When I felt sleepy enough for bed, I gently shifted Charlie off my lap and rose. Damon’s eyes moved from his book to me. There was some kind of expectancy in his gaze.
“It’s late. I think I’ll hit the hay,” I told him, and he stared at me for a long moment.
“Sleep well,” he said at length, and I turned to leave. I swore I felt his eyes on me the entire time as I left the room.
In the spare bedroom, I pulled on a T-shirt and some shorts to sleep in, then climbed under the covers. I left the bedroom door open a little, hoping that Damon might interpret it as an invitation. Despite being tired, I tossed and turned until I heard his soft footsteps padding down the hallway. I practically held my breath when he reached my door, and my heart began pounding loudly in my ears when he paused, as though he’d noticed it was left open. What was really only a few seconds felt like an eternity, but then he gently closed the door and continued to his own room.
I knew he was probably just nervous. He’d told me this trip wasn’t about sex, and he was trying to uphold that promise. Still, it didn’t stop the bitter sting of disappointment from churning in my gut.
Twenty-Two.
*Rose*
The following morning, I woke up refreshed, despite the fact I’d felt just the teeniest bit rejected that Damon hadn’t come to my room. It was this place. I couldn’t help marvelling at how quiet it was, how at night the sky was pure black spattered with glittering stars. There was no smog, no yellow tinge of light pollution like you got back in London.
Rising from the bed, I went to pull the curtains and almost had a heart attack when I discovered a beast staring back at me. I yelped loudly in fright and practically leapt to the other side of the room, knocking into the closet and creating an awful ruckus. A second later, the door flew open and Damon burst inside, a look of concern on his face.
“Rose, what happened?”
I inhaled sharply and pointed to the window, trying not to fixate on how Damon was wearing nothing but a pair of navy boxer briefs. “I’m sorry. I just got a fright when I opened the curtains and that thing was looking in at me.”
A moment elapsed as his gaze went to the window, then back to me, then back to the window. A second later he burst into laughter, his hands going to his stomach, he found my distress so funny. I was stunned because I’d never heard him laugh so loudly before, nor with such uncontained fervour. “That’s not a thing, it’s a ram. He must be one of Sheila’s.”
“A ram,” I said, still breathing unsteadily. “Right. Well, you can stop laughing. I have every right to be scared when I open the curtains to find a creature with the horns of Satan staring back at me.”
Now Damon laughed even harder as he came towards me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me into a hug. He was smiling so widely it made my heart hurt. Nobody had a right being so flippin’ beautiful. “Oh, God, I can’t even….”
“Shut up,” I huffed, fighting back a smile of my own. It was useless, though, and in the end I was laughing, too.
“Horns of Satan,” Damon chuckled, his chin resting on the top of my head. “That’s priceless. I have to tell Sheila. She’ll be laughing for days.”
“Come on, even you have to admit how sinister-looking those horns are,” I said, resting my face against his warm, bare chest as our laughter died down. All of a sudden, the humour of the situation began to dissipate as a new feeling emerged. We were hugging, and Damon was practically naked. All I wore was a thin T-shirt and shorts, no bra.
He moved his hands, settling them on my lower back just shy of my bottom.
“I’m taking you into town today,” he said in a low voice. “There are some markets we can visit, maybe go for a walk on the beach. Then I’ll take you to my favourite pub to eat. They do the best roast dinner you’ll ever taste.”
“Sounds good,” I murmured, turning my face and absentmindedly pressing a kiss to his collarbone. A shudder ran through his body at the contact. I kissed him again in the exact same spot and he drew me tighter,