and we’ll see what we can do
to make things easier.
“Okay. This is silly.” Sloan set her phone down and walked into her bathroom. She checked herself in the mirror and decided it was a little too soon for Rafe to see her with her braids wrapped in her loc sock. Her pajamas were nothing fancy, but she had to admit that she looked cute in the tank top and shorts. With a deep breath, she slipped out of her room and crept down the hall, lit here and there by the ankle-height nightlights that Avery insisted she put in every available outlet. She didn’t dare check in on the girls. It would be just her luck that she would wake one of them up and they would follow her downstairs.
She’d been in her own kitchen in the dark of night dozens of times, but for the first time ever she felt like she was doing something bad. God, she’d missed out on a lot. She almost thought about turning on the light in the hallway to Rafe’s room, but the nightlights framing his door led the way just fine. Another deep breath and she knocked once. When Rafe opened the door in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, Sloan almost swallowed her tongue.
Her gaze traveled up and down his whole body. They’d spent the last two days together and she’d already seen him with his shirt off. She’d had plenty of time to get used to the tattoos that ran all the way up to his neck. And his muscles. Sweet Jesus, he was ripped. She’d taken it all in in the bright summer sun the day before. Watching him fill the doorway, the light from the TV at his back and the glow from the nightlights casting his features in an eerily sexy shadow, Sloan felt like she was taking him in for the first time.
“Hey,” he said with that perfectly deep voice in a near whisper.
“Hey.”
He stepped into the hall and right into Sloan’s personal space. She swallowed as his hand came up and rested lightly on her shoulder. It shouldn’t have felt so right, so easy when his fingers started caressing her skin.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I guess I should just tell you. Since you live in my house now and you’ll probably get to know me very well.”
Rafe shrugged, nodding in agreement. “That does tend to happen when you live under the same roof. Lay it on me.”
“I’ve only been with one person before,” Sloan admitted.
“Your ex-husband.”
“Yeah, but I don’t mean I’ve only had wild, penetrative sex with one person before. I mean I’ve only been with one person. First kiss, first time, first everything. One person. Only one person. I’m an excellent surgeon. Pretty great mom, but my confidence in the men department is pretty ehhh...”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Absolutely not,” Sloan said, shaking her head.
“But you want to do something about it.”
“Yes. If you still want to, that is.”
“Oh, I want to. Come in.”
Sloan stepped inside Rafe’s bedroom and turned to watch him as he closed the door. A small voice in the back of her head finally told her to just relax. She wanted this. She wanted Rafe. Even though she knew it was a terrible idea, something about it felt inevitable. Her eyes traveled down to his hips as he grabbed his phone off the foot of the bed.
“How long do we have?” he asked.
“Forty minutes?”
“I’ll set an alarm. It’s the responsible thing to do.”
“It really is.”
“There. You want to sit?”
“Yeah. What are you watching?” The T.V. was paused and two men on the screen were talking in the middle of a desert.
“This show about a drug cartel.”
“Is it violent? I don’t do violence. It makes me squeamish.”
Rafe grabbed the remote and went back out to the menu of the streaming service that was linked up to every T.V. in the house. Sloan had been sure to delete Tess’s profile and add one for Rafe. “What was that show you were watching?Match Made in Paradise?”
“Yeah,” Sloan said as she perched on the edge of the mattress. “I’m on season three, episode four.”
