Rafe stepped in, took her by the hand. “Can we agree any attraction between us is not completely in the past?”
Sable blinked at the change of tack. Her gut cried out, Deny, deny, deny! But she’d have looked like an idiot. “It’s not in the past.”
“Great. Now whether it’s an echo of what we had, or a glimpse of something new, I’m not sure. But it’s there. Constantly. A hum keeping me awake nights.”
“Like tinnitus?”
Rafe’s face broke into a rare grin and the backs of Sable’s knees tingled.
“It’s driving me crazy, Sutton. You, being so near, and me not able to touch you, to hold you, to kiss you. Tell me you feel it too.”
Feel it? It was rocketing through her like a sugar rush.
She nodded, feeling as if she’d just taken some huge step into the great unknown space beyond the borders of her plan.
Rafe’s chest rose. And fell. “Great. Then I have a proposition for you to consider. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Ed made a good point. Why are we looking at intervention, unless we find, down the track, it’s absolutely necessary? When the regular way of making a baby is less invasive, less crazy expensive, less stressful and far more fun than being poked and prodded by strangers.”
Why? Because I’m falling for you, Thorne. All over again. And falling into bed with you would have to complicate things beyond anything I can contain.
“Are you hitting on me, Rafe Thorne?” She’d never felt less like making a joke in her life but if she didn’t cut through this tension, she’d self-combust.
He shook his head. “See, that’s the thing. I’m not. This is a time for rational decisions, not romance. And with this thing simmering between us, untended, unreleased, we are only going to blow.” He reached up, tucked a swathe of hair behind her ear. “So what do you say? How about we make a baby, the old-fashioned way?”
His argument sounded so seductive. But could she separate the action from the result? Would being with him let off steam or show her a glimpse of a false life from which she might not recover. “Rafe—”
“No strings, Sutton. Just as you ordered. Only no prescriptions either. No pressure. We let things happen naturally. And if that doesn’t work, we seek intervention.”
“No strings.” She looked from one eye to the other, searching for a glimmer of the feelings that had begun to overwhelm her, pull her under. But all she saw was pragmatism. And lashings of banked heat.
He meant it. He was being grown up about all this. Use the attraction simmering between them to bring about the result she so desperately wanted.
Rafe... No, Rafe’s baby. A child. Her child.
It was a very sophisticated ask from a country boy. But he’d been around. He’d lived too. Not that she wanted details. Was this how he felt when anyone talked about her life? Her ex? It wasn’t fun.
But speaking of fun, she wanted him. So bad. Even standing this close to him she felt feverish with need. “Is this even possible?”
“Only one way to find out?”
Rafe brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed them, one by one, before turning her hand over and resting his lips on her palm. Then his other hand slid under her chin, tilting it just so, so that he might lean down and kiss her.
There was none of the hesitation of their other kisses. Or the penance. Or the relearning.
It was sweet and luscious, full of longing and promise.
It was real.
So real, tears welled in the backs of Sable’s eyes, clogging her throat. Too many to spill.
Rafe wasn’t pulling back, he was all in.
After being at the lowest point of her life only a couple of months before, here she was, kissing Rafe, her first love, in the moonlight. It felt so terrifyingly close to getting everything she’d ever wanted it shook her to her very core.
She pulled back from the kiss, sucking in a breath. Looked into his eyes. And found herself drowning in the heady mix of emotion she saw within—care, want, need, lust and determination.
“So what do you say?” he asked.
Rafe. Rafe was asking her to be with him. Something he’d never done the first time around. She’d been the one to make the first move, seducing him in the barn on her seventeenth birthday. She had no idea how much that had played on the more vulnerable corners of her mind until that minute.
Then some creature deep down inside her slithered giddily to the surface and said, “Why the hell not?”
Rafe laughed, then, with a growl, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.
She squealed, then laughed, then struggled to speak for she could barely catch her breath as he loped around the side of the house. “Where are we going?”
“This is not happening in your old bedroom. There’s only so far I’ll go for the sake of posterity.”
“This?” she asked, holding onto his backside for purchase. And because it was just right there. Asking for it.
His hand reached up and smacked her on the backside in recompense.
She glanced at the house as Rafe carried her up the driveway. “Won’t Janie be wondering where we are?”
“Don’t care.”
“I am the host—”
“Do you want to go back in there?”
“God, no.”
Rafe slid her down his front till her toes landed on his boots. She luxuriated in the feel of him, hard and spare and big.
He took her gently by the chin. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you sitting in Bear’s café, with a ferocity that has eaten me from the inside out. I tried to ignore it, then to fight it. I’m done. I don’t want to wait any more.”
“Then don’t.”
Hand in hand they walked down the footpath, towards Rafe’s place. Past the Airstream. Towards the shed. Was this going to be a back seat of a Chevy deal? Or maybe the Ferrari? Did she care?
No strings. Not a one. Just two people
