Page 23 of One Week With You
Another moment of silence so awkward I wanted to rip my face off. This wasn’t us. We didn’t do awkward silences. Unsaid words, maybe, but never that.
“When’s your flight?” I asked, inwardly rolling my eyes at the nonsense question I didn’t give a shit about. But I needed more time. I had so much to say but couldn’t say any of it knowing she was about to run away. She had that restless air and one hand already reached for the door.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“You’ll let me know when you arrive at the cottage safely?”
“Of course. And thank you again. I appreciate you letting me stay there.”
“You still want to go?”
“Now more than ever.”
My mouth tightened. “Okay then. Call me if you need help finding anything. Any time, night or day. I’m here.”
“Thanks,” she replied, but I knew she wouldn’t. Not now.
I leaned across the console to kiss her cheek, but Talia swiftly opened the door to escape, leaving me hanging. Outside, she bent down to look through the door, her gaze seemingly everywhere but on me.
How could I have gone from the hottest moment where everything felt so fucking right to…this? Talia Johnson not even looking me in the eye. Maybe this is what I’d been trying to avoid all these years. A little part of Talia was better than nothing.
“Have a nice Christmas. Good night.”
She slammed the door and rushed up the steps to her building. The shawl slivered from her shoulders and fluttered in the wind. I watched to see if she’d turn back – a single glance would’ve been enough, would’ve beensomething– and waited until the inner car light switched off and Talia had long since disappeared.
After, I sent Leo a text telling him we needed to talk and drove home as empty as the seat beside me.
CHAPTER5
TALIA
The jingly,tinny sound of “Last Christmas”greeted me first, followed by a fallen rope of sparkly, purple tinsel as I entered the village shop. I flicked it away, too distracted by the text that had popped up on my screen.
Rafe: Please, Talia. Tell me you’re OK.
The same as all the other messages he’d sent, it made my stomach drop and my heart soar – a true chaos of emotions. I’d been trying so hard not to think about him – an impossible task when I was staying in his cottage and sleeping in his bed – and now he was texting me wondering if I was okay.
I wasn’t sure how to answer.
The kiss we’d shared five years ago paled in comparison to the taste of him now. In retrospect, last time had been nothing more than a drunken fumble. Kisses stolen between sleepy smiles and laughs, tentative caresses of my waist, and fingers drifting through my hair. Back then it had been electrifying – Rafe Scott, finally touching me. Kissingme. I’d thought it was the start of something instead of the end of it. A line drawn in the sand.
But this time…
He’d consumed me.Devoured.There was no other word for it. I knew now how it felt to be wrapped solidly in his arms. Knew the feel of his mouth along my neck, the warm caress of his breath across my skin. Nothing would ever shake or erase the memory of his fingers inside me.Nothing. The moment, the feeling, was forever ingrained.
I also knew the fierceness with which he moved, the strength of his grip against my face, and the claiming bite of his fingers as he’d squeezed my ass. The control, the mix of power and thinly veiled restraint. Rafe had touched me like he couldn’t get enough, like he wanted to worship at the altar of my body.
How was I supposed to forget and move on? How could I look him in the eye across the dinner table and pretend I didn’t know the sound of his roughened groan as I came all over his hand? The feel of him hard against me.
My sex clenched just thinking about it.
Impossible.
My world had shifted. This was an after-Rafe existence and there was no going back.
So no. I was not okay. I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
And I didn’t know how to tell him that. Not without giving my heart away, and he wasn’t having that. Not now.
