Authors: Lora Leigh
Tags: #Romance, #Romantic Suspense Fiction, #Suspense, #Fiction, #Contemporary, #Man-Woman Relationships, #Murder, #Crime, #Erotica, #Ranchers
running into her father, and how painful would that be?
The heat of the shower only reminded her how
cold she felt inside. How tired she had become.
She’d kept her secrets as long as she could, and
when they had come spilling out there had been no
stopping them. Just as there had been no stopping
the emotions tearing her apart.
There were times she felt she’d placed herself in
deep freeze after she had lost the only friend she had
been able to depend upon, then lost her and Rafe’s
child.
That ice was chipping now. She could feel it
inside, fracturing, trying to break apart, the seams
melting and weakening as she fought to hold back the
pain.
Laying her head against the shower wall, the heat
of the water pouring over her, Cami fought to hold it
inside, to keep the pain from breaking her apart.
The knowledge that she had carried Rafe’s child
had been like a ray of hope heating her from the
inside out. The thought of that perfect little life, that
part of Rafe that could never be taken away from
her … Yet it had been taken.
Lifting her head, she hurriedly finished, knowing
the cost of what she was doing. Standing there
beneath the warmth of the water and letting herself
remember, revisit that loss, was the most dangerous
thing she could do.
She wasn’t strong enough for this.
She was losing too much too fast and facing too
many truths that were coming at her from too many
different directions. She’d tried for years to harden
herself, but all she’d managed to do was build the
most fragile of defenses against the pain. And those
defenses were weakening by the moment.
“Are you warm enough yet, kitten?”
She whirled around, her eyes blinking open
against the sting of the shower to see Rafe leaning
casually against the ceramic wall at the entrance to
the shower.
He watched her as though he could see into the
very heart of even those secrets she hid from herself.
“I just needed to relax before going to sleep.” She
had to turn her back on him.
Staring back at him, seeing the warmth in his
gaze, the sensual hunger, and the sparks of anger
that still sizzled in the sapphire blue was more than
she could bear.
She pushed her face beneath the water once
again, because she knew the warmth slipping down
her face had nothing to do with the water spilling from
the shower.
She’d been finished minutes after stepping
beneath the spray. The soft hint of almond milk soap
still filled the heated warmth as she tried to force the
water to soak beneath her skin.
To warm her.
To hold the nightmares she knew she would have
tonight at bay.
“Poor Cami.” Heated and warm, his arms went
around her, his bare chest was suddenly at her back,
and the feel of his nude body, so hot, so strong, sent a
surge of lightning-fast, wicked-hot need erupting
through her system.
She was forced to draw in a quick, hard breath.
The solid length of his cock nestled against her
lower back, while his powerful thighs cushioned the
rounded globes of her rear.
“Do you remember our first night together?” he
asked as his lips lowered to her shoulder, brushing
against the tender flesh there before nipping at it
erotically.
“Yes.” She was almost moaning now in pleasure.
“Do you remember what you begged me for
more of?”
Her body felt weak, flushed.
She didn’t want to be reminded of it. Her
dreamworld was working out just fine, thank you very
much. Or was it?
It wasn’t this warm.
It wasn’t Rafe holding her against his body.
It wasn’t the feel of him, so very prepared to send
her system into a pleasure so extreme it tempted
insanity.
“Poor Cami,” he whispered. “Holding everything
so tightly inside. Do you ever feel like a wind-up doll
ready to blow apart all the mechanics that hold you so
tightly bound, Cami?”
“Stop, Rafer.” She didn’t want this.
She didn’t want to break apart into so many
pieces it was impossible to put her together again.
He chuckled at her ear before his teeth raked
against the sensitive flesh of her lower neck.
“I’m going to fuck you, baby. I’m going to ride us
both into exhaustion, feel you beneath me, over me, in
front of me,” he whispered at her ear. “I’m going to
paddle that pretty little bottom and hear you scream
for me, hear you beg for more, as I ease inside your
tight little ass and feel you go crazy beneath me.”
No.
She didn’t say the words, she couldn’t force them
past her lips, as she felt his fingers sliding between
the curves of her rear.
“And I’m going to watch,” he growled, the image
of him watching his thick erection stretching her,
easing inside her, flickering through her imagination,
and sending her juices flooding the outer lips of her
pussy.
The heated warmth surrounded her clit as Rafe
moved behind her, shifting, his knees bending beside
hers until she felt the thick silk-over-iron crest easing
against the slick, bare lips of her cunt.
“Yes. Rafer, yes.” Her legs parted farther as she
leaned against the shower wall.
His hands gripped her hips, easing her back,
positioning her hips as she felt the engorged cock
head parting the folds of flesh.
A second later she cried out in such erotic shock
she nearly lost her footing in the shower.
His hand landed in a gentle, sensation-igniting
pat, just heavy enough that the sound of wet flesh
coming in instant contact echoed around her.
It was the heat that bloomed against the soft rise
of her pussy that held most of her attention, though.
The sensation, so rich and lush with sensual
eroticism, was almost too much to bear.
The heat blossomed around her clit, swelling it
tighter as the head of his cock forged its way into the
snug opening of her sex.
“There, baby,” he groaned as he pulled her hips
back a fraction farther and, with one foot, pressed her
legs wider.
“I could fuck you for hours, Cami. Stay inside this
hot little pussy and do nothing but relish the feel of
you.”
Her head twisted against the shower wall as
cries spilled past her lips.
Then, with a tight, hard surge of his hips, half the
heavy length of his cock buried inside her. Then the
other half, until she was filled so deep, possessed so
fully, she couldn’t imagine ever being without him now.
“Fuck yeah,” he growled as she felt the full,
throbbing length of his dick thickening inside her.
“I dreamed of fucking you,” he admitted as he
began to move then. “Dreamed of watching my dick
stretch your sweet pussy open as it milks my flesh
inside it.”
And her flesh was milking his cock. The inner
muscles were flexing, rippling, tugging at his flesh as
the nerve endings buried there became so sensitive
she could barely breathe for the pleasure.
Each thrust filled her, stroked her, heated her.
She was dying for more, dying for him to fuck her
harder, faster, to take her with all the pent-up hunger,
need, and desperation that burned inside her.
Gripping both her hips now, his lips at her ear,
his breath heated and warm, he began moving
harder, faster, each stroke burning to the center of her
core as she began to sway, to move. Pushing back,
she took him harder, her back arching, her fingers
curling into fists at the ceramic wall as she felt
tightening of pleasure begin in her womb.
The sensations radiated through her. Burning,
intense, they flowed through her system, drawing her
to her tiptoes and causing her to cry for him again, to
beg him to send her over that edge of oblivions.
When it came, she could only collapse again,
shaking and shuddering in his grip as she felt the
hard, heated spurts of his semen filling her, adding to
a pleasure that had already stolen reason and
common sense from her mind.
He was her weakness. He was the one person
she couldn’t say no to, the one man she couldn’t
resist.Breathing heavily, her knees weak and shaky,
she leaned against the wall, fighting to catch her
breath. What he did to her should be illegal. She was
certain it
was
illegal somewhere.
“I would have wanted our baby,” he whispered at
her ear, his own breathing heavy and rough. “But even
more, Cami-love, I would have cherished his mother
just as much as I cherish her now.”
And the inner walls came crumbling down around
her.
CHAPTER 23
Rafe was aware of the confusion in Cami’s gaze as
he pulled the detachable shower from the mount and
carefully washed Cami from head to toe.
As he ran the soft, soapy cloth between her
thighs to wash away his semen, his gaze flicked to
her face. Her expression was somber, her soft gray
eyes filled with conflict, with hunger, and with the
saddened memories of all she had lost.
“I should have never let you run as I did,” he
whispered as he knelt in front of her, running the sudsfilled
cloth along her soft thighs, then across the gentle
curves of her pussy.
He knew if he touched her flesh it would be softer
than the rich lather covering it, silkier, warmer.
“You didn’t let me do anything, Rafe,” she
assured him. “I do as I wish.”
He let a grin tug at his lips. The fire inside her
was often hidden, that temper that he knew she had
often controlled and tempered with her compassion.
But it was there, just waiting to flare free.
She was independent, but she’d had no choice in
adapting to independence. What she didn’t know was
that all that lovely independence was perfect; it was
fine. But he possessed her. She was his, from her
very lithe, sexy body to the depths of her fragile
feminine soul. She belonged to him.
She sensed it, though he doubted she had
considered the consequences of it.
He wouldn’t stand back and allow her to slip
away in those hours before dawn any longer. He
wouldn’t allow her bed to be separate from his, and
he sure as hell had no intentions of allowing her life to
be separate from his.
Leaning forward, he laid a gentle kiss against her
hip, his lips lingering against the almond-fragrant flesh
as her fingers threaded hesitantly into his hair.