His hair was dark and just a little too long, his skin was tanned, his jaw was dark with stubble, and he was so big and tall that she knew she’d have to stand on her tippy-toes and wrap her arms around his neck to kiss him.
The thought of doing something like that had her body instantly going warm all over despite the cool breeze on her wet skin. She’d been little more than a child the first time she remembered setting eyes on Rafe, but even then, he’d stood out from the rest of his siblings as more fun. More daring. And infinitely more beautiful.
When he still didn’t say anything, she took a step in his direction. "It’s me, Rafe. Brooke Jansen. Remember?"
Finally, the intensity of his dark gaze shifted into one of recognition. "Little Brooke," he said in a low voice that rippled over her, "how could I forget you?"
She had spent far too many years squashing her wild impulses. But following a wild impulse wasn’t what sent her straight into the arms of her favorite Sullivan without a second thought. It was pure happiness at finally seeing him again.
He caught her against his chest as she hugged him tight. He smelled so good and the bare patch of skin above his T-shirt was so warm despite the cool evening air that she couldn't resist burying her face against him. As she held on tight, she felt safer than she had in years. She’d lost too many of her favorite people from childhood, and was infinitely grateful to be given the precious gift of one of them back in her life.
She might have held on to him like that forever if it hadn’t been for her sudden realization of just how good his hard, heated muscles felt against her cold, wet, nearly bare skin.
The little girl inside her had thrown herself into his arms...but it was the woman she’d become who wanted to move even closer.
When she was eight years old, the crush she’d had on Rafe was sweet. Innocent. But what she was feeling now was decidedly not sweet.
Nor was it anywhere close to innocent.
Wild. The thought—no, it was more desire and pure need than it was a cognizant thought—came at her in an instant: I want to be wild with Rafe Sullivan.
But they hadn’t seen each other in more than fifteen years—more than enough time for him to have a wife and family, or at the very least, a girlfriend he adored. When Brooke made herself step back from him, she belatedly remembered she was still wearing only her bathing suit. A very wet bikini she hadn’t thought anyone would see her in. One that had just soaked the front of his jacket and pants.
She would have tried to cover herself up with her hands if she’d thought it would do any good, but even though she could hardly get her brain to function properly again standing this close to Rafe Sullivan, she knew there was no point.
The bikini was too small, and her curves were too big.
Flustered, all she could think to say was, "I got you all wet."
Rafe didn’t look down at his clothes, nor did his gaze travel below her chin. "How’s the water?"
She loved the fact that even though they hadn’t seen each other in years, he asked her the question as though it was just another great day on the lake.
"Amazing." Suddenly, it occurred to her that the sold sign had been put up just before Rafe arrived. Hope lit within her. "Please tell me you just bought your old house back."
"Mia’s a real estate broker in Seattle. She saw it come up on her listings." He stared at Brooke with dark eyes that warmed her even as the air continued to cool. "I didn’t expect to see you still here after all these years."
"I moved to the lake full time a few years ago."
"To live with your grandparents?"
Just that quickly, her smile fell. "No." She wrapped her arms around herself. "They passed away a few years ago." Her voice shook as she told him, "A car accident."
"Brooke, I’m so sorry. Judy and Frank were two truly great people."
His arms came back around her, and she could have soaked up his heat, his strength, forever. Instead, she made herself shift away again to stand on her own two feet. "I was just thinking how it didn’t seem right that there weren’t any Sullivans next door, and then just like magic, you appeared. You must be dying to get inside your place. I haven’t been in it since it became a vacation rental. When the for sale sign went up, I sneaked over and peeked in the windows to see if it still looked the same, but they were all covered so I couldn’t see much."
He raised an eyebrow, and from what she could read in his dark eyes, he seemed amused by what she’d just admitted. "Sneaking around? Peeking in windows? That doesn’t sound like the sweet little girl I knew."
She shot him what she hoped was a saucy grin, even though she’d never been anything close to saucy at any point in her life. "I’m not a little girl anymore."
"No," he said in that low voice that made her hot and cold all over at the same time, "you’re definitely not."
Despite the fact that he wasn’t ogling her, the intensity of his gaze had her shivering and the breath catching in her lungs. She’d dated several nice men since college—safe, steady men her parents had wholly approved of—but none of them had ever made her feel like this. Especially with nothing more than a few simple words.
Wild.
The word echoed again in her head as Rafe said, "Come inside with me, and we can check the place out, see how it looks."
She briefly considered heading back over to her house to put something on over her bathing suit, but since she’d already been talking with him in nothing but her bikini for this long, it would be silly to start acting all self-conscious and proper now. Especially when he wasn’t exactly jumping her, or anything. Besides, wasn’t this what the lake had always been about? Running around in bathing suits all day and only throwing on a well-worn pair of jeans and a faded sweatshirt when it grew too cold at night to ignore the chill.
"I’d love to," she said, and then they were walking side by side toward his front door.
Running his hand down the door, he said, "Needs a new paint job," more to himself than to her. "Mia said the key should be hidden under a rock by the entrance."
Brooke scanned the porch with him but didn’t see anything that looked like it was hiding a key. She was about to step off the porch to check the grass in front of the house for a key that might have blown off the porch during a windstorm, when Rafe pulled something shiny out of his pocket and wiggled it in the old lock.