Abby laughed a little. Rafe was so much quieter than Gabe that it was hard to remember that he could be funny.
“Nothing so complicated. Cover her and kiss her goodnight.”
He pulled the blanket up and hesitated. Then he lifted the blanket and kissed the bottom of her foot. Abby bit her bottom lip to keep herself from showing any reaction to the gesture—so sweet and heartbreaking at the same time that he couldn’t kiss her cheek.
“All set,” he said.
“What about Bella? Doesn’t she get a kiss, too?”
“Sure.” He repeated the foot kiss as Abby kissed Alice’s cheek and patted her back.
And then at the last moment, he went to Phillip’s crib and kissed the bottom of his foot, too.
Abby stood paralyzed. If she’d had any ovaries, they would have screamed.
“What?” Rafe tried to read the expression on her face. “You kissed my girls, so I thought it was fair that I return the favor for your boy. Besides, he’s a great kid.”
“Your girls are great kids, too.” Abby shook herself from her frozen state and busied herself turning off all the lights except one Humpty Dumpty night-light.
Rafe followed her into the hall.
“I guess …” He let his voice trail off, and his eyes looked haunted. “Are you ready to go back to the party? Wouldn’t want to keep your goalie waiting.”
Abby opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t have a goalie, and then she realized Rafe was trying to distract her—and she couldn’t let that happen. She had an opportunity here to talk to him about Bella and Alice, and she couldn’t let it get away.
“Emile? He’ll wait. Let’s go out the back door and take the long way around. That way we won’t have to fight our way through all those people.”
“Seems like most of those people are hockey players,” he grumbled. “I hate hockey players.”
She started down the back staircase and he followed her. “Oh? Does that include Nickolai?”
“No. I like him, but he was a person before he was a hockey player—though he is odd.”
Abby stepped aside and allowed Rafe to open the door for her. “I don’t see how you could possibly reflect on that last statement you uttered and call anyone else in the universe odd.”
“He thought I was gay.”
“Are you?” But as she spoke the teasing words, Rafe took her arm to steady her as they walked across the uneven terrain of the yard—and a bolt of lightning shot through her. No gay man could have caused that. She had touched him before, most recently a few minutes ago in the nursery. She couldn’t say the touch was without a single spark, but nothing like this. Maybe it was the moon, the night, or the lack of children.
He moved his hand up her arm, and there was a second bolt of lightning.
“Oh,” she squeaked; she had never squeaked in her life. The lightning subsided, but the aftershocks remained—not so different from the aftershocks of an orgasm. Not that there were always aftershocks; not that there had always been orgasms. That was hit or miss. Somehow, she got the feeling it wouldn’t be hit or miss with Rafe Beauford—though she’d never know. Everything else aside, she would never become involved with a man who had a death wish.
“Are you all right?” Without letting go of her arm, he put his other hand on her waist, and it started all over again.
Lightning. Aftershocks. More lightning. Tight nipples and a damp crotch. She was nothing more than the bad girl secondary character in a horror movie, the one who was the first to get cut up with a chainsaw. She needed to get away from this man. And she needed to throw herself against him. Neither seemed much of an option.
“I’m just a little tired. And I turned my ankle.”
“Yeah?” He knelt at her feet and encircled her right ankle with his hands. She almost fell over. “This one? It doesn’t feel like it’s swelling.”
“No, no.” She stepped away from his touch. “I didn’t hurt it. I thought I was going to, and it scared me.”
“Yeah?” He took her arm again. “It’s no wonder, trotting around here in those high heels. I know men are supposed to like them, but I don’t so much. They look a little too much like weapons to suit me.”
“What do you like? Cowboy boots?”
He laughed. By now they were at the porch that bordered the family wing. He guided her up the steps to a wicker settee. “Why don’t you sit here a minute and rest your ankle?” Much to her relief and disappointment, he did not sit beside her but leaned on a nearby column. He was still close—too close and not close enough. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Cowboy boots? There was a time …” He laughed, probably at some fond memory. “But I’ve had enough cowboy boots. Have had for a while. Tawny was one of the last. Ironic, I know. But about the shoes,” he rushed on. “Hmm. I guess I like those little flat shoes. The ones with a bow? Or some kind of little, pretty buckle. I like sparkles.”
“Sparkles on the whole shoe or the bow?”
Rafe shrugged. “Both. Either. Pearls would be nice.”
And he reached out and stroked the pearls around her neck.
She was hot, cold, and shaking—all in the middle of a lightning storm.
This had to stop before he noticed. How humiliating would it be for him to guess how she was feeling when he wasn’t at all attracted to her? Or was he? It wouldn’t be productive to find out.
She shifted away from his hands. “Rafe, I need to talk to you about those cookies. I meant what I said. You have to stop it.”
“Why?”
Why? Why? Who would even ask such a thing?
“To begin with, it’s not good for them to have so much sugar, and it keeps them from eating their meals. Second, I know why you’re doing it. You’re distracting them like you would hens with chicken feed so you can get away.”
“What do you know about chickens, Boston girl?”
“We have chickens in Boston. And I’ve seen them on TV. Don’t change the subject. And in case you’ve forgotten, the subject is cookies and how you use them to get away from your own babies who just want to be with you.”
Rafe leaned against the column again and put his hands in his pockets. “Be with me? They don’t even know me. They don’t care about being with me.”
“Yes, they do. They adore you. Though, frankly, I don’t know why.”
“It’s the cookies—if that’s even true.”
“No, it is not the cookies. You wouldn’t have found cookies as a coping mechanism if they hadn’t been clamoring for you.”
“It’s impossible for a kid that age to know one person from the other.”
“You know that’s not true. They can even tell you apart from Gabe—like Camille could.”
There. She’d said it. It was a box that had to be unpacked.
His anger was immediate and in full force.
“You want to hit me, don’t you?” she challenged.
If possible, he grew even angrier. “I would never!”
She stood up to face him. “I know that. I didn’t say you would hit me. I said you wanted to. And I understand. I want to hit you pretty often, too—like every time you walk away from those girls while they are calling out, ‘Daddy.’ Do you have any idea what I would give for Phillip to have someone to call daddy? What I wouldn’t give for him to have a good, strong male to love him and teach him how to do things that I am never going to have a clue about?”
“You can go get that Emile person.”
“Who?” For a second she couldn’t make the connection.
“Your weird goalie. He can turn Phillip into a hockey player in nothing flat.”
“We’re not talking about me, Emile, or Phillip.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
He had a point. She’d let her own demons creep into the conversation. She took a deep breath and collected her thoughts.
“No. I might have gotten off track a bit, but, Rafe, those girls love you.”
“They can’t. They haven’t been a
round me enough.”
“They do. Babies sense certain things.”
“During the longest time they spent with me, if they sensed anything, it was that I let them cry across four states because I didn’t know what to do! I’m terrible at this.”
“You are terrible. But you don’t have to be. And I think what they sensed on the trip here was that you had taken them into your care and you were doing the best you could to get them to a place where someone would know what to do for them.”
“What do you want from me? I’m doing all I can. I’m here. I don’t even have a way to train for the championship.”
“No. You’re doing nothing except paying the bills and living in this house for a few weeks because I blackmailed you. And the truth be told, you probably don’t intend to come back here for any length of time after the championship.” Even as she said it, she knew it was true. “You might fool Emory and Jackson, but I’m not fooled. However, I can’t do anything about that. The whole point of your being here was so you could get to know them and bond. There is no bonding going on. All that’s happening is a cookie addiction that’s getting worse every day—for your children and mine.”
He spread his hands. “I didn’t come out here to fight with you, Abby.”
“I did. That’s exactly why I came out here. And I’ll fight until the day you leave if that’s what it takes. Because you see”—her voice broke a little—“I already love those girls.”
“How? You don’t even know them yet.” His big eyes were wide with pain and confusion.
“How can you not? Rafe, they have your DNA. They’re your children.”
“And that’s too bad for them.”
“Why do you think that? You’re a good man. I just saw you with Phillip. Why can’t you be sweet with your girls like that?”
“Because I am not a danger to Phillip!”
What? “I don’t understand.”
He turned his back on her and looked at the sky. He was silent for so long that Abby began to think he wasn’t going to speak. But then, he did.
“The night of the fire. Jackson, Gabe, and I were camping out. Our mother kept Beau inside because he had a cold. She was always babying him. Turns out, he had snuck out and gone to sleep on the ground behind the tent. Slept through the whole thing. But anyway, we’d been telling ghost stories, and I got scared. Jackson and Gabe went in the tent, and I was supposed to put the campfire out, but I was too scared of being outside by myself to do it right. They never said what caused the fire, but it had to be that.”
Abby thought she would be sick. She laid a hand on his back. “Rafe, no. It was an accident. You were a child. How old were you? Ten? Twelve?”
“We were ten. Jackson was twelve.”
“You can’t blame yourself. More than that, you can’t let it rob you of a relationship with your daughters.”
He turned and met her eyes. “I tell you, they’re better off. And there’s more. My mother must have known she couldn’t get out, so she tossed Camille off a second story balcony for Gabe to catch. Gabe could catch anything, even back then. He would have caught her for sure, and she’d be alive if it hadn’t been for me.”
The horror of that might have brought Abby to her knees if this moment had not been so crucial. “No, Rafe—”
“Hear me out. Camille knew me from Gabe. She always did. And she liked me. She would always want to come to me. And it fed my ego.”
“I’m not sure a ten-year-old has an ego.”
“Believe me. I did. I loved myself. Gabe had always been the twin with the stronger personality, and, finally, I had something for myself. And I always encouraged Camille. I’m pretty sure after my mother threw her, Camille saw me and lunged to get to me. It would have thrown Gabe off balance and made him miss her. Nothing else could.”
“You were a child,” Abby said.
“And Camille was a baby. So are Bella and Alice.”
“Have you talked to Jackson and Gabe about this?”
“No.” He closed his eyes. “I never could. That’s not how we operate.”
“Nothing is going to happen to Bella and Alice.”
“It never is until it does.”
“They are in danger though,” Abby said.
Rafe looked around. “Where? How?”
“Not immediate, bodily danger. But they are in danger of growing up without their father’s love and spending the rest of their lives looking for something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Drugs, alcohol, the wrong men. Believe me, Rafe, it won’t be pretty. Don’t let that happen. Be a father to them.”
He hung his head. “I don’t know if I can.”
“You can. I’ll help you. Baby steps. Join them at breakfast. Help them with their oatmeal. Read them a story. At their age, they don’t need much.” Abby knew full well that last statement was a lie, but it was one worth telling. “You’re a good man, Rafe. Share that with your girls. Let them love you. Let yourself love them. It’s the only way.”
“I don’t know. I’ll come to breakfast with them tomorrow. I won’t promise anything after that.”
“That’s a start.” She put a hand on his shoulder and stroked his cheek.
She had meant it to be a comforting gesture, but she’d forgotten about the lightning—and it struck full force—for both of them.
He looked at her wide-eyed then dropped his eyelids to half-mast and crushed her to him. She raised her face to him even as his mouth came down to capture hers—and capture was what it was.
There was no hesitancy, no asking for permission, or soft tactics. It was capture and surrender, as if the kiss was something that had been a long time coming and deserved proper attention. He lightly bit her bottom lip and moved his tongue into her mouth, caressing back and forth. Why had she never noticed before that kissing like this mimicked sex—in and out, soft and hard, wet. She had always been in perfect control, but no more, at least not in this moment. A moan came from low in her throat, and she couldn’t have stopped it if she’d tried. When he heard the sound, he shuddered against her, and his lips trembled on hers.
The lightning dissipated and left them on fire. He let his head drop to her neck, running his tongue the length of her collarbone and over and under her strands of pearls.
“Rafe.” Abby didn’t know why she spoke. She just wanted to say his name.
And apparently, he liked hearing it.
“Abby, Abby,” he said against her ear. “You’ve got it in you to kill a man. Say my name again.”
“Rafe, Rafe, Rafe.” It was a wish, a prayer, an incantation.
And with that, he pulled her tight against him, and she felt his half-erect penis come fully into its own and begin to throb.
His voice was low and sweet. “I think I scorned your high heels too soon. They make you just the right height for us to fit together.” He cradled himself between her legs. Either he knew exactly what he was doing, or she was very, very lucky, because through the thin fabric of her dress, his pulsating penis landed exactly in the wonder spot, and the sensation was sublime.
Again, unable to help herself, she moaned and moved against him.
He ran a hand up her side and over her breast. “I promise this isn’t sexual harassment.”
“I never thought it.”
He grasped a pearl from her necklace and ran it around the circumference of her nipple. “I’d never try to put you in my power like that. In fact, I’m not even going to try to take you inside to my bed.”
“You’re not the kind of man to take advantage of someone.” She tasted the skin of his neck. “And this is enough.”
And it was. Never had she felt like this.
He moved her backward a few steps, tipped her against the porch column, and leaned into her hard. “There. Can you feel me better like that?”
She laughed a little and stroked herself against him, causing him to moan. “Oh, yes. Impossible not to feel you. You’re huge.”
He laughed in return. “That’s what I like to hear.” He ran his hands over her breasts, and her nipples screamed out for attention—which he sensed and promptly gave them what they wanted, pulling, pinching, teasing.
“That’s so good,” she said. “Who knew something could be so good without removing a stitch of clothes?”
“Not me.” His voice trembled. “But I swear if you moved against me just right, I could come like this, and I wouldn’t be one bit ashamed.”
And she moved against him just right. He repaid her in kind. And they ended up lying on the settee trembling in the aftershocks of their orgasms.
Chapter Nine
Though he was vague about the details, Rafe woke with two things on his mind: he’d done something he’d wanted to but shouldn’t have, and he’d promised to do something he should do but didn’t want to.
Then it gradually came back.
What was he thinking? On either count? Dry humping in public like a horny fifteen-year- old without even a back seat to go to? Not that he’d ever done anything like that at fifteen; he’d been too shy. Then there was the promising to go to breakfast with Bella and Alice. Great idea. Let them get used to him before he disappeared. That would delight everyone.
There was no excuse for either thing, but there were reasons—Abby smiling and talking French to that evil goalie, Alice good-smelling and warm tucked into his arms, the release of finally telling someone what he’d done to Camille and his parents, and—oh, God—cool, reserved, classy Abby hot and trembling against him, wanting him like he wanted her. He was hard again just thinking about it.
And now she would expect more—would expect him to take her to bed and finish what they’d started. She had every right to expect it, and he wanted to—wanted it like he’d never wanted anything else in his life. But he couldn’t. Besides that it would complicate everything even more, there was the fear—no, not fear; he did not fear—the knowledge that there was a possibility of fathering more children. That couldn’t happen. He’d already done too much of that.
And now he’d told Nickolai that he was going to that wedding. He might could have begged off except Nickolai had cornered him after they’d gone back to the party last night and asked him to be a groomsman. Seemed an old friend he’d skated with in Russia had gotten injured in practice and couldn’t make the trip for the wedding after all. Rafe should have had the presence of mind to say no, but he’d been so distracted by watching Abby talking to Neyland and Noel with her messed up hair and swollen mouth.
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