The Way You Look Tonight (11 page)

"Jim and I met when we were children here on the lake. It will be fifty years this fall."

"How romantic," Brooke exclaimed. "Congratulations!"

The bell over the door rang as another couple walked in, and as the older woman left to seat them, Brooke sighed, her eyes soft and full of romance. "Imagine being so in love for fifty years that you still look at each other the way they just did."

Rafe gestured to the couple in the other corner of the restaurant who had been either glaring at each other or arguing the entire time he and Brooke had been seated. "Seems easier to imagine couples like that. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to make it another fifty minutes."

Brooke frowned at him. "How can you be that cynical when your parents are the definition of true love?"

"As far as I can tell," he told her, because he didn’t want her to have the wrong idea about where he stood on romance and forevers, "my parents are the exception, not the rule."

"I know you’ve seen a lot of bad marriages because of your work, but from what you told me, I have to wonder if maybe they were people who never should have been together in the first place."

"Even if that’s true," he argued, "it sure doesn’t seem to make it hurt any less. My office manager has to buy more boxes of tissues for our clients than an allergist would." He shook his head as flashes of dozens of crying women ran through his head. "If that’s how hard people cry when bad marriages break up, then I sure as hell never want to see what true love gone wrong looks like."

"But if it’s really true love, then how can it go wrong?"

He couldn’t believe how optimistic she was, so much so that she actually thought there were different kinds of love...and that if you hit on just the right one, you’d have won the forever lottery.

"Plenty of ways, Brooke. So many that I could spend the next twenty-three hours listing them all for you."

"I’d much rather you told me your definition of true love."

Of all the things he thought they’d talk about tonight,
true love
would have never made the list in a million years. "I’m a guy," he reminded her. With his thumb, he gestured out the front window at his Ducati. "I ride a motorcycle. I’ve never tried to define that, apart from knowing it only happens once in a blue moon."

"I wonder which I can get you to say first," she mused. "
Kinky
or
true love.
"

She surprised another laugh out of him.

"Actually, I’d much rather hear you laugh like that again." And then she caught him off guard one more time by asking, "Try now. Just for fun. Pretend true love is real and out there for any of us to find."

For a moment he was so lost in her big green eyes that he couldn’t remember what she wanted him to try.

Oh, right. Define
true love.

His brain went blank until he thought about his parents. "Holding hands." She was silent as he thought more about it. "Laughing together." What else? "Being a unified front, especially when times get tough." The more he thought about the ways his parents had weathered their storms together, the easier it became to add to the list. "And celebrating together when things get better."

"Are you sure you’ve never thought about true love before?" she asked in a soft voice.

He shrugged. "I’ve never had anyone ask me to try before." And if they had, he would have laughed in their face. He was the one who asked the difficult questions, never the one who answered them. But when he’d tried to make a joke about it with Brooke, she hadn’t let it go. Despite how sweet she looked, she would make one hell of an investigator. "Your turn now, since I’m guessing you’ve given it quite a bit of thought over the years."

"What girl doesn’t think about
it?
" she asked, clearly teasing him about the fact that he still hadn’t said the two words aloud, referring to true love as
that
and
it
instead. She toyed with the stem of her wine glass for a few moments. "True love would be passion that burned so hot you were almost afraid of the power the other person had over you, the way they could turn you inside out with a look, a touch, a kiss. It would be wanting to fall asleep every night and wake up every morning for the rest of your life in that one person’s arms. Just like you said, it would be holding hands and laughing and building a family together. And, most of all, it would mean being able to talk to each other about absolutely anything, knowing that no matter how hard it was to say the difficult things, you’d both still love each other...and that you’d find a way to work it out together. No matter what."

Mrs. Lombardi’s granddaughter removed their plates and replaced them with a huge piece of tiramisu, and Rafe was glad for the distraction. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more beautiful in his life than Brooke talking about what true love meant to her. Which was crazy, considering he couldn’t imagine having this conversation with anyone else—especially any of the women he’d been out with over the years. Not when he was certain none of them had believed in the steadfast nature of love any more than he did.

"I’ve just realized true love is about one more thing," Brooke told him.

"What’s that?"

She slid her fork into the tiramisu and grinned at him. "This cake."

He didn’t know a damn thing about love, but the sinfully pleasured look on her face as she took a bite of the decadent cake had his mouth watering.

Not for dessert. For Brooke.

A few minutes later they were leaving a huge cash tip on the table and sneaking out before Mrs. Lombardi could make them take it back. Before Brooke put on her helmet, she pointed up at the sky.

"Look."

There was wonder in her voice, and it was pure instinct to slide his hand into hers as he looked up.

"In just a few days, it will be a blue moon."

They both looked at each other then, and in her eyes he saw a sudden, unexpected flash of what forever might look like.

Looking as stunned as he felt, she took a step back as her helmet fell from her fingers to the ground. Forcing himself to drag his gaze from hers, he picked it up, and when he slid that lock of hair back behind her ear before slipping on the helmet, she trembled.

This time she got on behind him like a pro, and even though it would have been a hell of a lot wiser to take her straight home and say good night, after the way she’d reacted to their short ride to the restaurant, he decided to give her a treat by going the long way home.

The sun had set, and the windows of the stores along the tiny Main Street were lit up, as were the cottages all along the water and in the woods. It would have been a great ride alone, but it was a thousand times better sharing it with Brooke.

Riding his motorcycle had always been a rush. A thrill. A release. Not foreplay. And definitely not romantic.

But it was all those things tonight.

When they finally pulled in behind Brooke’s cottage and she took off her helmet, she was vibrating with energy. "I thought I was ready this time for how awesome that ride would be. If that gets better and better every time, I may explode from the sheer thrill of it soon. Thank you." She threw her arms around him, just as she had the night before when they’d been so surprised to see each other again. "Riding on your motorcycle, dinner, and the company were all spectacular."

"They were," he agreed as he let himself hold her for a few seconds. She was warm and soft and he couldn’t ever remember enjoying the feel of a woman more. After having her pressed up so close to him for the past thirty minutes, her legs and arms and hands holding him as tightly as she would if they were in bed together, all he could think about was sex...and wanting her to explode from the pleasure
he
could give her.

She yawned against his shoulder, and he made himself shift back. "You worked hard all day, not only on your chocolates but also on scrubbing down my house. I should let you get to bed now."

"I’d rather stay up with you."

He shook his head. "We both know what will happen if you do."

That little line came back between her eyebrows, and he had to press a kiss to it.

He felt the warm puff of breath fall from her lips at his touch just before she asked, "Tell me again why you think it’s so important that we wait?"

He knew it wasn’t a good idea, but he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her closer. "Because I care about you. And I want to make sure you have time to think about this. I would never forgive myself if we slept together in the heat of the moment and you woke up the next morning and decided it was a mistake."

She looked up at him, her mouth just inches from his. "Are you sure I’m the one you’re worried about?"

No, he wasn’t sure about a damned thing anymore. Only that he needed to kiss her more than he needed to take his next breath.

Her mouth met his halfway, her lips soft and cool from their ride. She tasted like red wine and cake and a sweetness that was entirely her own. He couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t remember one single reason why they weren’t already in her bedroom, stripped down and having each other.

She kissed with the same innate sensuality with which she did everything else, from making truffles to splashing with him in the water to teasing him over dinner. He threaded his fingers into her soft hair and tilted her head back so that he could have full access to every corner of her mouth. He was starved for her, desperate for more even as he was taking everything he could...all the while sensing that he’d never be able to get enough of her.

He wanted so badly to do the right thing, but he was quickly coming to realize that where Brooke was concerned, he wasn’t even close to being a strong enough man to follow through on it.

"Brooke—"

She pressed her fingertips to his mouth. "The only reason I’m not inviting you into my bed tonight is because I don’t want
you
to think being with me is a mistake, either. Good night, Rafe." She went onto her tippy-toes to press one more soft, sweet kiss against his lips. "Sweet dreams."

As he watched her walk inside her house, the same question kept repeating in his head over and over: What the hell had he been thinking to insist on making them wait twenty-four hours to have each other?

But he knew the answer to that already. Brooke had said she could be casual about sex, but he knew better. It wasn’t who she was.

And yet, did he even have a prayer of resisting her, even with all the warning bells going off?

Knowing he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep tonight in the house with her than he had the night before, he grabbed a couple of thick blankets from one of the chairs on the porch and headed down to the beach. Lying back with one arm under his head and the blankets thrown over him, he stared up at the stars and worked to focus on the beauty of the clear night, the sound of the light breeze rustling through the leaves, the frogs calling back and forth to each other…but his head was spinning, reeling still with the taste of Brooke and his desperate need for more of her.

Only twenty hours to go...

Chapter Ten

The next morning, Brooke wasn’t surprised to wake up and find Rafe’s bedroom door open and the room empty. He wasn’t the kind of man who could ever be idle, especially not when he was trying to distract himself. Hopefully, she thought with a grin, he wouldn’t be too exhausted at the end of their twenty-four-hour wait. Because once he was finally in her bed, she wasn’t planning on letting him do much sleeping at all...

She hadn’t thought she’d be able to sleep a wink with all the anticipation shooting through her veins, especially not after a goodnight kiss that had completely rocked her world, but she’d ended up getting a fantastic night’s sleep. Probably because she wasn’t at all nervous about being with Rafe.

She was looking forward to making love with him as the best darn treat she’d ever have, better than the richest, most decadent truffle could ever be. Yes, there was a chance that he could change his mind and decide not to risk their friendship by throwing hot sex into the mix, but given the way he’d kissed her the night before—a shiver followed by a bolt of heat went through her just from thinking about his kiss—she figured the odds were pretty darn low that that would happen.

She’d intended to help him with his house again today, but she’d meant what she said about not wanting to rush him into being with her, either. Something told her that the two of them together in the same house, even with brooms and hammers in their hands, would have both of them quickly forgetting all about giving each other more time to think things through. And the truth was, she did have a great deal of work to do, especially since Rafe had gotten her insides so spun up last night that she’d completely forgotten to check out the pictures of the boutique space in Seattle that Cord had emailed her.

* * *

Ten hours later, she’d not only approved the Seattle storefront and transferred the funds to her partner, she had also finally gotten her
Summer’s Pleasures
recipe exactly right. Rafe might have distracted her from her work the night before, but today she’d felt so energized, so incredibly alive, that everything she touched had been right.

Making chocolate had always been such a wonderfully sensual, all-senses-involved process for her, but never more than it was now. With every saucepan of heavy cream she heated up, she thought of the way his body heated hers as he pulled her close. With every stroke of her whisk through the creamy chocolate ganache, she thought of the way Rafe had stroked across her skin with his big, slightly rough hands. And when she let a newly made truffle melt on her tongue, she thought of how delicious his mouth had been over hers...and how she couldn’t wait to taste the rest of him, too.

Still, even as she’d worked happily in her kitchen on her new batch of truffles, all day long she’d been looking at her watch.