His words hung in the silence between them. Was she at fault? Was Raffa showing her how much he cared and how keen he was to be a part of this? ‘So long as you’re not trying to control me.’
‘Control you?’ He huffed a laugh. ‘I stand as much chance of controlling you, Rose Kelly, as I would performing dressage on a wild stallion.’
‘But you’d break the horse in eventually...’
He gave this some thought. ‘I’d begin by winning his trust, and then I’d train him in the ways I prefer.’
‘Wow. Is that what I should expect?’
‘And when persuasion failed,’ Raffa continued as if he hadn’t heard her, ‘I’d be forced to think of something else.’
Rose stilled when she saw the look on his face. ‘You wouldn’t kiss him?’ she exclaimed.
‘Not like this,’ Raffa agreed as he took her in his arms.
What was she doing?
She belonged here.
Why was she kissing him back?
Because there was no other way.
This was hopeless. She was hopeless. How could she resist a man who made her feel as if she had everything to lose and gain in his arms?
Raffa raised a brow when they pulled back briefly. ‘But if you’d rather not?’
‘I’d rather,’ Rose exclaimed, happiness surging inside her. If there were a world of men to choose from, this was the only man she would choose to father her child. Her next and most vital task was to banish the shackles that tied him to the past.
Sex could be wild and fun, or it could be tender and intense. Either way was perfect with Raffa as her lover. His care of her on the riverbank brought tears to her eyes. Release was sweet, complete and draining. But had it changed anything between them? Rose wondered as they lay replete in the sweet-smelling grass. When it came to relieving tension, there was no greater cure than sex, but it didn’t always supply a solution.
They walked back to the ranch house together, side by side, but not touching, which led her to wonder, if she wanted things to change, why didn’t she do something about it?
They were approaching the grooms’ accommodation block when Raffa frowned and asked, ‘Why don’t you move in with me? It would be so much simpler.’
‘For you, or for me?’ she asked good-humouredly.
‘Everyone on the ranch respects you, and I’ve come up with the perfect solution to all your concerns.’
‘Of course you have,’ she teased lightly, loving Raffa for his rock-solid conviction that he was always right, even though it drove her crazy at times.
‘Marry me.’
‘What?’Rose’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t have heard him correctly.
‘Marry me,’ he repeated, as if that were the most obvious statement in the world. ‘You trust me. You trust me with your body. You’ve already admitted that you love me. It can’t be such a giant step to agreeing to marry me.’
‘Am I expected to take this seriously, or is it another of your jokes?’
‘No joke,’ he assured her. ‘When I think back to my sister’s wedding, all I remember is the most bewitching woman I’d ever met putting me firmly in my place. Now that same woman is carrying my baby, and I want to provide for that child—more than provide. I want to see it grow up. I want to teach it to ride, to read, to swim—it’s only logical to ask you to marry me.’
‘Logical?’ Rose interrupted stiffly.
‘I won’t ask anything of you,’ Raffa explained, as if this was what he thought she wanted. ‘I’m laying out the most sensible plan.’
‘Logicalandsensible?’ Rose’s Celtic temper flared. ‘Why not add capable to that, while you’re at it?’
‘Marriage would solve all your problems,’ Raffa insisted, as if he had come up with the only possible way forward for them.
