A long silence followed his words.
Eventually, he turned around and saw that she’d already donned the damn nightgown again.
She peeked up at him, her face pink with embarrassment. In a low voice, she homed in irrelevantly on only one part of what he’d said. “My sex is not hot.”
He started to laugh then. It was a good thing, too, because otherwise, he might have cried.
Helen awakened at dawn, as she always did. Her internal alarm clock apparently still operated, even in time-travel mode. Lying on her side, facing the window, she saw a bright orange sun rising on the horizon, portending another blazing day.
Rafe slept soundly behind her. Even with the rolled blanket that separated them, at his insistence, Helen was intensely aware of the man. His heat, his scent, his masculinity.
She couldn’t imagine what had happened to her carefully controlled defenses last night, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the night’s events, either. How it felt to be kissed by Rafe’s lips. How she had opened herself for his touch. She tried to remember ever feeling that way with Elliott, or any other man. She couldn’t.
Sliding herself quietly off the bed, Helen looked down at Rafe. He slept on his stomach, arms thrown over his head with total abandon, boxer-clad legs spread slightly, face to the side. The long, luxuriant lashes of his closed lids fanned his face. He breathed softly through parted lips.
Helen’s heart grew and grew with a strong, new emotion. She was drawn to him, always had been. She couldn’t deny that. But why? Logically, there should be more things about him to repel her than attract. His maverick personality. His lack of patriotism. His greed. His crudity and constant teasing.
Oh, he was handsome, no doubt about that, but she was surrounded by men everyday, many of them much better looking.
Intelligence? Hmmm. She’d always been drawn to a man with intelligence, and Rafe clearly fit that criterion. His reputation as a top-notch lawyer hadn’t come easy.
Sexual chemistry? Yes, there was that. To the nth degree.
But, no, it was something else — perhaps the vulnerability that she always sensed in him over his ethnic background. His extreme sensitivity probably resulted from a lifetime of hurts she couldn’t fathom. And the needful, yearning expression in his eyes when he watched her sometimes in an unguarded moment… Well, what woman wouldn’t be flattered?
Helen shook her head in confusion, not sure she wanted to understand this thread that connected them. He was a dangerous man, dangerous to her well-planned military life, her well-planned future, her very well-being. Taboo. Off-limits. Not to be considered.
Still, Helen had something she needed to do for Rate this morning, before he awakened. Dressing quickly, she took a few gold coins from the sack, strapped a holster and gun around her hips, and slipped out the door, locking it behind her.
Down on the empty street, she looked about, trying to locate Lily’s Fandango Parlor.
“Oooohm. Oooohm. Oooohm. Oooohm.”
Rafe awakened reluctantly from the best sleep he’d had in days.
Oh, no! Not again. He buried his head under a pillow, trying to wipe out the sound.
“Oooohm… Oh, you’re awake… Oooohm… Good… Oooohm… Give me a minute…. Oooohm… I only have two more sets to go…. Oooohm… I brought you coffee and a cinnamon bun…. Oooohm”
His eyes shot open. Where did she get coffee? Unless she’d gone out. She wouldn’t! Would she?
He sat up, holding the pillow in his hand.
Helen sat all twisted into a pretzel at the bottom of the bed, facing the window, fully dressed in camouflage pants and green T-shirt, wearing his gun belt. A quick glance at the door showed the wooden brace was not in the same place he’d put it last night.
Yep, Helen had gone out this morning while he’d slept. The realization hit him in the gut like a sickening sucker punch.
“Oooohm. Oooohm. Oooohm. Oooohm.”
Angrily, he pitched the pillow.
“Oooohm. Oooohm. Ooooh — ”
The pillow hit her smack in her chanting mouth. Good!
“Why did you do that? I wasn’t done,” she protested.
“Oh, you’re done all right.” He stood abruptly.