by Selena Scott
“Raphael,” she whispered.
Understanding came into his eyes. This time, when he crawled over her, he did so slowly, intentionally. She automatically hitched her legs onto his hips as he settled between her legs.
His eyes on hers, he reached down and found her with his fingers again. Slowly, he opened her.
“You want me, Nat?”
Even through all the viciously sparking heat in his eyes, she knew this was a genuine question. He was truly asking. Truly making sure that this was exactly what she wanted.
She spread her legs even further. “Raphael,” she whispered again. “Yes.”
Raph pushed forward, into her, slowly, but he never stopped. There was something so Raph about the way he did it. Just the right amount of pressure, right to the edge of how much he knew she could take. Nat tipped herself up to him as he dropped his forehead to hers. He was a lot to take so he had to pull out an inch to push back in two and finally, he was inside of her to the hilt.
She gasped for air, her fingers opening and closing on his back. He rolled his face and took her kiss, sucked it down with his air, said her name over and over against her lips. When he finally started to move, Natalie’s eyes popped wide and she twisted her head for air, more air.
He reared up a bit so that he could watch her face. She lifted her hips to meet his strokes and when she turned her head, she caught the tail end of a smile on his face. His expression gave way to a sort of blissed intensity as he pushed deep inside of her and pulsed, grinding against her more than he was thrusting. He hitched one of her legs further up and started grinding in circles against her.
She tossed her head back and gasped his name, working her hips, trying to get even closer to him. She tugged her leg out of his grasp and propped it on his shoulder, allowing him to open her up even further.
His eyes flared in appreciation and he turned his head to kiss her calf before he resumed turning her inside out with what was, apparently, a magic dick.
Natalie was trembling as she strained toward her orgasm, his strokes doubled in intensity and speed, there was sweat on his forehead and his eyes slammed shut.
“God, Nat. God. Baby. Fuck.”
He was losing a battle that she desperately wanted him to lose. Her interest in her own orgasm temporarily waned. She wanted, so badly, to study his face while he came. While he came inside her. Curiosity swelled up in her as she started to thrust her hips against him, trying to get him there.
His eyes popped open, startlingly clear. “Oh, no you don’t,” he growled, dropping his lips to hers, taking both of her legs and wrapping them around his waist.
From there he started in on long, round, grinding strokes that had her back coming up off the bed. Nat quickened, sparkled, she was gonna go.
“Nat,” he groaned, and his face was screwed up tight, his teeth white in the darkness, pained bliss in every line of his expression. “Nat, baby, please.”
She scraped herself across his pelvis, bore down hard and let herself explode. She clutched him tight and felt him clutch her right back. His breath and voice were rough in her ear, his body trembling hard, his teeth nipping her neck. And then he was lax, twitching inside of her, his mouth open on her shoulder.
“Oh my God,” she murmured, pushing sweaty hair off her face. “Oh my God.”
He lifted his head and swirled his tongue through her mouth. “Mmhmm,” he agreed, a satisfied, charged look on his face.
At some point, their fingers had become laced over her head and the unlacing of them was almost excruciatingly vulnerable. When he pulled himself from her heat, Nat winced. But the air in the attic was warm, the lights and sounds of the party below were comforting, and though the two of them didn’t speak, she was comforted by his mere proximity.
She reached for her clothes, but he took them from her hands. He drew her underwear up her legs, latched her bra onto her. Helped her step into her jumpsuit and zipped it up, even doing the little clasp at the top of the zipper.
Inspired, Nat dressed him as well. Item by item, it was a kind of thank you, a gratitude, and type of aftercare that she was certain they both badly needed after something that intimate. As she worked on his tie, he worked on her hair, fixing it, un-smudging some makeup under her eye and searching for the lipstick she’d stuck into her pocket. He swiped a coat of it on her bottom lip and she rubbed her pout together.
He bent down and instead of kissing her, just pressed their temples together for a moment.
They both knew it was time to go back down. She was grateful he wasn’t speaking. She didn’t think she was equipped to reply or to answer him. She felt safe in the confines of her own mind and safe standing there next to him. Raphael unlocked the closed door and took her hand as they snuck back down the stairs, through his mother’s house, and back out to the party, only parting when their feet hit the grass.
***
Raphael got ten feet from Natalie and he turned and looked back at her. She was already looking at him. He was stunned at how gorgeous she looked, peachy and flushed and borderline messy. He superimposed a memory over top of the woman in blue standing in front of him. Her flushed and open and wet and saying his name.
He blushed and turned away from her. He took four more steps toward a group of people on the edge of the dance floor. His brothers were standing over there and that’s where he was headed.
He stopped and looked back at her again. Halfway across the party, as if she could feel his gaze, she stopped and did the same thing. He could tell that she was heading for her sister. Someone had lit the candles while they were in the attic so her skin was alluringly gold, her normally dark hair bright with dancing shades of brown.
She gave him a small half-smile. He did the same and they kept walking.
He felt the moment that she made it to the safe haven of Kaya. From the corner of his eye, he watched her hip-bump her sister, grabbing some water from a nearby table.
He strode quietly into the group where his brothers stood. Seth clapped him on the back, but kept talking to their uncle who was in from Jersey. Jackson said something to Raphael, but Raphael didn’t hear. His eyes and his attention were across the party, on Natalie.
Again, she looked up, locked eyes with him. He felt his wolf move inside him.
She lifted her chin just slightly, a greeting, an acknowledgement, her eyes warm and her heart open.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Natalie got into bed that night with her mind spinning, but in a peaceful way. Her thoughts made lazy circles around the events of that night all while her body still hummed with Raph’s attentions. She’d gotten home and showered, slid into her most comfortable pajamas, thinking she deserved to treat herself with care tonight.
Though she and Kaya had been quiet in the car on the way home, Nat had knocked on Kaya’s door after her shower and tried to talk with her. Something was off, though. Kaya seemed down and confused and hadn’t wanted to talk.
Resolved to address the issue in the morning, Nat had just hugged her sister goodnight and padded down the hall to her own room. Where she stared at the ceiling for a good hour, blushing and reliving her time with Raph.
She was curled on her side, her eyes on the sky outside her window, just starting to doze, when her door creaked open.
Natalie whirled around in bed, her heart a solid stream of insane beats, when she saw Raph stepping through her bedroom door.
“It’s just me,” he whispered. “I’m sorry to scare you.”
She blinked at him, trying to make sense of unexpectedly seeing him like this. He often came over unannounced and used his key to get in, but never in the middle of the night. And though he’d occasionally sleep on their couch, he didn’t sleep over at her house nearly as often as she slept in his guest room. Not to mention the fact that though they’d been best friends for nearly two decades, they didn’t spend a lot of time in one another’s bedrooms. When Raph came over, they generally stuck to the living room, or the kitchen. The last
time he’d been in her bedroom, he’d been helping her move her dresser from one side of the room to the other. He’d certainly never kicked his shoes off and sat on the edge of her bed the way he was doing now.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Is everything all right?”
Raph’s face was darkened by shadows, and she could barely make out his expression. But he nodded. “I’m fine. Great, actually. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Me? Why?”
He paused for a second and Nat rolled so that she was closer to him, her knees nudging the side of his thigh. The contact seemed to immediately relax him. “We didn’t get to talk… after. And then you left without saying goodbye.”
She winced. In retrospect, she could see that hadn’t been the best decision. “Shit. Yeah, I guess I understand how that might send you the wrong message.” She picked at her covers, trying to think of the best way to explain. “After the attic, I just felt so different than normal?”
“Good different?”
She nodded slowly, but she meant it. “Yes. And I felt like anyone who got within a ten-foot radius of me was going to know that something had happened to me. And I didn’t want to answer any questions about it. Couldn’t answer any questions about it or about how I was feeling.”
“So you didn’t say goodbye to me?”
“Well, when Kaya wanted to leave, you were talking to Elizabeth and Aunt Lynn and they are both, like, freaky intuitive. And I knew I couldn’t just walk up and high-five you like normal. Not after what had happened. And I thought that if I went up there and said some soft little goodbye with my eyes all big and my fingers all twisted up, they were gonna take one look at us and just know.”
“Yeah.” Raph bobbed his head. “That makes a lot of sense. I think you’re right.” His shoulders sagged in relief. “I was just freaked out that you were feeling weird or couldn’t be around me or something.”
“Raph, I can always be around you. You’re, like, my safest place.”
With that, he seemed overcome with relief and happiness and he just sort of flopped forward, nuzzling his messy head into Nat’s shoulder, letting some of his weight fall over her. “Thank God for that.”
He lifted his head after a minute. “This secrecy thing is going to be a lot harder than we thought, huh?”
“Yeah.” She’d realized that tonight, too. “I mean, I think when I was first picturing this arrangement, I was imagining having sex with you behind closed doors and then feeling exactly the same as I always do afterwards. Maybe it’s dumb but I didn’t think I was going to have to actively hide feelings from people we know and love.”
Raph cleared his throat. “Feelings?”
Nat froze. He didn’t think she meant… “Oh, no! I don’t mean like feelings feelings. Jeez Louise, gimme a little credit here. I did not fall in love with you after having sex once.”
He was quiet and again, she really wished she could see his face. “Right,” he said eventually.
“Really, Raph. You don’t have to worry about that. I just meant that having sex with someone, anyone, stirs up a certain kind of energy. A softness, I guess. And I forgot about that. So I guess I just didn’t really plan on having to hide that from people. You know how bad I am at hiding anything.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“But in the future we’ll just plan a little better so that I don’t have to face anyone right after we have sex. Right?”
He was quiet again, for a long time. “You’re saying you want to sleep together again?”
She slid down so that they were at face level. His face had been near her shoulder and she was sick of feeling like she couldn’t read him at all. She still couldn’t see his expression but at least she could feel his breath against her face, she could press her nose to his.
“Yeah. I do. I really do. But if you don’t, it’s not a problem. Seriously. We can just—”
His mouth pressed firm and dry over hers. “Natalie, I totally want to sleep together again.”
“Oh, thank God.” She let out a big breath. “Raph, you understand what I mean, right? Everyone knows I’ve been going through a dry spell. So, if I’m suddenly floating around on cloud nine, there’s gonna be questions. They’re gonna want to know who and when and where and if we’re getting married. You know how our families are. But you? You have sex all the time. So if someone in our families suspects you of having sex, they’re not gonna blink twice. You don’t really have to hide anything.”
Again, he was quiet and when he spoke, his voice was strangely hollow. “Right. I don’t have to hide anything.”
She pulled back from him. “Are you all right? I feel like I’m just making you feel worse and worse.”
He stroked a hand down her back. “No, no. It’s cool. It’s… good that I know where you stand. I guess what you’re saying is let’s try to be as discreet as possible from here on out. No more sex in houses where our entire families are. And you need a buffer of time after we have sex so that you can gather yourself before you have to see anybody you know.”
“Um. Yeah. I guess that sounds right.” She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off with him. That she’d really hurt him somehow just now, but she went back over the conversation in her head and couldn’t think of how she might have done that.
“Can I stay?” he asked after a long, quiet minute.
“The night?”
“Yeah.”
“In my bed?”
She could hear him smile. “Yeah.”
“But Kaya’s down the hall.”
She heard his smile disappear. “Right.”
He started to shift away from her but she grabbed his shoulder. “But you know how late she always sleeps. Maybe if you left early in the morning?”
He paused for a minute and then rose up. She felt helpless. She’d insulted him again, she was sure of it, and she was momentarily stymied on how to fix any of it.
But then she realized that he was just shucking off his shirt and pants and socks so that he could get back in bed.
A moment later, he opened up his phone to set an early alarm and it was the only glimpse at Raphael’s face that she got that night. His expression was an alarming mixture of relief and disappointment.
He set the phone aside and pulled back the covers, sliding in next to her. He chuckled and the panic in her heart eased. “Jesus, are you wearing an entire sleeping bag?”
“You know I like to wear full pajamas.”
He inspected her with his hands. “You’re wearing men’s sweatpants, a hoodie, there’s a long-sleeved shirt underneath, and… no! You’re wearing socks in bed?”
“Don’t act like I’m a monster for having cold feet.”
“This is egregious. You cannot wear socks in bed.”
“It’s my bed!”
He dove under the covers and peeled her socks off, tossing them away. Before she could protest, though, he tucked her cold feet between his calves.
She moaned at the warmth as he hissed at the freezing cold. She expected him to push her feet away any second, but instead he pulled her closer and settled in. “Comfortable?”
“Yeah,” she said, with a note of surprise in her voice. She was actually really, really comfortable. And whatever whirring that had been happening in her head as she’d lain in bed just sort of quietly stopped. His arms were around her and her questions stilled. Her exhaustion hit her then and long, warm, dozy thoughts started to overtake her.
They didn’t say goodnight to one another. They were both asleep too fast.
***
A week later, Raphael took down an entire pickup truck’s worth of mulch all by himself. It was a job that normally would have taken a few guys at least a day, but he got it done in an hour.
“Holy shit.”
Raph turned around at Seth’s voice. “Dude!”
He dropped his shovel, tossed his work gloves down and strode over to his long-lost twin. Okay, so he wasn’t technicall
y long lost, but it had been six days since they’d seen each other.
“How was the honeymoon?” Raph asked as he pulled Seth into a very mulchy hug.
Seth pulled back, brushing the dirt from his button-down. “It was… everything. I’d been skeptical when Sarah said she wanted to go to the desert for our honeymoon. But damn. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. And the stars at night… Jeez. Can’t even describe it.”
“What kind of stuff did you do?”
Seth blinked at him. “We had sex, dude.”
Raph burst out laughing. “I just figured you did some hiking or something, too.”
“Yeah. We hiked, a little bouldering. She ran, of course, and played golf while I slept like a baby. But other than that…”
“You had sex.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Raph clapped Seth on the back. “Well, I’m happy to see you.”
“Yeah. So, what the heck is wrong with you that you’re working on a Saturday? And working like a maniac, no less?”
Raph restrained his wince. He really, really didn’t want to explain to Seth what was wrong with him. Because he really, really didn’t even want to explain to himself what was wrong with him. He’d spent the last week avoiding his feelings and trying desperately to distract himself with work.
“Girl problems, I guess.” That was as much as he could afford to elaborate on the issue. But to characterize what he’d been going through as ‘girl problems’ was laughable. This was so far beyond girl problems, he couldn’t even smell the girl problems from where he was.
Raph had seen Natalie four times since he’d crept out of her house at dawn, her dirty little secret. And all four times had been completely… normal. Devastatingly normal. The first two times, he’d stopped by her house, only to find Kaya there as well. So, naturally, he and Natalie had fallen right back into the cadence of their friendship. Not wanting to inflict himself on her, he hadn’t snuck back into her house. The third time they’d seen one another, she’d visited right after her lunch with Stapler Paul, only to report that it had actually been really fun. Raphael had been in such a bad mood that he’d told her he needed to go for a run and when he’d gotten back, she was gone. The fourth time he’d seen her had been that morning. She and Kaya had invited him out for Saturday morning brunch, which was something they did at least twice a month. Only, his mother had been passing by outside, spotted them in the diner, and came to join them. Directly after that, Elizabeth had invited the girls to go shopping with her, thereby destroying his plans to get Natalie alone.
