Isabella's looking between us with confusion on her face but she doesn't say anything.
Neither do I.
Because he's not wrong.
I can't stop looking at Isabella, can't stop thinking about how close we just came to crossing a line we can't uncross, can't stop my hands from shaking with the memory of her skin under my palm.
I almost kissed her.
I almost crossed every line I've ever drawn.
And the worst part?
I want to do it again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It's hard not to dislike Rafael right now. He has the worst timing in the universe.
I'm sitting on the couch with my legs tucked under me and a mug of tea going cold in my hands, watching him make himself completely at home in a cabin that isn't his, sprawled in the armchair like he owns it, telling some story about a job in Lisbon that Enzo is pretending not to find funny.
Pretending. Because I can see the way the corner of his mouth keeps threatening to move.
I've been staring at that mouth for the last ten minutes.
I can't help it. I can't stop. Ever since that shower, ever since he stood close enough that I could feel his breath on my lips and his hand on my face and his palm sliding up my side like he was mapping every inch of me through the towel, I can't look at him without my body doing something completely traitorous.
He's leaning against the kitchen doorframe now with his arms crossed over his chest, and I let myself look, really look, the way I've been desperately trying not to all evening.
He's infuriating to look at. That's the problem.
Broad shoulders that strain against his shirt every time he shifts his weight, the fabric pulling tight across his chest in a way that makes my mouth go dry. The column of his throat when he tilts his head back. The way his jaw is always tight, always set, like he's holding back something enormous. His hands, which I cannot stop thinking about, large and rough and so careful when they touched me, so devastating in their restraint.
I want to put my mouth on his jaw.
The thought comes out of nowhere and I almost choke on my tea.
Oh fuck me, this man will really be the death of me.
I want to trace the line of it with my lips, feel the stubble against my tongue, work my way down his throat, learn every inch of him the way he seems to already know every inch of me. I want to peel that shirt off him and put my hands on his chest and find out if he makes any sound at all when someone touches him or if he stays silent even then, controlled even then.
I've been dreaming about him.
Not the soft, vague kind of dreaming where you wake up with just a feeling and no details. No. Specific, detailed, mortifying dreams where his hands are in my hair and his mouth is on my neck and he's saying my name in that low rough voice but differently than he does when he's being careful, differently than he does when he's keeping his distance.
In my dreams he doesn't keep his distance.
In my dreams he closes it, every inch of it, and I wake up with my heart pounding and my sheets twisted and this aching, greedy want pooling low in my stomach that won't go away no matter what I do.
I hate it.
I hate how much I want him. I hate that every time I think I've built the walls back up high enough, every time I think I've gotten myself under control, he does something like stand outside a bathroom door in the dark telling ridiculous stories about caviar and I lose every inch of ground I've gained.
I spent four years after that porch telling myself I was over it. Over him. That what I felt at eighteen was just a crush, just proximity, just the foolishness of being young and sheltered and mistaking someone's attention for something it wasn't.
And then he carried me out of that ballroom and put me on that bike and I felt his body against mine and every single lie I'd told myself dissolved like it had never existed.
I am so screwed.Totally and officially.
