It Started With A Kiss: The Secret Love-Child / Facing Up to Fatherhood / Not a Marrying Man

‘Love I can do without from now on.’

Rafe looked at her. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Love still has a certain appeal.’

‘I can’t see what. It makes you do things. Stupid things. Irrational things.’

‘Mmm. You could be right there.’ Because for the next two days he was going to do the stupidest, most irrational things in his life!

‘Where on earth is that food?’ Isabel said irritably.

‘It’ll be here soon. Meanwhile, have some more champagne,’ he added, and topped up her glass. ‘Good, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. But if I don’t eat soon it’ll go straight to my head. I have a very low intoxication level with champagne. It can make me tipsy quicker than anything else.’

‘Is that so? Well, there’s no worry in being a bit tipsy, is there? It won’t make you do anything later that you wouldn’t be doing anyway.’

The eyes she set upon him over the rim of her glass were very dry. ‘My, aren’t we full of the sauce tonight?’

I hope so, Rafe thought ruefully. Because my sauce is going to have to work very hard to do the job from now on. He didn’t dare cut the whole top off every condom he used during the next two days. She might notice. He really could only risk a pin-prick or two. Except perhaps tonight…

Isabel’s powers of observation could very well be limited if she got well and truly sloshed. If he was clever with what position he used, he might get away with not using anything at all.

The thought excited, then worried him.

It was a stupid thing to do, as she said. Stupid and irrational. She didn’t love him. She wouldn’t marry him. At best, he would be a father to their child at a distance, having limited access.

But so what? he thought recklessly. He was still going to do it, wasn’t he?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ISABEL woke with a moan on her lips. The sun was shining in through the open doorway of the bure, indicating Rafe was already up, probably having his early-morning swim.

‘That man must have a constitution of iron,’ she muttered as she dragged aside the mosquito net and tried to sit up. But the room spun alarmingly and there was a bongo drummer—complete with drums—inside her head.

With a low groan, Isabel sank back carefully onto the pillows then ever so slowly rolled onto her side. The room gradually stopped spinning.

It was then that she saw the tall glass of water sitting next to the bed, alongside a foil sheet of painkillers.

‘What a thoughtful thing to do,’ she murmured, though not yet daring to move. In a minute she would take a couple of those pills Rafe had left her. Meanwhile, she would close her eyes and just do nothing.

Isabel closed her eyes and tried to do nothing, but her mind was by now wide awake. She began thinking about last night after dinner. In the end, they hadn’t got anyone else to run them back to their jetty. Rafe had said he was fine to operate the boat and she’d been far too tipsy to worry.

Tipsy! Hardly an adequate word to describe her state of intoxication. She’d been seriously sloshed. Not Rafe though, yet he’d consumed as many glasses of wine as she had. Or had he? Perhaps not. He’d talked a lot between courses, and she’d just sat there, sipping her wine and listening to him like some fatuous female fool, thinking how gorgeous he was and how stupid Liz was to dump him.

No, Isabel finally conceded. Rafe hadn’t consumed nearly as much wine as she had. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to make such beautiful love to her as he had after they’d come home.

Not that she could remember it all. Some bits were pretty hazy. But she could remember the feel of his hands on her as he undressed her and caressed her. So gentle and tender. The same with his kisses. His mouth had flowed all over her and she had dissolved from one orgasm to another.

She’d never known climaxes could be like that. Blissful and relaxing. Her bones had felt like water by the time he’d rolled her onto her side, rather like she was lying now. Only last night Rafe’s naked body had been curled around her back.

Isabel’s stomach contracted at the thought. That was one thing she hadn’t forgotten. How he’d felt when he’d first slipped inside her. She moaned at the memory. It had felt so good. Even better when he’d begun to move.

Never had she been so lost in a man’s arms, her mind and body like mush. She hadn’t come again. But, Rafe must have. She had a vague recollection of his crying out. But after that, all memory ceased. She must have fallen asleep. And now here she was the next morning with a parched mouth and a vicious headache, whilst Rafe was down at the beach, no doubt bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

A shadow fell across the corner of her eye and she rolled over just enough to see Rafe walk through the sun-drenched doorway. His dark silhouette eventually lightened to reveal that she’d been right. He had been swimming, thankfully dressed in board shorts. She couldn’t cope with him in full-frontal nudity this morning.

‘How’s the head?’ he said as he walked towards the bed.

‘Awful. Many thanks for the tablets and the water.’

‘My pleasure. And it was,’ he added with a devilish grin.

‘Don’t be cocky. I was pretty plastered.’

‘So I noticed. You know you’re very agreeable when you’re plastered.’

‘I really couldn’t say. Last night is somewhat hazy.’

‘You mean you can’t remember anything?’

Isabel caught an odd note in Rafe’s question. Was he pleased or offended? ‘I didn’t say that. I said hazy, as in…hazy.’

‘Ahh. Hazy. Hazy word, hazy.’

‘You were pretty good, if that’s what you’re waiting for.’

He smiled. ‘That’s nice to hear.’

‘Different, though.’

Rafe’s stomach flipped over. ‘Different?’ he asked, trying not to panic. ‘In what way, different?’

She shrugged. ‘Gentler. Sweeter. Different.’

Rafe smiled his relief. ‘Well, I didn’t need to rush it. You weren’t making any of your usual control-losing demands.’

Isabel was taken aback. ‘What do you mean, control-losing demands?’

‘Honey, you have a very impatient nature when it comes to sex. It’s always faster, Rafe. Harder. Deeper. Again. More. No more. Stop. Don’t stop. The list is endless.’

‘That’s not true!’ she denied hotly.

‘Perhaps a slight exaggeration on my part. But it was still a rather nice change to know I could take my time and do exactly what I wanted to do with your total cooperation. I really enjoyed it.’

And how! Rafe thought.

Any apprehension over his bold decision not to use any protection had disappeared once he’d put his plans into action. Knowing that a child could possibly result from his lovemaking had added an emotional dimension Rafe hadn’t anticipated. When he’d felt his seed spilling into her he’d thought his heart would burst with elation. And when she’d gone to sleep in his arms afterwards he’d been consumed by feelings so powerful and deep that they’d revolutionised his ideas on what loving a person was all about.

Seeing Liz last night was the best thing that could have happened to him. What a fool he’d been, choosing a solitary life for fear of being hurt again. Fair enough to withdraw into his cave for a while. But it had been years, for pity’s sake. Years of keeping women at a distance, except sexually, and telling himself—and everyone else—that he didn’t want marriage and a family, when the truth was he’d become too much of a coward to risk his male ego a second time. He’d been afraid of being dumped again, afraid of rejection.

Not any more. He was going to take a leaf out of Isabel’s book and go after what he wanted. Which was her as his wife as well as the mother of his child. Or children. Heck, he wasn’t going to stop at just one. He’d hated being an only child.

But he couldn’t tell her all that yet. He couldn’t even tell her how much he loved her. She wasn’t ready for such an announcement. But she would be, in time. And when Mother Nature eventually took her course.

It was to be hoped that last night had done the trick. But if it hadn’t, he’d already doctored a few more condoms for today. If at first you don’t succeed, Rafe, then try, try again.

Trying again had never looked so pleasurable. Pity she had a hangover. Still, that would pass.

‘God, I can’t stand people looking perky when I’m dying,’ Isabel grumbled.

‘What you need is a refreshing swim,’ Rafe suggested.

She groaned. ‘My head is already swimming, thank you very much. Do you think I could con you into getting me a cup of coffee?’

He jumped up off the foot of the bed. ‘One steaming mug of sweet black coffee coming up!’

Isabel groaned again. Not only perky, but energetic. He even started whistling.

Still, she had to concede Rafe wasn’t anything like she’d first thought. Oh, she didn’t doubt he was a bit of a ladies’ man. And marriage and children were not part of his life plan. But he wasn’t at all arrogant, or selfish. He was actually quite considerate, and highly sensitive. That Liz female had really hurt him, stupid greedy amoral woman that she was.

His dad’s death had scarred him as well. Isabel had been moved last night when Rafe had told her how his father had been a country rep for a wine company, travelling all over New South Wales, selling his products into hotels and clubs and restaurants. Rafe had been just eight when his dad’s car had hit a kangaroo at night and careered off the road into a tree, killing him instantly. Unfortunately, his father hadn’t been a great success as a salesman—a bit of a dreamer, though in the nicest possible way—and money had been tight for his widow and son after his demise.

But he’d been a great success as a dad. Clearly, Rafe had adored him. His voice had choked up when he’d told Isabel that the only things his father had left him in a material sense were a camera and a pair of phantom’s-head cuff-links. Father and son had had a real thing for the Phantom, his Dad always bringing Rafe home a Phantom Comic after he’d been away. They would always read it together that night. Isabel had been moved to hear that, when one of the prized cuff-links had been lost during a house move Rafe had had the other made into an earring and never took it off for fear of losing it as well. How he must have loved that man!

It was a pity he shied away from being a father himself. With his dad’s example to go by, he’d probably be a very good one.

She sighed. That was the incorrigible romantic in her talking again. Next thing she’d have him returning with her coffee and saying he’d changed his mind about what he wanted in life, after which he’d declare his undying love and beg her to marry him.

Fat chance!

‘Here’s your coffee, lover. Now, stop all that sighing and drink up. Oh, for pity’s sake, you haven’t even taken your headache tablets yet. Or drunk the water. How do you expect to feel better unless you rehydrate yourself? No, no coffee for you till you’ve done the right thing. And there’ll be no more drinking to excess in future. It’s no good for you.’

Isabel glared at him. ‘And there I was, thinking you weren’t the bullying bossy pain in the neck I’d first met. But I was deluding myself. The only reason you want me to feel better is so that you can have more of what you got last night.’

He grinned the cheekiest sexiest grin. ‘You could be right there.’

Isabel glowered at him as she popped two tablets into her mouth and swallowed the water.

‘A shower or the sea?’ he said, eyeing her rather salaciously where the sheet had slipped down to her waist.

Isabel didn’t have to look down to know what he was seeing. Maybe she wasn’t too perky this morning, but her nipples still were.

And she was so wet down there it wasn’t funny.

‘I think a spa bath is in order,’ she said. ‘Alone,’ she added firmly.

‘I could scrub your back,’ Rafe offered.

‘No.’

‘Spoilsport.’

‘And then, after breakfast, I’d like to do something unenergetic. I noticed there was a pack of cards in the cupboard over there.’

‘Cards,’ he repeated drily. He hated playing cards. His mother was a fanatic at euchre and cribbage, and used to rope him in when she couldn’t find another partner. She always won so there hadn’t been much fun in it for him.

‘There’s plenty of other games in there as well, if you’d prefer,’ she went on, no doubt hearing his reluctance.

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