Katie shook her head. “Not until after dessert,” she said. “Then we’ll see what happens.”
She stood up and headed for the enclosed patio and her refrigerator. Behind her, she heard Connor’s giggles and Rafe’s deep laughter.
Her skin tingled and everything in her awoke to anticipation.
Five
“If that dessert was a sample of your cookies,” Rafe said much later, “then I can understand why people are so crazy about them.”
“Thank you. I can give you some to take home if you like,” Katie said.
Rafe tipped his head to one side and studied her. Nicole and her son had gone home and now it was just he and Katie in the backyard. The summer night was cool, the sky overhead swimming with stars. Moonlight drifted down and did battle with the candle flames flickering in the soft breeze.
“Anxious to get rid of me?” he asked quietly.
“No,” she said. “That’s not what I meant. I just—oh, for heaven’s sake. You’d think I’d never been on a date before.” She caught herself and amended, “Not that this is a date or anything…”
Rafe grinned, enjoying that touch of nervousness. “It’s not?”
“Is it?”
His smile firmly in place he admitted, “Well, I don’t usually do plumbing on a date, but everything else seems about right.”
Now she returned his smile and seemed to relax a little. The wind lifted her hair like a lover’s caress. “It was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, and it’s not over yet.”
“Really.”
Not a question, he told himself. More of a challenge. Well, he was willing to accept it. “Really.”
He stood up, walked to her side of the picnic table and pulled her to her feet. “What’re you doing?”
“I want to dance with you,” he said simply, drawing her closer.
Even as she went with him, she was saying, “There’s no music.”
“Sure there is,” he told her, wrapping his arm around her waist and capturing her right hand in his left. “You’re just not listening hard enough.”
She shook her head at him.
“Close your eyes,” he said and she did. He looked down at her, so trusting, so beautiful, and his breath caught in his chest. Her hand was warm and smooth in his, her scent—a mixture of vanilla and cinnamon—filling him. He smiled, thinking that she smelled as edible as her cookies.
“Now listen,” he urged quietly, his voice hardly more than a whisper of sound.
“To what?” she answered just as quietly.
“Everything.”
He swayed with her in his arms and rested his chin on top of her head. Her body felt perfect aligned along his and he went hard and ready almost instantly. If she noticed, she didn’t let him know.
As they moved in the starlight, sounds of the summer night began to encroach. Crickets singing, the distant sigh of the ocean, the wind in the trees. It was as if nature herself were providing a perfect symphony just for the two of them.
She smiled, tipped her head back, and keeping her eyes closed, moved with him as if they’d been dancing together forever. “I hear it now,” she whispered. “It’s perfect.”
“Yeah,” he said, coming to a stop, staring down at her. “It is.”
Her eyes opened and she met his gaze. “Rafe?”
His hand tightened on hers and he held her closer, pulling her in firmly enough against him that she couldn’t miss feeling exactly what she was doing to him. “I want you, Katie. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
A tiny sigh slipped from her mouth as she confessed, “I feel exactly the same way.”
He gave her a grin and slowly lowered his mouth to hers. “Good to hear.”
He kissed her and the instant their mouths met, Rafe felt a punch of desire so hot, so unbelievably strong that it nearly knocked him over. In response, his arms tightened around her, all thoughts of dancing disappearing from his mind. He wanted to move with her, but dancing had nothing to do with the plans quickly forming in his mind. He needed her, more than he would have thought possible. And he wanted her even more.
His hands swept up and down her spine, defining every curve, every valley she possessed. She moved against him, her body restless, her soft moans telling him everything he needed to know. He slipped one hand beneath the hem of her T-shirt and swept up, to caress the side of her breast. Even the lacy material of her bra couldn’t keep him from enjoying the heat of her. The perfectly shaped wonder of her. His hands itched to feel her skin.
Hunger roared through him and he deepened their kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, claiming everything she had and silently demanding more. She gave it to him, surrendering herself to the passion rising between them. Her tongue tangled with his, her breath sighing against his cheek as she met him stroke for stroke. Her hands clutched his shoulders, holding on tightly as she moaned in appreciation.
That soft sound was enough to push Rafe dangerously close to the edge. He tore his mouth from hers, looked down at her through eyes glazed with heat and need and said grimly, “If we don’t stop right now, I’m going to throw you down onto this picnic table and give your neighbors a show.”
A choked laugh shot from her throat. She didn’t release her hold on him though, as if she didn’t quite trust herself to be able to stand on her own two feet.
“The picnic table’s not nearly as comfortable as my bed,” she said, just a little breathlessly.
“Is that an invitation?”
“Sounded like one to me.”
“All I need to know,” Rafe muttered and swept her up into his arms.
“You don’t have to carry me!”
“Faster this way,” he told her, nearly sprinting across the yard toward the house.
“That works too,” she said, snuggling close to him, stroking the flat of her hand across his chest.
He hissed in a breath, hit the patio door and stepped inside. “Where to?”
“Down the hall, turn left at the end.”
He was already moving. His body was hard and aching. He could hardly draw a breath without fanning the flames licking at his insides. His heart pounding, Rafe entered her room and strode straight to the bed. Absently, he noticed the window seat on the front wall, colorful rugs scattered across a gleaming wood floor and a squat bookcase stuffed with paperbacks.
But his gaze was locked on the wide bed covered in an old-fashioned quilt. He stopped alongside the four-poster, tossed the covers back to reveal smooth white sheets and dropped Katie onto the mattress.