Bound and Determined (41 page)

Anger pumped through Rafe at Mark’s accusation. At one time, maybe that was true, but now . . . “You’re selling your sister short, man. I’d be lying my ass off if I said I didn’t think she was sexy. But she’s more. Kerry is an amazing woman—warm, fun, and caring. She shares her thoughts and feelings fearlessly. I don’t know anyone more loyal. She risked so much to see you freed, I’m still mind-boggled. Kerry has a lot to offer a man.”

Mark’s hazel gaze mellowed from hostile to thoughtful. “But not you?”

Rafe bit back the urge to stake his verbal claim here and now. To take Kerry and run, keep her in his life and in his bed for as long as he could. Then he’d have her warmth, sexy submission, and impromptu birthday parties all to himself. He could spend monstrous amounts of time devoted to her pleasure, to seeing her eyes light up at things like Rockefeller Center at Christmas or fireworks over the Statue of Liberty.

Then his imagination supplied him a vision of Kerry standing by his front door, suitcases in hand, devastated by heartbreak and calling him a bastard for “shutting her out.” She’d damn him for crushing her heart, getting wrapped up in work, burying his feelings. She was important—he couldn’t imagine a time when he would think otherwise. But Rafe simply didn’t know how to prove it in the ways that mattered to a woman over days, months, and years. To believe that the answers that
had eluded him since his first girlfriend would magically appear . . . he’d just be putting everyone through hell.

“Not me,” Rafe said finally. “She deserves better.”

A
t nine the next morning, Rafe emerged from the hotel’s elevator to find Kerry standing in the hotel lobby. The sight of her was like a punch in the gut. From the sunny curls haphazardly clipped to the back of her head to the black spike-heeled sandals on her feet, she appealed to him. A body-hugging black tank top straining across her award-winning breasts and a short purple skirt didn’t hurt her cause either.

In the end, though, what he’d miss about her most wasn’t her appearance. He’d miss her sense of adventure, her laughter, the unabashed way she cared. Most of all, he’d miss the way he felt—smarter, more connected to the world, more alive—when he was with her.

With a long stride, he approached her, itching to be near her. What he saw in her sad smile and red-rimmed eyes ripped the heart out of his chest. He shouldn’t have asked her here. The request to see her had been selfish and stupid . . . and impossible to deny.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he murmured.

A soft flush pinkened her cheeks. “All ready, I see.”

He answered with a tight nod. What more could he say?

Wordlessly, they headed to the hotel’s limo, waiting out front as scheduled. The driver opened the back door of the gleaming white stretch vehicle. With a hand at the small of Kerry’s back, Rafe guided her inside.

Okay, so he could have taken the hotel’s shuttle van to the airport for free, rather than paying for the prima donna treatment. But he’d wanted some privacy when he talked to Kerry. He needed to make sure she understood that he wasn’t leaving because he didn’t care.

He was leaving because he did.

Rafe climbed into the limo behind her, planting himself so close, he doubted air molecules could squeeze between them.

The driver shut the door and climbed into the front seat. Rafe raised the privacy partition. It was now or never.

But the words he’d rehearsed this morning, the ones that had sounded so convincing, simply wouldn’t come. Which was exactly the point. He sucked at meaningful conversation.

The silence grew thick as they left the hotel’s parking lot.

“Thank you for bailing Mark out.” She grabbed his hand, and her touch jolted him to his toes. “It was stunningly generous. You didn’t have to do it, and I know you fronted a lot of money so that he could come home early—”

“It’s no big deal.” Rafe shrugged, drinking up the adoration in her gaze. God, if he was a better man, he’d love looking into those eyes forever. “I just made a few phone calls. Once the charges are officially dropped, I’ll have the money back, so it’s nothing.”

“It was everything to me. When Mark came through the door, we hugged, I cried.” She smiled, radiance transcending her fatigue. “It’s wonderful to have my brother home. Thank you so much.”

Rafe shrugged. “So, did he mention meeting me?”

Kerry winced.

“I suspected he didn’t like me much.” Rafe tried to ignore the disappointment swirling in his gut.

“I didn’t have a very good answer for how I persuaded you to help me. He already guessed the truth, anyway.”

“Great. If he comes to New York for any reason, call me so I can get a bodyguard first.”

Her tinkling laughter sounded in his ears as her dimples danced. Kerry was truly beautiful when she smiled.

“I owe you that much.”

“So how is Mark this morning?” he asked.

“Locked in his room.” Her sad smile turned into a frown. “He took the news of Tiffany’s guilt hard. He tried to find excuses, reasons why I had to be wrong about his wife. Once I proved it, though, he just stared blankly at the wall for a while, then went to his room and locked the door.”

“No guns or sharp objects in there, I hope.”

“He’s not like that. But once he accepted the truth . . . I’ve never seen his anger run so deep.”

“He needs time. It hasn’t even been a day yet.”

“Knowing Mark, it could be years before he lets it go.”

Rafe related to that. Who would get over a wife’s betrayal
of that enormity in a week or two? Hell, who would blame the guy if he hung on to the sting of her duplicity until he was old enough to collect Social Security?

“He’s lucky to have you around to help him,” he murmured.

With a frown, Rafe realized that line was a perfect segue for his speech. Now, if he could just make the words come out and make sense . . .

“Kerry, I . . . I think I should explain—”

“Don’t say anything.” She closed her eyes. “We both knew from the start that it wasn’t going to last. I let myself get too carried away in the fantasy. My fault, not yours.”

When she opened those green, green eyes again, she reached out, cupped his cheek, skimmed her thumb over his lips. A charge of power struck deep in his chest on its way down to his cock. How was it possible that he wanted to hold her close and pound into her all at once?

“The truth is,” she went on, “I got way more out of this arrangement than you. I got my brother and my life back. You just got laid.”

He gritted his teeth and gripped her shoulders. “You listen to me. I didn’t just get laid. I met a great woman who made me think a lot about my life and what’s important. I won’t forget that.”

“But the sex was good?” She bit her lip, as if uncertain.

He snorted at her understatement. “The sex was so great it nearly sent me into meltdown.”

A bittersweet smile lifted the corners of her mouth as her cheeks flushed pink again.

Rafe couldn’t resist the urge to take her hand and thread her fingers through his.

Kerry glanced out the window, and Rafe’s gaze followed hers as the limo merged onto the freeway. Then she turned back to him, a hint of mischief dancing in her eyes.

“That good, huh?”

“Damn straight.”

She drew in a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “I’m not wearing any panties. On purpose.”

Using their threaded fingers, she drew his palm over her breasts. No bra, either. He groaned.

Shit
. “Kerry, I’m leaving.”

At those words, she sobered. “I know.”

“I don’t want to take advantage—”

“You’re not.”

He swallowed, resisting the urge to just pounce on her and forgo the questions. “Why?”

“I want you. Just one more time.”

She squeezed her hand over his as his fingers curled around her breast. Rafe felt the rising nipple scorching his palm. He started to sweat, despite the chilled air emerging from the vents above. How the hell was he supposed to resist something he wanted so badly, his brain was nearly fried in his head? Already, his cock was hard and eager and more than ready. The thought of holding her again, having her again, sent him to the edge.

But it would be unfair to make her hope they could work things out, to take more from her when he had nothing else to give.

“We used my last condom yesterday.”

Kerry reached into the little purse at her side and dug out a foil packet. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed it into his lap. One pristine condom, waiting just for him.
Holy shit
.

“I’m prepared. Don’t say no. Besides”—she grinned—“I owe you a little something for the action you missed out on the last time we were in the back of a limo together.”

God, he wanted her so much. His brain whirled with images of impaling her on his cock, of breathing in her sugar sunshine scent again as she came, of memorizing the feel of her against him. It probably made him a bastard of mythic proportions, but he couldn’t refuse her.

In fact, he couldn’t get to her fast enough.

He grabbed both arms and hauled her onto his lap, locking his mouth over hers. He took possession of her lips as he positioned her on top of him. His tongue dove deep, wanting more of her, wanting all she offered. Sweetness. Warmth. Sunshine. Pure decadence.

Kerry opened to him, yielding. She met his kiss perfectly, parry to his thrust, driving him out of his mind.

As he settled her on his lap, his hips parted her thighs
around him. Her skirt slid up, up, up. She hadn’t been lying. Not a bikini, thong, or boy short separated his gaze from the damp, gold curls shielding the soft lips of her pussy. A quick drag of his finger up her swollen cleft proved she was every bit as wet as she looked.

The reality sent him into a blind frenzy.

Latching on to her mouth again, he plunged past her lips to get more of her taste on his tongue while he pulled her brief tank top up her waist, over her ribs, sliding it above her breasts. He broke the kiss in order to shove the top over her head, onto the floorboard, and get a good look at paradise. Thank God for tinted windows.

Hard rosy nipples jutted inches from his face. He swallowed as another bolt of lust jolted his cock like a live wire.

Taking one point between his thumb and forefinger, he laved the other with his tongue. With her groan crashing into his ears, he sucked her nipple into his mouth, gently nibbling with teeth. A soothing swipe of his tongue followed. He repeated the process with her other nipple.

Getting enough of this lush, vibrant woman was impossible. What the hell was he going to do back in New York with all the models and socialites whose bodies could double for coatracks? Whose personalities most resembled dead houseplants?

When Kerry started unbuttoning his dress shirt with fevered hands and rocking her hips so that her cleft nudged the ridge of his cock, he was gratified that her impatience matched his.

Together, they peeled off his shirt. Kerry took it from him and hung it from some hook to her left. As she did, Rafe discovered he had just enough room between their bodies to shove his pants down to his thighs.

Then he grabbed her hips and pulled her flush against him. Her soft, wet folds bracketed an ever-hardening clit. He guided her to slick them against his naked cock, focusing on the sensitive ridge below the head.

“Give me your lips,” he demanded, feeling his blood churn with fire.

Kerry leaned in, crushing hard-tipped breasts against him, and consumed his mouth with a kiss that both yielded and
demanded. Her tongue stroked inside his mouth, danced, flirted, and teased before retreating. Blood roared in his ears. She nudged against his dick again, now soaked and hot and wild. Rafe threw back his head and hissed at the pleasure sizzling up his spine, down his legs.

On either side of his hips, Kerry’s thighs began to tremble. He could feel her juices flowing, coating his cock as she swelled with pleasure while she rocked against him. Damn, the woman made him feel hotter than a fire with a never-ending supply of gasoline.

She picked up the pace, urging her hips against his more rapidly. Her breath began to catch at the back of her throat. A flush splotched the skin from her breasts to her neck. She threw her head back in abandon.

Rafe nibbled at her neck, breathing on a sensitive spot just behind her ear. “You’re going to come, aren’t you, babe?”

“Yeah.”

Her weak, trembling voice made him smile even as it tightened the coil of his need to be inside her. Deciding that if she could fan his flames, he could return the favor, he pulled at one of her nipples with his thumb and forefinger, rolling, pinching, listening to her gasp. The other hand he feathered down the cleft of her ass, just enough to wake up all the nerves and leave her tingling.

He swallowed her first moan, then her next.

“Come for me, babe. I love the way your skin turns pink and you cry out my name.”

“Rafe!”

On the underside of his cock, he felt gentle flutters of sensation, followed by a drenching rush of her juices.
Holy mother of . . .
He blew out a deep breath, did his best to keep his composure, despite the warning tingles brewing at the base of his spine.

Sated for the moment, she sank against him. He stroked a hand down the damp skin of her back, fighting the urge to hammer into her.

He lost the battle.

Rafe grabbed the condom from the seat beside her, tore it open, and rolled it on. “Got to be inside you. Need you now.”

Green eyes, wide and beseeching, latched on to his face as she raised herself up. “Yes, now.”

Clutching her hips, he guided her down until he impaled her. He felt her stretching to accommodate him. She writhed, trying to fit him all inside. She rose up once, twice, removing all but the most sensitive part of his head, then she slammed back down. Finally, she sheathed him fully, and Rafe felt her everywhere. Wet beyond his dreams and fist tight, she surrounded every inch of him. He ground into her, stimulating her clit with his pelvis, the head of his cock touching the mouth of her womb.

Then he swallowed her gasp with a deep kiss.

Rafe let her establish the rhythm, for now anyway. But her choice pleased the hell out of him. Slow, dragging, friction-filled, each stroke caused maximum impact. Desire tore through his blood, coursing like a raging river. And at the bottom of each stroke, he rose, making sure his body had contact with that distended clit.