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She realized she was as happy as she’d ever been. And that turned everything around again. The joy and excitement vanished. She wanted to cry.
Rafe eased his hand around her neck, his warm fingers tender, insistent. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” He tucked her head beneath his chin.
She sucked in the wonderful, arousing scent of his skin. “It’s only hormones,” she lied.
“Shh.”
She lifted her head and looked up into his unforgettable ruined face. “Lately, you’re shushing me a lot.”
“Only because you need it.” He kissed the end of her nose.
“You don’t understand.”
“Maybe you should explain it to me.”
“Oh, Rafe. My sisters are all so brilliant and accomplished. They each make it a point to do good things in the world. Rory’s a successful photographer. Arabella is a nurse who travels the world raising money so that poverty-stricken children can get the medical care they so desperately need. Rhia oversees acquisitions and restorations at Montedoro’s National Museum. She finds great art and she saves great art. Alice is a genius breeder and trainer of the world’s finest horses. And I? I have no calling. I have no real work. Except this, what we’re doing now. To be...in your family.”
“It’s your family now.”
“I have a liberal-arts education. I studied a little bit of everything. English literature, botany. Landscape design, architecture, interior design—it was all for Hartmore, so I would know how to take charge when the time finally came.”
“Gen.” So patient, so kind. “I know all of this.”
“It’s everything, all I ever wanted. To take care of Hartmore, to provide Hartmore with an heir.”
“And look how quickly you’ve managed that.”
“Rafe. It’s not funny.”
He chided, “Don’t sulk.”
“I’m not—or at least, not exactly.”
“I can see I have no choice but to distract you.” He tipped up her chin with a finger. And then he lowered his mouth to hers.
It worked. For a lovely string of thrilling moments, she thought of nothing but the pleasure of being held by him, the heat and beauty in his kiss. When he finally lifted his head, he said, “All right. You were born for this. And now you are living the life you were born for. What’s wrong with that?”
She let out a small, bewildered laugh. “Well, nothing. When you put it that way.”
“What other way is there to put it? It’s the simple truth.”
“But not all the truth.”
His expression darkened. “Don’t borrow trouble, Gen.”
She knew he was right. And her mouth still tingled from the press of his lips. “I love it when you kiss me.”
“Good.” He traced a lazy finger down the side of her throat. Her eager flesh seemed to rise to meet his touch.
She’d had two lovers before him, because Edward had never got around to proposing and she had started to feel that no man would ever want her.
Two lovers before Rafe. Nice men, both of whom she remembered with a sort of vague fondness. They simply did not compare.
She went on, “When you kiss me, I...well, I just didn’t know, before you, what a kiss could be. What sex could do, that it could hollow me out and fill me up, both at the same time. That it could carry me away to a place where nothing else matters but to have you putting your hands on me, kissing me, doing all those things to me that you do so very well.” She stared up at him, a little embarrassed, certain she’d just given him way more information than he needed.
But he didn’t look uncomfortable with what she’d just said. On the contrary, his eyes had changed, gone darker, deeper. “Keep talking. We’ll be trying out my desk.”
Her breath got all tangled somewhere in the bottom of her throat. “Now, why does that sound like a really good idea?”
He turned for the door.
“Rafe, wait. What did I say? Where are you going?” He shut the door and turned the lock. “Oh!” she squeaked, finally putting it together. She watched him come back to her, all muscle and man, so tall, so broad. He hollowed her out, all right. And now he was going to fill her right up. “Ahem. Well. The desk it is, then.”
He closed the program with the roof plans and put his laptop on a guest chair, the mouse on top. Then, with one broad sweep of his arm, he cleared the wide, inlaid desk of everything else. Pens, a paperweight, the desk pad, a stack of books, they all went flying.
“Oh, my...” she whispered, wide-eyed.
And then he grabbed her hand and yanked her close. “You shouldn’t talk like that unless you’re looking for action.”
