Lacey warmed to his touch, kissing him as he undressed her, letting her hands roam over every inch of his body, loosening his tie and undoing buttons and zippers as she caressed him through his clothes, struggling with his belt buckle until she finally had to say, "You'll have to do that for me."
She stepped out of her slacks as he eased them down her thighs, bracing her hands on his bare shoulders and slipping her feet out of her shoes.
He had a beautiful body, smooth and unmarred, soft to her touch with a firm display of muscles in all the right places.
Rafe was kissing her neck now and blowing against the skin beneath her ear. Lacey tried to reach his ear with her tongue, but she wasn't tall enough in her bare feet. He led her over to her bed, where she threw back the covers and watched while he sat on the edge and pulled off his boots and jeans.
He climbed into bed beside her, holding her against his side, where she wrapped her legs around his and snuggled her body into the angles and curves of his, loving the warmth of his bare skin against her nakedness.
"Uhm, uhm, uhm," Rafe mumbled. He had his eyes closed and was simply holding her against him, cuddling her with his hands, but in no hurry for anything else.
Lacey grinned and kissed his chest. It felt so good to feel a man's body against hers again; not just any man, but this one who made her burst with happiness.
He started kissing her then. Everywhere. Slowly he took his time, from her fingers, across her abdomen, down her thighs… Lacey wanted to return his pleasure kiss for kiss, but all she could reach was his hair as he nibbled and kissed and caressed her with his tongue.
She sighed contentedly and submitted to the silky sensations rippling through her body from his gentle seduction. Later, she thought, I'll pay him back with honeysuckle-petal tenderness.
He brought his mouth to hers and whispered, "You'll have to tell me what you like so I know how to please you."
"I don't have any complaints so far," she mumbled, trying to reach his ear again with her tongue, nuzzling against his cheek as he caressed her with his hands and his body. Lacey's heart was racing. She wanted to touch him and feel him everywhere, all at once.
He moved inside her gently, taking his time, as if he were afraid of hurting her. Lacey pulled him closer, peaking with desire at the pulsing sensations of being joined with him. It was as if they were made for each other, so silkily did they meld together. Lacey moaned, arching against him to bring him deeper, closer, more fully into the cocoon of sensations he had created within her.
"You feel so good," she whispered, wishing she could keep him this way with her forever. He moved slowly within her, as if he too wanted to savor the sensations as long as possible, deriving pleasure from the contact.
"Happiness," she mumbled, and then, "Don't stop. Oh, Rafe, don't stop."
"Your body feels so good," he told her as the pace of his hips increased, creating another degree of sensations within Lacey. "This is not the best position for you to be in," he told her.
Lacey held him against her as she realized what he meant. He wanted to wait for her pleasure to peak, but he couldn't. She smiled and encouraged his body to enjoy hers. "It's okay," she told him, letting his emotion carry both of them to a high plateau of loving that left him quaking within her and filled her with a contented sense of fulfillment. There would be other times when the fireworks would follow for both of them.
He lay against her, inside her, caressing her for a long while afterward. She whimpered slightly as he left her, smiling at the tenderness he had revealed. "You're going to have to teach me what you need," he told her again, kissing her shoulder.
"I have everything I need," she said, smiling. She couldn't ever remember anyone showing her such love in lovemaking.
Lacey wrapped her arms around him, snuggling against his shoulder, stroking him as he relaxed with his arms around her. She wanted to tell him right now that she loved him, but even after lovemaking it still seemed so soon; she kept the words to herself. It wouldn't hurt for her to show him, without words, how much she loved him, for a few days.
The sound of his breathing changed and she realized he had fallen asleep. She cradled him against her, loving the power he had given her over his body, loving the intimacy he had revealed to her.
She tried to remember Dominick and the early exciting days of being with him. Everything before Rafe was fuzzy in her memory. She didn't think she had ever felt closer to any man, or so thoroughly accepted by him.
Her arm was falling asleep. She moved, disturbing him.
Rafe opened his eyes and looked at her. Without smiling, he reached up and put his arms around her, hugging her so tightly she almost couldn't breathe, but the action told her, more than words, how much she meant to him, even in their short time together. He kissed her cheek, loosened his bear-hugging grip, and turned in the bed to cuddle her next to him, blowing at her hair, kissing her cheek, smiling as he lay next to her.
"What time do you have to go back to work?" he asked, nibbling at her shoulder.
"Oh!" Lacey sat up to look at the clock. "I forgot about the boutique."
He grinned. "Good. I did something right, then."
She turned back to him and kissed his mouth. "You did everything right, especially coming here." She grinned, letting him take that as a double meaning if he wanted to.
"Are you busy tonight?" he asked, sitting up to look at the time himself.
"Not if you're not," she answered.
"Come out to the house, then," he told her, ruffling her already ruffled hair, "and I'll cook dinner for you."
"Shouldn't I be cooking dinner for you?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Tonight you're my guest. You can cook for me some other time."
"Can I bring you anything?"
He smiled, walking his fingers up her bare back. "Just yourself."
Lacey turned around and fell back on top of him. "I don't have to be back at work until three."
"Unfortunately, I should have been back at work about fifteen minutes ago."
"Oh," she said, drawing back. "I guess this means you have to leave."
He nodded, smiling, making no move to get up. "You fix a nice lunch, ma'am. I didn't know what to expect when I walked through your door."
Lacey grinned. "Why did you come over?"
"To return your sunglasses. To see you. It didn't matter how little the excuse was."
"I guess it worked, hm?" Her grin widened.
He laughed at her and sat up.
"How about a shower?" Lacey invited.
"Only if you promise not to attack me in it. I do need to get back to work sometime this afternoon."
Lacey giggled and led the way. Rafe came into the shower behind her and started soaping her silky body.
Lacey hummed through the remainder of the afternoon with her secret musings about lunch. After work she hurried home to change clothes again before going out to Rafe's house for dinner.
As before, he was waiting for her at the door when he heard her car drive up. Lacey hurried out of the car and into his arms. "Am I too early?" she asked.
"I thought you'd be here waiting for me when I got home," he answered, letting her know again that he wanted her to be with him as much as she wanted to be here.
"Can I help with anything?" she asked, walking with him into the kitchen and sniffing for hints of what he planned to serve.
"No. Everything's under control. Just sit down and relax. Can I get you some wine?"
"Lovely," she answered, sitting at the kitchen table where she could watch him, when she really wanted to follow him around the kitchen. He had that effect on her, a kind of magnetism that left her hungry for his touch even seconds after he moved away.
He stepped into the living room, where she watched him selecting two crystal goblets from the étagère, bringing them to the refrigerator, where he filled each with a white Rhine wine.
"Thank you," Lacey said, accepting the glass from him and tasting it. "Deli
cious."
"I thought you'd like it."
Lacey watched him puttering with the pots on the stove, stirring one concoction, adding water to another. "You must have just washed your glasses," she said, watching the light sparkle through the wine, "because you knew I was coming." She seldom used her fine crystal and had to rinse each glass out when she pulled it out of the cabinet.
"My housekeeper washes them once a week."
"All of them?" Lacey asked, thinking that was quite a chore.
Rafe turned his back to her and started seasoning the meat. "Uhm-hm. I have a list of directives she has to follow and a schedule of how often everything has to be done. One of the questions I asked when I was hiring my housekeeper was whether I could walk in on any day and take a glass off the shelf. I expect them all to be clean whenever I'm ready to use them."
"Wow," Lacey said, sipping some wine. Maybe she should hire a housekeeper.
"Some of them admitted to me they just weren't sure they could handle it."
"What else does she have to do?"
"Wash the windows and wipe down the walls every month. She doesn't have to cook meals, but a lot of times I'll come home and she's left me a casserole. She does a lot of extra things for me."
"How old is she?" Lacey asked, picturing an orthopedic-shoe-wearing grandmother who hadn't heard that the help didn't do windows and walls these days.
"Twenty-eight," he answered.
Lacey coughed on her wine. No wonder she did extra things for Rafe. Jealousy pricked at her again, but she calmed herself with the thought that he was, after all, cooking the steaks for her.
"What else does she do?" Lacey asked, sarcasm coloring her voice ever so slightly.
"The usual. Laundry, vacuuming, rearranging the kitchen cabinets, bathrooms."
And a lot of extras, Lacey added to herself. Ceilings, attics, beds. Lacey finished the wine in her glass and held it out to Rafe for a refill.
"And she's here for Angela when she returns from school until I come home."
So the housekeeper was in the prime spot for the mothering role as well, Lacey thought. That would be a hard slot to replace. "Why did you hire her?" Lacey asked.
Rafe shoved the rack with the steaks into the oven and wiped his hands on a dish towel. "I guess it was her enthusiasm. She seemed to want the job more than the others I interviewed, and also seemed capable of handling this household."
Naturally, Lacey thought. What woman wouldn't be enthusiastic around a powerhouse like Rafe Chancellor? Lacey picked up her wineglass. It was too late now to apply for housekeeper; she'd just have to settle for the latest position that had just opened up—lover.
"What are you grinning at?" he asked, leaning over the table and kissing her.
"You," she whispered. "Would you like a massage?"
"Love one," he answered.
"Before, after or instead of dinner?"
He laughed. "Later will be fine. Come into the living room. Everything's under control here." He picked up her glass to carry it for her and took her hand to help her up.
Music played softly on the stereo. Lacey sat in his papasan chair so that he could sit next to her. She put her arms around him and snuggled up to his shoulder, forgetting the housekeeper, forgetting the sparkling TV-commercial-clean glasses, ignoring the scrubbed white walls. "Tell me about your day," she said, and let him talk for the next fifteen minutes.
Lacey's stomach was grumbling and she thought something was burning. But Rafe was talking about a hotel and his marketing plans to draw vacationers during the stark winter months. "Rafe," she interrupted, remembering what he had told her the other night. "Don't tell me how -you built the watch. Just give me the time and check what's burning."
"Nothing's burning," he called from the kitchen two minutes later. "It's just well done. Are you ready to eat?"
"I thought you'd never ask. Let me help."
"No," he said, coming back into the living room to take her wineglass and carry it to the dining-room table, where he had two place settings laid out with linen place mats, napkins and crystal glasses.
"Your housekeeper must cost you a fortune," Lacey said, sitting in the fan-backed peacock chair he held for her. "She sets a beautiful table." Lacey looked across at the opposite end, where Rafe would be sitting, and noticed the candles between them.
"She didn't do this. I just told her I was having a guest for dinner and to be sure the house was clean. I know which forks go where."
Lacey sank into her chair, watching him through the dining-room door as he brought her plate to her.
She took a bite of the steak Rafe had put in front of her. "You're a good cook."
"Thank you, ma'am," he answered, and smiled.
"I'll have to cook for you one night," Lacey said, taking a sip from her crystal water glass and thinking Rafe even had better tableware than she did.
"Do you cook?"
"Oh, sure, but it's been a while. It's not much fun eating by yourself, is it?" How long had it been? She paused to think. A few months? A year? Who was the last man she had liked enough to invite into her home for dinner? "You might have to give me time to practice. I have a habit of trying out brand-new things on people for the first time, and they generally don't come out recipe-book-perfect."
"I don't mind," he answered. "But you also don't have to cook for me. I like doing it every once in a while. Especially when I have company like you to cook for."
Lacey blushed. This man just couldn't be real. "Do you have any faults?" she asked.
Rafe laughed. "Sure."
"Like what?"
"You'll have to find that out for yourself. There are different faults for different people."
"You're no help," she muttered, tasting the wild rice.
"One thing I'm not is a fool," he said, grinning. "I'm not going to scare you away before you've had a chance to see my good points and see if they outweigh the bad."
She picked up her knife and fork and cut up her meat. She wasn't going to start digging for negative qualities, but it'd be nice to find one, just one, to make her feel more adequate. She smiled across the candlelit table at him. "You really are a terrific cook."
"Terrific company deserves it."
Later, Rafe cleared the table, not allowing Lacey to get up to help him. Afterward she forcibly carried the last of her dishes into the kitchen to help him clean up, and watched after he planted her on one corner of the kitchen counter while he rinsed the plates, packed the dishwasher and scrubbed the pans. He even knew how to wash dishes better than she did, and wouldn't let her help.
While that was a bit intimidating, she had to admit she liked the pampering. How long did this last? Just until the honeymoon was over?
Rafe tossed down the scrub brush and set the last pot to drain in the rack. Then he picked up the dishcloth and wiped down the stove and counter-tops. If he came packaged in different sizes and models and was labeled "Perfect Male", someone would make a fortune. Maybe she should even take lessons from him in the housekeeping department, but right now she had other things on her mind.
He tossed the dishcloth into the sink and wiped his hands dry on the towel. "Can I get you anything?" he asked, opening the cabinet to mix a drink for himself.
Lacey grinned across the room at him. "How about you?"
Chapter Nine
Lacey fell into an easy pattern with Rafe over the next few weeks. Most evenings she would drive out to his house after work, where he would have dinner waiting for her. Occasionally he invited friends over and introduced her to his circle of acquaintances. A couple of times he took her out to dinner and dancing with long strolls on the surf-tossed beach in the early-morning hours. Lacey counted the hours spent apart from Rafe.
Nights were spent in his arms, watching patterns' develop in the half-light filtering through his bedroom windows, knowing that when Angela came home to live with him again at the end of summer, all of this concentrated time together would end. She'd have to go back to s
leeping in her bed alone again.
The longer Lacey spent with Rafe, the more perfect he seemed to her. As different as they were, she found a lot of things they shared in common. They stocked the same brands of groceries on their shelves (this she discovered when they took their checkbooks and shopping carts into the supermarket one afternoon together to save time before a party they were going to attend later that evening); they both worked in an organized fashion in their business and at home. The only difference was Rafe had a housekeeper and Lacey was on her own; Rafe liked all the finer things in life, from crystal stemware to custom-made boots, which fit well with Lacey's style.
Before she knew him even a week, Lacey loved him. She purred with contentment every time she was near him, and he seemed to play up to her attention. Lacey knew from the little he had told her that he still felt some hurt from the way his wife had left him, but she didn't ask about it. When the time was right, she decided, he would tell her what he wanted her to know. But that pain of rejection was keeping a tight rein on Rafe's emotions. Lacey felt his affectionate concern and caring whenever she was in his company, but she never heard the words of loving she wanted desperately for him to say.
Sometimes it was right on the tip of her tongue to tell him how much she loved him. She would bite her cheek at those times and refrain; it might frighten him away to hear the words, she thought, because then he would take that as a commitment —as if she could consider anything less after having given herself totally to him. But the words might make him think she was trying to trap him the way his ex-wife had trapped him into marriage.
Besides, she didn't want to influence Rafe's decisions about her. She wanted him to be committed to her, but by his choice, in his own time. Commitment meant more that way, when it was given instead of forced. She could wait, she told herself. When the time was right, she could let him know how much she loved him and wanted to be joined with him forever.
Early one June morning, Lacey stewed in her office. She had just talked to the housekeeper, trying to catch Rafe at home before he flew off to a business meeting in New York. Rafe had already driven out of the driveway, she told Lacey. Lacey strummed her fingers against the desk and looked at the clock. Rafe was cutting his time awfully close to catch his plane, and the housekeeper was arriving awfully early. And blast it all, Lacey thought, breaking a pencil in two, nobody had a right to sound as cheerful as that woman did this early in the morning!
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