The Boat Builder's Bed (25 page)

“Yes, Rafe,” she said meekly. And slipped off a shoe so she could rub her foot up and down his leg under the table.

A week later, as they drove home from one of the harbor-front restaurants, Rafe finally shared what he’d been turning around in his mind for the last several days.

He reached across and clasped her hand, steering the big car easily with the other. “I know I said we should take it slowly, so I want to give you time to think about this. Would you three consider sharing my house? In time for Camille to start school in February?”
 

He heard her indrawn breath and pressed on. “Once we’ve got things a bit more finished, of course.”
 

He tightened his warm grip. “Think about it for me? You mother would be very private in the suite downstairs, apart from me wandering by to use the gym.”

“With half your gorgeous body on display?

“Possibly.”

“I’d want to supervise that,” she said.
 

Rafe heard the laugh in her voice and smiled as the Jaguar scythed through the darkness.
 

“She could rent out the Picton house for some extra income until she decides what to do long-term,” he added. “She’d see plenty of Camille this way. She could work part-time or help you in the studio, or mind Camille after school. Whatever the two of you decide. You seem to be a good team.”

He knew Sophie’s eyes were on him, and he kept his own on the winding road. She’d said nothing in the affirmative yet.

He continued with his negotiating. “Camille can take her pick of at least four different bedrooms. And ours is all finished bar the curtains. We could manage without curtains for a while, couldn’t we?”

“Couldn’t we?” he asked again when there was no immediate reply from her.

“I’ve asked for express service on them.”

Hope thumped in his big heart. “You belong with me, Sophie. Don’t mess me about.”

“You and me and Mom and Camille?”

He nodded in the darkness. “I want to put a ‘reserved’ sticker on you until you’re sure things are okay between us. I’ll buy you one hell of a ring and ask your mother’s permission on one knee if I have to.”

He slowed, and signaled the garage door to open.

“And my daughter’s permission too?” she asked as the lights flickered on and the door started to slide up.

He shook his head and grinned as he braked.

“Nah—she’s a pushover. She was mine the instant our eyes met. Just like I was hers.”

He reached across and turned Sophie’s face towards him for a gentle kiss. “Just like her gorgeous mother was.”

Epilogue

A year later, February thirteenth dawned fine and started early; it was Cammie’s sixth birthday. Later that afternoon grand-parents sat enjoying the sunshine. School-friends and cousins in fancy dress rampaged over the deck, begged for rides on the cable-car, sprawled on the media-room floor for the latest animated movies, and ate too much candy and too many chippies.

There were two angels, a cowboy, a pirate, an odd-looking dinosaur, a Red Indian, a beauty queen, a ghost, a rosebud, a clown, a ballerina, and a mouse.
 

Rafe tucked a drowsy Cammie into bed soon after seven and returned to the kitchen for dinner. Afterwards, Sophie sat thumbing through a magazine.
 

“Mmmm, that went so well,” she said. “Luca and Huia enjoyed themselves, don’t you think? I know their gift was a big hit.”

“Our daughter was a big hit in return.”

She smiled, then rubbed a hand across her eyes and stretched. “I’m going to have a long soak and a really early night.”
 

“I’ll be there to scrub your back in fifteen minutes.”
 

She dropped a brief kiss on his cheek.

“Cammie had a wonderful day,” he added.
 

Yes, she did,
Sophie thought as she walked down
. We all had a wonderful day, and it’s not over yet.
 

She began to fill the big spa-bath, and added scented gel. Fragrant steam and bubbles billowed up as she slowly undressed. With the water nearly deep enough she lowered herself in, groaning with satisfaction as it lapped around her shoulders and breasts.
 

A little later she heard Rafe in the adjoining bedroom.
 

“Still awake?” he asked as he sauntered in for his shower.

“And just as well,” she murmured. “I wouldn’t have wanted to miss a sight like you.”

He grinned at her admiring gaze and stepped into the glass-walled shower cubicle.

Sophie’s eyes followed everything. Every bend and flex of his beautiful tall body. Every slide of suds over golden skin and ebony hair. Every shining sluice of water that exposed him again for her admiration.

He turned off the mixer and reached for a towel.

“I specially like the bit where you hold that behind you and see-saw it to dry your back,” she said. “All my favorite bits jiggle.”

Rafe smiled and jiggled for her, then wrapped the towel around his hips.

“Ready for a back-rub?” he asked, stepping close.

“Ready for a front-rub,” she countered, sneaking a dripping hand up under his towel.

“I thought you were tired?”

“I very carefully said ‘ready for bed’. Not the same thing at all.”

He closed his eyes.

“Goodness,” Sophie said. “You’re making that towel go all bulgy.”

“Watch it or I’ll make
you
go all bulgy. Come on, sit up, I want you out of there and in the bedroom.” He slathered gel on the big sea-sponge and began to work it into her shoulders.
 

Minutes later, clean and scented and shot-through with anticipation, she walked into the dimly-lit bedroom—and choked and laughed until tears ran down her face and she had to bend double.

Rafe sat cross-legged in front of the pillows. His arms were folded over his chest, Hollywood Red Indian style.

He wore the garish feather head-dress abandoned by their small party guest, a stripe of lip-gloss across each cheekbone, and a salacious grin.

He raised a hand.

“How,” he said.

Sophie hiccupped and giggled and groaned.

“That’s some totem pole you’ve got there Chief,” she spluttered as she pulled the head-dress off him, kneeled up on the bed, and wrapped him in her arms.
 

She looked down into his shining eyes. “Let’s turn the tables for a while,” she murmured. “You’re always the one who’s kissing the lip-gloss off me. Tonight it’s going to be me kissing it off you.”
 

She licked across his cheekbones, then sucked and licked some more. Watched his long eyelashes droop until his eyes were fully closed to intensify the sensation of her mouth on him.
 

With tenderness she kissed his eyelids, then progressed down the line of his jaw until she reached his mouth.
 

“I love you,” she whispered before feeding him hot, deep, tongue-stroking kisses. Then she smoothed her cheek down his neck, and nipped along the hard ridge of his shoulder.

“Lie down Chief Bighawk.”

“Blackhawk.”
 

“Not from where I’m looking.”

His mouth twisted in an amused grin and he stretched full-length on the bed so Sophie could continue her torture.

“What did I do to deserve someone as lovely as you?” she asked as she shuffled further down to anoint his chest with soft kisses and nibbles.

“Goes both ways, Soph.”

“No, I’ve got a whole new life.”

“Win/win. I have a gorgeous daughter and a wonderful wife.”

She started to stroke her tongue down the fine line of dark hair that bisected his belly, and then paused.

“Thank-you for this incredible year, Rafe. Thank-you for letting me be a proper mother to Cammie at last. For giving me time to get the studio up and running. For taking me traveling with you. Letting Mom live here...”

“How would we manage without her?”

“Not as well as we do, I suspect.”

He smiled at that, and she resumed her progress southwards.

“There is one thing?” she murmured.

“Mmmmmmmm...”

“You’re going to have to put up with a bit more of this for the next little while.” Her lips closed around him and he groaned in appreciation. She sucked. She slid her tongue to the places he liked. Then wrapped her hand around the hard hot shaft and started to massage and tease him.

She heard his sharp intake of breath, his soft exhale.
 

“I won’t be complaining about that.”

She lifted her head just long enough to say, “Because the doctor advises going a little gently for the next few weeks. Until the baby’s nice and safe.”

She waited for his reaction.
 

Felt the absolute instant her news sank in—all the rest of him went rigid, too.

“Happy Valentine’s Day for tomorrow, darling,” she whispered.

The End

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SEDUCTION ON THE CARDS

By Kris Pearson

http://amzn.com/B006FEABQS

Chapter One

Kerrigan Lush felt the ripple of unease start on her scalp, tingle down her neck, trickle along her spine...and then slide down each leg until her toes curled in her scarlet stilettos.

Get a grip, Kerri,
she snapped at herself.
It’s only a building. You’re here to interview the man who donated it to Gamblers Anonymous—not because you’ve a little gambling problem yourself.

She patted her pocket. Yes, the mini-recorder was safely there. She checked her watch. Jiggled her keys. And still those scarlet shoes weren’t willing to cross the street.

Finally she took a deep breath, tossed her dark hair, clenched her fingers around her briefcase handle, and stepped out.

Bet I get right across before that taxi draws level.

Bet Alexander Beaufort will be about seventy-five with a bristling white mustache and a comb-over.

She flashed her press ID at the forty-something receptionist. “Kerri Lush, to interview Alexander Beaufort about his very impressive gift.”

Her pulse lurched to a hectic rhythm as she caught sight of the ‘Gambling wrecks lives’ poster on the wall. Could the woman see Kerri’s own life was a mess?

She climbed the half-flight of stairs to where glasses clinked and voices brayed in animated conversation. A local TV crew had set up their gear. Other familiar media faces were in evidence. Maybe this was a bigger deal than she’d thought?

She lifted a white wine from a passing tray and sipped with caution

in case it was Chateau Cardboard. To her surprise, it tasted crisp and dry and delicious. More brownie-points to Alexander Beaufort.

And was there food? She’d missed lunch because of a tight deadline and the sudden re-assignment of this job. A little something to nibble would be wise in view of the wine’s attractions.

She sauntered to a serving table and found the other guests had already made fast and loose with the goodies.
 

One lonely cracker with a sliver of avocado and a couple of shrimps sat amongst a tide of parsley sprigs, empty kebab sticks, and crumbs. Kerri grabbed it before anyone else could, swallowed her remaining half-glass of wine, and claimed a refill.

Seconds later the woman at the reception desk approached the podium and the noise-level ebbed away.
 

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” she began. “I’m Addictions Councilor Lydia Herbert, and I’d like to welcome you all here today to view our wonderful new facility. A safe financial future for Gamblers Anonymous New Zealand is possible because of the generosity and far-sightedness of one man. Please welcome Monsieur Alexandre Beaufort.”

Enthusiastic applause broke out.

Kerri’s eyes roamed over the assembled males, seeking a suitable old johnnie with a big moustache and a gleaming pate. Alexandre? Not Alexander then—so much for her boss’s haphazard keyboard skills.
 

And he was French? She took an appreciative swig from her second glass of wine and washed a lingering cracker-crumb down the wrong way.

Spluttering, bent double, furiously embarrassed, she missed the tall dark man who strode in from a rear doorway brandishing a mobile phone.

But she heard him.

“Apologies,
mes amis
, technology is taking over our lives, no?” he said in a voice so husky it caressed her skin like a fine sprinkling of toasted hazelnuts settling over ice-cream.

Despite his sexy accent raising every hair on Kerri’s body she continued to cough and snort. Wine slopped over the edge of her lurching glass and onto the new taupe carpet. God—this was all she needed on an already-bad day!
 

So far out of breath that her face almost matched her scarlet shoes, and half-blinded by the sting of running mascara, she registered faces staring in her direction, wondering who the unfortunate fool was.
 

She prayed for a distraction.
 

Nothing happened.
 

No-one spoke.
 

His speech did not begin.
 

When she regained her composure she found herself being inspected by a riveting pair of dark blue eyes. Alexandre Beaufort was not in his dotage as she’d assumed. Not bald. Not mustached, although he did have a most attractive dusting of dark stubble on his determined chin and top lip. Neither was he in a suit like most of the assembled men. He wore motor-cycle leathers.
 

Kerri hiccupped with surprise and clapped a hand across her mouth. The addictions councilor bustled up with a big glass of water—surely for the coughing and not the newly arrived hiccups? And Monsieur Beaufort smiled and said in the voice that had Kerri all on edge, “Young lady, you ‘ave stolen my thunder.”