at least up until now, she’d held people at a certain distance, even while at the same time craving some sort of emotional tie. Her mother, the men she’d dated here and there, even her sister. Maybe that was why she always saved Amber-it means she was in charge. An unsettling thought.
And yet here she was at Lake Tahoe, alone with the one man who could take her hard-earned control and let it fly in the wind, sitting at a rather crowded restaurant with his hand under her skirt, his fingers stroking her halfway to orgasmic bliss.
“Emma.” His index finger traced the edging of her panties, which she hoped to God weren’t plain white cotton. She couldn’t remember.
“Y-yes?”
“Why me?” Then that finger, the center of her universe, slipped beneath the elastic edging and once, just once, stroked over her bare flesh.
“Um-” Another stroke, and her hips arched.
“You came with me,” he said, and there was no mistaking the satisfaction in his rich voice.
“That one time-”
Another stroke of the knowing, talented finger. Then he slipped a second finger under her panties as well, using his thumb to twist the material away from her, leaving her open and exposed to his exploration. When he felt at how wet she was, he groaned.
“You think I couldn’t help you come again?” he murmured.
She stared at him. He hadn’t said he could
He wanted her to know she had the control, even if it didn’t feel like it at the moment.
“I could,” he said softly as his fingers traced intimately over her.
She had to blink rapidly to keep him in focus and, though she’d been biting her lip, every time he slid his finger into her and then back out, a little gasping pant escaped her lips.
“You’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered, and dipped into her again.
As unbelievable as it seemed, he was right, he could help her come again, with such little effort that it should horrify her.
Instead, she was only afraid he wouldn’t, that he’d somehow withhold it, leaving her like this, all trembling and aching and desperate, so she slid both her hands beneath the table, grasped his wrist and held his hand to her.
“Oh, I’m going to give you what you want,” he promised her with such tenderness that she nearly burst into tears.
But with one last pass of his thumb over her swollen, wet, hot flesh, he pulled his hand free. Unable to help herself, she let out a little cry. Bold in a way she never could have imagined herself, she reached out beneath the table, gripped his thigh and ran her hand up until she could cup his rigid erection through his jeans.
He hissed in a breath and, without breaking eye contact with her, lifted his hand for the waitress and said, “Check, please.”
His voice was nearly gone. Beneath her hand, he was hard and pulsing with life. Holding her gaze he brought his first finger up to his lips, the one that had been inside her, and sucked it into his mouth.
Her thighs clenched together.
“Now I know what you taste like,” he murmured. “I want more, Emma.”
The waitress came with their bill. Rafe tossed down some cash, then pulled her out of the restaurant into the hotel lobby.
Her body was on high alert.
“Upstairs?” he asked in a tight voice.
“God, yes.”
She couldn’t wait to get to one of their rooms and have him ease this ache between her legs, couldn’t wait to make him as crazy as he’d made her.
They headed toward the front desk and the elevators beyond, and as they approached, the man already there turned to face them.
Their pilot.
He smiled in relief. “There you are. I felt so bad about what happened, I turned around and came right back for you. So…let’s hit it.”
THE PLANE RIDE wasn’t as awkward as Emma might have imagined it would be. For one thing, she couldn’t keep her eyes open and, fight as she might to stay awake, she kept drifting off, only to jerk awake again when her head would fall forward.
“Here.” Slipping his arm around her, Rafe eased her head onto his shoulder. “Better?”
“Thank you,” she whispered, suddenly not quite as tired as she’d been a minute ago. Beneath her ear she could feel the steady beat of his heart. He ran his fingers up and down her arm in a caressing motion that had her sighing.
“I’m sorry we were interrupted,” he said, his cheek against her hair. “Are you okay?”
She would be. When she got home and into her own bed, when she could convince herself that she hadn’t really allowed him to touch her so intimately, that she hadn’t really been on the verge of an orgasm in a restaurant.
Her eyes were closed to the dark, dark night as they flew down the middle of California. “I’m pretty sure I’ll have no problem being able to sum up the feelings I need for the script this week. I’m envisioning lots of heat and frustration and thwarted efforts, but then again, that’s what the research was for, right?”
On her arms, his fingers went still. Beneath her cheek she felt his body tense.
“Good,” he said, his voice just a little cool, and a little…sarcastic? “Glad to be of service, wouldn’t want any of the time we spent to go to waste.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. But the only light in the plane was from the cockpit, so his face was in the shadows.
“Go to sleep, Emma. It’s been a long day.”
She didn’t have to see him to sense his distance, or the obvious fact that he didn’t intend to talk. Fine. No talking worked for her just fine. Besides, it wasn’t as if they were a couple. They’d made that perfectly clear.
He wanted her physically.
She wanted the same thing.
End of story.
So why sleep never came, why she lay there still and confused and a little sad, she had no idea.
TWO DAYS LATER Rafe’s house was invaded by his family, who’d shown up with the makings of a barbecue and housewarming presents.
Rafe stood in his kitchen, leaning against the island and nursing a beer, watching as Carolyn tried to boss Tessa into chopping the vegetables.
But Tessa didn’t want to do anything other than smile at her husband, Reilly, who was looking pretty smitten himself.
In the past, his sisters had always turned to Rafe for…well, everything, so it felt odd to not be needed anymore. Odd, but good. Now Reilly had to fix Tessa’s car when it needed fixing. Reilly had to get the big, black hairy spiders when she found them. And Rafe knew it had been Reilly who’d put that extremely satisfied smile on her face.
Tessa found an excuse to brush by her husband, and tipped her face up in a silent demand for a kiss. When her husband instantly responded, Carolyn turned to Rafe with a roll of her eyes.
“They’ve been married for months and they still can’t keep their hands off each other.”
Rafe happened to know firsthand that you didn’t have to be married to someone to be unable to keep your hands to yourself. And though he’d tried not to, he thought of Emma.
He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her.
She’d hurt him a few nights ago, though he was quite certain she didn’t understand why. Hell,
