He hums a half-second laugh in the back of his throat, as if the idea of us both simultaneously wanting and denying ourselves amuses him, but the smile falls from his lips as he adds, “For sex.”
“Yes.”
It sounds like a lie, but he doesn’t pull me up on it. Releasing the tight curl of my hair he’s twisted around his finger, he smooths a hand over my head. “Maybe you don’t have to leave.”
A lump rises in my throat, and I shake my head against his chest. He cups my shoulder as if he knows I’m on the cusp of breaking, and he’s trying to hold me in one piece. I feel so safe, snuggled up next to him, that the lump only grows bigger.
“We don’t have to…” He fades off.
A little burst of hope blazes in me like a single match on a dark night. “Don’t have to what?” I croak.
“We don’t have to stop. We could—”
“Keep fucking?”
His broad chest expands and then deflates on a sigh, and something in his eyes dulls, as if I’ve disappointed him. “Yes. Wecould do that. I don’t want to stop. I probably should, but I don’t. I meant it the night we met.”
“Meant what?”
“That you would haunt me for the rest of my life. You have. You do. Every single day. I’d rather haveyou.” He pulls me closer. “This physical, flesh and blood version of you, than a ghostly version walking the shadows of my mind. Tormenting me. Haunting me.”
He sounds almost poetic, and part of me wants to mock him for it, but alsoI get it. I understand completely. “I’d rather have this version of you too,” I say, tucking my feet tighter around his calves. “It’s been very tedious having toimagineyour dick all the time.”
He laughs, and my head, still resting on his chest, rises and falls with the motion.
“But we can’t do that to Lizzie,” I say when he calms.
He threads his fingers between mine. “She’s gone, at least for a while,” he says, but there’s a hint of melancholy in his tone. “Pretending I don’t want you is miserable. I’m too old for that shit.”
“Yes, Daddy,” I purr, knowing it’ll annoy him.
He rolls his eyes, loosens his fingers from mine and strums them over my bare stomach instead. “I'm serious. I don’t want to mess around. I like you. I want to spend more time with you. But—” He cuts himself off.
“What?” I ask.
“Is there anyone else?” he says cautiously. “I assumed there wasn’t, but then I realised I have no idea if you’re seeing anyone else.”
“There’s no one else.” I sound so serious that I immediately want to take it back. To smile or wink or do something to lighten the mood, because my words resonate like a confession of somethingmore.
Rafe circles my navel with his index finger, then dips it in and back around the outside. It’s a tantalising tickle, but I love it. It’s proprietary, like he thinks he owns my body and can do whatever he wants with it. I’d let him too. “The club,” he asks. “What about that? Do you go there often?”
“No. Only on masquerade nights.” I reach out and run the tip of my finger over his nipple, making him suck in the slightest gasp. “Does it bother you?”
His focus shifts inwards, as if he’s giving my question serious consideration. “Have you been back there without me?”
“No. There’s been no one else since that first night. Have you?”
“No. Just you.”
A warm, fuzzy feeling ignites in my chest.This is bad.Why are we talking as if this could ever really become something, when we both know it can’t?
Deep inside, where I can barely feel it, something hurts, but I’m not ready to examine it.
“What if you stay? Just a few more days.” He kisses me so softly I want to cry. “Say yes,” he murmurs against my mouth.
My heart feels like it’s going to burst, and happiness swims over the muted agony beneath. I take his face in my hands and kiss him. “No.”
He pulls back. “No?”
