“I know.” His breath is suddenly hotter and more concentrated where it hits my skin. I daren’t move. “It suits you. A beautiful dress for a beautiful woman.”
Every muscle in my body clenches as if his compliment is an attack I have to fend off. He’s never said anything like this before, and my defenses are weak and desperate to be breached. A longing, simultaneously painful and sweet, sings in my blood.
I don’t know how much more I can endure.
Rafe doesn’t move away, and for the first time since I came to live with him, it’s clear to me that hewantsme. I know it deep in my soul, the truth of it resonating in every particle of my being.
He wantsme.
Not me from Delirium, but me, Diana, his daughter’s best friend. I’m almost vibrating with the certainty of it.
I could turn my head and catch his mouth with mine, but we both know I won’t. We’ll balance right here, trapped between lust and its denial, barely touching but driven mad with wanting. It’s toxic, but the high is delicious.
I want to lean into him and let him catch me as I fall.
A tug on my dress has me snapping out of the proximity-induced delirium. I straighten my spine, and the intensity of his breath on my skin fades like he’s moving away.
“There,” he says as the zip eases all the way up.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice unsteady as I turn towards him.
We’re standing face-to-face, inches apart. He doesn’t shift back. His exhalation dusts across my cheeks, and I inhale it and pass him mine in return. I ache for him to touch me, but he doesn’t move. I’m not even sure he’s breathing.
His dark, tormented gaze settles on my lips, and I run my tongue along the bottom one. It’s not deliberate, not some intentional seduction technique, but it makes his eyes flare.
My heart swells, hoping he’ll comment. Hoping he likes what he sees.
He gives me nothing, instead bowing his head and holding out one arm for me to pass through the doorway before him. “Time to go.”
24
RAFE
The car ride with Diana is agonising. We aren’t going far: Knightsbridge to Pall Mall, but I struggle to think of anything other than her—the way her breath hitched when I fixed her dress, her slight flinch when my skin touched hers. The slow meander of her tongue as it slicked her bottom lip.
She’s so much closer to Lizzie’s age than mine that even noticing those things about her feels wrong, let alone dwelling on them. Maybe the journey would have been easier to endure if we had walked, and part of me would have loved to extend the time alone together; to do anything with her that might be vaguely ‘normal’, other than swimming or talking about her business. I wish I could shift the constraints of our relationship, but I don’t know where we fit other than exactly where we are. Besides, Diana is wearing a pair of glittery pink heels that don’t look fit for walking.
She crosses her legs at the knee, revealing her swim-toned calves and the delicate tendons that run down the front of her foot. They flicker as she taps it to the music that’s playing lowin the car. I want to touch my thumb to them, savour every undulation of her body, even the tiniest ones.
I’m lost to this. Obsessing over her foot, the indentation of her ankle, the protrusion of bone. But it’s easier to stare at a foot than a face, especially when her eyes are soknowing, as if she sees right to the heart of me and understands more about me than I do myself.
I’m losing my mind over this.
I need a distraction more than ever because I have no idea how I am supposed to continue resisting Diana Marchetti. The way Julian and Henry teased me about working with her hit too close to home. I didn’t want to give them anything to feed off, and as a result, I was colder to Diana than I would have been otherwise. But in her bedroom afterwards, I nearly gave in; I can’t allow myself to get so close again.
If I can keep it professional and talk about her work instead of thinking about her dress and her skin and her ankles, everything will be fine.
Placing my hands on my thighs, I ask, “That chapter you keep referring to inTaming the Beast.”
“Yes?” she says, eyes alert.
“What happens?”
She meets my gaze with a sideways glance. “You could read the book.”
“I don’t have time. Tell me.”
She lets out a wistful sigh. “It’s the most romantic part. The first kiss. I’ve never read one like it.”