Give & Take (Redbeard Cove #2)

26. Lana

Chapter 26

Lana

T he poem is not what I expected. I don’t know what I expected. Something flirtatious maybe. Something light. Instead, he reads a poem by Dickenson. Then another by Cummings, followed by Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Classics I remember hearing in school but never like this. Never touching on a particular part of my heart left open and waiting for just those words.

Raph reads about children and fragile hearts, love and worth and living not in vain. And even though they’re all different, there’s a coherence to the way he reads them. He chooses each poem like it’s meant to be heard right after the other.

Each one cracks open my heart and heals it again in a different way.

When he’s finished, tears streak down my face. Because these are not just meaningless poems. These are poems that speak to each corner of my life, and the girls’.

He’s been paying attention .

“I’ve been saving them,” he says, when I tell him this. “I just write in the margins.” He shows me the inside of the book. Page after page, the poems are underlined. Asterisked. Empty spaces at the side of the text marked with words: our names; things like “How much she loves her children”; and “Our girls.”

My heart clenches, tears filling my eyes for the hundredth time today. I wipe them away, embarrassed.

The words, I note, are in different inks, like he’s been doing this awhile. “When did you start doing this?” I ask.

“Since…before,” he says.

Before what? Before we crossed the line? Before he started feeling a certain way?

I don’t ask. I’m too scared the answer will take me to a place I can’t come back from.

I try not to think about how much Raphael knows how to touch my heart and make me laugh. How he makes me feel things I thought were a place of deficit.

“I was so scared today,” I tell him. The words come out of nowhere. Or maybe they come out of everywhere, all the places he’s opened up. I’m shaking now—from the memory or the cooled temperature of the bath, I’m not sure.

“I knew, logically, the animal was scared, that she just wanted to get away. But things could have gone so much worse. Raph, I had to choose—” I feel winded at the thought of what I had to do.

Raph drops the book on the floor. He sets my wine glass aside and kneels down beside the tub. Then, without care for how he’s clothed and how water splashes all around him, he pulls me into his arms. He cups the back of my head with his broad hand and pulls me to him.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

I sob into this man’s shirt for the decisions I had to make this morning. For the pure terror of being so far between both of my girls. I breathe in the safety of him, falling apart in his arms. “I love them to inconceivable depths,” I whisper as I weep. It could be a line from one of the poems he read.

But that’s not all. I cry because there’s no way around it. I’m falling for the man holding me up. The man I can’t keep.

That’s enough to sober me, at least a little. I pull away, swiping at my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“No,” Raph says, grasping my face. “We’re not doing that.”

“I’m not good for you, Raph. I’m the definition of baggage. And you travel light.”

Raphael smiles at me so tenderly, with such warm golden heat all I can do is bathe in it. “We’re not doing that either.”

“I’m serious,” I say. “We can’t pretend this isn’t a problem.”

“You should try not being serious for a bit. I recommend it.”

“Raph!”

His smile drops. But his hands don’t. At least, they don’t move away from me. They slide down, cupping my neck, my shoulders.

“I used to think serious and me didn’t mix,” he says. “But everything changed the moment I laid eyes on you. ”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

It falls flat; a poor attempt at humor.

“I’ve never said anything like that to any girl. I hardly recognize myself these days, Lana. Loving being at home more than being out. Picturing myself as a father.”

Those words do something hot and dangerous to my insides. To my heart.

“Raph,” I say, teetering on a razor’s edge. I grip the sides of the tub.

“Sorry,” he says. “I have a hard time not saying exactly what’s on my mind.”

I smile, though it’s shaky. “You have to stop doing that.”

Raph cups my cheek, pressing his thumb to the corner of my smile. “You stop. I like you frowning.”

“I’m having a hard time doing that around you,” I say.

“Then maybe you should just let yourself smile,” he says. “There’s no need to borrow worries from the future, Lana. We can just…enjoy each other, and take each day as it comes. There’s no point wasting what we have right now.”

Maybe he’s just saying that because it’s his philosophy on life. But the words are…liberating. He’s right, of course. We have right now. We clearly have something unbearably good between us, even if it’s just for the summer.

I smile again, and this one comes easy. Then it drops, and I lift myself up and out of the water.

Just a little.

Raph’s eyes drop, his eyes darkening.

I follow his gaze .

The tops of my breasts are fully out of the water. Shiny-wet, laced with bubbles.

“Lana,” he says. His voice is a low rumble.

The sound and sight of this beautiful man so affected by me makes heat flare between my legs. “Raph,” I respond. That scared part of me wants to drop back down in the water. But this other, freer me wants to show him everything.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says. “I don’t think you even know how much.”

He trails his fingers over my shoulders, making a feeling of want settle heavy in the space between my hips.

There’s a war inside of me, between these two versions of myself.

“I’m forty, Raph. Forty-one in a couple of weeks. I’m not… nubile.”

“Nubile?” Raph laughs.

“Yes, nubile.” That stubborn part is daring him to say no. I’m getting out every last argument—the lawyer drilling the witness. “My breasts…they’re not perky. I have stretch marks. Thick thighs. I have…skin under my neck that?—”

“Lana,” Raph says. “I’ve already seen. More than once.” His look is sheepish—he’s talking about the window.

My cheeks heat. I open my mouth to tell him I saw more that time he was naked. I did more, the time after.

But he locks me in his gaze before I can say anything. “But guess what? You don’t get to tell me what I like or what I want. What I want is my choice, and what I want is you, Sunshine. This woman, this body”—he brings his hand up to my head, cupping my temple—“this brain that discards a thousand thoughts a second to make sure it lands on the perfect one to cut a man in half. This is what I want.”

He bends toward me, lowering his arms into the water, gripping my ribs with his broad hands. His fingers fit perfectly in the notches of each one. Like they were made to hold me up.

“I’m the lucky one, Sunshine.”

He pulls me toward him, and when his lips meet mine, I know it’s the end of resistance. He’s dismantled the last of the bricks in that barrier with his words, and now, with his kiss, I finally let myself fall.

Raph’s mouth is hot, soft, and laced with the rich wine he sipped. His tongue dances across my teeth, flicking at my tongue in a way that has me arching against him, pressing my wet breasts against his chest.

But I know I can’t keep going, not without telling him.

“Raph,” I say, breaking the kiss. “It wasn’t just you who looked at me.”

His hand kneads the back of my scalp, need etched on his features. “What do you mean?”

“A few days ago,” I say, “I saw you. You were…I didn’t mean to, but you were?—

“Naked,” he fills in.

“You knew.”

“I suspected.” He kisses me again. Then pulls away and says, “I saw the curtains move. ”

At my surprise he says, “But I shouldn’t have been prancing around naked.”

I release a soft laugh. “You weren’t prancing. And it’s your home.” Heat swirls down low as he tugs at my hair, tilting my face back. As he trails kisses down my throat.

“That wasn’t the only time,” I say.

He pauses, pulling back. “I was naked in the window after that? I was making a conscious effort to?—”

“No. I was.”

He looks confused. “You mean when I saw you getting changed? You were in your bra, I?—”

“Not then. Before. I was thinking of you. I’d dreamed of you, actually. And it was…” I take a breath. “You were fucking me Raphael.”

Might as well say it plainly. Unfortunately the sound he makes doesn’t help me confess in a reasonable way.

It’s a low, barely restrained kind of sound.

It’s extremely hot.

Raph closes his eyes, as if to gather himself. “Was I any good?”

“You were everything I ever wanted. You showed me things I didn’t know I wanted. Then I woke up. I was still feeling the feelings, Raph. I…”

I look down, my nerves threatening to come back. Fucking get it out, Lana. “I opened my curtains and I…I made myself come. Right there, where you could have seen me.”

For a moment, only silence stretches between us.

Raph’s gone very still.

Then he says, “I’m sorry, can you repeat that? ”

I swallow. “I made myself come. Right across from your window. You should…call the cops or something.”

“The cops?” he asks, his voice strained. “What, to send you to horny jail?”

Despite the mortification thrumming through me, I let out the smallest laugh.

It’s then I realize he’s not weirded out. The opposite, actually. He’s up on his knees, his hand gliding over the front of his jeans. He shifts himself as if uncomfortable.

“Did you think I’d be upset by that, Lana?”

“Of course. It’s insane behavior.”

“You just told me you got off in your window. For me. That’s the hottest thing anyone’s ever said to me. The hottest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve read a lot of horny shit. It’s not like you’re a stranger, Sunshine.”

My shame cracks, relief pouring through.

“In fact,” Raph says, sounding definitely strained now, “if I recall correctly, I told you I wanted to fuck you on your kitchen island only the night before.”

I nod. He did. That’s probably what set me off.

“The only thing I’m upset about, Sunshine,” he says, “is missing it. So I think I’m going to need you to reenact it for me. Start to finish.”

I laugh, incredulous.

I think he was joking. But now he’s serious. “If you want to do that,” he says. “For penance.”

Every feeling I’d been holding back comes flooding out then, in a hot, needy torrent. “It won’t be a punishment for me to do that again,” I say.

Raph grips the side of the tub. “Careful. You’re going to make me pass out. ”

He’s handed the control torch back to me. I hesitate. Then I say, “I didn’t tell you everything yet.”

Raph gets up and sits down on the chair, running a hand through his hair. “There’s more?” he croaks.

It’s funny how quickly this turned. How each time I think I’m going to do or say something to push him away, Raph just likes me more for it.

“Tell me.” He’s practically begging now. His hands are tight on the edge of the tub, like he’s barely holding on.

“I didn’t just use my hands to make myself come, Raph.”

His eyes widen slightly, his teeth coming cursorily onto his bottom lip. He pulls his hands off the tub, settling them on his thighs. “You’re trying to murder me. That’s the only explanation. You’re so pissed at me for wanting you you want to end my life by…fatal erection.”

I laugh. It cuts the nerves, diffuses the seriousness of all of this.

“You have an erection?” I ask innocently. “Right now?”

“Sunshine, when I’m alone with you it’s my constant state of being. When I’m alone without you—fuck. You have no idea how many times I’ve made myself come thinking of you.”

Heat flares through me. When I drop my eyes to his bulge, the heat centers down low.

He sees me looking. He doesn’t move, doesn’t try to hide it.

“What did you use, Lana?”

He won’t let me get away without the details .

“A dildo,” I say plainly. “A big dildo I imagined was your cock.”

“Jesus fuck,” Raph says, his chest moving now as he breathes heavily. He closes his eyes as if gathering strength. “Do you mean to tell me if I’d opened those blinds I would have gotten to see you fucking yourself with a?—”

“Dildo, yes. I imagined it was yours, Raph. All I could think about was you fucking me.”

Raph makes a low, desperate sound, then abruptly stands up.

And steps into the bathtub.

“Raph!” I exclaim. “Your clothes!” He’s barefoot, in jeans and a t-shirt. But he doesn’t care. He just lowers himself onto me, his clothed body pressing against my naked one under water.

“These clothes are the only thing keeping me from fucking you right this second,” he says as he grips my jaw, lowering his lips over mine, he practically snarls; the sound of hunger desperate at the back of his throat.

“What happened to your famous restraint?” I whisper, aware I’m being a brat.

“You demolished it the moment ‘fucking yourself with a dildo for me’ entered the chat.”

His next kiss is a savage, desperate connection. His tongue claims my mouth in a show of ownership, his teeth sinking onto my bottom lip. His hand grips my bare ass under the water.

“How long do we have?” he asks as he kisses my collarbone.

“Two hours at least,” I breathe .

His sodden jeans are deliciously rough against the tenderness between my legs.

“I could fuck you for two days,” he says. “But two hours is enough for you to show me what I missed.” He drops a wet kiss on my throat.

I hold him back. “Wait. You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack. I need to see you.” He pulls back. “Unless…not if it’s just for me. If it would turn you?—”

“Yes,” I say,

With that, Raph stands up, water sluicing from his soaked clothes, and steps over the edge of the tub onto the floor. Water splatters around him onto the floor, but all I can hear is the sound of my own breath. All I can do is stare at the way his soaked clothes cling to every part of him. How through his shirt, I can see the trail of dark hair pointing straight to the thickness straining against his zipper before he strides toward the door.

Just before exiting the room though, he stops. He reaches for the hook where I hung my clothes, slipping his hand inside my shorts. His long lean fingers emerge with my panties hooked around them. The ones I was wearing before getting into the bath.

The sight is so hot I can hardly breathe.

Raphael winks as he grips them into his fist.

Then he’s gone.