The Way You Look Tonight (21 page)

"Brooke—"

"Shhh," she said to him, just as he’d done with her when they were in the shower and she’d been begging him not to tease her. She didn’t need to feel him beneath the zipper of his jeans to know how hard he was, but when she undid his fly and slowly slid his jeans down, though she’d already been with him more than once, she was surprised all over again at just how big he was. Her mouth already watering, she didn’t just pull down the denim, but made sure to bring his boxers down, too.

"Oh, Rafe." She didn’t try to hide her delight at just how beautiful he was.

One of her hands rose automatically to wrap around him, and he throbbed hard once, then twice against her palm and fingers. "Come to the bed with me, Brooke."

But she didn’t want to do that—not unless he was willing to play with her the way she guessed he’d played with his other lovers. In some ways, she knew she had more of him than any of his previous lovers had—their friendship, their past, their family connections. But in others she knew she had less.

She wouldn’t settle for that, darn it, whatever good reasons he thought he had for the way he was behaving, for believing she couldn’t handle his darker desires…or her own. She wouldn’t go so far as to ask him for forever tonight, but she was going to ask for this.

When she let go of him, she knew he assumed it was because she was going to do what he’d just said and move to the bed. Instead, she picked up the silks she’d dropped to the floor when he’d been kissing her earlier. Still on her knees before him, she held them up and gave him one more chance.

"If I get on the bed, will you put these on me?"

No one had ever looked more conflicted than Rafe did in that moment, and she almost felt bad for him. Almost, but not quite. Because if he could only let go of his silly insistence on treating her "carefully"—along with his constant worries that he was going to hurt her in some way—she was certain that both of them would uncover something new. And spectacularly pleasurable.

Finally, with the muscle in his jaw jumping, he said, "I won’t put those on you."

"Not even as a blindfold?"

Frustration lit his dark eyes, the same frustration he was making her feel with his stubborn belief that she was too sweet, too innocent for these kinds of sexy games.

"No."

"Okay," she said softly, "I just thought of a better use for them, anyway."

Sitting back on her heels, she lifted her hands to her hair. The thick strands were completely dry now, but still heavy as she gathered them up.

"Look," she added in a husky voice, "I can put them on all by myself."

She could see that he now realized she’d gotten off—and was about to get them both off—on a technicality. But it wasn’t good enough for him to simply watch her wind the silks around her hair. She also needed him to know precisely
why
she was doing it.

"This way," she said softly as she tied the first knot in the soft fabric, "you’ll have a really good view."

"View?" The one word from his beautiful mouth was strangled. Borderline desperate.

"Yes," Brooke replied, certain that he wanted this just as much as she did. In any case, he’d left her no choice but to take matters into her own hands—and mouth, too. A rush of heat hit her at the thought of what she was finally about to do. "Your view of me doing this."

A moment later he was on her tongue, and she was moaning from the pleasure of finally tasting his hard, hard flesh. He tasted so good that she found herself growing greedier with every inch of him she took inside her mouth. And, oh, how she loved it when he wrapped his hand in the silk binding around her hair to hold her just where he wanted her as he grew bigger, hotter, with every slick of her tongue over him.

Somehow, through the blood rushing in her ears, she heard him growling her name before he gave himself up completely to her mouth, her hands. She drank in his pleasure as if it were her own, and her lips would have curved up in a full smile if they weren’t already wonderfully occupied.

A short while later, when he tugged at her silk-bound ponytail and she rose to her feet, the ends of the silk were sticking to the damp skin between them.

"Promise me you’ll never wear these in your hair again unless we’re in the bedroom."

She made a show of considering his question. "Do you really think anyone else will know they aren’t just pretty silk scarves?"

"I don’t give a damn what anyone else knows.
I’d
know, damn it.
I’d
know what you did to me while you were wearing them in your hair.
I’d
know the way you actually smiled as I did that to you."

Of course, that made her smile even wider. "Can I help it if you make me happy?"

That light she was starting to see more and more sparked in the back of his eyes as he slid the silks from her hair.

"Promise me, or these go into the next bonfire."

"I promise I’ll only wear them for you."

A split second later she was on the bed beneath him, and he was swearing he’d buy her more lingerie as he grabbed the lace and silk she was wearing and tore it off. She was thrilled by his rough, desperate possession, soon there were no more questions from either of them, no room for anything but sighs of pleasure and gasps of ecstasy as they wrapped themselves around each other.

But the most perfect moment of all came after they’d both toppled over the edge together, and he whispered the sweetest words she’d ever heard: "You make me happy, too."

* * *

Brooke was asleep within moments. Rafe loved the way she wrapped herself around him, her breathing even and soft now as she slept against his chest.

Every time they made love, she grew bolder, more confident in her ongoing quest to be wild. As he gently stroked her soft hair and breathed her in, he knew how frustrated she was that he kept refusing to do things like tie her up or blindfold her with the silks she’d brought home.

Didn’t she realize that just the thought of having her arms bound to the bed frame and her eyes covered was cause for insanity? He was afraid it would be a slippery slope, especially when he was already so much rougher with her in bed than he’d ever intended to be. There were plenty of gentle moments between them, too, but the fact was, he’d lost it every single time. Holding down her wrists, shoving her up against the shower tiles, then taking her again on the bed inside of fifteen minutes.

He’d never forget the way she looked when she was down on her knees in that incredibly sexy outfit, her hair tied back so that he could see every beautiful expression on her face as she’d gazed up at him with the unabashed joy she brought to everything, including taking him into her mouth...

Damn it, he thought as he buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair, he needed to stop replaying the sexy scene in his head or he’d end up being the most selfish bastard in the world by waking her up to take her again when she needed sleep to recover from her tiring day.

When she shifted against him, he wrapped his arms tighter around her, bringing her soft curves even closer. There was no point trying to deny that what they were doing had turned into so much more than just sex.

Rafe’s chest clenched tight as he felt her breathe slow and steady against his chest. The closer the two of them got, the more he worried about keeping her safe, not just with a deadbolt on her front door, but from people who would want to take advantage of her trusting, innately positive nature.

Brooke was so easy to be with that in moments like this, he could almost see himself spending the rest of his life with her. But could a cynical bastard like him ever truly make her happy outside of the bedroom? And what would he do if the answer was no? Could he do the right thing and give up the one person who did the impossible?

Because when Brooke was in his arms, she made the darkness—and all the liars and the cheaters—disappear.

Chapter Nineteen

Holy crap, thought Rafe as he looked in the delivery truck, his sister had bought a lot of furniture. And yet, once the crew finished unloading it all and putting it where Mia had told them to on the chart she’d made up, Rafe had to admit it was exactly the right amount.

Brooke was next door taking care of the work she’d put aside to help him with his house. It didn’t help that she’d lost another full day in Seattle yesterday. He would have offered to help her make the chocolates for this week’s upcoming delivery, but he figured he’d only end up getting in the way. Especially considering he couldn’t be in the same room with her without ripping her clothes off and taking her.

As it was, he’d been hard-pressed to leave her bed that morning. There hadn’t been one other thing he’d wanted more than to stay there beneath the sheets, her warm curves pressed against him as he tasted and kissed and caressed every beautiful inch of her. But since he’d known how much work she had to do, he’d forced himself to leave so that she could get to it.

There was still work to be done on his house, but as he wandered through each of the fully furnished rooms, he couldn’t deny that it was easily move-in ready. That first night, when he’d seen how trashed his family’s old lake house was, he’d been furious. He’d come to the lake to relax, not renovate a house. But now, instead of being glad his house was perfectly habitable, down to the matching towels Mia had ordered for the bathrooms and the bookshelves in the living room that held new hardcover copies of his favorite authors, a hard knot fisted in his gut.

Until today, it had made perfect sense to stay with Brooke. But with a new bed, a clean bathroom, and a decked-out kitchen, he could move into his own place now.

He should have been thrilled with the arrangement they’d made. Just sex.
Wild
sex, no less. It should have filled his independent male heart with glee that she’d clearly told him she wasn’t looking to settle down, that she wasn’t looking at him as her path to an engagement ring and a wedding dress.

Damn it, he wasn’t thrilled with any of it.

And it didn’t make a lick of sense that he wasn’t.

Brooke had offered—hell, was offering it to him as often as he wanted, any way he wanted it—every guy’s dream come true. A hot summer fling with no strings, with no expectations of anything but pleasure. But after only a handful of days with her in his arms, it wasn’t enough.

It had only taken one night for the heat from their fling to quickly spiral into emotions deeper than he’d been expecting.

Then again, it wasn’t truly a few days or just one night, was it? He’d known Brooke a hell of a lot longer than any of the women he’d been with before. As a kid, spending every summer next door to her for nearly ten years, at bonfires and waterskiing and hiking in the mountains together, he’d loved her the same way he loved his family. Because that’s what she’d been and still was. Family.

But now? He’d be a liar if he didn’t admit that the love he felt for her was a whole hell of a lot bigger. Stronger. And completely different from the love he had for his family or his other friends.

His cell phone rang, and though he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone with his head and gut this twisted up, when he saw that it was Ben, he picked up. "You’ve found something?"

"Still putting things together," Ben said. "I’ve got a question for you."

Though Rafe wanted to push him, he knew Ben was adamant about triple-verifying everything before he would make an accusation. It was one of the reasons Rafe had been able to trust his colleague to keep the business running while he was here at the lake.

"Shoot."

"One name keeps coming up in association with Delacorte in the past six months. I wanted to check in with you about it, though, before I go any further. Do you know a Brooke Jansen?"

"She’s my g—"

Damn it, she wasn’t actually his girlfriend, was she? That wasn’t in their summer-fling
agreement.

Reminding himself that all Ben needed to do his job were the facts, Rafe told him, "We’re next-door neighbors at the lake. I’ve been close to her since we were kids."

"Right," Ben said, clearly already knowing all of that. "That’s why I wanted to call before I went any further. Normally, since she’s Delacorte’s business partner, I’d do some digging into her details as well."

Rafe had been so wrapped up in Brooke—and his concern about the possibility that she had partnered with someone who couldn’t be trusted—that he hadn’t thought things all the way through. Of course she would come up in the course of the investigation. If Rafe hadn’t had a personal relationship with her, Ben would have simply done his job without asking questions. Instead, Rafe now had to make a judgment call about how to proceed.

At his prolonged silence, Ben finally asked, "Do you want me to investigate her, too?"

The word
no
was on the tip of Rafe’s tongue. Brooke was an open book who looked at the rest of the world with trust shining from her pretty eyes. People with skeletons in their closets didn’t smell like sunshine or laugh so often and so easily.

But how many times before had he been proved wrong? Especially during those early years of doing investigations when he didn’t want to face up to what the real world actually looked like, what it was really made of.

He had to ask himself if the real reason he was reluctant to have Ben look more closely into Brooke’s history and the details of her life was because he was afraid of what his employee would find. Because if Rafe really believed Brooke would come out of the investigation clean and pure and honest, then why would he stop Ben from completing the full investigation into her business partner, one that would have involved her in any case?

And, if he really was thinking along the lines of a deeper, stronger love for her—something that sounded a hell of a lot like
forever—
shouldn’t he be completely sure about everything she’d done between the ages of eight and twenty-six?