Midnight Sins (61 page)

“What?” He could hear the confusion in his own

voice.

“The barons, this town.” Swallowing tightly, she

was obviously fighting her tears, her pain as she

continued. “They wanted to destroy you and Logan

and Crowe. I wasn’t going to help them, Rafe. I

couldn’t.”

A single tear slipped free.

“But, Cami, that was my child, too,” he said softly.

“And if I hadn’t lost our child, I would have told

you.” That intriguing ring of blue around the soft gray

seemed to darken. “I would have told you then, Rafer. I

would never have taken something so precious away

from you.”

And she wouldn’t have.

He framed her face with his hands. “Cami, I

would have still held our child as precious,” he

whispered.

“And everyone here would still be waiting to find

a way to destroy everything you were fighting for. They

would have convicted you for Jaymi’s murder, Rafe,

and for the other girls’. They would have stolen your

life if they had the chance.”

“Instead, you let Mark Flannigan steal yours.”

Lowering his head, he touched her forehead with his.

“He hasn’t had that power since he refused to

allow me to talk to Mom when I lost our child,” she

revealed. “Probably a lot sooner.”

God, how alone had she been?

He hadn’t been here for her. He hadn’t protected

her as he had sworn to, not just to Cami, but also to

himself when he’d realized how much she cared for

him so long ago.

“Sweet Cami,” he whispered as his lips lowered

to hers.

He meant to only brush them, to comfort her, to

hopefully ease the pain both of them had endured

over the years. A pain that could have been eased,

that could have healed if stubbornness and pride

hadn’t held them apart.

But her hands lifted to his chest, small, delicate

and warm, lying against it with a tentative, almost

hesitant caress as her lips parted beneath his.

Gentle, heated, the need that rose between them

was unlike any he had felt, even with her, in his life. As

though something had come together that morning.

Something he couldn’t fight or deny, something that

slipped free of his soul and began to fill his heart as

their kiss deepened, grew hotter, and began to meld

them together.

He had dreamed of finding her soft heart, of

feeling her kiss infused with that “something” that only

her acceptance of that emotion could bring.

And she was accepting it. Accepting it and

holding it close to her as she was pulling him close to

her.

Disposing of their clothing was easy.

Her hands pushed at the material of his clothing

as his hands removed hers, his fingers brushing

against her flesh and feeling the softness of her flesh

and the hunger rising between them both.

It had been there since she had been sixteen. It

had only grown through the years.

Drawing her to the nearest piece of furniture in

the room, Rafe sat back in the chair behind him, drew

her forward, parted her thighs, then drew her to him.

He watched.

Hell, he couldn’t help but watch as the tight,

saturated flesh of her pussy eased over his cock

head, drawing it inside, sucking it into her body with

slow, sweet milking motions of the tight muscles and

silken tissue.

Pleasure whipped every cell of his body as he

held her hips and watched as she shifted hers, rolled

them, and slowly took him.

Her hands were braced on his chest, her head

thrown back, pleasure suffusing her expression as

she began to thrust against him, above him.

“God, yes, baby,” he groaned as she finally slid

down, taking his full length as her pussy began to flex

and clench on his flesh. “Ride my dick, baby. Take it

up that tight little pussy.”

He was dying for her.

He hadn’t expected this. Not this hunger that

surged so hot and fast, searing over his nerve

endings and burning through his senses. And he sure

as hell hadn’t expected her head to lower, her eyes to

meet his. “I love you,” she whispered as she began to

move harder, faster.

Though still tender and bruised, she took him, her

pleasure obvious, her need rising.

His hips rose, thrusting up, shafting her with the

thick width of his cock as he felt her tighten, watched

her eyes open wide, then watched her orgasm wash

through every particle of her being.

Just as Rafe felt his own release explode in his

balls, surge through his cock, and in hard, powerful

jets, spill inside the giving depths of her body.

* * *

Son of a bitch, she had slipped out of the bed on him

again. Rafe came awake hours later, the knowledge

that Cami wasn’t by his side surging through him.

It took him a moment to remember where he

was, what had happened, and to know his cousins

would never allow her to leave the house.

After showering and dressing, he went in search

of her.

She was in the kitchen, staring in the cabinets

with a frown.

“Dinner,” she mumbled. “I don’t know if I have

enough for three mountains pretending to be men.”

The teasing edge of amusement in her gaze had

his lips twitching.

“Yeah, especially after you helped us build a hell

of an appetite.”

He moved to her, kissed her neck, then wrapped

his arms around her and pulled her to him.

He kissed her gently at first, and would have

gone for more if his own stomach hadn’t decided to

begin growling.

Cami laughed at the sound before pulling away

from him and moving back to the ingredients she had

laid out.

Just then, Crowe’s cell phone rang and they

heard his cousin walk down the hall to take the call.

It wasn’t long before Crowe came back.

His expression was a hardened demand that

spurred Rafe and Logan both into action.

“What’s happened?” Rafe questioned harshly as

Cami moved to his side, her face etched with

concern.

“It’s Archer on the phone,” Crowe growled. “Jack

Townsend’s garage outside of town just exploded.

Jack’s tow truck and Jeannie’s car were both in the

parking lot and no one saw them leave.” He glanced

at Cami as a small, unconscious sob finally tore from

her, only to quiet just as quickly. “It looks like they were

killed in the explosion.”

CHAPTER 20

Cami felt numb inside as Rafe pulled the Denali SUV

into the parking lot of Jack’s Towing and Repair just

outside Sweetrock city limits no less than fifteen

minutes later. Staring at the burned, charred mess of

the building, she couldn’t imagine how anyone could

have survived such an explosion. Especially if they

had been in the apartment overhead where Jack and

Jeannie had lived.

More than half of the garage was just gone, with

the debris scattered through the parking lot, vehicles

lying in a tangled mess here and there. One lay in the

field across from the garage. There were more than

half a dozen that had been parked in the waiting lot,

ready for needed repairs.

There was no repairing the damaged messes

they were now. Cinder blocks, mortar, and metal had

been slammed onto the vehicles. The wreckage

defied any sense of logic or attempts to make sense

of what had happened.

Cami stepped out of the truck, aware of being

surrounded by Callahans and all the eyes that turned

to them as three hard-cored, hard-muscled, steeleyed

Callahan men wrapped themselves around her

and defied anyone to attempt to get close to her.

As she stared up at the garage, her heart in her

chest, she tried to blink back the tears she couldn’t

hold back any longer. She couldn’t believe this had

happened.

“This wasn’t an accident,” Crowe muttered from

behind her and Rafe as she felt his arm tighten

around her back, his hand falling to her hip, his fingers

gripping it firmly, as though she would attempt to tear

herself away from him.

At the moment, her emotions were so torn,

conflicted, and thrown into chaos that she couldn’t

imagine moving away from the only person who

seemed to ground them.

“No,” Rafe growled. “It wasn’t an accident.”

“How can you be so certain?” she asked faintly.

“Why would anyone want to hurt Jack and Jeannie?”

“We’ll find out,” Rafe promised as Cami

glimpsed Archer amid a group of volunteer firefighters

and several state police officers.

Catching sight of the Rafe and Cami, Archer

lifted his hand in acknowledgment before excusing

himself and moving quickly across the debris-strewn

parking lot. “The fire marshal is refusing to allow

anyone onto the premises.” Archer’s voice was low as

he reached them, his gaze filled with somber anger. “I

can’t check for the bodies, Rafe.”

Cami wanted to close her eyes; she wanted to

deny that this could have happened. That there was a

chance that Jack and or Jeannie could have been in

that building. But Jack’s tow truck was there, as was

Jeannie’s little gray car. Was there even the smallest

chance that they weren’t in the building?

“Neighbors saw Jack going in maybe half an

hour before the explosion,” Archer sighed. “They

didn’t see anyone else.”

“He was at the house the other day,” Cami told

Archer softly. “He remembered the accident Jaymi

was in just before she was killed; his father towed the

car in and repaired it. The brake lines had been

deliberately cut.”

As the four men stared at her, their expressions

cast in hard, brooding lines, Cami detailed the

meeting and the information Jack had given her.

“You’re getting the same phone calls,” Rafe

stated when she finished. “You’re getting them and

you didn’t tell me. Someone else had to tell me.”

He was furious.

Cami could see the pure rage burning in his eyes

now, as well as the silent promise that it was a subject

they would discuss in detail later.

She could feel the regret then, that feeling that

had hidden inside her for the past weeks, teasing her,

brooding in her mind. It was regret, and the

knowledge that when Rafe did learn what she had

been holding back from him, everything she had been

holding back for him, the time to pay would come.

That time was growing closer by the second, and

she was suddenly very aware of what she could lose.

His trust.