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

"It’s good to see that your place looks just like it used to."

"I thought I was going to need to update things, but once I moved in, I realized it was just perfect the way it was." With anyone else, she might have felt bad that her lake house had come through the years scar-free when his clearly hadn’t, but she knew Rafe wouldn’t wish his misfortune on anyone else.

Moving quickly into the kitchen, she reached into the fridge and pulled out a beer. "Any chance this will help to drown your lake-house sorrows?"

"That depends. How many bottles have you got in there?"

She laughed and admitted, "Probably not enough."

When she handed it to him and their fingertips brushed against each other, she was no longer surprised when another rush of warmth moved through her. As a young girl, she’d always had a strong reaction to Rafe. Now that she was a woman, it made perfect sense that her reaction was just as strong...and that it felt nothing like a childhood crush anymore.

"I should probably throw some clothes on." And yet, instead of heading into her bedroom to get changed out of her suit, now that they were standing in the full light of her kitchen, she couldn’t stop staring at the most beautiful man in the world. One who, she’d noted, didn’t have a wedding ring on.

She was standing close enough to reach out and put her hands on either side of his jaw, which was liberally dusted with dark stubble. Close enough to lean in to kiss him, too. She was shocked by a crystal-clear vision of Rafe yanking her bikini off and dropping it onto her kitchen floor while she lay naked across her counter and he did deliciously dangerous things to every inch of her body.

Brooke teetered there, right on the edge between giving him a kiss and running. But in the end, though she could all but taste him on her lips, a lifetime of choosing safe over wild had her taking a step back instead of forward.

Chapter Four

Jesus Christ, when had Brooke turned into Marilyn Monroe?

Twenty years ago she’d been a cute kid. But now? Hell, now she was every single one of his dirtiest fantasies come to life.

Rafe pushed away from the kitchen island and moved to the window. It was a thousand times smarter to focus on the stunning scenery—and the fact that the lake house he’d just spent a boatload of money on was a total freakin’ mess—rather than the stunning woman currently in her bedroom down the hall stripping off the little triangles of fabric barely covering her lush br**sts and hips. Yet even as he took in the pinks and oranges of the setting sun in the sky over the lake, a sunset even more beautiful than he’d remembered from his childhood, all it did was make him think about Brooke again...and how she was also a thousand times more beautiful than he’d ever thought she’d become.

He’d done some pretty stupid things in his life. Sleeping with that ex-client, for instance. But it would be a thousand times stupider to sleep with the girl next door. Especially one as sweet and as innocent as he suspected Brooke had to be, even as an adult.

And particularly when he now needed to stay with her because his own house would be completely uninhabitable for at least a week.

She’d been a pretty little girl, but six years had been a big age difference when he was fourteen and she was eight. She’d been digging with plastic shovels in the sand with Mia while he’d been out causing trouble with his brothers.

What a difference eighteen years made. One hell of a difference, giving her a set of curves that had made him practically swallow his tongue when he’d looked at her and realized who she was. He could still see the cute girl she’d been in the pure sweetness of her smile and her big, guileless green eyes. For all their surface beauty, the women he was used to dealing with looked older than their years. Whereas Brooke, who he seriously doubted had even a hundredth of the financial advantages of his clients, looked happy and lighthearted.

Which was exactly why he couldn’t screw around with her. Of course they’d be friends like they’d always been, but he wouldn’t make the mistake of letting himself touch her again...even if she had the softest skin he could ever remember feeling beneath his fingertips.

Fact was, staying this close to temptation was a bad idea. A really, really bad one. But he couldn’t figure out a way to explain the potential perils of their situation without making her think he was the world’s biggest d-bag. Which was exactly what he’d sound like if he said, I’m afraid I’m going to lose control and convince you to do dirty things with me that you’ll hate me for in the morning.

He could only imagine the way her pretty expression would fill with disgust as she wondered exactly what those dirty things were...

He was so focused on trying to force his lust-filled visions away that he didn’t hear her come back into the room until she said, "You must be starved after riding here from Seattle." She’d changed out of her super-sexy bikini into dark leggings and a hip-length long-sleeved shirt that should have made it easier to forget how gorgeous she was, but only made a guy wonder more about the soft skin just beneath the fabric.

For years he’d watched women calculate their worth for the highest bidder and then wonder why it all didn’t work out with the CEO they’d snared via that calculation. It was second nature for him to assume that Brooke knew exactly what she was doing to him.

But nothing about the way she’d behaved since that first moment spoke of calculation. She hadn’t faked the pleasure in her eyes at seeing him again, nor had she thrown herself into his arms to try to turn him on...even if that’s exactly what had happened. And clearly, she hadn’t worn the little string bikini for his benefit, either, since she couldn’t have known he’d show up at the lake tonight.