Marion Lennox - Banksia Bay

They had. Girlfriend and boyfriend. Inseparable. Raff had shared her first kiss. It had felt … It had felt …

No. ‘We were kids,’ she managed. ‘We were dumb in all sorts of ways.’

He was too close, she decided. It was too dark. She should be back in her nice safe house waiting for Philip to come home. She shouldn’t be remembering being kissed by her first boyfriend.

‘I loved kissing you,’ he said and it wasn’t just her remembering.

‘It didn’t mean …’

‘Maybe it did. There’s this thing,’ he said.

‘What thing?’ But she shouldn’t have asked because, the moment she had, she knew what he was talking about. Or maybe she’d known all along.

This thing? This frisson, an electric current, an indefinable thing that was tugging her closer …

No. She had to go home. ‘Raff …’

‘You really want to be Mrs Philip Dexter? What a waste.’

‘Leave it! ‘

‘Choose someone else, Abby. Marrying him? You’re burying yourself.’

‘I am not.’

‘Does he make you sizzle?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Does he? You know, I can’t imagine it. Good old Philip, knocking your socks off. Are you racing home now to have hot sex?’

‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.’

‘You see, it’s such a waste,’ he said, and suddenly he was even closer, big and bad and dangerous.

Big, bad and dangerous? Certainly dangerous. His hand came up and cupped her chin, forcing her to look up at him, and her sense of danger deepened. But she couldn’t pull away.

‘I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t Philip,’ he told her and she wondered if he knew the effect he was having on her. She wondered if he could sense how her body was reacting. ‘I’ve known since Ben died that nothing could bring back what was between you and me. But there are men out there who could bring you alive again. Men who’d like Kleppy.’

‘Philip will like Kleppy.’

‘Liar.’

He was gazing down into her eyes, holding her to truth.

She should break away. She could break away, she thought wildly. He was only holding her chin—nothing more. She could step back, get into the car and drive home.

To Philip.

She could. But he was gazing down into her eyes and he was still asking questions.

‘So tell me he makes you sizzle.’

‘I …’

‘He doesn’t, does he?’ Raff said in grim satisfaction. ‘But there are guys out there who could—who could find out what you’re capable of—what’s beneath your prissy lawyer uniform. Because you’re still there, somewhere. The Abby I … ‘

He paused. There was a moment’s loaded silence when the whole world stilled. The Abby I …

She should push away. She should …

She couldn’t.

She tilted her face, just a little.

The moment stretched on. The darkness stretched on.

And then he kissed her. As inevitably as time itself, he kissed her.

She couldn’t move. She didn’t move. She froze. And then.

Heat. Fire. The contact, lips against lips, was a tiny point but that point sizzled, caught, burned and her whole body started heating. Her face was tilted to his but he had no need to hold her. It was as if she was melting against him—into him.

Raff …

He broke away, just a little, and his eyes blazed in the moonlight. ‘Abby,’ he said and it was a rough, angry whisper. ‘Abby.’

‘I …’

‘Does he do this?’ he demanded. He snagged her arms and held them behind her but this was no forceful hold. It was as if her arms might get in the way, could interfere, and nothing must. Nothing could.

She was paralysed, she was burning, but she couldn’t escape. She didn’t want to escape. What was between them … It sizzled. Tugged as if searching for oxygen.

He was watching her in the moonlight, his eyes questioning. She wouldn’t answer. She couldn’t.

She was being held by Raff. A man she’d once loved.

She found herself lifting herself, tiptoe.

So her mouth could meet his again.

This morning she’d fantasised about Raff Finn. Sex on legs. But this …

If she’d expected anything it was a kiss of anger, a kiss of sexual tension, passion, nothing more. And maybe it had started like that. But it was changing.

His kiss was tender, aching, even loving. It was as unexpected as ice within a fire, heating, cooling, sizzling all at once. She’d never felt anything like this—she’d never known sensations like this could exist.

Raff.

He’d released her hands and they were free to do as she willed. Her will was that her hands were behind his back, drawing him closer, for how could she not want him close?

Sense had flown. Thoughts had flown. There was only this man. There was only this need.

There was only now.

Raff.

Did she say his name?

Maybe she did, or maybe it was just a sigh, deep in her throat, a sound of pure sensual pleasure. Of taking something she’d never dreamed she could have. Of sinking into the forbidden, of the longed for, of a memory she’d have to put away quite soon but not yet, please, not yet.

Oh, but his mouth … Clever and warm and beguiling, it was coaxing her to places she had no business going, but she wanted, oh, she wanted to be there. She was helpless, melting into him, degree by achingly wonderful degree.

He was irresistible.

She was … appalled.

Somehow, she had to break this. Her head was screaming at her, neon danger signs flashing through her sensual need. No!

‘No!’ It came out a muffled whisper. If he didn’t hear … if he ignored it, how could she say it again?

Did she want him to hear it?

But he did, he had, and the wrench as he put her away from him was indescribable. He let her go. He stepped back from her and his eyes in the moonlight were almost as dazed as hers.

But then his face hardened, tightened, and she knew he was moving on.

As she must.

Her mother’s voice…. Keep away from the Finn boy. He’s trouble.

He surely was. She was kissing him nine days before her wedding. She was risking all—for the Finn boy?

‘I …’

‘Just go, Abby,’ he said and she didn’t recognise his voice. It was harsh and raw and she could even imagine there was pain. ‘Get out of here. You know you don’t want this.’

‘Of course I don’t.’

‘Then take your dog and go. I’ll see you in court.’

Of course she would. She’d see him and he’d be back to being the local cop and she’d be a lawyer sitting beside her fiancé, trying to pretend tonight had never happened.

But it had happened. The feel of his mouth on hers was with her still.

She caught herself, gasped and thumped down into the driver’s seat before she could change her mind.

‘That was ridiculous,’ she managed. ‘How…. how dare you …?’

‘You wanted it as much as I did.’

‘Then we’re both stupid.’

‘We are,’ he said gravely. ‘We were. But heaven help us, Abby, if we’re stupid still.’

ABBY drove home in a daze. She felt ill. The feel of Raff’s mouth on hers wouldn’t go—it felt as if her lips were surely bruised and yet she knew they couldn’t be.

There had been tenderness in his kiss. It hadn’t been onesided. He hadn’t been brutal.

It had been a kiss of …

No. Don’t even think about it.

Kleppy put out his paw in a gesture she was starting to know. Giving comfort as well as taking it. The feel of him beside her was absurdly comforting.

Almost as if he was a little part of Raff …

And there was a dopey thing to think. The whole night had been dopey, she thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Imagine if she ever thought there could be anything between herself and Raff. Imagine the heartbreak.