Chapter 15 #2
I exchanged a look with Mac over her head. “I've got her,” I told him. “Can you make sure Izzy gets home safely?”
He nodded once. “I'll handle it. Take care of your wife.”
Bending slightly, I scooped Cecelia into my arms. I expected her to protest, to fight me, to demand I put her down. Instead, she nestled her head against my shoulder as one hand came up to play with the collar of my shirt.
“You smell good,” she murmured, breath hot against my neck. “Like... expensive. Is expensive a smell? It should be.”
I navigated through the crowd toward the exit, acutely aware of every inch of her body pressed against mine.
“Where's your car?” she asked, her words slightly slurred.
“Right there.” I nodded toward the black Aston Martin parked half on the curb, its hazard lights still blinking. “Think you can stand for a second while I get the door?”
She nodded against my shoulder, then immediately contradicted herself. “Nope. Too spinny. The world is very spinny right now.”
Despite everything—the fear, the anger, the lingering desire to go back and finish what I'd started with the man who'd touched her—I felt my lips twitch. “Spinny, huh?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She pressed her face into my neck, and the sensation of her lips against my skin sent heat cascading through my body. “You're so pretty, Rafe. Has anyone ever told you that? So pretty it hurts to look at you sometimes.”
I managed to get the passenger door open while still holding her. “I think you mean fatally attractive.”
“No,” she insisted as I carefully lowered her into the seat. “Pretty. Like art. Like something that should be in a museum.” She reached up to touch my face, fingers tracing the line of my jaw with clumsy tenderness. “I used to watch you at those Sunday dinners, you know.”
I captured her hand, guiding it away from my face before I did something stupid like turn and press my lips to her palm. “Let's get you home. You need water and sleep.”
Her body limp in the seat, she allowed me to buckle her in. As I rounded the car and slid behind the wheel, she turned to watch me.
“You never looked at me,” she continued as if there had been no interruption.
“Not like that. Not like I wanted you to.” She sighed, letting her head fall back.
“I get it. I'm just Everlee's little sister.
Not sophisticated or smart. Just the dancer who couldn't make it.” That last part came out whisper-soft.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter as I pulled into traffic. Her words sent an unwelcome pang through my chest. Is that what she thought? That I didn't look at her because I didn't want her?
“That's not true.” The words escaped before I could stop them.
She smiled, sad and knowing in a way that felt too perceptive for someone as drunk as she clearly was. “It's okay.” Her hand landed on my thigh, hot even through the fabric of my pants. “But sometimes I think about you. When I'm alone. When I touch myself.”
Holy fucking shit.
My cock hardened instantly, her words conjuring images I'd been trying desperately not to dwell on since I'd watched her in the bath. Her fingers trailed higher on my thigh, dangerously close to where I was rapidly becoming uncomfortable.
“You're drunk,” I managed, my voice strained as I gently removed her hand from my leg. “You don't know what you're saying.”
“I know exactly what I'm saying.” She turned in her seat to face me more fully, her movements liquid and graceless all at the same time. “I think about your hands. They're so big. I bet they'd feel so good on me, inside me.”
Fuck. I was going to hell for this, for the way my body responded to her words, for the images they painted in my mind. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, focusing on the road, on the traffic, on anything but the woman beside me describing in explicit detail what she imagined me doing to her.
“I think about your mouth too,” she continued, clearly oblivious to my struggle. “Your lips are so full for a man. I bet you're good with your tongue. Are you good with your tongue, Rafe?”
“Cecelia,” I warned, my voice a growl that did nothing to deter her.
“What? I'm just being honest.” She leaned her head against the window.
“That's what alcohol does, right? Makes you honest. Makes you say all the things you're too scared to say sober.” She sighed, the sound fragile in the quiet car.
“Like how I wish you actually wanted me instead of just needing a convenient wife.”
Her words slammed into me so hard; I nearly missed our turn. Did she really think I didn't want her? When every moment in her presence was an exercise in restraint, in not touching, not taking, not claiming?
She continued talking as I drove, jumping from topic to topic with the disjointed logic of the very drunk.
One moment she was telling me about a dance recital from when she was twelve, the next she was asking if I believed in ghosts, then circling back to how much she liked my hands.
I let her talk, relieved when we finally pulled into the garage beneath my building.
As I helped her out of the car, her face suddenly paled and her hand flew to her mouth. “Rafe,” she whispered urgently, “I'm going to be sick.”
I acted on instinct, scooping her back into my arms and rushing toward the elevator. We made it to the penthouse in record time, and I barely had the bathroom door open before she lunged for the toilet.
Kneeling beside her, I gathered her hair in one hand to keep it out of her face while my other rubbed slow circles on her back. “It's okay,” I murmured as she retched again. “Get it all out. You'll feel better.”
When the worst had passed, I dampened a washcloth with cool water and pressed it to the back of her neck, then her forehead, her cheeks, and mouth. She closed her eyes, leaning into my touch with a small, broken sound that tugged at something in my chest.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “This is so embarrassing.”
“Nothing to be embarrassed about.” I helped her to her feet, steadying her as she swayed. “Think you can brush your teeth while I get you something to wear?”
She nodded weakly, and I retrieved her toothbrush, adding a dot of toothpaste before pressing it into her hand. While she went through the motions of brushing, I grabbed one of my t-shirts from the closet.
By the time I returned, she'd finished brushing and was leaning heavily against the counter with her eyes half-closed. “Arms up,” I instructed gently.
She complied without argument, allowing me to untie and pull her top over her head.
I tried not to look, tried to maintain some semblance of clinical detachment as I helped her out of her clothes, but I was only human.
My gaze caught on the lace of her bra, on the smooth expanse of her stomach, on the delicate curve of her hip as I helped her step out of her skirt.
My blood rushed south so fast, I almost passed the fuck out.
Once she was down to her underwear, I helped her into my shirt. My fingers brushed against her skin as I guided her arms through the sleeves, and I had to grit my teeth against the desire to let those touches linger.
“Bed,” I said, more to myself than to her. Leading her to our bedroom, I pulled back the covers and helped her lie down. She went willingly, her body soft and pliant as I tucked the sheets around her.
“Will you stay?” she asked in a small voice. “Please? I don't want to be alone.”
I hesitated, knowing I should keep my distance, knowing this was dangerous territory for both of us. But the vulnerability in her voice unraveled me. “I'll stay until you fall asleep.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, and to my surprise, she reached for my hand, twining her fingers with mine. The simple contact felt more intimate than it had any right to.
“Thank you for coming to get me,” she murmured, her eyes already drifting shut. “For taking care of me.”
“I’ll always come for you,” I promised.
Her breathing deepened and her fingers went slack in mine as sleep claimed her. I watched her for a long moment, memorizing the fan of her lashes against her cheeks, the slight part of her lips, the way her hair spread across the pillow in a dark tangle.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I leaned down and pressed my lips to her forehead in a ghost of a kiss. “You're wrong,” I whispered against her skin, the confession easier with her unable to hear me. “I do want you. So much that it scares me. So much that I don't trust myself around you.”
She stirred slightly and though she didn’t wake, her face turned toward mine as if seeking more contact. I pulled away before I could give in to the temptation and gently extracted my hand from hers as I stood.
The pillow wall she usually constructed between us was absent tonight.
And as I looked down at her sleeping form, I knew I should rebuild it—that physical barrier that kept us separate, that reminded us both that this marriage wasn't real, that we weren't really husband and wife in any way that mattered.
Instead, I walked around to my side of the bed and carefully lay down beside her. Not touching, not crossing that invisible line, but close enough to hear her breathing, to feel the warmth radiating from her body.
Just to make sure she was okay.
But as I closed my eyes, the familiar weight of guilt and longing heavy on my chest, I knew I was lying to myself. I wanted to be here, beside her, pretending for a few hours that she was truly mine. That I had the right to sleep next to her, to care for her.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it followed me into sleep like a promise… or a curse.