Midnight Sins (8 page)

driveway, he headed out of town and toward the

Ramsey ranch he had been raised on.

They would be cleared. He knew they would be,

but this town would never admit they hadn’t committed

the crimes. At least a large majority of it wouldn’t.

That didn’t mean he would stay away. It didn’t

mean he had any intentions of giving up the battle to

claim the inheritance that was still locked in litigation,

or the land that was rightfully his, Logan’s, and

Crowe’s.

On the contrary. He would only fight harder.

Cambria at twenty-one

She slipped out of the hotel, her heart racing out of

control, pain and regret tearing through her in equal

measure. It had taken every particle of strength she

possessed to ease from his arms, ease from the big

bed, and hurriedly dress. Leaving the hotel room had

been even harder.

Her body ached in her most personal places, her

nipples were tender, her clit still throbbed with lazy

satisfaction, and she could still feel the warmth where

his palm had spanked her lightly as he thrust into her

from behind.

The sun was barely peeking over the horizon, the

blizzard that had grounded the planes in Denver

having lifted several hours before. The forecast was

for cold and only partly cloudy skies. The text on her

phone said her plane would depart in two more hours,

taking her home.

Rafer was once again leaving Corbin County and

heading back to wherever the Marines needed him.

He had changed in the past seven years, but

some things about her hadn’t changed. Rafer still took

her breath away. He still made her feel things she

didn’t understand and had no idea how to control. But,

unlike seven years ago, those feelings were stronger,

hotter, and more mature. With that maturity there was

the arousal, the lust and hunger that she couldn’t fight.

Rafer’s smile, the hunger in his sapphire-blue

eyes, the sensuality that filled his expression. Thick,

black lashes that were much too long to fairly belong

to a man. His hair wasn’t as long as it once was.

Rather than falling to his shoulders, it was almost

military short and gave his face a more savage,

forbidden cast.

But did she have the good sense to fear what he

was capable of doing to her? What she knew he was

capable of making her feel?

Of course she didn’t.

Cami?

She lifted her head from the book she was

reading, more bored with the story than anything

else, but the nearly deserted airport wasn’t providing

entertainment of any sort either.

But that voice—

She heard that voice in her dreams so often.

Her gaze rose to meet his brilliant gaze.

“Rafer.” She hadn’t realized his name would slip

past her lips so easily until it did.

It was a whisper, and even she recognized the

husky need in her own voice.

Her heart began to race at an almost brutal

pace, thumping against her breasts erratically as

she took a shaky breath.

“Stranded?” His head tilted to the side as he

stood before her, a heavy duffel hanging from his

hand as though it weighed nothing.

He hadn’t changed. Other than the maturity in

his face, the experience in his expression, and the

male hunger that gleamed in his sapphire eyes.

He was dressed in street clothes. Jeans and Tshirt,

leather coat and boots. His broad shoulders

looked a mile wide. His thighs powerful, his legs long

and strong.

The moment her gaze traveled over him she

could feel her pussy creaming, her clit throbbing, her

nipples tightening and hardening, and her entire

body sensitizing.

She knew arousal. She had been thirteen the

first time she’d felt that breathlessness. At fourteen

she’d become aware of her body when she saw him.

Rafer, Logan, and Crowe had come home for a week

because of yet another lawsuit the Corbins,

Raffertys, and Robertses had lodged against their

inheritances. When he had, he’d made sure to find a

few moments to say hello.

The summer she turned fifteen, they were back

again. That year, Rafe had danced with her at the

Spring Fling Social. He had entered the festivities,

walked straight to her in his black evening suit, and

asked her to dance.

He’d asked her how she was doing, how school

was. He’d asked her about her parents, about her

aunt and uncle. He’d asked her if she needed

anything and she’d wanted to cry because all she

could think of was how much she had missed him

and the fact that it felt so nice to be in his arms. She

wanted to be there forever.

The next four years were variations of the same

theme, except with each year, with each phase of her

own sexual maturity, Cami had come to recognize

the signs of arousal, of need, of awakening

sensuality whenever she saw him. Over the years

she’d seen him several times, and as she matured,

those meetings had become even more heated,

then explosive, until it had finally flamed out of

control.

Until he had stood on the other side of the table

at an airport that had nearly been deserted, for once,

chance working in the favor of the travelers to

provide the majority with accommodations in the

nearby hotels. Unfortunately she hadn’t been part of

the majority.

“Stranded, Cami?” he repeated the question,

his gaze somber but lit with an inner glow of hunger.

That glow had been there since the summer she had

turned eighteen and slipped out to a street dance in

Denver the night she and her aunt had stayed over.

It was there between them, like a live current,

pulsing beneath their flesh. He kissed her that night

and nothing had been the same since.

“Yes,” she whispered, breathless. She was

always breathless around him. Always filled with

anticipation and need.

He held out his hand.

A strong, broad palm, his fingers looking

powerful, capable, and God help her all she could

think about was how it would feel if they were stroking

between her thighs, parting the lips of her pussy,

rimming the juice-saturated slit of her entrance.

The need for it was so strong, so striking, she

was forced to press her thighs together, wishing there

was some way to ease the sudden, unbidden

throbbing of her clit.

But nothing could have kept her from taking his

hand and letting him pull her from the hard plastic

stool she had been sitting on.

Their gazes locked, hunger rushing through her

body, the need to touch him clamoring through her

senses. The feel of his palm, calloused and warm

surrounding hers, sent a spike of sensation shooting

straight to her womb.

A sensitivity she had never felt before, a need,

rose inside her, dark and so sexual, so overriding

she could barely keep from begging him to take her

at that moment.

“Such hungry eyes,” he whispered. “Every year

they’re darker, more mysterious, and always filled

with that hunger. Tell me, Cami, how much darker

and hungrier could they get?”

Like a switch flipping on, a breaker sending

electricity surging through her body, Cami felt the

arousal heightening uncontrollably.

She could barely breathe. Getting enough

oxygen simply wasn’t going to happen. She had

waited so long for the intensity of the hunger she saw

in his eyes now. She had endured three years, three

hard kisses that had grown in intensity. The

awareness that his control was stronger than his

need for her, and the knowledge that her body

refused to accept any other man.

“Have you made me wait long enough?” she

asked him then, realizing in that moment the

delicate dance they had been weaving with each

other since the summer she turned eighteen was

now beginning to whirl out of control.

His gaze slid slowly to her lips as he took a

single step to her. As he held her hand with one of

his, the other slid into her hair, all the while his eyes

holding hers captive, mesmerizing her, drawing her

into a vortex of sensation that laid waste to any

objections she could have thought of. Not that she

had intentions of thinking of any.

His head lowered as he cupped her cheek, held

her still, then brushed his lips over hers.

She was a virgin, but she wasn’t completely

ignorant of her own body, her needs, or the arousal

that just the thought of Rafe could inspire inside her.

There, in the middle of a nearly deserted coffee

shop, his lips slowly pressed against hers, his

tongue parting her lips licking against them. He

must have dropped the duffel bag, because she felt

his arm curve around her hips and pull her closer as

the kiss began to deepen.

It was exploratory and knowing. It was rife with

demand and acquisition. Rafer demanded and

Cami had no choice but to submit. The effect he had

on her wouldn’t have allowed her to turn away. The

pleasure he gave her, the heat that rushed through

her senses and swept over her body, was simply too

addictive to deny.

It seemed more a dream than reality.

On the drive from the airport to Rafer’s hotel in

the four-wheel drive he’d had waiting for him, the

blizzard raged around them, at times so heavy it

seemed to surround them in their own little world.

Once they reached his room—

Cami’s breath caught in sharp remembrance.

Sensation tore through her, clenching in the depths of

her newly awakened flesh, her clit throbbing.

Tearing herself away from him had been all but

impossible. As she flagged down a cab and stepped

inside, she still couldn’t believe she had actually

managed to do it.

He had to have been exhausted.

No, that wasn’t it.

With a heavy heart she admitted the truth.

He’d pretended to sleep and he’d allowed her to

slip away.

And she was too big a coward to even guess

why.

* * *

Rafe watched Cami slide into the cab, saw her gaze

lift to the window where he stood carefully behind the

curtain and narrowed his eyes on her thoughtfully.

He’d let her leave. Everything inside his soul had

demanded he hold on to her, that he tighten his arms

around her and fuck her until she was too damned

tired to try to slip from him while she thought he slept.

But what was the point? If not now, she would