Midnight Sins (38 page)

mouth as the heavy, engorged flesh of his erection

pumped inside her with ever-increasing strokes.

His lips rubbed against hers, parting them, his

tongue licking against hers, tasting her as she tasted

him, holding her to him, moving against her. Waves of

heat and incredible bliss began to roll through her.

Her muscles tightened, her pussy clamping down on

his cock, rippling around it as he moved harder and

faster inside her.

The bite of pleasure-pain began to burn hotter. It

began to tighten further in impending ecstasy. It was a

pleasure she couldn’t resist, one she couldn’t deny.

Holding on to him as his lips tore from hers, his

head tilting back and a grimace contorting his face,

Cami jumped headlong into the ecstasy of release

and the pleasure that could only be found in Rafer’s

arms.As she cried out his name, shudders began to

race through her, tremors that shook her body,

shudders that began to quake through her womb.

Above her, Rafer buried his face against her neck,

pushed in hard, deep, and with a ragged growl filled

her with the hard, heated release that had been

locked inside his balls.

Cami felt the flesh buried inside her as it seemed

to thicken, to throb, then the heavy, fierce spurts of his

semen pulsed inside her, searing her.

She could only hold onto him and gasp in brilliant

ectasy. It seemed never-ending, exploding through

her again and again as Rafer continued to thrust

against her.

His arms were around her, holding her close as

he kept his weight from falling to her completely. As

his chest met her breasts, Cami fought for breath, the

ecstasy so intense she didn’t know if she would ever

learn how to breathe properly again.

God, what was she going to do if the time came

when there was no chance at all of ever having him

hold her? If she forever lost the fiery heat of his

possession and his kiss again?

If something happened to him.

Was it truly better to have loved and lost than to

have never loved at all?

Would she have wanted to miss the pleasure

she’d found in his arms?

“I hear you became very curious and began

asking questions about the Callahans this week,” he

murmured as his heart still raced. “You should have

come to the ranch, darlin’. I would have answered any

question you had about any of us.”

Would he have known the answers to her

questions, though?

She gave a deceptively unconcerned shrug of

her shoulders. “They weren’t questions about you or

your cousins in particular,” she told him. “I just wanted

to know a few things.”

“No, the questions were about our parents and

about us in particular. Don’t lie to me, Cami, and I’ll

say again, you could have asked me. You told me my

bastard of a grandfather made his first visit to one of

my lovers. Now I want to know why.”

Even as she lay against him she could hear the

warning in his voice. He wanted answers now. If she

had any further questions, then she had better ask him

rather than anyone else.

“I just wanted to know what happened,” she said

softly. “Nearly a whole community turns against three

children and it seems no one has questioned why?

Perhaps I thought it was time someone asked those

questions.”

“Let me give you the answer there, kitten,” he

offered as though the why didn’t matter to him any

longer. “Our fathers not only married three of

Sweetrock’s favorite daughters, but they married into

the three richest families from here to Denver and

past Aspen. Three supposedly shiftless, no-account

brothers stepped in shit and came out smelling like a

rose, as they say. Those families didn’t appreciate

the defection of their daughters, they didn’t care for

the bad blood that had been injected into their

grandsons, and they sure as hell wanted to make

certain that bad blood didn’t go any further. And there

you have it, the reason why a whole community turned

against three young boys. To ensure they learned

their place and never aspired to step above it.” And

there was the bitterness, just the thinnest vein of it, as

he gave her the explanation everyone else accepted

as well. “Now what the hell did Marshal Roberts want?

Don’t make me ask again, Cami.” He rolled from her

as he made the demand.

She sat up slowly, pulling the sheet around her

breasts as she turned to stare down at him watching

as he lounged back on her pillows, unashamedly

naked. He didn’t even bother to pull the sheet around

his hips as he watched her closely.

She hadn’t noticed his lashes before, she

realized. They were thick, lush lashes women cried

over because they didn’t have, surrounding the deep

sapphire blue of his eyes.

And she had picked a hell of a time to notice it.

“I’m not certain what Marshal Roberts was after,”

she finally said, trembling at the icy look in his

sapphire eyes. “He made me very curious though

about everything that’s happened.”

“Such as?” If possible, his voice and his

expression were harder. Colder.

Cami swallowed with a hint of nervousness that

she couldn’t hide. “Your parents’ deaths. Your

uncles’.” She had to fight to hold back her tears at the

next thought. “My sister’s.”

Pulling her knees up, she rested her chin on them

as Rafe sat up slowly.

“Cami, you know those deaths were unrelated.”

She shook her head, her heart pounding in fear.

“Your parents and uncle died on the same mountain

road, on the same curve. God, Rafer,” her voice

dropped further. “Do you realize it was the exact place

your grandparents, JR and Eileen Callahan died?”

It was too much. There were too many Callahans

to die in the same place, the same way, and nearly

the same excuse used across three generations. And

no one seemed to want to question it, or to see the

trail of suspicion.

“Cami, stop this, baby.” His expression gentled

slowly. “You’re letting that old bastard fuck with your

head. You can’t do that.”

He wasn’t hearing her.

She could feel the danger that swirled around

him. She had always felt it. As though some shadow

haunted him and his cousins and refused to dissipate.

“Rafer, listen to me,” she whispered, almost

terrified that someone else would hear her. “There are

too many coincidences. You say you don’t believe in

them, yet you’re just accepting three generations

dying in the same place, as well as your uncle Clyde.

Do you realize no one else has ever died in that same

place in the history of that mountain road?”

“Cami…” She could see his refusal to listen to

her in his expression, hear it in his voice.

“No.” She pushed her fingers through her hair

with an edge of desperation. “You have to listen to

me, Rafer.” She clenched at the strands of hair she

held as she fought and failed to fight back her fear for

him.

“Cami, he’s fucking with you, dammit!”

Rafer could feel the need to confront Marshal

Roberts rising inside him with a wave of fury. He

couldn’t believe that old bastard had finally figured out

that Cami was more important to him than any other

woman in his life had been. And to actually have the

sheer nerve to come to her house and frighten her this

way was unforgivable.

“He’s not fucking with me.” She lifted her gaze to

him as he pushed her back to the pillows, propping

himself up to stare down at her. “What about Jaymi?”

He could see the fear flashing in her eyes now.

“Cami, Jaymi was killed by a fucking lunatic, you

know that.” He ached for her. Jaymi’s death had

destroyed her, he knew that, but she had to realize—

“Did she tell you about the phone calls?”

He could feel his stomach clench with trepidation

then. “What phone calls? Jaymi never mentioned any

phone calls, Cami, neither did you.”

He watched her lips tremble, watched the misery

that darkened her eyes.

“I’m getting them now.”

Fear tore a hole through his soul.

“What phone calls, Cami?” He could feel the rage

beginning to burn in his stomach.

“The ones that warned her that if she didn’t stay

away from you, that something would happen to her.

She knew who it was. She knew the voice, but she

didn’t put it together until the last social we attended

with you, Logan, and Crowe. I heard her that night,

telling him that she knew something. Then she went

into her room where I couldn’t hear her. She wouldn’t

tell me what it was, or who it was.” Her breathing

hitched with tears, the sound of them breaking his

heart. “Two days later, she was dead.” Her breath

caught, and Rafe watched as she fought back her

tears. That wasn’t a coincidence, because Jaymi hadn’t

been the only one of the young women who died that

summer who had received such phone calls. And

now, Cami was getting them?

“You were called?” he questioned her.

She nodded quickly. “I recognize the voice,

Rafer, just as Jaymi did. I know that voice, but I can’t

put a face to it. When I do—”

“When you do, you’ll tell me and I’ll fucking deal

with it,” he informed her harshly, his hands moving to

grip her shoulders imperatively as he made the order.

“Do you understand me, Cami?”

“And if he decides to just kill you, Logan, and

Crowe instead?” she asked tearfully, though she held

the tears back. “What then?”

Rafe moved from her slowly, sitting up on the

side of the bed and pushing his hands through his hair

in irritation.

“That bastard is playing with both of us,” he finally

gritted out as he gave his head a hard shake.

Marshal Roberts was a master at manipulation.

He had known it all his life.

How many times had Clyde been lured away

from the ranch because Marshal had called for some

reason or another, and convinced him to meet him

somewhere? How many times had the ranch been

vandalized each time, and Roberts hadn’t made the

meeting with Clyde?

It was a cycle. It had taken Clyde a few times to

realize what his brother-in-law was doing. A few years

to realize that the core of decency he thought Marshal

had didn’t exist.

When Marshal couldn’t lure him away on his own,

he’d found other means to pull Clyde, Rafe, Logan,

and Crowe from the ranch.

It hadn’t been to protect them as Clyde had once