"Midnight Sins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leigh Lora)

CHAPTER 11

She was suffering.

Cami lay stretched out on the bed, a sheen of perspiration on her flesh several nights later her eyes closed. Need swamped her as she gritted her teeth and cursed Rafe until hell wouldn’t have had him several days later.

Because she was miserable. Because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fight the burning arousal tormenting her.

The supple, firm vibrator lay pushed beneath her pillow, useless to her now. There had been a time when it had actually worked. When dragging it along the bare folds of her pussy had taken her close enough to the remembered feel of Rafe’s fingers and tongue on her flesh to allow her to work it slowly inside her cunt and, long minutes later, to find the release she so desperately needed. There had been a time when she had known he wasn’t close enough to go to, and her body had allowed a little alternate pleasure.

It simply didn’t work anymore.

The feel of the battery-operated toy wasn’t even close to the feel of his fingers and tongue, let alone the sensation of his cock working inside her. The heated stretch and burn of his iron-hard flesh was so much more extreme. It was thicker, hotter, throbbing inside her powerfully instead of the weak, pale imitation of the artificial vibrator. He had ruined her, that was all there was to it. No other man, no other touch would do.

She gritted her teeth and bit off a furious expulsion of breath. She was too scared it would turn into a scream of pure frustration. Because she was so damned horny she was on the verge of calling him and begging him to fuck her.

She could jump in her car; it wouldn’t take that long to drive to his ranch. There were still some icy spots on the road, but most of the snow had actually been removed. She could knock on his door again and spend the night letting him fuck this need for him out of her system.

Sitting up in the bed, she propped her elbows on her knees and pushed her fingers through her hair, further ruffling the shortened strands as the hardened bud of her clit throbbed in misery.

If she could just get off a little bit, then it would help. Just take the damned pressure off or something. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how long she tried, it wasn’t happening.

If she just hadn’t been so insane as to take the mountain road that night and find herself snowbound with him. She wouldn’t be in this position. She wouldn’t be aching for him until she was certain it would drive her insane. Or was this why she had taken the longer, more mountainous route home from Aspen rather than the more direct drive along the interstate? Had that building need, that hunger she couldn’t control, been working on her subconsciously? Creating a situation that left her with little choice? Because consciously she had known what would happen if she were to be stranded at the ranch. She had known the need pulling at her would have taken care of the rest.

The hunger was a craving that never seemed to completely dissipate. She was like an addict, strung out in desperation for that next hit. Her body demanding its fix.

That was how she felt. Addicted to Rafer Callahan. Now wasn’t that a fine fix to find herself in.

As she cursed herself silently for the weakness, the low, muted buzz of her phone on the bed stand had her reaching out quickly for it and pressing the call button.

It could be the nursing home calling about her mother. Cami hadn’t heard from them all week. She could have checked the caller ID, but she didn’t want to know it wasn’t Rafer. She wanted to hope, to believe, until the last possible second—

“Hello?”

“I’m at the back door; let me in.”

Rafe.

Her eyes closed as her heart immediately began racing in a hard, excited rhythm. Her body immediately sensitized further. She could feel her heart racing, demanding as though the need had somehow summoned him. He was there, a dark male hunger rasping his already deep voice.

Hunger flooded her system, stronger, hotter than ever as she felt her juices flooding the flushed, heated tissue of her pussy.

“You shouldn’t be here, Rafer. Go home.” It was all she could do to push the words past her lips and make the demand.

“Do you have company, Cambria?” The silky menace in his tone assured her it was a damn good thing she did not have company. The dominance in it had her breathing increasing; the sense of possession and determination rolling across the line shouldn’t have been so erotic.

“No, I don’t have company.” Pushing her fingers through the shortened strands of her hair, she clenched her thighs against the increased ache. “I’m sleeping.”

“Open the back door or I’m coming to the front. And I’ll knock until you answer baby or until your neighbors call the sheriff. Take your pick.

“I can promise the gossip will be as juicy as that lush little pussy of yours.” The words were an erotic warning. An explicit, completely arousing promise. Because her pussy was wet.

“Damn you, Rafe.” She disconnected the call, tossed the phone across the bed and jumped from it, to race from the bedroom to the backdoor.

He would do it too. He would let everyone hear him knocking and demanding to be let in. He would probably let everyone hear the erotic promises. The warnings of spankings. Oh God, she was going to come before he ever touched her.

As she moved quickly down the steps and through the hall to the other side of the house, she told herself she should hate him for doing this to her. She should blast him herself for blackmailing her. It really wasn’t fair. She should never let him get away with manipulating her like this.

Instead, she could feel the excitement pouring through her, tearing at her senses and sensitizing her body until the brush of her short, silky nightgown was like a stroke of sensual pleasure against her flesh.

She ran for the door barefoot, the folds of her pussy slick and heated, her nipples hard. Her womb was tight with the need for orgasm, her flesh, aching for his touch. Cami rushed into the kitchen and to the back door and threw it open with every intention of giving him her opinion of his high-handed arrogance.

Her lips were parted to let the insults fly. to berate, she was prepared to chastise. She had every intention of relieving some of the frustration that had built inside her all week.

He gave her another way to vent it instead.

Before she could get the first word out he gripped her hips and jerked her against him. Lifting her from the floor he pressed her against the wall.

The door slammed closed, the click of the locks sounding overly loud as his lips covered hers in a kiss so heated she was certain he was melting her toenails as they dangled above the floor.

His tongue was rapacious, as it thrust into her mouth. Licking and stroking, tasting her, and pulling every ounce of sexual need from the very core of her body to a full, blazing inferno.

With her back to the wall, one hand in her hair, the other beneath her rear to hold her in place, he held her easily, one hard thigh pushed dominantly between hers allowing her to ride the hard muscle. Rough denim rasped the bare folds of her pussy, exciting her beyond belief as the dominant thrusts of his tongue reminded her of the pleasure to come. Reminded her of the hard thrust of his cock impaling her, worked deep inside the clenched, sensitized core of her sex.

It wasn’t enough.

Her nerve endings were screaming in need, pulsating with the rising hunger for this man. Her flesh ached with a need she had never been able to assuage in any way except with him. She craved him.

Lifting her legs, she gripped his hard hips with her knees. Aligning the powerful wedge of his erection against the overly sensitive area between her thighs, her hips shifted and rocked against him.

All she cared about was being closer to him, feeling him, taking him and being taken.

Cami whimpered with the erotic pleasure pouring through her.

It had been two weeks since she had known any relief for the heat and hunger for him that tormented her.

Two weeks of aching need, of brutally erotic dreams. Fourteen days of the tormenting flush of lust that kept her pussy wet, swollen, and aching for him.

With her hips under his, Cami felt his hands cupping her ass, steadying her. She tightened her arms around his shoulders and held on tight as he turned and began moving through the house.

She knew where he was going. She knew better than to question how he knew how to get her there. He’d never been in her house that she knew of. But she had a feeling she wouldn’t have known of it unless he wanted her to.

Each step he took stroked his cock against the wet heat of her pussy, and even between the layer of denim that separated them Cami could feel the strength of the erection he was doing nothing to hide.

Then, he pulled his lips back from hers.

His kiss was gone as she was left panting, fighting to draw in air. He simply pulled back, then bent and eased her back to the bed.

“Rafer,” she whispered his name as she felt the comforter against her back, then her shoulders. “This isn’t a good idea.”

She had to force the words past her lips, the objection pulled from the worry, the fear that haunted her not quite as deeply as the arousal did.

Standing, his gaze narrowed on her as he unbuttoned his shirt then stripped it from his body. And he was ignoring her objection.

Thank God!

“Rafer,” she tried again anyway. “You know it isn’t. It’s just going to make things worse once reality returns.”

Had she somehow lost her mind?

He sat down on the bed and began pulling off his boots, obviously deaf to her objections.

Clear reason was finally beginning to intrude. She was all too aware of what she could possibly be risking. Her heart reminded her of all she had already lost. Her career.

But her body, like her lover, was ignoring every objection and was deaf to every argument. All her body wanted was the feel of him, the heat of the power of his body invading hers.

It was going to be up to her to find the strength to stop this. But that meant getting the hell away from him.

She tensed, preparing to roll from the bed.

“Move from this bed and I won’t give you that spanking I was considering.”

Cami stilled instantly, incredulity surging through her at the threat.

That and the sudden acceleration of her pulse thundering through her veins. The excitement she could feel making her nerve endings scream out of each sensation.

“That threat is just wrong, Rafer,” she protested weakly, hearing the hunger, the anticipation, building inside her.

“No, a hard dick pounding in my jeans all week is what’s wrong,” he retorted. “Craving the taste of your pussy while I should be sleeping is wrong. Jacking off and never coming hard enough to get a minute’s rest is really wrong.” Rising to his feet, he turned to her, his fingers flipping open the metal button fly of his jeans. Pushing them over his hips with a careless motion of his hands, his cock slipped free and stood imperatively out from his body. Like an arrow ready to fire.

Her mouth dried then watered.

Flicking her tongue over her lips hungrily, she was still amazed that she was able to take him as she did each time they had come together. Pleasure and burning resistance at once sensations that mixed to create an overpowering ecstasy she was becoming addicted to.

“We can’t keep doing this.” She could barely speak past the excitement suddenly pouring through her.

If this kept up then she would never find a way to live without his touch again. She would never survive without him.

“What? Sneaking around?” he growled, his expression hard and flashing with irritation. “I agree. Sooner or later I’ll get really sick of it and begin retaliating.”

A groan of exasperation and hunger slipped past her lips. “No, Rafer. This.” She waved her hand at his naked body.

“Well, baby, the occasional fuck never hurt anyone.” His smile was tight and hard. “Now take that pretty gown off before I tear it from you. Then, I want to watch as I fuck those pretty lips.”

Dominant, powerful. So sexy it sent a rush of clenching sensation to attack her womb. The tone of voice, the arrogance in his expression, and the lust filling his sapphire eyes had her so close to climaxing from just the sound of his explicit words that she trembled.

He would tear the gown from her. She could see it in his face.

And she would let him. She would love it.

Gripping the knee-length black silk as she sat up and wiggled it up to her hips, she pulled it off slowly and tossed it to the side of the bed. It slid over the edge slowly.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” he growled harshly.

Rafe would never get used to what the sight of her body did to him. The proof of her need for him was in the flushed, swollen mounds of her breasts, topped with candy-pink perfect nipples.

Her breathing was accelerated, her face flushed. The sassy cut of her hair messed around her head as small, sharp little ribbons of it lay over her forehead and cheeks.

She looked like a pixie, just as mischievous as hell and so damned sexy a man could lose his soul in her.

Forcing himself to hold back, to control the need to simply pound into her, Rafe slid his fingers into the short strands of her hair.

“Open your lips,” he demanded, watching as the kiss-swollen curves parted.

With the fingers of his other hand, he gripped the base of his dick and drew her forward.

He watched her eyes darken. Her lips parted further as he pressed his cock head against them. Thighs tightening, he groaned as the silken heat of her lips began to stretch around the width and her hot little mouth drew him in.

“Fuck, Cami,” he growled her name. “That’s my love. Suck my dick. Make me crazy for you.”

And she did just that.

Her tongue flicked and clicked.

Her lips tightened and the lush heat of her mouth sucked the width with tantalizing hunger.

Watching each shallow thrust past her lips and each flex of her cheeks had his balls tightening, the need for release pounding through them. The need to spill his come, to feel her sucking hungrily at each heated spurt had him forcing himself to pull back. To ignore the dazed hunger in her objection, he pushed her back on the bed.

Placing one knee on the bed, Rafe came down to her, forcing her to recline slowly, the dark gray of her eyes staring up at him with almost-bemused fascination as he almost touched her lips with his.

He was a second from tasting her lips again when his hand slid beneath the pillow at her side and they both froze.

Her eyes widened as she seemed to stop breathing as he stared down at her. His fingers curled around the base of a device he hadn’t expected to find.

A device she had no doubt been using that very night.

“What do we have here, kitten?” he crooned, the glow in his sapphire eyes intensifying with a lust that stole her breath.

“Rafer, please—” she whispered, wishing he would just ignore what he had found. Wishing he would just thrust into her and fill her with the throbbing heat of his dick.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered as he rose to his knees, the device he had found gripped in his hand.

He looked from the sexual toy back to her, his lips curving with a smile of pure male anticipation.

“Kitten, my dick is bigger than yours,” he stated silkily as he held the vibrating dildo up and looked at it before turning his gaze back to her.

Cami felt the tremor of excitement, arousal, and the edge of trepidation that began to rush through her system.

His expression was suddenly filled with more heat and with more lust than ever before.

And yes, his dick was bigger than hers.

Thank God!

And it was so much better than hers.

And she needed it. Now.

“My adventurous little kitten.” He smiled with slow, sensual anticipation. “How dirty could you get with me, Cami, versus without me?”

Her gaze flicked from him to the dildo and then back again.

He looked like the warrior everyone suspected the Callahans had come from. Tall and fierce, conquering and savage.

“Spread your legs, Cami.” He moved between them, pressing her knees apart as she locked her fingers in the blankets beneath her body.

Holding her legs apart with his knees, the hard, muscular body resting on his knees in front of her, he intended to conquer her.

Savage lust and brutal hunger reflected in his expression as he moved the toy between her thighs. She could feel the dampness against the bare folds of her sex; the slick, heated warmth triggered a sensual, sexual response she hadn’t expected.

She could barely breathe. Pleasure was tearing through her, anticipation racing through her veins as she felt the firm, supple tip of the dildo press between the swollen, slick folds of her sex.

“Touch your breasts,” he demanded as he thumbed the switch at the base of the artificial cock and sent a pulse of near-electrifying sensation circling her clit. Why was it so much better with him?

“Don’t do this, Rafer, please—” She didn’t know if she could keep her heart intact, if she would survive never having him again, if she gave herself fully to him. And he was demanding everything from her. He was determined to have all of her.

“Just say no!” Dominance tightened his expression, glowed in his eyes, as he locked his gaze with hers. “If you want to stop, at any time, then don’t play word games with me, Cami. Don’t throw that ball in my court. If you don’t want me, then you just fucking say no.”

She knew what he meant. She could protest until hell froze over, but if she didn’t say no, then he wouldn’t stop.

“Why are you doing this to me?” The cry, rife with the needs racing through her, slipped past her lips.

He knew she didn’t have the strength or the will to tell him no. That had already been established during the blizzard. Her body was too weak and her mind, her senses, filled with too many fantasies of them together.

“Because I’m starving for you.” Part anger and part rising need strengthened and rasped through his voice.

“I won’t survive when you walk away.” The thought of that happening already had her chest clenching with pain. “And you know it won’t last past tomorrow, Rafer. You know there’s no future in this.”

“Who says I’m asking for a future, or walking away?” The hard line of his lips assured her he had far more in mind than what he was letting on, and she knew Rafer. This wasn’t just sex, it was a claiming.

“You know you will.” She was weakening, her juices flooding her pussy, lubricating the swollen, sensitive folds and the hard, throbbing bud of her clit as it met the rounded crest of the vibrator.

The vibrating toy was driving her to distraction, making her crazy just to touch him, to feel the hard, thick flesh of cock pushing its way inside her, fucking her, taking her, possessing her.

“Oh God, Rafer.” She jerked; pleasure blazing across her nerve endings as he pressed the vibrating head of the toy just beneath her clit and flooded her senses with the near ectasy of it.

“You were fucking yourself with it tonight, weren’t you, kitten?” he crooned.

Cami felt a blush rushing through her cheeks despite the passion that eradicated any semblance of good sense or shame where Rafer was concerned.

“Did you cry out my name? Did you cry out for me, Cami, when you came? All you had to do was call me. I would have come to you, baby, I would have helped.”

A whimper passed her lips as her hips lifted, rising and falling against the vibrating sensations in desperate pleasure and the quest for more.

She remembered what was awaiting her. She remembered how intense, powerful, and overwhelming her release could be.

“Would you have fucked yourself for me? Let me hear your little moans while I told you how tight and hot your pussy was?”

“Oh God, Rafer, yes!” Her hips rolled against the sensations.

He wove a spell of sensual power that she felt helpless against. One that wrapped around her senses and heightened the pleasure building inside her.

She couldn’t fight against it. She wanted to. God knew she wanted to. But as the vibrating caress of the dildo eased lower once again, tucking against the clenched entrance of her pussy, she knew there was no way she could deny herself. She needed him too much.

“Please Rafer, now,” she whispered desperately.

“Touch your breasts for me, baby,” he crooned as he applied just enough pressure to lodge the broad head of the vibrator just inside her clenched sex. “Do it for me, Cami. Finger your nipples,” he urged her as she hesitated, staring back at him as fear of the unknown clashed with the desperate, aching need for more pleasure.

Releasing her grip on the sheets Cami moved her fingers slowly up her body first to her hips, starting slowly to become accustomed to touching herself as he watched.

With just her fingertips she stroked slowly up her torso, watching his face, his eyes as they darkened, his jaw as the muscle there flexed furiously with the tension invading his body.

The feel of her own touch was more sensual than it had ever been before.

Threads of electric sensation sizzled over her nerve endings, washing through her body in a clash of sensation she couldn’t fight. Didn’t want to fight.

As she reached her breasts, her hands flattened, moving over her flesh until she was cupping both mounds, fingers and thumb gripping a nipple, and moaning at the pleasure flooding her. It was sharp, extreme, stealing her breath as he watched and pulling a tumultuous cry from her lips.

“Play with your nipples.” He pulled the toy back before working it in again, moving it deeper, stretching her further as he let her thumbs rake over the stiff peaks.

Pleasure shattered through her. It was so blinding, so bright, that she nearly orgasmed from the erotic intensity alone.

She couldn’t keep her eyes open. An incredible, overriding pleasure raced through her. It burned burning hot and bright as the vibration increased and the thrusts pushed deeper inside her. The feel of the fake cock, the arousing buzz, and Rafer’s touch threw her into a world of pure sensation.

As her fingers began to play over her nipples, her hips rising and falling to the thrusts moving inside her, Cami could feel herself becoming a creature of primal eroticism.

Through slitted eyes she watched as he came over her, his powerful body covering hers as his wrist continued to flex and tilt, fucking the dildo deeper, harder, faster inside the gripping, tormented depths of her pussy.

“Lift your nipple to me,” he suddenly bit out in demand, the sound of his voice a hard, primitive rasp.

Cupping a mound, she did as she was bid, then cried out at the incredible heat of his mouth surrounding the desperately sensitive peak. His tongue began to thrash against it, erotically licking and tasting with rising hunger.

“Rafe.” The sound of her own voice, so dark, so locked in complete sexual surrender, shocked her.

“Damn, Cami,” he suddenly groaned. “It’s not enough, sweetheart. I have to have you myself.”

The vibrator pulled free of her body, only to have Rafer move in closer, his hips dipping, his cock lodging against her entrance. The heavy, thick crest was hotter than any toy created by man or by woman.

“Lift your legs, knees at my hips,” he growled, those hips working, twisting, pushing forward to work his cock deeper inside the clenched muscles of her pussy.

Her hands were at his shoulders, nails biting into his flesh. She gripped his hips with her knees and tilted her pussy up to take more, to take him deeper. To facilitate each heavy thrust.

“Yes, fuck me, Rafer,” she whispered as the coarse mat of hair on his chest raked across her tender nipples, sensitizing them further.

His pelvis stroked over her clit, his cock worked inside her, stretching her with such incredible pleasure she could only whimper with the sensations raking across her nerve endings.

His head lowered, his lips against her shoulder, his tongue licking over her flesh. With a final, hard thrust he buried into the hilt, the stroke forceful, powering through the clenched, slickened muscles of her pussy and spearing to the depths of it.

Buried deep inside her, pulsing, throbbing.

“So fucking tight,” he groaned as his lips moved to her neck, his teeth raking against the tender nerve endings. “I couldn’t forget how tight you were after you left, how hot and slick your pussy is. How it grips me and sucks at my dick until it’s all I can do to keep from losing my mind with the need to fuck you.”

Explicit. Demanding.

His hips were moving harder, faster.

Lifting one hand, he speared his fingers in her hair, clenching the short strands before pulling her head back, his lips covering hers, his tongue filling her 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 mused. Fuck, no, Marshal had done it out of a vindictive desire to destroy the ranch and make them completely paranoid. If it had been to protect them, then the attacks would have come the times they had sat in the ranch dark, silent ranch house and waited, weapons ready, for the vandals to strike again.

“I want to know everything he said, Cami,” he finally told her. “And don’t leave anything out.”

He watched as she stared up at the ceiling.

“I can’t do a play-by-play,” she told him wearily as she turned her head to gaze back at him. “You don’t believe me, do you, Rafer?”

“I don’t disbelieve you,” he finally sighed. “But, Cami, you don’t know him as I do.” He shook his head at the lifetime of memories he had where Marshal Roberts and his deceptions were concerned.

“Rafer, he was trying to tell me something,” she whispered, and Rafer knew she truly believed that. “What else could it be?”

“Because he’s a son of a bitch?” he sighed wearily.

“That’s not a good enough reason, Rafer,” she said, saddened not just because of the life she knew he and his cousins had lived but also because he seemed to have accepted it as deeply as everyone else in Corbin County. “Coincidences like this don’t happen. There has to be more to it.”

“The reason doesn’t matter, Cami,” he assured her with an edge of mockery. “And coincidences are called that for a reason, I’ve learned. Sometimes, it truly is a coincidence. Now I’m not concerned with the past, with grandparents or with Marshal Roberts. I want to know about those phone calls.”

“I told you about the phone calls, Rafer,” she argued with a surge of anger. The fear was being overshadowed now. Overshadowed by the anger that Rafer refused to even consider the fact that danger could be haunting him. “Why aren’t you willing to listen to me?”

He gave a heavy sigh.

“Did you know the Corbins began this little campaign?” he asked her softly. “Crowe’s granddaddy stood at the entrance to the funeral home when Logan, Crowe, and myself arrived at the funeral home with Clyde. He barred our way. The Callahans had no place there, he said. They murdered his daughter and he refused to have one attend her funeral, and Saul Rafferty, Logan’s grandfather, and Marshal Roberts backed him on it. We weren’t welcome there.”

Cami had heard that story more than once, and each time she’d seen the conflict most people still had over it. She had also seen the knowledge that James Corbin had drawn the line that day and over the years and he’d enforced it. Marshal Roberts and Saul Rafferty hadn’t, though, if she remembered the Callahan history correct. And she was pretty certain she did.

“James Corbin enforced it,” she repeated. “Not the others.”

“The other’s backed him, Cami,” he growled, frustration filling his voice now. “Mine and Logan’s grandfathers were just as much a part of it as James Corbin was.”

“I don’t think Marshal Roberts was,” she argued. “I don’t know about Saul Rafferty, but I do know he moved from Corbin County just after his daughter’s funeral. He only returns to oversee certain aspects of the ranch, other than that his manager handles everything. He’s separated himself from the entire situation, hasn’t he?” She knew he had. She had made it her business in the past few days to find out.

“Let it go, Cami,” Rafe warned her. “This isn’t your fight, and it’s a fight you’ll lose. For God’s sake, if any part of what you suspect is true, then can you imagine the danger it would place you in?”

“You already suspected it?” she whispered, shocked that he was fighting her if he had already suspected something wasn’t right about the past.

“No, Cami, I don’t,” he told her, his tone short now as he denied the charge. “Do you think we haven’t thought of every question you’ve come up with?” He reached out, his fingertips caressing down the side of her face before he pulled back and watched her quietly for long moments. “Honey, this time, coincidence is coincidence.”

“You’re just accepting it?” She couldn’t believe it. That Rafe wouldn’t fight against the suspected murders of his family? Especially his parents and his uncle?

“It’s not a question of accepting it or not accepting it,” he informed her brusquely. “It’s the way things are, plain and simple. The only reason you want to change it at this point is so you can fuck me without having to worry about the fine citizens of this county looking down at you for sharing a bed with a Callahan.”

Could she blame him for believing it? How many people had ever questioned how the Callahan cousins had been treated over the years?

How many had ever stood up for them?

Or had they, like her, been torn by the fear of losing someone they would love with all their hearts and the three men who only sneered in the face of their unacceptance and flaunted the fact that they didn’t give a damn? Men who dared their enemies to strike out at them or anyone who loved them.

“Why did you even come here tonight if all you wanted was to know about your grandfather’s visit?” She was angry at herself, but a part of her was even angrier at him. “What did it accomplish, Rafer? You should have just called.”

He chuckled at her question then, a dark, sexy sound of male amusement as the frustration and anger eased from his gaze.

“What did it accomplish?” he asked arched his brow, and gave her a heavy-lidded look of complete male satisfaction. “Other than eliminating your need for that fake dick tonight? It accomplished a hell of a lot of pleasure and the best come I’ve had since the last time I had my cock buried in your sweet little pussy.”

“It’s last time it’s going to be buried,” she retorted, knowing it was an empty threat, but growing so furious now that her pride kicked in. “You should have stayed home, Rafe.” She pushed away from him, sliding from the bed as she acknowledged she wasn’t going to walk away from him unscathed. Not now, and not in the future. “You’re not willing to fight for anything, are you, but I’m supposed to risk every part of my heart and soul for the pleasure of having you in my bed? Does this seem a little skewed to you somehow? Tell me, Rafe Callahan, do you even care what a woman would go through in this fucking county for you? Would it even make a difference if you knew you had broken her heart after she had already placed herself on the firing line?”

Rafe grunted behind her, watching the slender, graceful curve of her back as she moved from the bed.

She was just damned determined to piss him off, and if he was honest with himself then he admitted she was getting close to that edge.

It wouldn’t be pretty once he let that anger build inside him. He’d pushed those emotions back in his teens, determined to never let them free again. He’d fought his last battle when his Clyde had died and Rafe had realized how many friends the man had lost when he had taken in the three orphan cousins when no one else would have them.

“You know, kitten, you amaze me,” Rafe drawled. “You lay in this bed with that little toy of yours, fighting to get off, knowing damned good and well that it’s my dick you’re fantasizing about, and still, you’re determined to run my ass off. I’d like to understand the logic behind that one.”

There it was. The anger was beginning to simmer inside his chest.

“You know the logic behind it, Rafer.” Soft, filled with an anger he couldn’t help but acknowledge.

She kept her back to him, drew the silky robe over her naked body before quickly belting it. “You simply refuse to accept it. Why should I fight this alone when you refuse to even acknowledge it? When you don’t even give a damn about what’s happening around you or why?”

“Acknowledge what? That you need everyone else to approve of who you’re sleeping with?” He slid her a hard look, determined to hold back the years of resentment and anger that had once been buried. He refused to allow her to resurrect them.

He stared up at the ceiling for a long moment before rolling from the bed himself and jerking his clothes off the floor. He’d be damned if he was going to fight with her over this. It simply wasn’t worth it and reminded him far too much of the arguments he had with her sister the summer she had been killed.

Why the hell did they insist on attempting to tie together events that even he and his contacts couldn’t prove had a connection? And they were the ones who had fought that battle all their lives.

No matter how hard they had tried, they couldn’t find a single piece of evidence to link their parents’ or their grandparents’ deaths. And God knew they would have loved to.

Socks and jeans were pulled on quickly before he sat on the bed and shoved his feet into his boots. Rafe straightened again, collected his shirt from the chair where it had fallen and pulled it over his shoulders as well.

All the while, he was aware of her watching him, her eyes sheening with tears every few minutes before she blinked them back.

“You’re a coward, Cami,” he finally told her as he secured the buttons of his shirt. “A damned little coward that would cut her own nose off to spite her face if it meant her daddy wouldn’t get mad at her. If it meant he would love her.”

She turned away from him, hiding the truth from him, he thought, knowing that was exactly why she wanted him out of her bed after he fucked the want out of her.

God forbid her daddy should find out about it, Rafe thought furiously.

“You won’t even try to fight against the Corbins or to understand why they want you and your cousins out of this county so badly,” she argued fiercely.

“Oh hell, yes, I do know why.” He gave a bark of mocking laughter. “The inheritances our mothers left us were far more important to those bastards than the grandchildren those daughters left. Especially grandsons that looked too much like their hated Callahan fathers.”

“Then tell me why Marshal Roberts grieved for you?” she asked him, burying the knife that was the past deeper inside his soul and twisting it cruelly. “Why, Rafer, did he show up on my doorstep at a time he would be least noticed to attempt to warn me of something more than his wrath if I continued to see you?”

“Because he’s a smart, manipulative, evil old bastard, and if he died tomorrow I wouldn’t shed a tear for him,” he growled, wondering himself if that were even true.

“Or is it because you’re too damned scared to know the truth? All three of you are,” she accused.

She didn’t know the effect that accusation had on him. She couldn’t have known the bitterness that filled him, Logan, and Crowe, or the questions that haunted them as well. Questions they had no hope of finding because those with the answers were dead.

“There’s not a damned thing I’m scared of in this county, Cami,” he informed her furiously as he stared at her back, watching as her shoulders tightened, as she refused to turn back to him.

“I really don’t want to discuss this with you any longer,” she informed him, her voice low as he stood watching her, the fact that she had her back to him bothering him more than he wanted to admit. “I have things to do in the morning, Rafer, and I don’t have time to deal with you before I leave.”

And she sure as hell didn’t want anyone to know he was here, he thought mockingly. God forbid someone on her street would actually realize she was screwing one of the Callahan cousins.

Son of a bitch if he wasn’t sick and damned tired of dealing with this bullshit with every lover he’d had. He’d thought Cami, with her fire, her restless courage, and warmth would have cared more about whatever they could feel growing between them than whether or not her daddy approved of her lover.

“Do you think I don’t get damned tired of this, Cami? Why don’t you just admit to the fact that you’re so damned scared of daddy finding out you’re fucking his daughter’s killer that you’ll come up with any excuse to put a wedge between us?” he snapped furiously. “And the least you could do is turn around and face me, damn you!”

She shook her head furiously, her hand lifting in rejection, and in that moment, he knew she was crying.

Damn her. He didn’t want to see her tears. He didn’t want to see the hurt in her eyes, or the pain that drifted down her cheeks.

His Cami should never cry. And especially not because of him.

The knowledge of those years was like a dagger shoving inside his gut. Why would she care? For God’s sake, nothing was going to change the past, nothing would ever affect the barons until he, Logan, and Crowe established the vengeance they’d returned home to put in place.

Striding across the room, he gripped her shoulders, pulling her around as he gripped her chin with one hand and lifted her face to see it in the low light on her bedside table.

And she was crying.

Silent, miserable tears washed over her cheeks and dripped down her face to her neck. Her gray eyes were dark, filled with pain, and silently begging him for something he didn’t know how to give her.

“You need—” Her voice hitched. “You need to leave.”

She tried to pull away from him, to hide her tears from him again.

“And you’d rather stand here with your back to me and cry than fight for a damned thing you want. And you have the nerve to berate me?”

He released her slowly.

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” she cried out roughly. “I haven’t cared what Daddy thought since the day I realized he was moving the family to Aspen the summer I graduated. And I wasn’t invited,” she sneered tearfully. “You know Rafer; you should give your grandfather more credit. Because the two of you are more alike than you could ever know.”

“Oh, baby, trust me, I’ve heard that accusation more times than you could ever throw it at me.”

He released her quickly before striding a few steps away from her. “At least I’m willing to admit to it. I know damned good and well that I could be a clone of that old bastard. But you, Cami?” He flicked her an angry look. “You won’t even admit to the fact that the only reason you’ve slipped out of my bed at dawn and run like a scared cat over the years is because you didn’t want that son of a bitch father of yours to know who you were screwing.”

He couldn’t get around her. He couldn’t touch her because he didn’t trust himself. Because he was getting hard. He was so damned ready to fuck her again he couldn’t stand it. And how much sense did that make? She had him so mad he could probably bite nails in half, and what was his response? A fucking hard dick and a need to push her over the bed and fill the liquid heat of her pussy with every throbbing inch of it.

“You think you just know it all,” she bit out, the anger suddenly pouring through her, filling her voice, roughening it as her gaze flickered with the same aroused rage.

God, she was getting just as hot, filling with the same fiery blast of lust that he could feel striking at him.

“That son of a bitch father as you call him probably couldn’t care less who I was fucking,” she suddenly yelled back at him. “I’m so low on his fucking radar these days that he only calls me when he needs my signature at the nursing home to authorize payment for medical care. To see her, I have to pay for the expenses her medical insurance doesn’t. Other than that, I’m lucky if I get to see my mother at all, and I sure as hell don’t care what my so-called father thinks.”

Hell, he hadn’t known that. He couldn’t imagine the anger Jaymi would have felt if she had known how their father was using his youngest daughter.

“He didn’t even care when—”

He watched her face suddenly pale.

Her lips clamped closed as she turned quickly away from him once again and pushed her fingers through her hair before clenching the strands in a gesture of pain and rage.

Rafe’s eyes narrowed on her.

“When what, Cami?” he asked softly. “What happened that he didn’t care?”

He could feel a hard, tight ball of suspicion forming in his gut that Cami was hiding something from him. He’d always known when she was hiding something. It seemed even when she was a teenager, before Jaymi’s death, he’d known how to read her much easier than any other female he’d known.

She had been a bright, curious teenager with what he had believed was no more than a strong crush. He’d never imagined in those days that he would end up wanting her more than he wanted air to breathe at times. Or that she would become as vital to him as he could sense her becoming.

Watching her, touching her, seeing her laugh and even cry were experiences he hungered for when it came to Cami.

“I don’t want to talk about this any further,” she told him, her expression closed and tight as she all but glared back at him over her shoulder. “It’ll be dawn soon, Rafer, and you really need to leave. There’s nothing going on, and there’s nothing wrong except the fact that I really don’t want to deal with the aggravation for a man who even refuses to see the danger that’s chasing him. Not to mention the danger chasing his lovers. I have enough problems.”

She had enough problems?

And she was lying to him. What the hell was going on besides those fucking phone calls?

Whatever it was, she had no intentions of telling him. He could see it in her closed expression, in her eyes, which despite the tears were filled with steely determination.

Damn her, he hated it when she lied to him.

His lips tightened as his head jerked up, nostrils flaring in anger.

As if he were going to just walk away after learning some bastard was calling her, threatening her. If he’d known Jaymi had been receiving such calls, he would have ensured she was protected better. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t bring her sister back for her, but he could do everything in his power to make damned sure that no one dared to hurt her as they had hurt her sister.

He would leave now. Not because she didn’t want anyone to see him, because he was suddenly aware if he was seen, then catching the mysterious caller could become that much harder.

“Yeah, just let me get my ass out of here before someone sees who’s slipping out of your house at night and most likely fucking your brains out every chance he gets,” he snorted, his pride still smarting at the fact that she wanted him to leave, despite the fact that he needed to go. “And when you decide to be a woman willing to face me with the truth of whatever you’re hiding, why don’t you just let me know? Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to get down on my knees and beg you for it, Cami. You’re going to have to be woman enough to admit you want it.”

He turned, grabbed the jacket that had fallen to the floor earlier, and stalked from the bedroom.

He hadn’t really believed she would be so stubborn as long as he attempted to ensure no one saw him coming and going. He’d thought he could have her, tease her, and charm her. That there was something burning between them, unresolved and waiting to blossom into something they could have both found some peace within.

It seemed he would never learn. There was no peace to be found in Corbin County. And there was no love, no respect, and no hunger strong enough to combat whatever Cami suddenly found herself frightened of or fighting against. Or was there?

He’d damned sure be finding out what that “something” was, though. Who was calling Cami and threatening her over the relationship developing with Rafe? Or any of the other women who had been involved with the Callahan brothers? What was going on that none of them was aware of?

Perhaps he should have questioned it sooner. Even more, perhaps Cami was right. Because Jaymi wasn’t the only woman who had died that summer who had been involved with the Callahan brothers. There had been one other. And that one had been planning to meet with Crowe to give him something, a picture she thought he would want to see.

The next time Crowe had seen her, though, she had been a picture in the paper, the latest victim of the Sweetrock Rapist.

As he slipped from the house, Rafe decided it was time to start questioning the past himself.