Rafe’s eyes flashed to mine, and his forehead suspiciously creased at my sudden concern.
Meanwhile, I took a big bite of my omelette, popped it in my mouth, chewed for half a second, and groaned orgasmically, leaning my head back against the red pleather booth and doing my very best imitation of that scene inWhen Harry Met Sally.
“Oh myGodddd. This is the best thing I’ve put in my mouth since…” I pushed my lips together like I’d accidentally said too much, darted a glance from Shelly to Rafe, licked my lips, and lifted an eyebrow meaningfully at him. “Well. You know.”
Rafe’s mouth dropped open slightly as he stared at me.
I held his gaze for a beat, then cut off another bite of eggs and held out my fork. “You wanna try some,handsome?”
Rafe’s eyes flared, and he swallowed hard.
“Try the pancakes first,” Shelly insisted, trying to recapture Rafe’s attention. “I think the cook puts, like, lemon or something in the blueberry topping. It’s amazing.”
“Mmm. And this guy loves a good topping,” I husked huskily, like the old diner was a love palace and I was Barry freakin’ White. I deliberately slid my sandal between Rafe’s boots, hooked my heel behind his ankle, and whispered, “Don’t you?”
Rafe cleared his throat. “Sometimes I do,” he agreed, his voice so deep I shivered.
The heat in his eyes was unmistakable, and I wasn’t sure if this meant I’d won our little flirting contest thing or I’d lost spectacularly, because my poor cock—which was still on a hair trigger from the night before that had not been appeased by a quick jerk in the shower this morning—started plumping behind my zipper.
Shelly sighed and straightened, removing her chest from the condiment area. “Y’all let me know if you need me, I guess,” she said glumly.
“Sure will,” I returned brightly.
When she was gone, Rafe kicked me under the table. “What the hell wasthat?” he whispered.
“What was what?” I took another bite of my omelette and looked at him guilelessly. “Me owning your ass at flirtation?”
He ran his tongue over the top of his teeth like he wasn’t sure if he was amused or pissed off, which was really a running theme for us, at least these days.
“Thought one of your goals with this whole—” He waved a hand.
“Say kidnapping one more time, Rafael. I dare you.”
“—road trip,” he said innocently, “was to stay under the radar. Do youwantto start rumors about you and me?”
“No! God, no.” I scowled. “Jesus. Me with my brother-in-law? Like me being gay wasn’t enough of a story?”
“Former.”
“Huh?” I glanced up from my omelette.
“Former brother-in-law.”
“Yeah. Technically, I guess,” I muttered, thinking about the stupid letter from Aimee he kept in his wallet. I was pretty sure people didn’t generally do that for theirformerspouses. “Don’t think the media would care much about the former-ness. But it doesn’t matter. Shelly doesn’t know who I am, like you said, so we’re fine. In fact, we’rebetterthan fine, because now we know who’s the better flirt. I mean, flirting with the waitress is rookie shit. Flirting with a guy who hates your guts, on the other hand…”
Rafe shook his head and dug into his pancakes. I stretched out my fork and sliced into the other side of the stack.
Rafe jabbed my finger with his fork. “Hey! Manners.”
“Since your girlfriend forgot my pancakes, I figure you should share.” I shoved the bite in my mouth, and it was so good, I couldn’t help chasing the last bits of blueberry juice off the fork with my tongue.
Rafe stared at the fork in my hand and swallowed hard, and I’d have paid big money to know what he was thinking of.
Or maybe it was better I didn’t know.
I shifted my omelette to the middle of the table. “You’re welcome to have some of mine.”
He rolled his eyes but dug in anyway. “So, earlier this morning, I plotted out the trip for today,” he said a moment later, pulling up a Google map on his phone. “I figure we can stop for the night around Kansas City. That’s a little more than ten hours from here. We can take it in two-and-a-half-hour driving blocks and switch off a little past Nashville—”
