‘Was it something I said?’ she asked after a painful silence.
‘No.’
‘Something I did?’
‘No.’
‘Something I didn’t?’
‘No.’
Daisy pushed her lips out on an expelled breath as she smoothed down her dress. ‘You really know how to leave a girl hanging.’
‘I’m sorry.’ His hand went through his hair again, this time from front to back, leaving it all sexily tousled as if he’d just got out of bed. ‘I’m not used to doing things this way.’
‘Which way is that? We’re both adults who are attracted to each other. What other way are you talking about?’
He drew in an audible breath before slowly releasing it. ‘You’re a virgin, for one thing.’
Daisy wrinkled her brow in a frown. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘Having sex for the first time can be an intensely emotional experience.’
‘Was it for you?’
He frowned as if the thought was ludicrous. ‘No, not at all.’
‘So why should it be intensely emotional for me?’
He looked at her for a moment without speaking, his eyes surveying every feature on her face as if she was a complicated puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. ‘It’s different for women. It’s harder for them to separate their emotions from the physicality of sex. Especially the first time.’
‘How many virgins have you slept with?’
‘None that I know of.’
‘So how can you speak with such authority?’
He let out another long breath. ‘Look, I don’t want you to get hurt, OK? You’re a good girl, and in my experience good girls and bad boys don’t mix.’
Daisy wasn’t sure what he was saying. Was he saying their fling wasn’t going to go ahead after all? Disappointment felt like a weary ache in her bones. ‘So what happens now?’
He rubbed at his shadowed jaw before dropping his hand by his side. ‘We’ll hang out together as planned.’
‘And what about sex?’
‘I think it’s best if we leave sex out of it.’
Daisy blinked. ‘No sex?’
A tiny muscle beat a one-two rhythm at the side of his mouth. ‘No sex.’
She ran her tongue over her lips, wondering why he was suddenly baulking at the idea of becoming intimate with her. Surely this wasn’t just about her looks. He had been as turned on as her just moments ago. She had seen and felt the evidence with her own eyes and hands. Was it the thought of the time frame that was putting him off? He was used to one-night stands. He didn’t have relationships with women. He had hook-ups. Quick, temporary transactions that involved their bodies, not their minds or their emotions or, indeed, his. ‘So, let me get this straight… You want me to pretend to be your lover until after the Grand Slam but we’re not going to have sex?’