Tempting as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 2)
Page 17
“I’ll just…” she tried to say. “Do the rest, then. The, uh…with the bra. So it’s not so…erotic.”
He’d stood up while she’d been talking. She’d have taken a step back, but she was in front of the rack. It wasn’t that she wanted to run away anyway. It was just that he was so…so…
It was his eyes.
He reached out a hand. Lifted her chin. Looked into her eyes. Lowered his mouth to hers, and took it.
Fire.
Oh, yeah.
Her mouth was warm and soft, her eyes were closed, and her body, covered by that snug little dress and clearly so little else, was pliant and curvy and right there to feel against him. He had a hand at the back of her neck and an arm around her waist, pulling her in tight, and she had both her own hands at the back of his head, her fingers trying to find purchase in his short hair, and failing. His tongue was in her mouth already, every single inch of her was yielding, and he was much too close to being out of control.
He kissed her like he’d never get enough. He kissed her like he was already inside her. His palm slipped down and cupped that gorgeous bum, she made a little noise into his mouth, and the flames went higher. He absolutely hurt, and all he wanted was to keep on hurting. The more it hurt, the better it was going to feel in the end, and he needed to get them both there. Now.
He felt her stiffen a split second before the voice registered. “Oh! Excuse me.”
He raised his head, but he didn’t step back. He couldn’t. It was Hailey, carrying an armful of garments, and she had somebody else with her.
Finally, it registered. The velvet curtain on the rings. The rack. The fitting room. For customers.
He was already moving, but he still had Lily’s hand, and she was going with him. Ten feet, and he was at that white-painted door to the unexciting back room, opening it fast, pulling her through it, and kicking it closed again. And then he was kissing her some more. Backing her up. Lifting her so she was sitting at the edge of the work table.
So much better, because she was right there, her feet off the floor, her breath coming hard, looking like a fantasy. The dress was in his way, though. Too snug, so she couldn’t open her legs, and surely they both needed her to do that. His hand was on her leg, just below her knee, and then he was shoving her skirt up. Slowly, because it felt so good. The skin of her thigh was silky-smooth, his hand and the skirt went higher, and her thighs parted for him. Just like that.
Yeah.
“Rafe.” It was a gasp, and then he was stepping into her. He was yanking her against him hard, her legs were wrapping around him, and he was kissing her even deeper. She was making some noise again, and he needed to hear her make more.
Outside, Hailey was talking, and the customer was answering. In here, he was grinding into Lily, kissing her better, until at last, he trailed his mouth along her cheek, to her neck, and kissed her there. Softly, now, because he could tell that was how she liked it, and her skin was too tender to be rough. Her head was turning, giving him more access, and her hands were gripping his shoulders, pulling him in, so, yeah, that was how she liked it.
He licked around the hole in her earlobe, tasting the gold hoop threaded through it, then moving up as he cradled her head in one hand. She was sensitive here as well, and he wondered if she could possibly have as many erogenous zones on that curvy body as it seemed. He wanted to know. He wanted to touch her and kiss her everywhere, until all she could do was lie back, squirm, and ask him to do it some more. And then he wanted to do everything else.
He bit her earlobe. Gently, and she still jumped, which was when he spoke the words into her ear. “I want to fuck you hard.”
He didn’t even realize he’d actually said it until she reacted. Another moan.
He had to do it right here. He had to…
A phone rang. Close by. Too loud.
She stiffened.
“Let it ring,” he said. It may have been a groan.
“It’s Paige. I just…what am I doing?”
Never the words you wanted to hear. The ones that meant you had to back off, to step back. He did it, and she didn’t look at him, so he took her by the waist and lifted her to the floor.
She said, “I need to…I need to call her back. And Hailey. What did I just do?” The phone had stopped ringing, but she still wasn’t looking at him. She was adjusting her dress, touching her hair with trembling hands. Looking like a woman who’d been loved hard, her lipstick kissed all the way off, her mouth a little swollen, her hair coming out of the knot. Looking confused, though. Looking distraught.
“Lily,” he said. “No worries. It’s all good.”
“No,” she said. “I shouldn’t have.”
“Right,” he said. “I’ll go.” He ran a hand through what was left of his hair. “Bloody hell.”
He used the back door. And tried not to think.
Lily turned, put both palms flat on the table, and breathed.
What was she doing? Nothing smart, that was what. All she’d wanted was for Rafe’s hand to keep moving, for him to slide it all the way up her thigh and touch her. She was so wet. She was aching. She needed to come now.
She was an idiot.
She grabbed her purse from the table, found her phone inside it, and called Paige back.
“What the hell is going on?” Paige asked.
“Yeah,” Lily said, and wished the word hadn’t come out so unsteady. “That’s pretty much what I said.”
“I mean, Jace has a great big smile on his face,” Paige said. “So he’s happy. I came home at five this morning after a hard night, and what did I do? Did I ask him to hold me while I fell asleep in his arms? Did I ask him to make me eggs? Nope. I jumped his bones. We didn’t make it out of the doorway. He did me up against the wall, and then on the floor. He literally tore my clothes off. It was amazing. And then we went to bed, and he did hold me, because of course he did. I woke up an hour ago and went to find him, and what happened then? Did we have a loving, sweet talk over coffee? Nope. We did it in his office chair. It’s really nice. It rocks. Ask me how I know. He finished me off on his desk, by the way, and wow. He rocked my world two times over, and I have a feeling he’s planning to do it again. He is a happy man. But then I thought, once I was in the shower and got some blood back to my head again—what’s going on here? Maybe I’m pregnant and haven’t realized it yet, but I’m having some massive hormonal shift. Not to mention extra blood flow to my genitals.”
“Really?” Lily said. “You think? Oh, Paige, that’s great.”
“What?” Paige asked. “No. Of course I’m not. I had my period a week ago. Probably exactly like you. Jace and I are still in the talking-about-it stage. I’d have told you if we’d decided.”
“Oh. Well, I hope so,” Lily said. “But obviously, he’s going to be your husband, so it’s normal that you’d turn to him more, and I—”
“Stop,” Paige said. “Just stop. And tell me why my fiancé is still wondering what hit him. It’s you, isn’t it? It’s never you. Even when you were married, it wasn’t you.”
“Yes,” Lily said. “I noticed. Thanks for reminding me.”
“That’s why I didn’t figure it out,” Paige said. “Who is it? What are you doing? Why didn’t you text me this morning?”
Silence, and then Paige said, “Wait.”
The word hung there in the air for two seconds. Three. And then Paige said, “Rafe.”
“Rafe what?”
“He’s been there a couple days. And, baby—you know that he’s been in the news, right? Jace says he’d never have hurt anybody, but it doesn’t look good.”
“What doesn’t look good?” Lily asked.
“His old girlfriend. He sounds pretty…well, if Jace didn’t swear it wasn’t true, I’d have said he could be abusive. The video’s all over the place. Well, it is if you look at Hollywood gossip. It’s why he’s up there in Montana at all. And you didn’t like him at all before, even though you tried to hide it.”
“Congratulations,” Lily said. “You should take that detective test.”
“OK, first, you’re never snarky, and second, you know I have another year to go before I can. Lily—he’s a star. He’s an actor.”
“Yes,” Lily said. “I noticed. I got it. I need to get back to work. I have a lot going on. A kid, a dog, expansion plans…a lot. Redecorating. Lots going on.”
Paige said, “What? Lily…”
Lily said, “Back to work. Call you later,” and hung up.
She loved her twin, but she was thirty-one years old. Exactly the same age as Paige. Minus ten minutes. She owned a house, she owned a business, and she even owned a dog. Partially. She could make her own choices.
Wait. She was staring at the phone. And then she called Paige back. She had a sort of roaring thing in her ears.
“Oh, good,” Paige said the second she picked up. “Because I have more to say. Tell me what happened back this spring. He lied to you? That miserable SOB. He had to know about Antonio, and he still did that? Jace keeps saying Rafe’s great. Fine, he’s a good brother, but that doesn’t always translate. Some men really do think that all’s fair in love and war. They have completely different standards for their friends and for women. If you worked around as many cops as I do—well, if you worked around cops at all—you’d know that. And you’re—”
“Paige,” Lily said, and then, when Paige didn’t stop talking, she said it again. “Paige.”
“What?”
Lily had to work to remember what. “Of course he didn’t know who I was. Use your skills. What, he was going to meet me three weeks later in Australia and pretend he had amnesia? Why would he do that anyway? I’m fairly certain that he doesn’t have trouble finding women willing to sleep with him. Just a hunch. I was calling you back to say that I can decide for myself, and I’m really, truly not that fragile. Maybe I was once, but not anymore. Also, I’m not the one who was pretending to be you—pretending to be me—you know what I mean—and sleeping with my scary neighbor so I’d have to deal with him later, and he’d wonder why I was suddenly running away. As for Rafe, maybe Jace does know him better.”
“Oh, no,” Paige said. “Honey. No. He’s getting to you.”
“And maybe I want him to,” Lily said. “You know—I’m a big girl now. And I really do have to go. I’m glad I’m making Jace happy. Indirectly. Although, you know—you share a lot. We might want to think about that. I’m going to say one thing, though. If he’s anything like Rafe…because, wow, that man can kiss. He also has the best body I’ve ever seen. And he’s so…No. I’m not telling you all this. I’m hanging up.”
Rafe had a fair number of conversations with himself over the rest of the day. They basically amounted to, How many bloody times does it take to convince yourself that you’re nobody’s hero? Also, Two sides to every story, whatever she or Antonio says. What makes you so sure her side is the truth?
What was it Carrera had said, though, after the first wave of revelations about Kylie? They’d been sitting in Rafe’s trailer running lines when Antonio had broken off, the bedroom eyes and faint Italian accent making him look and sound like a much higher-caliber bloke than he actually was, and said, “That Kylie—what a crazy bitch she is. High maintenance. Don’t worry about it. My ex was the same way. You have to handle them like glass, and any little thing you say turns into another breakdown. That is not your problem. At least you didn’t marry her.”
Two problems with that. First, Lily was nothing like Kylie. She didn’t ask for too much, she asked for too little. She didn’t cling, she pulled away. And second, maybe Rafe wanted to handle her like glass. In every possible way.
Which, of course, made doing her on the table in her back room a very bad idea, even though it had felt like such a good one. Also, there was still that other thing. She’s going to be your sister-in-law. Your sister-in-law-in-law. Your twin-in-law. And that was much too close.
He spent the rest of the afternoon working on his lines for Unbreakable, then repeating them over, trying out different readings, while he chopped wood for the stove, attempted not to chop himself in the process, and was glad Lily wasn’t watching him do it. If he was going to be sore, though, he might as well be all the way sore. After that, he cooked vegetables for dinner, added half of the roasted chicken he’d bought the day before, watched an old Western, relaxed his brain, and let it absorb the background material.
Discipline, that was the ticket. Which was why, when it was time, he went to bed and didn’t think about Lily’s mouth opening under his. Of the curve of her thigh under his hand. Of the little noises she’d made. Arousal, and…surprise. Like she wasn’t expecting it to feel that good.
Yeah, that part was a lie. He thought about her. And at seven forty-five the next morning, he put on his running clothes and headed up to her house to get Chuck, because that was their arrangement.
This time, she wasn’t outside. Her goats were out in the barnyard, though, and a few chickens were pecking the ground around them, so she’d done her chores already. He headed to the front door, caught the scent of lavender and the hum of bees, and felt the promise of a warmer day underneath the morning chill as he rang the doorbell. He was answered by a joyful chorus of barking that sounded like about three dogs, and nothing else.
Why didn’t Lily have a hammock? She did have a porch swing, which was nice, but surely she should have a hammock, too. The kind made of woven white string, slung between two evergreens at the side of the house. She should be able to swing in there, one bare foot propped against the webbing, her pretty cotton dress falling away from her thighs and her blonde hair loose. A book in her hand, her fingers caught between the pages, her gaze somewhere off in the distance, and her thoughts there, too…
He heard some closer-up barking, the door opened, and he blinked. Chuck had barged out in front of Lily, his tail going a mile a minute, until Lily grabbed him by the harness and said, “Chuck. Sit,” in that no-nonsense voice that always took Rafe by surprise. It took Chuck by surprise, too, apparently, because he sat.
Rafe noticed that. Sort of. What he mainly noticed was that she was wearing a robe. In fact, the same one she’d shown him the day before. White silk. Short. Not all the way…opaque.
Thighs. That was a pretty good snapshot of the contents of his mind. Before it added, Breasts. He caught a glimpse of her bra when she bent over to grab the dog. It was pale purple with some creamy lace overlay, it was feathery-light and, he’d bet, close to transparent, and it only covered about half of her breasts. And absolutely none of that was terrible.
Yeah, he noticed all that from a glimpse. He was paying attention.
“Good morning,” she said. No makeup again, and her hair was falling around her face and down her back as if she’d just blown it dry and got it perfect. Gold and platinum and caramel. Any man who saw it would want to touch it, and Rafe was absolutely no exception.
“I thought you’d be, ah, still out with the goats, so I…” Well, this was smooth. “I came by for Chuck,” he finished with a shade more polish. “Good for him to run out the energy. Bought my own leash for him as well.” He held it up. “Simpler. I’ll drop him at the shop for Bailey when I head out for my lesson, same as yesterday.”
“Oh. I wasn’t sure you were still coming.” She pulled her hair back with one hand, which had the unfortunate effect—or the fortunate one—of making the white silk ride higher on her thighs and her robe part a little bit more. She smelled like roses and honey and sandalwood, and that wasn’t any worse than the rest of it.
He said, “I reckoned you weren’t sure. Something about the way you didn’t text me back.” Chuck was si
tting at her side, panting in his eagerness, and Rafe dropped to his haunches and gave him a scratch. Lily hadn’t answered, so he told her, “I heard the ‘No.’ I got it. Could be I wish it was a ‘Yes.’ Could be you know exactly how much. But it isn’t, and we made a deal about Chuck.”
“To have fun,” she said. “That was the deal I remember. To make fools of ourselves, and not to care. In the taxi, that first night. You kept that deal. I remember how I felt about it, too.”
He looked up at her, then stood up. Slowly. That last bit had come out on a breath. “So…exactly what are you saying?” Was he meant not to notice what she was wearing? It wasn’t working. Fortunately, he was an actor, but bloody hell. His body was saying, “Yes, boy,” and his brain was saying, “Back off.” It was confusing.
She asked, “Do you want some yoghurt and muesli? They’re homemade. I was about to eat breakfast. Or do you need to go on your run?”
He could turn around and take off with Chuck like a man who didn’t need to be tortured. Or he could take this ride as far as it would go. He said, “I just kicked my run to the curb.”
She smiled. Looking self-assured and a little remote again, the way she’d looked sitting on the bar stool. A look that kept a man guessing. It had worked then, and it still did.
It was all a bit surreal, exactly the way it had been in her shop. One thing on his mind, and trying to be cool all the same. He stood in the kitchen, ground beans, and made coffee while she reached for bowls on the open shelves, pulled things out of cupboards and refrigerator, and fixed a tray. He added two yellow mugs to it, hand-painted with butterflies and flowers, poured the coffee, and then put goat’s milk into a tiny pitcher. This one was pale blue, but it had flowers, too.
She really was the most feminine woman he’d ever met, from her pale-pink nails to her pink-and-green décor to that bra to her coffee mugs, not to mention the faint scent of flowers and more that he picked up every time she got close. Like when she was brushing behind his back, trailing her hand over the fabric of his T-shirt in a barely-there touch as she stepped around him like a dancer in the tiny kitchen, her bare feet not making a sound on the wood floor. She had him wound all the way up again, and all he’d done was make coffee.