by Vivian Arend
Rafe waited.
“Yes, we dated.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s not like when I left here I was looking to find someone to spend time with—”
“Hey,” he interrupted. “We’d said we weren’t going to wait for each other, Laurel. Don’t go apologizing for something you weren’t supposed to do.”
It was easier to say that since he’d had a warning. He wasn’t sure how he would have responded finding out without this morning’s heads-up.
Gee, he should be thankful to Jeff. Maybe he’d send flowers. A vase full of thistles popped to mind.
Laurel nodded at his words, but it was clear she still felt uncomfortable. “It was strange at first, but it seemed like the right thing to do.” Her eyes were glued to his face, as if hoping she wasn’t going to hurt him. “I was starting first year and he was in the middle of his four-year program, but we hit it off. He was charming and polite, and he made me laugh.” She looked down at her fingers. “This is going to sound really stupid, but in some ways, he reminded me of you.”
Rafe wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not. “Considering you can barely look at the man, I hope that’s not true anymore.”
“No. But we dated, and I thought it was pretty serious, or potentially going to be serious. Then he broke it off with me.”
“Idiot,” Rafe muttered, catching her fingers in his hand and squeezing them. “You seem a little more choked up about it than just that. Although I’m sure that it hurt, him being your first real boyfriend.”
“Yeah, there’s more,” she said. “He broke up with me right before leaving on a mission trip for a month. When he returned he made a couple of half-assed attempts at getting back together. When I said no, he turned around and started up with someone else. Someone whose father just happened to head an important missionary organization.”
“Idiot and asshole. Got it.” Rafe squeezed her fingers. “Is there more?”
She hesitated.
Huh. “Trust me, sweetheart, while I’d love to take the man apart for upsetting you, I won’t go off half-cocked. I want to know how to help make things easier for you.”
Laurel avoided meeting his eyes, obviously embarrassed. “To be fair to Jeff, he’s guilty of being an ass, but I don’t think he meant to be deliberately cruel when he called it off. I had to deal with uncomfortable questions from people asking if he’d called, or been in touch while he wasn’t around, but it wasn’t terrible. Just…really awkward considering I hadn’t expected it in the first place. He straight up told me ‘I need time away from you’ which made me feel as if I’d done something wrong, or been too smothering or something.” She seemed about to say something else, then shook her head as a derisive laugh escaped. “And the fact I can remember exactly what he said is pathetic.”
“It’s not pathetic,” Rafe insisted. “You were hurt. It was big and important.”
“This is why my parents should have let me start dating earlier, so I could have gotten all this melodrama out of the way back then.”
“Hey, dating at any age is no guarantee of losing the crazies. I still get private Facebook requests from Toni Faulk, hoping we can get together.”
“Toni?” Laurel blinked. “She moved away in grade nine.”
“Yeah, I know, but I guess she’s got a job where she travels lots, and she’d love to”—he made air quotes—“‘reconnect’ anytime I feel like driving to the Edmonton airport for a booty call.”
She snorted. “You win. I don’t have people DMing me for sex.”
“No, you just have them showing up unwelcome in your backyard, potentially working with your father.
“There is that.” Misery stole over her expression. “I can’t… I don’t know what to tell my parents. “
Wait. What?
“Oh, shit.” Suddenly the awkward tension before dinner made more sense. “They don’t know, do they? Because I can’t imagine your father willingly inviting around someone who broke your heart.”
“Jeff didn’t break my heart. Not really,” Laurel said. “I haven’t told my parents that we dated, though, and I don’t think he’s mentioned it either.”
“Awesome. Very churchy and upright of him.”
She offered him a dirty look. “Hey, don’t blame him alone. I’m sure he was worried about visiting Rocky, wondering what my dad would say to him.”
“Oh, he’s a brave man. Totally Captain Canada material.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” Laurel muttered. “I’m just as bad. I’m enjoying the mental picture of Jeff dancing carefully around my father far too much. He had to be totally shocked to find out I hadn’t said anything.”
“You’re not going to convince me you’re a villain, Sitko, so give it a rest. A little foolish, but not a villain.”
“Hey, Mom and Dad not knowing isn’t as foolish as it sounds,” she said. “The whole idea was to go away and spread my wings a little. I didn’t want to tell my parents everything right as it happened, and by the time we were getting to the stage I thought there was something to tell, there wasn’t.”
She stared into space, the sadness on her face seeming deeper than just a first love gone wrong.
“This sucks on so many levels.” Rafe wasn’t sure the whole keeping-secrets-from-her-parents thing was a great idea, and while there had to be more to the story regarding Jeff dumping her for another woman—what he did know confirmed Rafe’s opinion.
Jeff was an idiot, an asshole, and Rafe didn’t like him one fucking bit.
But it was time to switch topics, and stop wasting their date thinking about the bastard.
Rafe stood and brought Laurel with him to the edge of the loft floor. “Well, I can’t change the past, but I’ll be there for you. I’ll keep him away from you.”
“I can deal with Jeff,” Laurel said. “What are you grinning like that for?”
“It’s date time.” The second part of his prepared surprise. “Remember how you always complained about never getting to come out to my place because you were sure there was a fantastic rope swing in the barn?”
“Yeah.”
He stepped away a few paces to the wall, unhooking the wooden seat he’d made and bringing it to the middle of the floor where the long ropes had room to hang straight. Rafe waved his hands over it with a flourish. “Ta-da.”
“That’s not a rope swing,” she pointed out.
“Once we put up the rest of the hay, I’ll hang a real one, and we can try some fancy jumpin’ if you’re still game. But in the meantime”—he patted the seat—“your throne, milady.”
Laurel eyed the wooden seat. “It’s awfully high.”
He’d hung the ropes firmly from the rafters but deliberately tied the seat farther off the ground than usual. “Allow me.”
He closed his hands around her waist, lifting her into the seat as she wrapped her fingers around the ropes. She glanced at him, her sparkling blue eyes nearly in line with his. “You know this is too high for me to get a push off the ground. You’re going to have to help me.”
“Not a problem.” Rafe stepped into position behind her, slipping his hands over hers. “Got a good grip?”
“Yes. Oh…”
Her words faded off into a soft sigh as he pressed his lips to the side of her neck. He leaned his body against her back for a moment, sliding his hands down her arms. Down her sides, finally coming to a rest against her hips.
Heat coiled around them. A slow, gentle simmer he was reluctant to speed up. Not too fast, not too slow…
Whatever history lay between Laurel and Jeff—right now wasn’t about that. This wasn’t about their history, either, his and Laurel’s, even though they had a hundred memories of the past.
He nuzzled the side of her neck, humming happily as he dragged in deep breaths of her scent. “You smell delicious.”
“You swing funny,” she teased, but she tilted her head to the side and presented him with more neck to nibble on.
“I swing pe
rfectly,” he corrected. “Hold on tight.”
Chapter Nine
Having Rafe pay attention to her like this was…
A shiver rippled over her skin as he kissed her, this time right under her ear, his hard body brushing her back and sending need ricocheting through her core.
This? Was perfect.
Most of the time they’d spent together over the years had been before school and during lunch. Once the school bell rang to end the day, he’d hop on the bus to head home, and she’d walk back to the pastorate, so outside of school hours it wasn’t as if they had spent masses of time together.
And they certainly hadn’t spent time together like this. With that edge of something other than friendship warm and pulsing between them.
When he touched her, a sense of familiar was there. But it wasn’t her good friend who gave her hips a squeezing caress before he grabbed the wooden support under her and stepped back, lifting her high in an arc.
Heck, he’d pushed her on the swings before, the two of them talking nonstop about whatever it was that was on their mind at the time.
This was different because they were no longer children. There weren’t childish activities stealing though her mind as he pushed her. The swing slid forward smoothly before reaching its peak then drifting back to his strong hands. He caught her on each upswing, pulling her slightly toward him before giving a firm push that sent her soaring.
Beams of light shone through faint cracks, dancing with the dust floating in the air. The heady scents of the ranch filled her on every breath.
But those things faded every time she got close to him. New sensations buzzed through her system. It must have been her imagination because they weren’t physically close anymore, not while she was swinging, but it seemed as if the air itself got warmer near him. The hard slope of his body behind her a barrier she could sense.
Laurel pumped with her legs to make the swing go faster, climbing higher as a lovely, dizzying sensation grew. She might not know exactly what they were doing, but this was fun, and she wasn’t letting go of a single moment of joy.
A timeless moment later Rafe gave her a warning tap. “My turn.”
On the next return swing, he caught hold of the wooden base and slowed her, walking forward rapidly then holding the seat steady so she could slip off to the hard wooden floor.
“You want me to push you?” Laurel asked, moving out of his way as he settled onto the narrow board.
“Nope.”
She gasped as he caught her around the waist and tugged her into his lap.
“Rafe—”
“Hold on to the ropes,” he ordered, walking backward slightly before leaning back and lifting his feet from the ground.
He had one hand wrapped around her waist, but the other held the rope, and thank goodness, because she couldn’t have kept them in place when he increased their speed.
If it had been just her she would have felt slightly off balance, but his iron grip held her in position on his lap, the solid muscles beneath and behind her forming a wall, while the arm around her waist pulled their bodies together tightly.
She relaxed, trusting him to take care of them. “If the swing breaks, you’re going to be a pancake,” she warned.
A laugh escaped, but there was more than amusement in the sound.
Desire. Need.
Lust.
The heat between them instantly ratcheted up a level.
They fell into a rhythm, moving together. She’d lean back on his chest, their legs extended as they flew forward, glimpses of the fields beyond them dappled with sunlight and shadow visible through the open loft window. Then he’d curl his body forward, stomach muscles flexing as he pressed against her, swinging backward with the weight of her body pressed to his strong forearm. He’d rolled up his shirtsleeves, and her breasts rested on the bare skin of his forearm.
The urge to get naked hit hard.
They moved together in a rhythm that sent her body thrumming. She fought to keep from moaning, but it was impossible to stop a note of pleasure from escaping as he pressed his lips to the side of her neck and murmured. “Comfy?”
“Only you would think about fooling around on a swing, Rafe Coleman.”
“Are we fooling around? You’ve got a dirty mind, Sitko. We’re just swinging.” But the arm around her body shifted slightly, and his hand drifted higher, brushing the underside of her breast.
They weren’t swinging as hard anymore, as if his concentration had broken and airtime was no longer the top priority. They were still solidly seated, but his thumb drifted across her breast, pausing to circle her nipple.
Her body obediently tightened to a hard peak.
It was a heady sensation to press her torso more firmly into his grasp while they canted back and forth, never quite balanced. He adjusted position to cup her fully, a low sound of pleasure escaping as he squeezed.
“We are definitely fooling around,” she insisted.
“Okay,” he agreed, dragging his feet on the floor to stop them. “We are. Come here.”
He stood and turned her at the same time. She ended with her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips. Her entire body pressed hard against him, every inch quivering with excitement and…he was kissing her.
Rafe Coleman was a damn fine kisser.
He seemed fascinated with her bottom lip. Licking it, and biting it, and sucking it into his mouth briefly before pressing their lips together completely and stealing her oxygen.
She finally did what she’d been craving earlier that day. Laurel slipped her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck and let the soft curls wrap around her fingertips.
He slipped his tongue into her mouth, and they tangled, bodies rubbing together as he stepped across the floor. She had no idea where he was going. She wasn’t sure how he could walk without stumbling because she was blind. Eyes squeezed shut as she concentrated on the blood pounding through her system.
Floorboards creaked, then cooler air struck as he separated them and lowered her on a firm, yet soft surface. Laurel glanced to the side, pressing one hand over age-softened cotton, but she barely had time to recognize the familiar picnic quilt before Rafe was there, crawling over her to stare down with a happy smile.
She caught him by the shoulders, pulling futilely in the hopes he’d settle his weight on her.
“Uh-uh. Not until we set some ground rules,” he warned.
He braced his hands on either side of her head, with one knee resting solidly between her legs, only he held himself far enough away their bodies didn’t connect. Unmovable, no matter how hard she tugged.
Laurel groaned unhappily. “Tease.”
“I suppose. Teasing myself, if I’m honest, but Sitko?” He dipped his head far enough to press a quick kiss to her lips. “We don’t need to rush. Trust me, remember?”
He was right. After how long they’d waited, it didn’t seem right to go too far, too fast. She was scared to go too far, too fast, but…
She still wanted.
Laurel took a deep breath. This was Rafe, her friend since forever. “I trust you.”
“Good.”
He rolled to the blanket, stretching his long legs beside her. He rested on one elbow as he gazed down, admiration in his eyes.
“See, if I rushed, this wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.”
“It’s well established you have a twisted idea of fun, Coleman.”
He trickled his fingers over the buttons on her blouse. “You like me twisted. I want to savour. I want to go slow and appreciate every second of learning you. I’ve only touched you the one time, you know.”
That night so long ago flashed into Laurel’s mind. She reached up and stroked his cheek, a thin layer of scruff scratching her palm. He’d been the one to slow them down then, too, and the memory reassured her. “You’ve got way more willpower than me,” she whispered. “Thinking back to the one time.”
Rafe slipped the top button on her bl
ouse open before skimming his fingers along the edge, a light, teasing touch over the top swells of her breasts. “I had fun that night.”
Just the thought of it was enough to send a flash of desire through her core. “But we didn’t have sex. That’s what I meant. If I’d had my way we would have.”
He was working on the next button. “I didn’t have a condom, and no way could I go back into town to grab one.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to bare skin. “I got to touch you, and I got you off.”
He certainly had. She’d done the same for him, both of them fumbling to find a way to connect intimately without dangerous consequences.
The memories of their one time together were hot, and she’d thought about that night a lot, but right now he was making short work of the rest of her buttons, and staying in the here and now was a whole lot more desirable than trips down memory lane.
Rafe used the backs of his fingers to brush the fabric from her torso, a teasing touch on sensitive skin that made her arch toward him.
“Shhhh. I want to look,” he said, stroking up the side of her body and over the cream-coloured bra she wore. He traced his fingers along the lacy edge, down to the dip between her breasts, up the other side. He did it again, only this time he used his thumb on her skin, stretching his hand open until he covered her breast completely.
Oh boy. Laurel swallowed hard. “It’s okay if you take my bra off.”
“I’ll get there,” he promised. His voice sounded deeper than usual, and she lifted her gaze to his. Raw hunger reflected back.
“Take off your shirt too,” she ordered.
“Later. I’m busy,” he informed her, skating his palm over her in a slow, even circle.
Her nipple tightened, pressing against the thin fabric as if desperate to make contact.
He shifted closer, bodies bumping as he pressed their lips together. A slow kiss this time, with gentle pressure and the slightest flick of his tongue. Before she could sink her hands into his hair, he was gone, butterfly-light touches teasing down her jaw and neck. Along the edge of her bra, and over to where her nipple stood at attention as if waiting for him.
He hummed happily, brushing his lips over the peak before tasting her. His tongue wet the fabric and made it cling. He closed his lips around the tip and sucked lightly, and Laurel gasped in pleasure.