Chapter 243
Ariel doesn’t come up once the dinner is served and Rafe scowls at her portion, growing cold on its plate.
God damn sisters. Why does she have to be so…willful, always pushing forward on her instincts, blurting things out or taking insane actions just because it “feels” right?
And what even is going on with her sudden complete trust of Tony? What the hell -
Inwardly, his wolf pauses Rafe’s train of thoughts by giving his heart a lazy nudge with his snout. She’s very rarely wrong, his wolf says, taking a deep, calm breath and letting his eyes drift shut. Just like mom. Stop getting so worked up about it and just trust her.
Even though he knows his wolf is right – that he should just trust Ariel and calm down - Rafe grits his teeth against this advice. Because…she’s his little sister. If anything ever happened to her…
But he shakes the thought away, dismissing it, knowing it’s not useful.
It just…it makes it so hard to protect her when Ariel’s so chaotic – just flying by the seat of her pants. It was one thing last semester when Ari stuck close to him and Jesse, when they were able to take her under their wing a bit and make sure that she was safe. But now that she’s getting more independence? In her own classes, with her own tutors – one of which an insane woman, at that – walking around the castle by herself?
Rafe exhales a deep sigh through his teeth, letting his head fall back against the chair.
“You all right, man?” Ben asks, looking at Rafe a little askance from his place on the couch as he works on some notes for a speech he has to give in a few days.
“What?” Rafe asks, opening his eyes, his word snappier than he means it to be.
“Oh, nothing,” Ben says, looking at him levelly. “I just noticed that you were grinding your teeth so hard that they might just crack. Or be worn down into a find sand. Not very useful, for a wolf.”
Rafe stares at his friend for a second before huffing a laugh and dropping his forehead into his hand. “Am I that obvious?”
“Not to all. I am just…exceptionally perceptive and attuned to your every mood,” Ben murmurs, smirking and turning back to his notebook.
Rafe laughs at this too, shaking his head, looking over at where Jesse and Luca are sitting on the floor with some books spread around them, Jesse teaching Luca some methods for using multiple sources in one research paper.
“Seriously, what’s bugging you?” Ben murmurs, curious enough to invite conversation but passive enough to be brushed away if Rafe isn’t in the mood for it. Rafe smiles a little, glancing over at Ben, appreciating again just how good he is at social situations.
“Just…worried about Ariel,” Rafe replies on a sigh.
“Ah, your favorite hobby,” Ben says, lifting his head. “She’s good, Rafe. Seriously. You need to…let go a little bit. Relax. Try to calm down and concentrate instead of worrying about the thousand ways she could get murdered in the halls of this castle.”
“You’ve only counted a thousand?” Rafe asks, dry, raising an eyebrow. “I’m up to twenty-five hundred.”
Ben laughs and shakes his head, turning his attention back to the books. “You need to let off some steam, your highness,” he murmurs. “Before you tear that armchair to pieces, the way you’re clutching it.”
Rafe looks down at his hands and sighs again when he sees that he is digging his fingers into the chair - way too tense after such a long day.
And then, suddenly, he realizes that Ben is totally right.
That he does need to relax and take his mind off of things, and there is certainly one thing he’d rather be doing than sitting around worrying about his sister.
Rafe suddenly stands, grabbing Ariel’s plate off the table and striding for the door with it in his hand.
“Wha-! Where are you going!?” Jesse’s face is shocked as he calls after his cousin.
“I’ll be back later,” Rafe calls over his shoulder, not bothering to answer. “Don’t wait up.”
As the door slams behind him, Jesse’s face falls, his skin going a little ashen.
Because he’s well aware that there’s only one place that Rafe’s likely to be heading at this hour, and it’s not to the gym where Ariel is training with her new combat instructor.
The room is quiet for a long moment.
“Come on, man,” Luca says, his voice kind and a little pitying as he reaches out and pats Jesse on the back. “Just…pay attention to this. You were really helping me.”
Jesse scowls and takes a deep breath, glancing once into Luca’s face before nodding and turning back to their studies.
Downstairs in the bowls of the castle, Daphne tentatively peeks out of her door after hearing three smart raps on it.
When she sees who’s standing out there, holding a plate of food in his hand, her face breaks into a wide, laughing smile. She swings the door open and leans against the frame, staring up into Rafe Sinclair’s pretty green eyes.
“Well, aren’t you a surprise,” she says, beaming at him.
“Thought you might be hungry,” Rafe says, giving a too-casual shrug and holding the plate of food out towards her.
Daphne laughs as she crosses her arms over her chest, a sound and a sight that makes Rafe’s pulse rush more than the hasty walk down here did. God, but she’s beautiful – and that laugh?
He takes a deep breath, working hard to settle the butterflies in his stomach as his wolf eagerly paces back and forth in his soul.
“Come on, Rafe,” Daphne says, nodding towards the already-empty dinner plate resting on the tray by the door. “What did you think, I went starving every night when you didn’t bring me the cold leftovers from your table?”
“Listen, I was just being considerate,” Rafe says, grinning and indulging in a blatant lie, pressing an earnest hand to his heart. “We worry about you, Daphne. About your nutrition, primarily.”
“Well, instead of worrying about my…nutrition,” she murmurs, her voice dropping a little, along with her lashes. “You could tell me why you’re really here.”
Rafe goes still for a moment, trying to think of something witty to say.
But god damn it that was never his realm of expertise –
Suddenly he gives up all pretense and moves, shoving Ariel’s unappetizing decoy plate onto Daphne’s tray in the same moment that he dips low, wrapping an arm around Daphne’s thighs and pulling her up against him, hard and fast, as he moves into the room.
The next moment her mouth is on his as he kicks the door closed, and god – the way she moans – the way she tastes –
He’s nearly undone with it already.
Rafe stumbles over to Daphne’s bed, sinking down onto it, taking her with him. She laughs as they go, kind of delighted, and Rafe is dizzy at the sound of it – the feel of her –
He pulls Daphne tight against him as he lays down in her tiny bed, his head falling back against the pillow, her knees finding a place on either side of his hips. Rafe doesn’t even know how they do it – how they draw breath – between the fervid kisses – each one deeper than the last.
Each one pulling him in further so that he’s drowning in her – in her heat, her scent, the feel of her body beneath his hands. Drowning, and happy to do it – to give it all up, everything.
Things slow then, growing more serious and intent after the shock of his sudden appearance passes. Rafe moves his mouth deliberately over hers, even as his wolf pants in his chest, desperate and aching for her. Still, he moves his hands slowly, exploring every inch of her as they kiss, moving down her back, over the swell of her ass that he can’t help but grasp –
And god, fuck, but the shuddering little gasp that comes out of her when he does that –
He stirs, the weight of her on top of him absolute torture, the clothes between them…an abomination.
His hand slips lower until it reaches the hiked-up hem of her dress, his fingers slipping eagerly beneath -
But suddenly, she pulls away.
“Um, Rafe?”
His eyes slowly open and Rafe looks up at Daphne above him, struck dumb by the way her auburn curls look in this light – casting almost a halo around her head.
She frowns a little, confused at his nonresponse. “Rafe?”
He blinks and swallows, hard, finding his breath. “Yeah?” he says, sitting up a little. “Are you…are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says, smiling at him softly, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I think we just…” she hesitates, biting her lip, and Rafe clenches his teeth as his eyes move immediately to her mouth in that moment.
Because god does he wish that was his teeth right now, doing precisely the same thing.
Daphne laughs a little, and he returns his eyes to hers. “Rafe, I think we just need to…slow down a little?”
Rafe stares at her for a long moment, kind of appalled at the idea, because all he wants in the world right now is to…
But then he blushes scarlet, embarrassed that he hasn’t even bothered to figure out if Daphne is in the same place as he is. If she, too, wants to rip off all their clothes and spend the next several hours so wrapped up in each other that they lose track of time, space. Everything.
And, obviously…he should have checked. Because clearly she does not.
