curve, every breathless expression. Then he bent his head, pressing his lips to the soft, fragrant skin along her neck.
Sweet. Smooth.
Mine.
Desire tore through him in a way that was both achingly familiar and utterly new. There had been women in his life—beautiful, practiced lovers—but none had consumed him like Daisy did.
Because Daisy…
Daisy was the other half of his soul. She held his heart in her hands.
How did a man begin to comprehend feelings that spanned both past and present? That eclipsed time itself?
A sudden, desperate need overtook him. He dragged the thick material of her borrowed disguise down past her shoulders, past her waist, until it pooled at her feet. She pushed off his jacket, fingers trembling, and then lifted his shirt over his head. He all but tore her chemise, desperate to rid her of the barriers between them. She wrestled with his boots, cursing softly, and he huffed a breathless laugh before helping her.
And then?—
Nothing stood between them.
She was pink and creamy, soft and strong, and infinitely more beautiful than she had been even in his most fevered dreams.
He took a step back, reverent, awestruck.
She was glorious.
No woman in all his life had ever left him so shaken as she did. Despite the gaps, he knew this to be true on the most basic level.
Because no one else was Daisy.
He could almost believe she had been made for him.
Her lush curves and contours celebrated feminine strength. Curves and contours…
