Chapter Fifteen #2
‘Oh, hey!’ She slammed the cupboard door, hoping Raf hadn’t spotted his cake or the black and gold fortieth birthday topper. She whirled around to see him propped against the table, hands resting on it. ‘I thought you were Pippa.’
‘I offered to help you instead. Pippa told me all this is down to you.’
‘It absolutely isn’t. Pippa’s done as much as me, and she and Gil have been setting up half the afternoon.’ Cassie cleared her throat. ‘So would you mind fetching more champagne, please?’
‘In a minute.’ He was wearing a pair of vintage 501s with a turn up and the black retro T-shirt Tilly had sent him, the year of his birth emblazoned across it in blue, yellow and pink. He looked dangerous and desirable, and suddenly far too close. ‘I wanted to see you first.’
‘Oh. Well, if you’re going to thank me again, there’s really no need.’ She laughed, hoping it didn’t sound as forced as it felt. She didn’t need to hear that rough note in his voice or allow herself to fall into that dark brown gaze.
‘You do so much for us, and a nice birthday was the least I could do in return. And now you can tick another movie off your list. Why don’t you go back outside? I’ll get the champagne.’ She wanted him in the garden when the cake was carried out, candles blazing and everyone singing.
She went to the fridge and opened the door, a welcome blast of cool air following as she removed a bottle of fizz.
Raf hadn’t budged, and as she went to pass him, he caught her hand.
Cassie meant to free herself, to restore the distance she worked hard to maintain, but instead she was breathing him in, the scent of amber and something spicier in his cologne, alerting her to danger.
She’d drunk a couple of glasses of champagne, nowhere near enough to make her take total leave of her senses, and yet…
‘Are we ever going to talk about that night and what it meant?’ he asked softly.
She could barely think with his fingers idly stroking hers, tracing a pattern her mind couldn’t follow.
Even her cotton shirt suddenly felt way too hot.
Slowly, she looked up. His gaze was burning on hers and she daren’t tell him the truth: that she couldn’t get past that night and their kiss, and she wanted more.
So much more, and somehow her fingers were still around his, the heat of his touch lighting a blaze across her skin.
‘We are past it,’ she muttered. ‘We’re friends again and that’s all we can ever be. Nothing happened.’
She repeated the mantra that lived in her head, the one she clung to when she woke in the night dreaming of Raf and all she wanted to share with him.
But something had happened in Australia, and it wouldn’t go away, no matter how often she tried to force it, tormented by the memory of being in his arms and how he’d felt against her, his mouth demanding and insistent and perfect on hers.
‘And what if I don’t want to be friends with you anymore? There isn’t anyone who gets me like you do. No one who makes me feel the way you do.’
She’d never heard his voice like this, so low and somehow lazy, planting every single word deep in her heart.
She couldn’t offer any resistance when he eased her between his legs and took the bottle.
Cassie was melting, longing to fall into his embrace and have him hold her in all the ways she dreamt of.
He ran his hands very slowly from her shoulders to her wrists, and her limbs were turning to liquid, heat pooling in her body and demanding satisfaction with every brush of his palms. His own breath was ragged and uneven, and she was desperate to repeat every lesson she’d learnt that night in just one kiss.
‘Do you want me to stop?’
‘Raf, please,’ she told him helplessly. She couldn’t hold back a gasp when his languid gaze fell to her mouth, her lips parting as willingly as if he’d skimmed them with his own.
‘Please stop, or please don’t?’
‘What is it you want from me?’ she whispered. She knew his reply before he uttered it; she wanted exactly the same. But after that, what would their friendship be then?
‘Everything,’ he told her roughly. He took her hands and placed them on his face, the beard grazing her skin in the way she found so tantalising. ‘Tell me you don’t feel it too, Cass, and I’ll walk away. Tell me what’s in your heart.’
‘I can’t.’ There were only a few scraps of sense remaining, and she was clinging to them, her last little bit of composure before she fell too far. She would have nowhere left to go if she told him that.
‘You know I wouldn’t be touching you like this if I thought you didn’t feel the same.’
Cassie inched towards him until his thighs were pressed against hers, holding her in his orbit with eyes revealing even more than his words and uneven breath had.
Her thumbs were stroking his face, mesmerised by the gold in his gaze and longing he’d never revealed so nakedly before.
He turned his face to catch her thumb between his teeth, and she bit back a cry as his lips closed around it.
‘Do you want me to stop?’ he repeated.
‘You know I don’t,’ she whispered. She couldn’t disguise her body’s reply any more than she could walk away, and she slid her thumb free to cup his face. ‘But what about when it’s over? My children love you, Raf, they need me to be your friend. I can’t sneak around behind their backs.’
‘And why would it have to be over?’ He frowned.
‘You think I haven’t changed, that I can’t commit?
Is that it? I know it’s complicated, but we didn’t do anything wrong when we kissed.
Let me be there for you, and Isla and Rory.
My life is different now, and I’m done with the band, travelling, the bullshit that comes with it.
This is who I am, Cass. The man standing here, asking for a chance to stand still with you. ’
His hands were on her shoulders, sure and firm, and she was falling.
Falling into his strength and confidence, the desire he had made plain.
But her body was screaming that it wasn’t complicated it all.
That their next move was very simple and she only needed to touch her lips to his again, and she would be flying and falling all at once.
‘I’m frightened of never feeling this way again, and terrified of taking another step,’ she told him with a trembling voice. ‘But please don’t say something you don’t mean. All I need is to look after my family. I don’t know how to make room in my life for anything else.’
‘I meant every single word, and one day I hope you’ll feel differently.
And I’ll be there, waiting for you.’ He dropped the words against her ear, and she clutched his arms as his lips skimmed her neck.
There was such certainty in his promise, and she wanted to tell him not to wait, that maybe she’d never be ready.
But she couldn’t disguise how she felt; it simply wasn’t possible when he made her feel so alive, hopeful and happy.
Footsteps were approaching along the passage, and Cassie leapt back just before Fiona appeared, a blush staining her cheeks scarlet.