Bound and Determined (27 page)

“Can’t wait,” he said, plunging into her hard, fast. “Come. With me. Now.”

As if on command, Kerry became hyperaware of Rafe’s cock sliding over the sensitive bundle of nerves inside her, then pushing up inside her, all the way to the tingling end of
her channel. One more, two more, three more strokes like that and—

“Rafe!”

She erupted like a volcano, molten and uncontrollable, like a force of nature. The knotted desire in her abdomen released to indescribable ecstasy. It surged through her with the strength and finesse of a charging bull. Her body squeezed him, milked his cock, as he shouted in gratification.

His voice rang in her ear, and she watched the pleasure transform his face from hard angles to a replete, almost peaceful expression. He gasped for one breath, then another, as his movements slowed, then stilled, inside her.

Still panting, Rafe dropped his forehead onto hers. “Unbelievable. Every time amazes me.”

“Me, too,” she admitted. Why lie?

“Why is that?” He spoke as much to himself as to her.

Frowning, she had to admit that having prior experience might have made answering this question easier. On the other hand, Rafe’s question seemed to indicate this was as uncommon as a seventy-five-percent-off sale at an upscale department store. Maybe some chemistry—or feeling—between them caused the riot of need every time they touched.

Kerry wanted to believe it would go away, that in time, she would find someone else equally proficient at lighting up every nerve in her body. She feared otherwise. Somehow, her body had known no other man would please her, and her excuses about not having time for sex and being too distraught . . . they didn’t seem as airtight as before.

Kerry worried that Rafe had imprinted himself somehow into her body’s memory and that no one would ever be able to take his place. Was that because they shared more than mere chemistry?

Rafe’s cell phone broke into their chorus of shallow gasps moments later, shattering the peace. Reluctantly, Rafe extricated himself from her body, climbing from the tangled bedsheets.

Half-listening, Kerry soon realized he was talking to a client from California who’d accidentally erased their security patches and feared an electronic attack. Rafe dealt with the client, giving her time to regroup.

Why
did
their every time together seem to raise the roof and shoot them to the stratosphere? Kerry had only one theory left, and if she dared to say it—which she didn’t—she doubted Rafe would like it any better than she did. After all, what sane man wanted to hear that a woman he’d known only a few days suspected that she loved him?

She had to get away from him soon, before she did something really stupid, like beg him to stay with her forever.

A
lmost midnight.

Toying with the keys on his laptop, Rafe sat in the tropical luxury of the Love Shack’s silver-shadowed patio overlooking the silent turquoise lap of the ocean. He guzzled a beer. It was not his first.

Kerry had suggested he leave. She wouldn’t have said it unless she wanted him gone.

He gave a silent, bitter laugh. Hell, she’d offered to drive him out of her life—after making dinner, of course. Can’t string a man up by his balls on an empty stomach.

Not that he blamed her, really. He’d failed her. And while he’d been getting busy in her bed—and shower and kitchen and floor—at every possible opportunity, she’d been focused on Mark. Once the FBI had disregarded the clues he’d found and refused to listen, Rafe no longer served any purpose in her grand plan. And she’d dumped him.

Had he let it be and moved on? No. He’d played Conan the Caveman, beat his chest, then carried her off by her hair for a good ravishment. Figuratively, of course. Oh, she’d been a good sport tonight, seemingly more than willing. But Kerry
was a woman who kept her word, even when the bargain involved her body.

Tossing back another long swallow of beer, he sighed. Who knew what to think? Just yesterday he’d suspected her of getting too emotionally involved with him. Now he wondered if she’d cried because she felt like she’d been whoring herself for her brother. Because she had thrown away her virginity, giving it to the first stranger who might be able to help her. And he, with an ego as swollen as his ever-ready cock, had simply assumed she cared for him.

What a fucking idiot.

The other head was no better, he thought. For the first time in days, his boxer-briefs weren’t tented. His flaccid state wouldn’t last long around Kerry, he knew. Tying her down and inducing her to orgasm with all the protruding parts of his body hadn’t been enough. An hour later he’d taken her swiftly against the wall. The savage satisfaction at hearing her cry out his name still stunned him.

He was a man with red blood cells who clamored for lush women with Kerry’s sort of enthusiasm. He reveled in the kind of sexual trust she placed in him. Still, Kerry giving her body every time he crooked his finger, in any way he wanted, wasn’t enough. He had her . . . but he knew very well that he didn’t. Despite their bargain, she wasn’t
his
.

Rafe didn’t want to know why that pissed him off.

Something was very wrong. Women were meant to be lusted after, wanted. Women weren’t supposed to be
needed
. And he feared very much that’s where he was at the moment.

How ironic that three days ago he’d wanted nothing more than to escape the woman he’d thought just south of psycho. Now he was pretty sure he needed the psych ward far more than Kerry ever would.

Saying goodbye to her come morning . . . damn it, a part of him didn’t want to. The thought lodged somewhere under his skin, irritating him like a case of the hives. The irrational part of Rafe urged him to race inside and claim her body again, in the hopes she wouldn’t forget him. He had the most insane urge to imprint himself on her, ruin her for any other man.

The more sane part of him told him he was being a moron.

Behind him, French doors opened with a quiet
click
. Rafe didn’t have to turn to know Kerry stood there. He felt it. Peace washed over him. And as evidenced by the fact his cock was again doing its best imitation of a flagpole, lust. Two feelings that, until Kerry, he would have sworn were mutually exclusive.

“I thought I’d find you out here,” she murmured.

Doing his best to look busy, Rafe logged into Standard National’s files. “Yeah.”

He couldn’t look at her. If he did, he’d jump her, rip off whatever she might be wearing, and find some position, comfortable or not, to get inside her, become a part of her. Drown out the clock in his head, ticking away the seconds they had left together. Or he might demand an explanation for being dumped. So he opted for pulling up account files in the bank’s database.

God, he hated this shit. Relationships sucked, and he didn’t want one. He had no idea how to have one anyway. This little . . . tiff with Kerry was a perfect example. She’d dismissed him, or he was pretty sure she had. His experience at interpreting emotions was less than zero. He’d be more successful at building a spaceship without instructions.

At his right, Kerry sighed, then slid into the chair next to him. “I think we should talk.”

Unable to stop himself, Rafe glanced her way. Lavender V-neck top. No bra. Black lace panties tied by minuscule bows on each hip. The whole look had him salivating. Lust made him half-feral, and she wanted to talk? Yeah, right after Tinkerbell sprinkled him with pixie dust and he flew away to Neverland. He gritted his teeth, willing his blood to stop rushing south.

Opting for the safe view, rather than the one that made him think of the soft cries she made as she neared orgasm, he turned back to the computer screen and hit the keys that would open the bank’s transactions for the day.

“Rafe?”

He turned back and saw her face. Kerry didn’t look like her usual, sunny self. A hint of something somber wrinkled her brow. Rafe figured he had something to do with it and swore under his breath.

“Talking is not painful,” she pointed out.

That was her opinion.

Kerry sighed. “Look, I just want you to know I appreciate everything you did for me. We met under . . . unusual circumstances.”

That was one way of putting it. Rafe raised his brows.

“Okay, I had a stupid scheme that was more desperate than smart, and after drugging you and tying you down, we met. More accurate?”

He risked another glance at her. Pale, firm thighs, crossed as if protecting the secrets he knew so well. Kerneled nipples, breeze playing with her pale curls, mouth still swollen from his kisses. Like a pale goddess she was. He could only think things like
here, mine, now
. In contrast, realizing that her first attempt hadn’t gone well, Kerry was probably looking for a gentler way to dump him on his ass.

Not trusting his voice, Rafe shrugged and looked back through Standard National’s records. He scrolled, looking but not seeing much.

Why the hell couldn’t she deliver her Dear John speech and leave him the hell alone?

“By offering to take you home, I was trying to do the right thing and let you get back to your life. I know you have goals, and I hope you reach them. I hope you show that five-million-dollar bank account to your father and that he realizes how smart and successful you are. I wasn’t dissing you, and I certainly didn’t mean to upset you or bruise your male ego or whatever.”

Was he that obvious? Did she suspect, as he did, that the hurt went beyond ego?

Frowning, Rafe glanced at Kerry again. Soft, white throat, sweetly curved cheek, eyes as soft and green as the grassy hills of mist-enshrouded Wiltshire he’d seen on a business trip last year. He rubbed the back of his suddenly tense neck. Now he was waxing poetic about a woman he’d walk away from in a handful of hours? Maybe more sleep would help.

He doubted it.

“I’m over it,” he lied. “What are you going to do about Mark now?”

Kerry sighed, shoulders slumping. She looked exhausted.
“I don’t know. I’d do anything for him. You, obviously, know that. I’m just not sure how I can help my brother now. I thought about trying to encourage Tiffany to pry information out of Smikins. But I’m afraid she’d have to get down and dirty in the slime’s bed, and Mark wouldn’t want that. I still think Smikins is guilty, or at least knows a lot more than he lets on. I just can’t prove it.”

Certainly, her theory was possible. Rafe couldn’t deny that wanting a woman was a powerful motivator. It was the same reason he suspected Jason was guilty. But they could both be wrong; Tiffany might be a criminal mastermind. Normally, he wouldn’t think so, but normally he wouldn’t believe that a grown, sensible man could be having feelings far beyond lust for an off-the-wall blonde he’d met four days ago.

At this point, he was forced to concede that he didn’t know squat about this situation.

“Mark’s trial starts in less than a week, right?” he said finally.

Her eyes slid shut. Her shoulders sank more. “Yes.”

“You need a plan.”

“I know. But I’m not good at planning. How can I plan around something I barely understand?”

Rafe opened his mouth to reply but glanced at the computer screen. There! Twenty-five separate electronic deposits into Standard National from the same small Midwestern bank that had filtered the other deposits Mark had been accused of embezzling. He sat up, leaned over his keyboard. Another few clicks later, he confirmed that the account the deposit had been made to had been established between 3:58 and 4:12
P
.
M
. today at terminal 4389, user ID identical to Mark’s.

“Holy shit!”

“What?” Kerry leaned across the table, closer to him.

Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, Rafe pulled her closer to the screen . . . and to him. “See here.”

Kerry frowned as he pointed to the deposit record. “What?”

He laid the information out for her. “Here are deposits from the same bank the previous theft derived from. Look at the terminal ID and user name.”

“The hidden terminal and Mark’s ID.” She cast a stunned green stare at him. “Ohmigod, what does that mean?”

“Maybe nothing. But Standard National receives so few deposits from this Midwestern bank. Only a handful in the last five years, except the deposits that were stolen. Now more than two dozen in one day, each just small enough to escape the need for a bank to report it to the Feds. I’m thinking whoever did this is definitely up to something.”

“It sounds fishy. But we have to figure out what this person—or people—is up to, to prove anything.”

“You’re right. And the whole scenario is odd. If these people making the deposits knew their money had been stolen in the past, why would they keep making deposits in exactly the same way? It’s like they want their money to be stolen.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Kerry frowned.

“On the surface, you’re right.”

Rafe rubbed his chin, nearly wishing it possessed the magical power of a genie in a bottle. Maybe then he’d know what to do: Take her invitation to leave and get back to his normal, sane—and lest he forget, lucrative—life? Or stay behind another few hours to help Kerry find some way out of her dilemma?

Duh. He knew the answer before his mind had finished forming the question. All her life, people had run out on Kerry, or worse, died. She’d been alone her entire life, except for Mark. She’d endured some hard times. The one person she had always counted on was now behind solid, iron bars enjoying his free cable TV. Other than him, Kerry only had Tiffany. Oh, and in her mind, Jason, which made Rafe want to hit something. Yeah, Jason would love to help her . . . right onto her back with her legs spread.
Not gonna happen, pal
.

Besides, they were both suspects. Nope. His choices were to leave the entire mess in Kerry’s lap and force her to fend for herself again, or to pitch in, hoping it would help.

Hoping she still wanted him by her side.

The smart thing would be to start packing his suitcase now. Apparently, his brain had taken a vacation.

“Assuming it’s the same person or people, what could they be doing?” Kerry asked.