The way his lips curled up said I shouldn’t have challenged him like that, but I was still learning and being this close to him was frankly unsettling. He barked out a laugh. “One of one hundred? Who in the hell do you think I am? I mean, thanks for the props and all, but you’ve got me all wrong sweetheart.”
“You’re Rafe Montgomery, man about town.” I smirked and realized that despite the rain and my imminent humiliation, I was having fun verbally sparring with him. Some might even consider this some weird twisted form of flirting. Something about the exchange was firing me up. Exciting me.
Rafe clutched at his heart with faux anguish and a smile. “You wound me. And for the record, if you would have stayed, it would’ve been round three, Janey. Three.” He shrugged like his words were easy to say and I guess, for him, they were. “I was taking it easy on you, given your uh, delicate situation.”
I sucked in a gasp. “Rafe.”
“Yeah,” he nodded slowly. “There it is. That’s the sound you made when I slid into you, when my tongue slid from the bottom to the top of your hot pussy, and I have to tell you Janey, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that sound for the past month.” His eyes wore a fascinating gleam I found impossible to turn away from, or, maybe it was that sexy smirk that said he knew exactly what his words were doing to me. He was teasing me, on purpose.
And it was working, damn him.
“Funny,” I managed to say in a mostly normal sounding voice. “I can hardly remember it at all.” He didn’t need to know the truth, that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that night. It would only feed his ego.
His laughter roared behind me, nearly blotting out the sound of the rain and I walked as fast as I could with the ground softening beneath my feet. I came to an abrupt stop as I took in the small plot of grass that officially separated my backyard from the wooded path beyond. It was mud. All mud.
“Whoa!” Rafe came to a crashing stop behind me, his laughter now reverberating down my spine. “I guess I’ll have to do my best to remind you.”
I clenched my jaw tight and squeezed my eyes shut to stop the shiver that threatened to shake my whole body to its core. I couldn’t let it, not when Rafe was sounding all smug and sexy. “That’s not necessary.” I took a careful step forward, refusing to ruin the perfectly haughty tone I had going on. But the mud was slipperier than it looked and my canvas sneakers were no match, my feet scrambled for purchase.
And then Rafe was there. His strong arms banded around my waist, pulling me flush against the hard expanse of his chest. “That’s one way to get back into my arms. Or you could just ask.” His deep voice yanked that previously suppressed shiver violently from me, but I masked it. Or tried to anyway, by squirming to get away. “Be still,” he whispered and took a step forward. “Or should I say stay just like that?”
“Dammit Rafe!” Did he have to say things like that? The same words he’d uttered just before he licked fancy hotel whipped cream off my body. “Put me down. Please.”
“Soon,” he said gently, sloshing through the mud and across my backyard, not stopping until we were on my back porch. “There you are.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
His chuckle pulled my gaze up, and our gazes connected and, dammit, it was just like that night in the hotel all over again.
“See you soon Janey.” He brush a kiss to my forehead and jogged back down the stairs, disappearing from sight like the last hour was nothing more than a dream.
More like a hallucination. With that thought I went inside and worked on forgetting that night. Again.Rafe“Some of us have to work this time of morning Rafe.” Reese did her best to sound put out about my call, but I knew better. “Good morning and what’s up? Barbecue emergency?”
I smiled at her attempt at a smart ass reply, wondering how in the hell I became best friends with a girl. A woman. “Not quite. I’m about to do something, possibly stupid and possibly not. What should I do?”
Silence weighed heavy on the other end of the line for about ten seconds, then Reese let out a laugh. “About a woman I presume?”
I looked up at the storefront of Janey’s photo studio with the green and blue awning that gave it that old timey feel, despite the ultra modern logo pressed on the display window and the bright lights shining inside.
“You could say that.”
“Okay. What to do here…,” she mused, more to herself than to me, and I was sure she was in the middle of rolling dough for her delicious honey biscuits, or testing out one of her mouthwatering sauces. “Okay. I’m guessing you’re too far gone to back out, or you wouldn’t have called me. So, go do this possibly stupid thing, and if it goes wrong or right, come back here for barbecue. I’ll add Jack if we’re commiserating, or Maker’s if we’re celebrating. How does that sound?”