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From the burning heat in his gaze.
He swore low. And then he threw back the blankets that covered them. “Sit up. Away from the pillows.”
Her breathing coming ragged, her heart battering the walls of her chest, she obeyed.
The hem of the nightgown, which she’d been very careful to smooth into place when she’d climbed into bed with him, came to the tops of her knees. He reached for it, began to gather it in his big fists, his skin brushing hers as he took it up her thighs. She stifled a moan of equal parts agony and pleasure.
He said, “Lift up.”
She did. He got the fabric out from under her and clear of her hips. Now she had the whole thing in a wad at her waist. She was bare above and below it. She never wore panties to bed.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. And he bent close and pressed a kiss on the dark gold curls at the juncture of her thighs.
Oh, it felt so good. Just the brush of his soft lips so near where she burned for him. She put her hand, very lightly, on his head, her fingers sifting in the thick, curling black strands.
But then he sat up again. “Raise your arms.”
“Rafe...”
“Do it. Now. Raise them high.... Yes, that’s the way. Don’t move.”
She said a very naughty word. But she didn’t move.
He tipped his head to the side, studying her with her dress around her waist and her arms up in the air. He took his slow, sweet, infuriating time about it. And then, even more slowly, he licked those soft lips of his. “Beautiful.”
“I’m going to kill you,” she informed him quietly.
“You shall do as you wish with me, I’ve no doubt on that score. Keep your arms up. Sit still.”
She did as instructed. But nobody said she couldn’t look.
And she did look. At his fine, corrugated belly, at his huge, thick horseman’s thighs, at the deep scar that furrowed his right leg, from midcalf to several inches above the knee.
And at the front of his boxers. Tented high.
Good. If he had to play this game, at least he should be suffering right along with her.
A memory, sharp and sweet and full of meanings she hadn’t understood at the time, washed over her.
She was...what? Fourteen? That would have made him twenty-two. A time when they were completely forbidden to each other in any sexual way, when it never would have occurred to her that someday she would find him at Villa Santorno and spend four days naked all over the house with him.
Yes. She was fourteen that summer. And she’d come to Hartmore for a three-week visit. That had been a more innocent time, a time when her family had seen no need for bodyguards. It had just been just her and her Aunt Genevra. Genevra was older and wanted to rest from the trip. She’d retired to her room.
Edward had been there, she remembered. And he’d greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. He’d smiled and flirted with her in a harmless way. She’d felt feminine and all grown-up, and she had loved it. Edward always made her feel sophisticated and brilliant. In his presence, she saw herself as someone clever and charming and fun.
But then, some of Edward’s friends drove up. He got in the car and went off with them. And she was anxious to see Rafe, to tell him...what, exactly? She couldn’t remember now. Something that had seemed terribly important at the time. Whatever it was, she went looking for him.
And she found him at the lake, on the boat jetty. With a pretty dark-haired woman who looked about his age. When she saw them, she gasped and ducked out of sight behind a mound of flowering yellow gorse. They sat with their shoes off, their cuffs rolled, their feet in the water. They were talking so softly. The woman laughed. And then he bent close to her and kissed her.
Genny had to slap her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. And then there was fury. Deep, burning fury that she didn’t understand.
Whatever happened next between Rafe and the young woman, she had no idea.
She only knew that they mustn’t know she had seen them. She had to get away. Staying low at first, she’d turned and raced for the house. By the time she got there, she was running upright and full-out, calling herself an idiot, wondering what in the world was wrong with her to be spying on Rafe like that, to get so upset. She decided to forget all about it, about the woman with Rafe, about that kiss on the jetty.
When she saw him later at dinner, he was alone. She never saw the woman again. And though, at the time, she always told Rafe everything—anything that happened to her, every single thought that flitted through her mind—she’d never told him she’d seen him kiss a strange woman on the jetty.
He was watching her face way too closely—as he always did. “Gen, love. Where are you right now?”
