Page 30 of Trust Me With Forever

He eyed the fire and then met my gaze. “It’s not that cold.”

It was true. But building the fire had distracted me for a few minutes, and there was something comforting about the crackle and pop as it burned. “I get cold easily. I’m also that person who needs four blankets at night in the winter, and two pairs of socks.”

“Wait, doesn’t your family keep the heat on at night?”

“Yes, but not high enough for me.”

Maybe you could warm me up.

Rafe tossed his jacket on the recliner and walked toward me. It was hard not to stare at his long, lean legs. But his gait was a little off, especially with his right leg. “I thought your injury was healed.”

He stopped walking and frowned. “It is.”

I met his gaze. “But you’re almost limping.”

“It acts up sometimes, especially when it’s cold. But that’s not important. We don’t have a lot of time until we have to go to my sister’s dinner in two days, so let’s focus on how we’re going to act and what we’re going to tell them.”

Part of me wanted to push, to find out just how bad his injury had been.

However, I had five older brothers and I’d learned early on that asking about any sort of weakness usually made them prickly and uncomfortable. Not that I’d given up completely with Rafe. But we hadn’t even moved in together yet. I needed to pace myself.

I plopped down onto the sofa and patted the spot next to me. “Come sit by me.”

He didn’t waste time settling next to me, close enough that his leg brushed mine and a thread of heat shot through my body. The smart thing would be to move away and keep my mind clear. But we wouldn’t be able to do that at Emmy’s dinner, or any event for the next year, so I needed to learn how to ignore the way Rafe affected me.

His left leg bounced in place as he said, “How far we go in public for PDA is up to you, Abigail.” He studied the painting over the fireplace, one that looked a lot like his family’s ranch when we’d been kids. “I know what I said before, about always being affectionate. But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He finally met my eyes again. “I’m not like that bastard who took advantage of you, and I’m determined to prove it.”

I softened a little. “I may not like how you abandoned your sister or friends, but I can’t ever imagine you blackmailing me with altered sex videos.”

He clenched the fingers of one hand into a fist. “I’m sorry that’s the bar you have to set, Abby. It’s way too low. You deserve better. Better than him, better than me.”

My brows drew together. “Better than you?”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t know why I said that. At any rate, we should focus on how we’ll act in public and what to tell our families. If…if you want to kiss in public, then we’ll have to practice that now.”

Rafe shifted in his seat, and I bit back a smile. He was nervous. Somehow, the world-famous playboy was nervous.

Then it hit me—maybe he didn’t want to kiss me. I was his sister’s best friend, after all. Maybe he thought of me as his sister, too.

His looks from before don’t support that, do they?

Maybe. But Rafe had wanted honesty, so I was going to try my best to do that. “If it makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to. But I wouldn’t mind if we had to kiss.”

Oh, crap.Had I really said that?

Rafe’s eyes turned heated and his voice was husky as he said, “I wouldn’t mind, either.”

For a few seconds, we merely stared at each other and my heart raced as I squeezed my thighs together. After all these years, was I finally going to kiss Rafael Mendoza?

He leaned forward and cupped my cheek. As his thumb ran back and forth across my skin, my lips parted and I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his mouth. Would his kiss be gentle and tender? Or, desperate and devouring? Somewhere in between?

Stopping a few inches from my face, he whispered, “Time to finally kiss my wife.”

A shiver ran down my spine but I barely had time to notice as we both closed the distance and his lips met mine.

At first, he was soft, gentle, and took his time merely teasing my mouth. But something inside me burst, and I threaded my fingers through his hair and moved closer.

With a growl, his tongue seamed my lips and I opened, groaning as his tongue stroked and explored and tangled with mine.

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