The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

parties with frat boys?
    She probably went to parties with frat boys.
    Rye sat there while she moaned and groaned in appreciation over bite after bite. He tried to block out the sound, because it made him think of Emma in her bath, in her vanilla-scented water with her now vanilla-scented skin.
    If she was a day over twenty-three and he was anyone but who he was, he would have let himself imagine feeding her crepes in the bathtub, getting her out, and eating her up.
    "What's wrong?" she asked.
    He looked up at her, finding her chewing slowly, her pretty mouth pursed into something that looked like a kiss at the moment. "Nothing."
    "Bad news?"
    "No. Nothing like that," he promised.
    "You'll stay here today?" She stared at her plate. Her face tilted forward. Her hair fell across her bruised cheek.
    "I don't know if that's such a good idea, Emma. You don't even know me." He'd never hurt her, but hell, she didn't know that.
    "You're going back to trying to convince me not to trust you?"
    "Hey, a little skepticism is a great thing, especially when you're a young, beautiful woman."
    "I'm not—"
    She broke off, her cheeks flushed all the more, not looking at him now. He closed his eyes and bit back a curse. She was getting to him. That sweet, fresh-faced, innocent look of hers was killing him.
    "I just want you to be safe, Emma, and I want both of us to be able to sleep tonight." Not that he had a prayer of that, not after smelling that Emma-after-her-bath smell and seeing her all flushed and fresh faced, her tight little jeans, and innocent eyes.
    "And someone who was out to hurt me would say things like that?"
    "He would if he was smart. It sure seems to be working for me. After all, I'm right here with you," he said, frustration getting the better of him.
    "You think I'm an idiot, don't you?" She went from flattered to mad in about half a second.
    "I think you can't be too careful. Look at what this jerk did to you."
    "I know." She touched a hand to her bruised cheek, as if to test and see if it were still there, still as bad as she remembered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to drag you into my problems."
    "You haven't dragged me anywhere, Emma," he admitted, taking those inevitable steps closer. He could rest his hands on her shoulders or maybe hold her hands. That seemed safe. He did that, just took both her hands in his. "I've come quite willingly. I'm afraid I'm just not that good at taking care of anyone. I've been on my own for a long time now."
    "I think you're doing just fine at taking care of me. And... Well..."
    She eased up on her tiptoes and placed a frustratingly brief, soft kiss on his lips this time.
    "And I appreciate it. Thank you."
    He just stood there. There was something so innocent about that little kiss. It might as well have been another peck on the cheek, like the one she'd given him earlier when she'd been so scared and he'd held her in his arms.
    Except it rocked him all the way down to his toes again.
    "Emma," he warned, holding himself absolutely still and straight.
    "Hmm?" She brought her hands up to rest ever so lightly against his chest. The delicate touch burned right through the fabric of his shirt. She still smelled so good and the world was spinning oddly around him.
    He hadn't had anyone to hang on to in so long, and how her mere presence could be so comforting and so unsettling at the same time, he could not understand. But he couldn't pry his hands off her.
    "Things are crazy right now," he said.
    "I know. For me, too."
    And yet she stayed stubbornly right there, her face maybe an inch from his. He wanted to tell her she really shouldn't go around kissing men she barely knew, even those little pecks on the cheek. They gave a man ideas.
    But this wasn't him getting ideas. She was inviting something entirely different now. A taste of her. All that sweetness, that innocence.
    "I think I like you," she said. "Is that such a bad thing?"
    "Yes. It's a very bad thing."
    In the end, it was the sweet softness of her that got to him. He hadn't held a woman like that in years. There hadn't been any like her, not where he'd been. Surely he could have a little bit of that. Just a taste.
    He touched the tip of her nose with his, nuzzling closer. He heard her catch her breath and thought long and hard about the skin of her cheek, about her mouth, her neck. With her hair piled high, Emma had an absolutely delectable-looking neck.
    Who's to say what he would have done in the end, given the chance.