Their last night together? How had it come about so quickly? And how had she forgotten?
‘Would you mind terribly if we had a slight change in plan?’ she asked, arching her neck as he resumed his teasing kisses.
‘How slight?’
‘Well...’ She winced, some sixth sense warning her that this might not go as well as she’d originally hoped. ‘I sort of accepted Regan’s invitation on your behalf.’
As predicted, Rafe drew back, frowning at her. ‘How do you sort of accept an invitation?’
‘You say yes.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because it’s a really nice idea, and she really wants you to be there. She said it would make Jag’s night.’
Rafe shook his head, moving further away from her. ‘I just saw my brother at our wedding two weeks ago, and then at the ball two weeks before that. I’ve seen him more this month than I did the whole of last year.’
‘Surely that’s all the more reason to go.’ Sensing his physical and emotional withdrawal, and hating it, Alexa touched his arm. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘Afraid of?’ Rafe barked out a laugh. ‘Fear isn’t what’s keeping me from wanting to go.’
‘Then what is? Because it’s important to make time for family.’
‘Not all family members are best friends, Alexa.’
‘I know. Which is why it’s so vital to forge strong bonds. The more you see someone, the more you want to see them.’
Rafe gave her a look. ‘Sometimes the opposite occurs.’
‘It doesn’t count with family because, as annoying as they can be, they’re the only ones who will rush to your side when the chips are down.’
‘I don’t plan to let my chips go anywhere,’ he drawled. ‘Especially not down.’
Alexa returned his look of a moment ago and pushed a skein of her hair back behind her shoulders. Rafe’s eyes darkened, the air between turning from frigid to molten in a matter of seconds.
‘You did that deliberately,’ he accused softly.
Dragging air into her lungs, Alexa blinked. ‘Did what?’
‘Doesn’t matter. It won’t work.’
Their eyes locked and then he vaulted off the bed, turning his back on her to stare out of the small window.
The morning had brightened and the sunlight drew shadows across his muscular shoulders and biceps, the white towel riding low on his lean hips. Alexa knew she had crossed a line in accepting the Queen?
?s invitation on his behalf; she’d known it at the time, and she should never have done it. Not that she had expected his complete withdrawal or the hollow feeling inside her chest as if someone had carved out her heart and left an empty cavity behind.
‘I’m sorry.’ She moved towards him and placed her hand in the centre of his back, enthralled with the play of muscle that bunched beneath the surface of his skin at her touch. ‘That was incredibly arrogant of me to impose my ideas of family onto you. I absolutely hate it when people think that they know better about my life than I do and I should have spoken to you first.’
Rafe swung around, his eyes full of an emotion that was somewhere between pain and anger, and she couldn’t move. In the distance she heard the tread of someone’s footsteps as they walked past their room and the sound of crockery clinking together, but all she could focus on was Rafe standing before her like a Greek God come to life.
He made a rough sound in the back of his throat and then his hands were in her hair, tugging her up onto her toes so that her lips were inches from his. ‘How can I resist you when you look at me like this?’ His voice was rough, his mouth hard and insistent when it met hers, his kiss eradicating everything else in the world for her but him. This man who gave new meaning to her life.
Alexa moaned, her mouth opening beneath his in an emotional onslaught of need that seemed never-ending, her hands clinging to his wide shoulders as if she might tumble over a cliff and be dashed against jagged rocks if she were to let him go.
Finally Rafe raised his head, leaning his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged.
‘I’ll go to my brother’s party. This time. But, even though I know you mean well, I don’t want you to ever interfere with my relationship with my family again. It is what it is, and I can’t change that. I don’t want to change that.’