Seduced by the Baron (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 4) (10 page)

“So, how are we going to manage this?” Faith asked, turning to look at Raf.

He looked at her too. “Manage what?”

“You being here? Are you going to be here all day every day for a month?” Just saying it out loud caused her breath to hitch. How was she ever going to get any work done with him walking around in his Levis?

He leaned his forearms on the bar and angled his head closer. “I can be if you want me to be.”

Every traitorous cell in her body wanted her to say
yes.
But that wasn’t the point of her question. She wasn’t flirting with him. She gave him a stern look. “I’m trying to be serious, here. I haven’t quite figured out the logistics of how this works.”

“I’ll be here a lot. Not always continuously. I’ll have business to attend to on and off but every night, yes.”

Every night. God, she’d see him
every
night.

“Do you,” she said, clearing her throat from a sudden attack of sexual paralysis, “need me to introduce you to customers or – ”

He reached a hand across the bar and placed it over the top of hers. It was big and warm and there were those veins again. His finger stroked her knuckles and Faith felt it right between her legs.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he assured her.

The door opened and Faith snatched her hand away. Raf quirked his eyebrow at her but withdrew his hand as Pop entered chattering with a couple of the regulars.

“Just pretend I’m not here, Faith.” Then with a quick smile he walked away heading for the two men settling themselves at the very end of the bar.

Pretend he wasn’t here?

Right
.

*

Just after ten
that night Faith was ushered into a cab by Raf. She’d been wary about how the day was going to unfold but she needn’t have been. Raf, who’d clearly kissed the Blarney Stone at some stage in his life had not only charmed almost everyone into trying his lager but hadn’t been afraid to pitch in and help when things got a little hectic around the dinnertime rush. He’d also covered for her while she’d ducked upstairs for a quick shower and change of clothes just before closing.

Of course that had been to his total advantage because she looked pretty damn hot even if she did say so herself in her best pair of jeans, her knee-high black boots and her favorite red shirt that did amazing things for her cleavage. Zel had confirmed it with a bawdy whistle as Faith had performed a pirouette for her in the family room.

“Ooh, fuck-me boots, good move,” she’d said as she handed over a strip of condoms. The non-bacon kind. “Put them in your pocket, bags can get lost in the heat of the moment and don’t come back until you’ve used all of them.”

Ty had grumbled about having to witness his little sister being given
condoms
but he’d kissed her and told her to have a good time and not to rush back.

And now here she was.

In an Uber cab with Raf, armed with condoms and fuck-me boots and so damn nervous she wanted to throw up.

He eyed her lazily as the taxi got going, his gaze lingering on her boots. “You’re a long way away over there,” he mused.

“Yes.” Because frankly she didn’t trust herself any nearer to him. It was too intimate in the confines of the cab. The long length of his thigh was too damn close. She could just reach out her hand and touch it. And his scent invaded every corner, bathing her in sun and surf. Damn it, she could almost hear the waves breaking on the shore and the seagulls overhead.

He chuckled and the vibrations it caused undulated towards her, stroking along her belly as if he’d trailed his fingers there.

“Why don’t you slide a bit closer?” he asked, patting the seat beside him.

“I like a window seat.”

Another chuckle. More stroking. “Chicken,” he murmured then slid himself across. She almost whimpered when his thigh snuggled up to hers. “Now this is better, don’t you think?”

Faith looked up into his face. It was dark but she could easily make out every sexy contour. His cheekbones, his strong jaw, his stubble. The wicked tilt to his mouth. A light from a passing car flashed across his features revealing a whole lot more in his eyes.

The kinds of things she’d seen in the basement.

“Yes,” she said, dragging her gaze back to the window again. She didn’t trust herself this close to him with her body on high alert. She really did not want to give the Uber driver something to gossip about or become the next internet sensation should there be some kind of camera on board.

The forty-five minute trip was torture and Faith had never been so happy to reach a destination in her life. Sitting so close, aware of him at a cellular level, not speaking, just touching –
waiting
 – had tested her sexual mettle in ways she never wanted to be tested again.

She reached for the door handle and stumbled out while Raf paid. It was, as he had predicted, freezing but she didn’t care, she was too damn hot anyway. She sucked the cold air into burning lungs welcoming the cooling effect.

“This way,” she said, relaxing a little now they were in a public space, with public scrutiny. She needed the propriety of being with other people.

Inside there were plenty of people too and Faith relaxed fully as they made their way to the skate counter. A perky blonde smiled at Raf and cooed, “Ooh, big feet,” when he requested his size and Faith felt a rather irrational urge to crunch the blade of her skate down on blonde-and-perky’s manicured fingers. But even her eyes widened when the girl handed over an enormous pair of skates.

They surrendered their coats but kept their jackets, scarves and gloves. Faith would normally have crammed a woollen hat on too but there was no way she was going to have any kind of hat hair tonight.

“Go on out whenever you’re ready,” she chirped. “We close at midnight.”

They found a place to sit and put on their skates looking out at the well-lit, open-air rink. “I can’t believe there are so many people out this late in the freezing cold on a Monday night,” he said as he sank one huge foot into the boot.

“This is nothing,” she said. “You should be here at Christmas.”

They booted up quickly. Faith pulled on her gloves and he followed suit. She stood. “You need some help?”

He smiled. “I think I’ll be okay til the ice at least. But – ” he stood too and he was close and tall and incredibly sexy and he smelled like a long hot summer, “I think I’ll hold on to this – ” He slipped his gloved hand into hers and Faith’s heart tripped a little in her chest. “Just to be on the safe side.”

How Faith made her legs move when they were so busy swooning she had no idea but somehow she did and they were outside and on the ice, Raf grasping the hip high railing.

“Why don’t we just go around the perimeter a couple of times?” she suggested. “Til you get your ice legs?”

“Sounds like a good plan to me.”

Faith, who’d been skating since she was three years old, was content to plod along while he stuck close to the railing. Some of the people on the ice were more than proficient, twirling around and around, happy and laughing, puffing little clouds into the frigid air with their warm breaths. Others were less so.

After one turn around the rink Raf announced. “I think I got it. I’m ready to take off the training wheels.”

She laughed. “Oh really? Just because you haven’t fallen on your butt yet doesn’t mean you won’t.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s the only way to learn.”

“Is that how you approach everything in life?”

He pushed away from the edge. “Absolutely.”

And of course, he was good at it. Faith had the feeling that Rafael Quartermaine would be good at
anything
he did. Probably
everything
he did. She skated along beside him. He wasn’t fast but he was surprisingly sure-footed. “You have good balance,” she said after a slow but successful second revolution.

“I should hope so,” he laughed. “I would suck at surfing if I didn’t.”

Of course. The man had stood on a board and ridden monster waves – he should be a natural.

“Now all I need is to get the hang of corners and get some speed going.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a true male.” Having grown up with four brothers she’d witnessed their need for speed in everything they did.

“So,” he said, “teach me. You said you would.”

A rather hilarious impromptu lesson followed by the end of which Raf was handling himself very well for a relative newbie. “Okay, I think I have the hang of this,” he said as he perfected a pretty damn impressive snow plough stop in the middle of the rink.

“You’re a quick study,” Faith conceded.

A couple holding hands skated around them. The guy twirled the girl around into a pirouette. Raf looked at her. “Let’s do that.”

Faith laughed. “Oh no. I think we’ll just stick with the basics, thanks.”

“Now who’s the chicken?”

“Me.” She had no problems admitting to that. “I don’t want to spend the night in an emergency room.”

His gaze held hers for long moments before dropping to her mouth. “Not what I had in mind, either.”

Faith’s legs felt decidedly unsteady on the ice as exactly what he did have in mind blazed in his eyes and suddenly she was right back in the basement.

He held out his hand. “Care to join me this time?”

Faith sucked in a breath and apart from one little wobble on their push off they fell easily into sync.

“Wow,” Raf said after a beat or two. She glanced at him but he was looking all around like he’d just discovered where they were. “I’ve been so busy looking down at my feet I missed the best part.”

The flags lining the perimeter of the rink fluttered in a cold breeze as the blazing skyscrapers of Manhattan soared above them.

“This is beautiful,” he muttered on an exhaled breath, sounding particularly Australian amidst the very American landscape. “And that,” he said stopping in front of the huge golden statue of Prometheus, “is one helluva statue.”

“You should see it at Christmas,” Faith said. “A big ass Christmas tree sits above the statue and towers over the whole rink and it’s lit up like a freaking beacon.” She shook her head. “It’s just magical. In fact the whole damn city is magical. I used to beg my mom to bring me here every year as soon as school was out.”

He looked down at her and their gazes meshed for long moments. “I was wrong before. You’re definitely the best part.”

Faith’s breath stuttered in her lungs. Nobody had ever said anything so damn romantic to her in her life. She’d been told she was gorgeous and beautiful and sexy by men who’d been keen to get her into bed but she’d never been told she was the best part of anybody’s anything.

He really had kissed the Blarney stone.

“You’re pretty good too,” she murmured.

Faith wasn’t sure how long they stood in front of the statue just looking at each other but some guy falling on his ass nearby brought them back to reality and they pushed off again, her pulse fluttering as hopelessly as the flags.

They skated in silence for a while, the sound of chatter and laughter and the scrape and chink of blades on ice companionable rather than sexual. Mostly.

“So how did you get into the beer business?” she asked eventually.

“I kind of fell into it really. I did a lot of bar work to fund my surfing career in the early years. When I retired from that – ”

“How old were you then?”

“Twenty-five.”

“That’s young?”

“It was a medical decision. I’d cracked a couple of vertebrae in my lower back and the potential for re-injury was high. I decided I didn’t want to take that risk.”

“Was that a hard decision?” Faith glanced at him. His sandy hair ruffled as they cut through the frigid air currents.

He shook his head. “Not as hard as I thought it’d be.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes. Freezing my butt off in New York this past week? Yes. But…” he looked at her, “not tonight.”

It was just as well that it was freezing on the outside because every time he said something nice to her she melted a little on the inside. Faith dragged her gaze away as they negotiated a bend. “So you just…opened a brewery?”

He shook his head. “I worked for a friend in his micro-brewery for a while then he put it up for sale and my father, who’s very successful in real estate, told me that being a twenty-seven-year-old beach bum was a waste of my potential so I bought it. I don’t think it was quite what he had in mind.”

Faith laughed. “But as a successful businessman himself he must be proud of how well you’ve done?”

“Yeh…sure…”

She heard the hesitation in his voice. “You don’t get along with your dad?”

“We’ve had our moments over the years, our rocky patches, like a lot of fathers and sons I guess. We have a…very different outlook on life.”

Faith couldn’t begin to imagine having a rocky relationship with anyone in her family. Sure, as one of five, there’d been arguments and tears but she always knew her brothers had her back. And her father? Her heart squeezed thinking about how much she loved him.

He was no saint. And very definitely a man of his times. A proud man. The protector. The bread winner. The provider. Working hard to support his family. But he’d always made time for her.