The Way You Look Tonight (The Sullivans #9)(55)

But it was as if she hadn’t spoken as her father said, "Even as teenagers, those Sullivan boys were dangerous. We always knew one of them would take advantage of the easy pickings next door."

Easy pickings?

My God, was that what her parents really thought she was? Just some naïve girl who couldn’t think for herself? Who didn’t have the strength of will—or enough common sense—to turn away a man she didn’t want? Whom she didn’t care for with every beat of her heart, and every last part of her soul?

But she already knew the answer to that, didn’t she?

It was what her parents had always thought—that she was too fragile, too innocent, too foolish to know how to keep herself safe from harm. Only, now they’d pushed her too far.

It was one thing for them to think she wasn’t capable of making good decisions. But to say that Rafe had pulled the wool over her eyes like he was a dirty old man on the corner in a trench coat drawing her in with promises of candy?

That was what finally made her see—and speak—bright red.

"I’m the one who propositioned him." She barreled on despite her parents’ shocked gasps. "He was trying to keep his distance, but I wouldn’t let him. And being with him was the best decision I’ve ever made. Rafe Sullivan is the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. Better than any of the men you thought were so great, so safe. None of them cared about me the way he does."

Maybe he hadn’t actually said he loved her, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t see how much he cared about her in every look he gave her, and feel it in every kiss, every time he was moving inside of her and making her soul take flight.

She heard Rafe’s boots on her front porch and purposely said the one thing she knew would send her parents into even more of a tizzy. "Speak of the devil," she said with particular emphasis on the word devil, "he’s just coming up the stairs now. I’ve got to go."

"Brooke—"

She didn’t just hang up on them, she actually pulled the entire phone from the wall, leaving chocolate handprints on everything she touched.

"Thank God you’re here," she said to Rafe when he stepped inside.

He was instantly worried. "What happened?"

She shook her head, reaching for him. "Nothing you can’t fix." As he caught her up in his arms, she asked him, "How did you know I needed you right this second?"

"Because I need you, too. So damned bad that it nearly killed me to leave you alone so that you could get your work done."

"I don’t want to be left alone." Not when he was everything she needed.

"Tell me what you do want, sweetheart."

"You." She pressed her mouth to the pulse point at the side of his neck. "Just you."

Chapter Twenty

Rafe lifted her up onto the kitchen counter so that she could wrap her arms and legs around him as he kissed her. "You taste so sweet."

"It’s the chocolate."

"No, it’s all you."

Her eyes filled up and her breath hitched in her lungs. Just as she’d told her parents, Rafe was different. Special. And he’d always noticed more than other people.

To distract him from the questions she could see in his eyes—questions she didn’t want to answer until she’d drawn strength from the beauty of their connection—she dipped her finger into the bowl of cooling ganache. "Taste this."

She knew she hadn’t fooled him, but he was kind enough to let her sidetrack him as he lowered his mouth to her finger and licked it off.

"Do you like it?"

"I do," he said before he dipped his own finger into the bowl. Instead of feeding it to her, his mouth curved into the wicked smile she so loved to see. "But I’m guessing it will taste even better like this."

He slowly slid his chocolate-covered finger across the upper curve of one breast above the neckline of her sundress. The anticipation of feeling his tongue in the same place held her breath captive in her lungs. Of course, he made her wait by tracing another stripe of chocolate over the other side.

Finally, he lowered his head and slicked his tongue, warm and wet, over her skin. His shoulder muscles were hard beneath her hands as she held onto him for dear life. It was either that or go sliding off the counter in a puddle of liquid heat.

"I was wrong," he said after he’d licked up all of the chocolate.

The feel of his tongue on her bare skin, especially in the middle of the day in her kitchen while she had her legs wrapped around him, had turned her brain to mush. Somehow, she got her synapses to fire enough to ask, "You were?" even though she honestly couldn’t remember what he could be wrong about.

"You taste so good that even the best chocolate in the world can’t compare."

She’d been with men for months who hadn’t made her feel as special as Rafe had in less than a week. She’d always been a little bit in love with him as a girl, had watched him be wild and free with stars in her eyes. But now she knew just how much more there was to him. He was a man who would do anything for his family. He was the P.I. who helped strangers with their problems by tracking down the answers they needed. And he was her lover who whispered the sweetest words she’d ever heard.

How could she do anything but fall all the way?