RAFE
Afigure exiting the sauna distracts me from my swim. I pause and grip the side of the pool as Diana sways in the doorway, her face so red that she looks like a completely different person. She fumbles against the door frame, then the wall, searching for something to grip onto.
My stomach lurches. She’s going to faint.
I’ve never moved so fast in my life, hauling myself out of the water and skidding across the tiles just as her knees buckle. By some miracle, I manage to catch her as she collapses, preventing her head from smacking on the tiled floor.
Her body is boiling and covered in sweat, and her bare skin slides against mine, wet from the pool.
Carrying her limp body over to the nearest lounger, I lay her down gently.
She’s breathing, thank God. Using a couple of rolled up towels, I raise her legs, then grab some of the smaller face cloths and wet them in the cold water from the shower and dab her neck, her chest, her head, her wrists. Anywhere I can cool down.
I perch on the lounger next to her hip and press the towels to her skin with flattened palms.
Her eyelids flicker and slowly open, watching me with a slightly hazy gaze. “Hey,” she says, so low I can hardly hear it.
“You okay?”
She nods, and the tension in my shoulders loosens, but my concern leaks out, sounding like annoyance. “Jesus, Diana. You trying to kill yourself? How long were you in there? I’ve been swimming for—” I glance at the wall clock. “Twenty-five minutes. Why didn’t you come out?”
She casts me a glance through heavily lidded eyes, then screws them shut and lets out a low groan, and I know exactly why she stayed in there.
It’s the opposite of why I showed up at our usual meeting time.
She was avoiding me, whereas I thought my prompt appearance at the pool would convey the impression that last night meant nothing to me; that the brush of her lips to mine was incidental.
Unremarkable. Not an event to knock me off my usual routine.
My punctuality is bullshit; I could just as easily be the one passing out in the sauna because I’ve thought of nothing but the way she kissed me since the moment it happened. Her scent. The soft, yielding nature of her mouth. The taste of her tongue.
Those few precious moments before we broke apart replayed constantly in my mind all night long, and Melanie’s giggles and glancing touches did nothing to distract me.
My heart gives a heavy, dull thud. “Were you avoiding me?”
Her lips turn down as she nods, her eyes still screwed shut.
I drag a hand over my forehead and into my hair, dismayed that I’m the cause of her suffering.
But somewhere beneath the dismay is a disturbing sense of relief that what happened last night drove her to this foolishness.
If she had turned up to swim as usual, seemingly unmoved by what occurred, I would have been disappointed.
More than disappointed. The thought makes me feel like a terrible man.
A terrible father. A terrible human being. “It’s not worth nearly dying over.”
“I dunno about that,” she murmurs, grimacing as she speaks.
I chuckle, keeping things as light as possible as I get her a cup of water from the water fountain and bring it back, helping her to sit up and sip some.
Sitting next to her this way, my wet thigh is pressed against her sweaty one.
It’s far too much bare skin contact, but I’m too preoccupied with her well-being to give it more than a moment’s thought.
She lies back again.
“Rest,” I tell her. “Don’t move. I’ll stay right here until you feel like you can walk.”
She nods.
After an interminable silence, she says, “I found a flat.”
“A flat?”
“Yes, in Brixton. I’m moving out.” She opens her eyes and stares at me. “I know you didn’t want me to be here after Lizzie leaves. I’m going to sign the lease.”
“Right.” An oppressive sensation comes over me, and I scratch at the back of my neck, not looking at her, struggling to process the bizarre reaction I’m having to her words. “Yes. That’s… that makes sense. When did you decide?”
She winces. “This morning.”
I quirk my head to look at her. “This morning, before you came and hid in the sauna?”
A self-ridiculing smile curves her mouth, one hand covering her eyes. “Yup.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. This situation is ridiculous. Neither of us can say the words out loud. You kissed me last night. We’re not a couple of high school kids who can’t handle this. At least I’m not. And yet I can’t bring myself to say it out loud either.
Fucking hell.
“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want,” I say instead.
She’s quiet for a moment before her worried gaze drifts up and latches onto mine. “Your hand is still on my leg.”
Glancing down at her thigh, I find she’s right. My whole hand is resting halfway between her knee and crotch, separated by a scrap of wet flannel, which is now warm and not doing its job to cool her down at all.
I scrunch it up and lob it across the room, where it lands perfectly in the towel bin. Slam dunk.
“Are you good at everything?” Diana mutters.
Ignoring her, I ask, “Do you want me to help you upstairs? Or to the shower?”
“The shower?” she questions, the words explosive and imbued with surprise.
I let out a short laugh and hang my head, gesturing with one hand towards the shower by the sauna. “I’m not getting in it with you.”
She covers her face with both hands, stifling an embarrassed-sounding giggle, and I can’t help but laugh myself.
And that’s when it hits me. I don’t want this moment to end.
It might be weird and awkward, but I don’t care.
I want to stay right here by her side, just the two of us.
I don’t want to go upstairs and start my day.
I don’t want to walk into a future where she’s not in the penthouse, waiting for me.
Or where we don’t sit at the kitchen island, side-by-side and talk about the future of her business.
These past couple of months, there’s been a pleasant buzz beneath my skin when I come home at the end of the day, knowing the woman I want to see is going to be there. I’ve tried to ignore it, but it’s been there almost from the very beginning.
A slow sense of dread tugs at my limbs, a sinking sensation penetrating my gut.
I’m attracted to my daughter’s best friend.
But that’s not even the full picture. I long for her company; her nearness.
I love her enthusiasm, her smile, the way she chews on her lip when she’s unsure about something.
I love seeing the passion she brings to her work.
I want Diana Marchetti in every way it’s possible to want a woman. I can’t pretend it’s not true anymore; I can’t push it away or ignore it. I can’t sustain the effort it takes to compartmentalise it. It was always going to spill over.
I am fucked.
Not even the message on my phone that arrived out of nowhere from the woman at Delirium was enough to sway me from Diana.
I didn’t answer it because all I could think about was the feel of her lips on mine, the scent of her perfume in my nose, and the fact that I’ve been quietly obsessing over her for months.
She sits up, her expression one of concern. “Are you all right?”
Damn. I force my features into neutral. “Yeah. Fine.”
We fall silent, neither of us saying anything, but there’s an energy humming between us, a current that skims my skin and makes it prickle. Every part of me wants to reach out and touch her.
It’s insane.
I cannot—will not—do this.
But when I glance up, her honeyed eyes are there to catch mine, and she sucks in a sharp breath at the contact.
My chest constricts as if I’m standing on a precipice, not knowing if I’d rather fall into oblivion or step back to safety.
Neither of us moves, and I sink into her gaze for a moment that stretches far too long.
In my head, I hear her words from the night at the opera. That’s the next beat. The kiss. That’s what’s supposed to happen.
My attention slips down her face, coming to rest on her mouth, her pretty pink lips, and my own mouth parts a fraction.
In another universe, I would kiss her right now. But instead, I push a sweat-slicked strand of hair from her forehead and trail the back of my knuckles down her cheek, over her cheekbone. Her breath hitches as my hand reaches the corner of her mouth.
I can’t move away. There’s a force bigger than my will that keeps my fingers resting on her face.
But it’s wrong. So, so wrong.
Her breath caresses my skin, and then, still holding eye contact, she slides her tongue out and teases the knuckle of my ring finger with it.
Everything in me turns to water; resistance is an impossibility. Whatever she wants to do, I’ll let her.
Her licking is slow and languorous at first, like she’s investigating the territory with the tip of her tongue, but soon she sucks more of me into her mouth, her tongue curling about the knuckle, and her teeth nipping it with a gentle bite.
A ferocious heat melts my insides as she sucks harder, and all of me wants to slide inside her mouth and push against her probing tongue.
The groan that rumbles loose in my chest is obscene, leaving no room for doubt about what she’s doing to me or how I feel about it.
The noise seems to shock her, and her mouth pops off my knuckle. In the silence, she pants quietly, and my breathing comes just as quickly as hers.
What the fuck was that?
She taps my knee and whispers, “I feel it too.”
Before I can say anything, she stands and walks away, grabbing her robe from where it’s hanging on the wall, and leaves me alone.
After Diana leaves, I get back in the pool, not trusting myself to follow her back to the penthouse. God knows if I did, I’d only want to push her against a wall and kiss her, touch her, fuck her.
I cannot do any of those things.
I swim hard and fast for nearly an hour, pushing myself relentlessly through water that has welcomed her body many times before. The thought of sharing it with her arouses me; the same water surrounding my body has touched hers, engulfed it, slipped over her skin, her legs, her tits, her ass.
I’d love to say I didn’t notice her in her bikini, didn’t care about the perfection of her body, or that I haven't thought about it all these weeks when we’ve been swimming together.
That it hasn’t been torture trying not to stare at the flex and curl of her muscles as she swims, the smooth expanse of skin on display.
I would love to think I’m that decent a man.
But I’m fucking not.
Everything about Diana Marchetti arouses me, not least the way she sucked my knuckle into her mouth.
Goddamn it. Thinking of her makes me push myself harder, just so I can forget. It doesn’t work, of course. I don’t forget; I obsess over every word she spoke, every sensation I experienced, and every feeling it ignited within me.
I feel it too.
By the time I return to the penthouse, my body is exhausted, but my head is a jumble of memories, all of them involving Diana.
They cascade in like I’ve opened a dam, and now the water is going to drown me.
I can’t get away. Did she feel all of those moments too, experiencing them the same way I did?
Is that what she meant when she whispered those words?
I feel it too.
The uncertainty is torturing me. Felt what? What did you feel, Diana?
What the fuck are we talking about?
Is all of this mutual?
I have no certainty here; nothing to cling onto. Nothing concrete to hang my feelings on, other than the unbearable thought that I’m attracted to my daughter’s best friend.
I promised myself I wouldn’t go there. Wouldn’t even think it.
But my mind is a mess, my body even more so.
I feel it too.
My dick thickens, and my head grows foggy as lust descends like a poisoned mist. I’m breathing it in, and it’s filtering into my bloodstream, where my pulse drives it straight to my cock.
Jesus, fuck. I am rock solid for my daughter’s friend.
I scrape both hands through my hair and pace my bedroom. I can’t do this. I can’t follow through on whatever this is. I can’t have Diana in the way I’d have any other woman—I couldn’t do that to Lizzie—but my cock is so hard, the blood in it thumping so forcefully, I can’t ignore it.
Fuck it.
I walk to the bathroom with one thought only. I need to purge myself of this desire.
I yank down my trunks and kick them aside, then turn on the shower and step into the stream. Gripping my dick at the base, I drag my hand up my shaft with a sharp tug, and a heady arousal percolates my body. I let out a groan, speeding the pace, up and down.
This is wrong. So fucking wrong.
But it feels so, so good.
Here, in the safety of my shower, I can let myself have what I want. What I need. I might have thought of her many times, but not once have I allowed myself this release. As I pump harder, I yield to it… to Diana. This is for her, and there’s no point pretending otherwise.
I imagine her lying on the bed, spreading her legs, displaying her perfect, wet cunt just for me. She arches her back as I slide two fingers inside, and she moans my name.
Rafe.
I imagine her fucking my hand, taking everything she can get from it, rubbing herself on me with a desperation only I can sate. The head of my dick tingles, the buzz of an impending orgasm making itself known. I thrust into my hand, my lips forming her name.
“Diana,” I whisper, hoarse and desperate. “Diana. Come for me; let me see you come. Give it to me. Please.”
In my imagination, she mewls and thrashes as her cunt pulses around my fingers. My movements become frantic; my back arches, and I erupt, shuddering and swearing as thick streaks of cum cover my fist.
It doesn’t take a moment for the guilt and shame to rush in as I stand under the hot water, my dick softening and the proceeds of my uncontrolled libido all over my hand.
I let everything wash away, then drop my head into my hands, dragging them down my face. I am tormented, wanting a woman I can’t have so much that I’d fuck my fist in the shower like a teenager.
A burst of self-ridiculing laughter escapes me as I wash my hair and scrub my skin, scouring with undue force as if it might erase what I’ve just done. I wish purging my guilt was as easy as letting water run down the drain.
When I’m satisfied I’ve done what I can to purify my body and my thoughts, I turn off the water and dry off with a towel, vowing to myself that I’ll never do it again. I’ll never let Diana be the subject of my fantasies when I am fucking my fist like a madman.
Henry’s right. I do need a distraction, but it’s not Melanie Castow and her irritating laugh, or the way she clung to my arm like she wanted to come home with me.
There is only one option here; only one woman who has a hope in hell of distracting me from this torment.
I pace to the bedroom and pick up my phone, opening the messages and finding the one from the contact saved under Beautiful Stranger.
I type a one-word response and send it.
Yes.