The Boat Builder's Bed (11 page)

“Poor little boy,” he heard her say.

He shook his head sharply. “I was better off with Nanny and Koro. They
wanted
me.”

“Even so...”
 

He cut off her sympathy by adding, “Nanny’s a
kuia
now— a respected elder of her people. She’s heading for eighty. Getting frail. Almost ready to rejoin John and Koro.”

He sat forward as the memories washed over him. He didn’t want Sophie seeing his face for a while.

She glanced across, knowing he’d deliberately moved so his eyes were out of her line of sight. He planted his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, and stared out across the water, still as a statue.

Able to finally look her fill, she admired his beautiful moonlit thighs. Sinewy, packed with power and lightly furred with dark hair. His calves were long and strong, muscles bunched, tendons tight. His ankles where they met the boots were lean.
 

She saw he still wore the black socks he must have worn with his suit. A narrow cuff showed above each scuffed brown boot. She’d chosen black socks herself because she’d thought them off-putting; how wrong could she be! Rafe Severino had the sexiest legs in the world—even better than her imagination had conjured up when he’d climbed the ladder in her studio.

She slid her eyes upward again. His smooth golden back sat in semi-darkness, but from this angle the moonlight illuminated the highest bumps of his spine and the impressive breadth of his shoulders.
 

He was sex on a stick, but he was hurting.

Hardly knowing she did it, Sophie ignored her champagne and walked across to him. She smoothed a hand over his shoulders and said, “Don’t be sad.”

CHAPTER NINE

His nearest arm enclosed her and drew her against his side.

“Not sad. Just thinking.” But his voice was not quite that of the confident man she’d become used to, and his arm pulled her very close. The heat of his skin burned through her T-shirt in nano-seconds, and breathing was suddenly much harder.

“I can maybe understand how a man couldn’t accept a son who looked nothing like him at all,” Rafe continued huskily, “but my mother...my hard-hearted bitch of a mother...she knew I was hers.”
 

He turned away from the sea and laid his face against her breast—so much like a child seeking comfort, so unlike a man hoping for sex—that she raised her other hand and pressed him to her, stroking softly through his hair again and again.

“I’m sure she wanted you,” she murmured. “It must have been hard for her too? Being without her first-born? No mother wants that.”

She’d certainly not wanted Camille ripped away from her. Had fought every way she could to keep her. It had been hard enough while Adrian was alive, but they’d somehow survived by working different hours...by leaving Camille in a spare crib in the room behind his mother’s shop for a short time each day...by foregoing casual pleasures they should have been able to take for granted. Life had been tough, but she’d proved they could make it work.

Then Adrian had slammed into a rock-face in a tangle of fabric and wires, and as Sophie tried to maintain her studies, continue with her job, spend time at his bedside and care for Camille, her life had disintegrated. Camille became difficult, Sophie exhausted, and when Adrian died of an unexpected hemorrhage, her mother took over and saved her.
 

“I’ll take Camille until you’re feeling better.”

“...for a few more weeks, darling.”

“...until you find a full-time job and a crèche.”

“...only until the end of the year.”

“...so you can get your studio up and running.”

“...just until she’s ready to start school.”

And so far, guilty and grief-stricken and still fumbling for stable ground, she’d not been able to reclaim her tiny daughter.

Rafe sighed and relaxed his death-grip a fraction, finally letting the hurt pour out. “When I was a baby it didn’t matter to her because she had the twins to look forward to. And it didn’t matter to me because I was too young to know better. But a couple of years later, by the time I was three or four, I knew damn well where I should have been.”

Sophie’s hands stilled in his hair.

Three or four. Camille’s four. If he ever finds out about her he’ll think I’m as bad as his mother. Worse, because I’ve no other children to worry about.

She slipped out of his embrace and resumed her seat, mute and trembling.
 

Rafe swiveled towards her as he continued. “Koro got me into carpentry, and that meant I could work anywhere in the world. I took off when I was still nineteen to find some of my grandfather’s Blackhawk relatives if I could.”

“And did you?” She lifted her half-eaten slice of pizza and then put it down. There was no way she was hungry any longer.
 

Does Camille feel as deserted as Rafe did?

Does she see me as a fly-by-night visitor who swoops in once a week and then leaves her again?

“In Oklahoma and Wyoming,” Rafe said, dragging her away from her distressed thoughts. “Before you could easily Google things, of course. I had to do a lot of traveling, but I knew a bit about his war record so that was a place to start.”

“Were they nice?” she asked, functioning on automatic.
 

How would she keep Camille a secret? Should she just confess right now? But if she did, and Rafe was as offended as she expected, it was goodbye to his contract, and goodbye to Subtle’s possible success, and therefore goodbye to her chance of claiming Camille back too. She was trapped.

“Nicer than the Severinos,” she heard him say. “The Blackhawks were different. Quiet people. Stoic about what they’d had to endure.”

“At least you found them.”

“Some of them, anyway.”

“Anyone really close?”

“My cousin Joe,” he said with more warmth in his voice. “He persuaded me to try boat-building work in San Diego. And that turned my life around.”

He looked more intently at Sophie. She seemed light-years away. Had he bored her? She was too damned easy to talk to. He’d told her things he probably shouldn’t have. Things he’d sworn never to tell anyone. Right now she looked as though she hadn’t heard any of it but her replies had been succinct and appropriate. He watched her as she sat there, suddenly so distant.

“Earth to Sophie?”

“I’m listening.”

“Could have fooled me. You went away for a while.”

“Mmmm...”

“And you’re still not back.”

“I’m here. Just considering a problem.”

“A house problem?”

“No, not at all,” she said, sounding slightly irritated. “But I don’t know when you expect me to get this whole big place finished for you. It’s the worst time of the year with Christmas around the corner.”

She reached down for the sample books and began to flip through the fabrics. It was far too dark now to see the colors with any accuracy.

Somehow he didn’t think the house was the problem. The expressions which had flitted across her face weren’t work-related. She had something personal going on. Something much larger than paint colors or curtain fabrics. Something that didn’t include him.

“I’m not expecting miracles. I’m comfortable enough. But there’s no point leaving the house like this any longer.” He leaned back in his chair a little, and she set the samples down on the deck again. “Chris and the boys are just about due to start the garages so they’ll be out of your way any day now.”
 

That brought no response at all.

They sat on in silence as the moon rose higher. Rafe ripped into another slice of pizza, still uneasy about her distracted manner. Sophie did a bit more nibbling.

“Better find your earring,” he finally said, not wanting to leave the restless waves and the soft summer air, but knowing she must be tired after the stress and excitement of her first full day at the studio. Maybe that was all? Perhaps he was worrying about nothing?

He rose, grabbed the sample books with one hand and held out his other towards her, pleased when she took it, although she appeared almost trance-like.

“You’re still a long way away.” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles in a gentle caress and she gave the smallest of laughs and came back to him.

Casting a doubtful look at the darkening sky, she asked, “How much is the house lit yet?”

“Wiring’s all finished, and there are some pretty nasty light-bulbs here and there. Very little you’d approve of.”

“But we’ll be able to see downstairs?”

“Well enough.”

He led her inside.

“It’s so different at night.” She stared around the huge area of the darkened top floor. “This gives me other things to think about.”

The big house sat silent apart from the sea noises. No radio, no nail-gun, no screaming saw. No timber off-cuts or plumbing boxes strewn over the floor, either.

“They’ve already started tidying up?”

He heard the note of concern in her voice. “Only on this floor. Your earring wasn’t here, I’m sure.”

Because I’m damn sure it’s on
my bed where I put it
when I came in to change.

God, I wish he had a shirt on!

Sophie walked beside him feeling short and overwhelmed. The little black boots she’d worn yesterday morning had heels no higher than tonight’s shoes so that wasn’t the answer. He’d been tall enough in his dark suit.
 
Why did he seem much taller in his old shorts and all this smooth touchable skin?

Skin her fingers itched to stroke.

In the harsh glare of a suspended light-bulb she saw all the long lithe pieces that made up his body; legs and arms packed with smooth muscles, that endless toned torso which started with a hard flat belly above the low-slung shorts and led up and up to his beautiful chest. She didn’t dare look at his face in case he caught the hunger in her eyes.

Quads and abs and pecs
, she recited to herself as a distraction, remembering the chart in her doctor’s waiting room, drawn like something out of an old-fashioned medical textbook. The muscles on the chart were striped black and white and fussily labeled—nothing like these warm sweeps of taut flesh.

Deltoids. And glutes. The ones on his butt.

She sneaked a look behind him. Damn, just as good.

They started down the stairs. Each tread had been covered with a protective slab of fiber-board, taped down to hold it firm.

“What’s the timber underneath?” she asked, fighting to re-establish her professional manner.

“Jarrah—very dark.”

“Good choice. It’ll wear well.” She scuffed at an end of tape threatening to come loose, suddenly far too conscious of his warm hand now they were amongst bedrooms. “You’ll want these rooms carpeted?”

“You don’t have to work at this hour,” he growled, setting down the sample books. “Yes, I want the bedrooms carpeted. Something soft and thick and warm so I can spread you out and ravish you on it.” He pulled her close before she could escape.

Sophie gave an enraged squeal—not so much at his suggestion as his sudden unexpected embrace.

“Not the floor then?” he teased, sliding his hands under her butt and hoisting her up level with his waist. She instinctively clamped her legs around him so she didn’t slide down into more dangerous territory.

“Pity you haven’t got that skirt on tonight. I was looking forward to enjoying your skin against mine.” He leaned up and kissed the corner of her mouth.

Sophie felt the hot wash of lust flow like liquid honey along every nerve. Right down to her tingling toes. Right out to her traitorous fingers which took no notice of the ‘keep away’ messages her sensible brain sent with ever-increasing panic.
 

No, her fingers slid over his gorgeous shoulders and curled around his neck like sweet-pea tentacles. Held him tight. Gripped like fury.

She heard herself give a long breathy moan as she tilted her face away. In answer his mouth burned hot on her neck, traveling slowly up until his sharp white teeth nipped her earlobe. His lips brushed over the sensitive skin right beside her eye and progressed with excruciating slowness to the edge of her jaw until they were millimeters away from her mouth again.

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Kiss you.”

“Like this?” His lips rubbed softly over hers.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I don’t want to kiss you.”

“So that’s a ‘no’?”

“Yes...Oh God, Rafe...definitely a ‘no’. Stop it.”

“Stop doing this?” His lips brushed against hers again, and paused.

“Yes. Stop doing it right
now
,” she murmured against his mouth, confusion and longing running hot along her nerves to join the lust already simmering there.

As she said that infuriated ‘now’, her mouth opened and somehow settled either side of his bottom lip. She sucked gently. He tasted like wine and pizza and moonlight, and she drew in a deep frustrated breath. He smelled like paradise.
 

“Stop right now, hmmm?” Sophie found it hard to understand that. Their lips seemed to be more entangled than she’d planned. And one of her hands had smoothed down from his neck to his shoulder, and then back up to his neck and into his hair. This was nothing like the caresses she’d given when he’d seemed in need of soothing. This was a demanding ‘gimme more’ message she sent.
 

Rafe seemed good at translating. He gave her more without stinting. More light and luscious kisses. More little nips and nibbles. And then, with a deep sigh, he changed his grip so he held her whole weight against him with one arm. His other hand rose to cup her face and angled it so he could kiss her more deeply.
 

He swept his tongue across hers and Sophie groaned, but it wasn’t with outrage this time; it was absolute appreciation. Nothing had ever felt so good. She finally relaxed and responded to him with no thought for the possible consequences, on fire everywhere their bodies met.

He tasted and smelled divine. Her fingers ran over skin as smooth and soft as suede. And there was so much of it to enjoy. In return his hands stroked dreamily through her hair, sifting, tangling and tugging to pull her close.