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

CHAPTER 14

The dress was rich black and gold velvet with silver thread trimming the scalloped bodice and emphasizing her full breasts.

The empire waist of the design gave her such a delicate, fragile appearance that Rafe wondered that he hadn’t managed to break her each time he’d fucked her as though he were dying for her.

The short, sassy cut of her hair framed her fine-boned face in a multitude of browns, the natural highlights almost fascinating to him each time he’d concentrated on them.

And her gray eyes. She watched the dancing with a sense of hunger, the slow, sensual sway of the bodies holding her attention as though she was imagining herself on the floor as well: What would it feel like? How would it be to be held against his body, to feel him moving against her?

At least, it damned well better be him she was fantasizing about. And how the hell was he supposed to ensure it when so much distance separated them? When the past and the whole of Corbin County stood between them?

What was he doing here? He should have never let Crowe and Logan convince him to accompany them here. What was Crowe doing even wanting to attend this crap? Hell, they’d even avoided it as teenagers, so why were they here now?

Had Crowe lost his mind as he’d matured? Perhaps taken a bullet to the head? Had he somehow lost his mind? Crowe was sure making some odd-assed decisions lately.

Attending the Spring Fling Social was just one of those decisions.

Everyone in Corbin County seemed to attend the more important socials, as City Hall liked to call them. Through the spring, summer, and early fall, every Saturday the county paid for either a band or DJ and the guests partied, sometimes until the next day’s dawn.

The bar facing the town square remained open even past last call, though alcohol wasn’t sold past a certain time. That didn’t mean many of the partygoers didn’t bring their own. The community center, also facing the square, remained open the full weekend. From Friday afternoon through Sunday evening teenagers as well as young children joined the weekend slumber parties.

If Rafe remembered correctly, the teenagers brought their own sleeping bags or pillows, supplies were donated for pizza making, chips and drinks were brought by the sponsors and chaperones. In holding the weekend events a place was provided to keep the kids off the streets and entertained through the summer months, keeping them from running wild.

It was a pretty cool little setup. And to give the county credit, there hadn’t been a single time that he and his cousins had been turned away when they were younger. Despite the fact that Clyde Ramsey used the weekend activity as a babysitter while he went to Aspen for what he called his adult fun.

Never had the Callahans been turned away from a weekend social or ostracized during one, unless it was their peers ostracizing them. Which it usally was.

And that was enough for the cousins. As soon as they were old enough, Rafe, Logan, and Crowe had begun camping out on the weekends Clyde was gone. He hadn’t totally trusted any of them. Blood will tell, he was known to mutter as he locked up the house and drove them into town. He didn’t want anything stolen out of his house.

Not that the cousins had ever stolen a damned thing in their lives. They hadn’t. And they hadn’t been able to find a single time when anyone had been certain their fathers had stolen anything. It was all supposition and suspicion.

The cousins might not have been ostracized from the socials as teenagers, but as adults it was another story. Standing together in their dress blacks, combed and polished, they were well aware of the looks they were receiving and from which direction.

The citizens of the county who had been there when the Callahan cousins were growing up watched them suspiciously while the new residents, those who had come in since, watched them curiously. And more of the single women than not at least glanced their way in appreciation.

There had been a time Rafe and his cousins would have shown this county exactly how their fathers had managed to catch and marry the boys’ mothers, heiresses though they were. There were several Corbin County moneyed daughters as well as a few he recognized from the social pages from Denver, Grand Junction, and Aspen. And if he wasn’t mistaken— He allowed his lips quirk into a grin as one of those moneyed daughters arched her brow in invitation.

At any other time he would have taken her up on the silent invitation, especially here, in front of every bastard who had ever turned his nose up at a Callahan.

But then Cami had happened.

He was damned if he would mess up a chance to experience the pleasure he found in the sleek, hot depths of the sweetest pussy he’d ever known. And he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, if he so much as considered taking another woman to his bed, then he would never so much as glimpse Cami’s bed again.

Rafe’s gaze slid to her once again, watched as she stood talking to one of the other teachers at the elementary school where she taught.

The bouncy little redhead was full of vivacious laughter, and her gaze kept straying to him, then back to Cami. As though she knew more than she had seen the night before. More than Martin Eisner had told.

Though, honestly, Eisner hadn’t told near as much as Rafe had expected him to. For a damned gossip, he’d been amazingly reticent so far.

“Tell me why we’re here again?” Logan muttered behind Rafe, just loud enough to reach both his and Crowe’s ears.

Logan wasn’t happy to be here either, evidently. But, just as he had done when they were younger, Crowe had all but forced them out of the house and into town.

“Because we’re not hiding anymore,” Crowe answered firmly, not bothering to lower his tone any more than necessary. He wasn’t trying to keep anyone from hearing him, but neither was he trying to tell everyone around them either.

“I wasn’t aware we were hiding before,” Rafe snorted. “Simply uninterested. I’m still not interested.”

And that was a lie of major proportions. The more he watched Cami, the more interested he became in the Sweetrock Saturday night social. He could see where and why the event could come in handy. At least he had a legitimate excuse for being in the same vicinity she was in. If he had his way, he’d have a hell of an excuse for holding her in his arms and staking a silent, though very clear claim on the woman he was considered his own. That sense of possession was growing stronger by the day.

“Well, I am,” Crowe drawled. “If you two want to leave, then find your own ride. Personally, I intend to have a little fun.”

Rafe looked back at him wryly. “I knew riding in with you was a bad decision.”

And it had been all Crowe’s idea. Hell, he should have just brought the Harley, but the mountain air was still colder than hell.

Crowe shrugged, the perfect fit of the black silk evening jacket he wore barely shifting over the broad width of his shoulders. “Sucks to be you boys, then don’t it?”

His cousin was scanning the crowd again, as though searching for someone. As though he knew why he was there and who he was there to see.

Just why was Crowe so interested in being there?

There had to be more to this than simply wanting to force Corbin County to accept them. Because none of them really gave a damn if Corbin County accepted them or not. If they followed through with their plans, then the county would have to accept them anyway. Attending a damned social wasn’t going to make a difference.

Rafe glanced over at Logan. He was staring above them at the brightly strung lights in the newly budding trees overhead.

The white- and peach-colored lights weren’t that interesting. Rafe had always considered them rather bland and boring himself. Peach wasn’t exactly his favorite color.

“You boys are boring me,” Rafe muttered as he lifted the glass of beer he had bought earlier and took a hard drink of the warming liquid as he kept his eyes on Cami.

It was a damned good thing he liked the taste of beer, because it wasn’t at its best after it warmed.

“Well, by all means, don’t let us hold you back,” Crowe grunted. “You’re not chained to us, you know.”

“Hmm.” He all but ignored his cousin as he watched Cami lift her hand, her graceful fingers pushing back a strand of gold-and-walnut-streaked hair back from her cheek as a man, another man, walked up to her, smiled, and handed her a flute of champagne.

And she dared to smile at him?

Her lips curved with charm and graciousness, and was she flirting with the bastard? Were her lashes lowering over her eyes deliberately, giving that son of a bitch a sleepy, sexy, take-me-to-bed look?

Rafe straightened slowly from where he’d been leaning against the post of the pergola he and his cousins were standing beneath.

This wasn’t going to happen.

He glared over at her, as though the force of his look alone would send the son of a bitch running.

Cami’s admirer leaned closer and whispered something in her ear as she leaned in to him.

Fucker! Whoever the hell he was, he was risking his life.

Then, the other man’s hand reached up, his fingers curling around her upper arm.

Another man was touching what was Rafe’s? He could feel his jaw clenching.

Were those his teeth grinding?

He’d be damned if he would have this.

He set the empty beer glass down slowly, unaware of even having finished the warming brew before shoving his hands in the pockets of his slacks and clenching his fists.

Mine!

“Did you say something, Rafe?” Crowe asked behind him.

He didn’t say a damned thing. Not out loud at least.

Had he?

Then the man standing with her gestured to the dance floor, where another slow song was beginning to fill the night air.

It was an invitation, and it was an invitation that just might get the bastard into more trouble than he could have imagined.

“Ah fuck, don’t do it, Cami,” he muttered.

He practically felt the blood beginning to boil in his veins as a surge of some impossibly possessive urge tore through his senses.

He felt like an animal.

He wanted nothing more than to snarl in primal rage that some son of a bitch thought he could claim, for even a moment, what Rafe had already tried to mark as his own.

Oh, if he hadn’t marked her yet, then he would.

Tonight.

Tonight, he’d show her exactly how he could mark her. How he could take that collection of erotic toys in her bedside drawer and turn her little world inside out. She would be convinced he lived under her skin when he was finished with her.

She would know who that lush, graceful little body belonged to.

She would know exactly who claimed not just her kisses and her juicy little pussy but also every fucking dance she was willing to give away.

He took a step forward.

“Ah, Rafe, wait just a minute.” Logan caught Rafe’s arm, bringing him to a stop only because of the warning in his cousin’s voice. “Are you sure you want to do this here?”

He turned to the other man slowly, his head lowered, his gaze boring into his cousin’s with a fury Logan didn’t know how to handle.

“Do what?” he asked between clenched teeth. “Dance? Why, I’m quite certain I do.”

And he knew exactly who he intended to dance with. Exactly who he intended to show this entire fucking town belonged to him. Rafer Callahan wasn’t just a kid they considered as from the wrong side of the tracks. He wasn’t just the son of the bastard who had stolen Ann Ramsey from the marriage pool and impregnated her. Hell no, Rafe was also Cambria Flannigan’s lover and before the night was over the world would fucking know it whether she liked it or not.

“Hold up there, Rafe,” Logan protested again as Rafe attempted to move forward. “Not a good idea. Man, show some common sense here.”

Rafe turned his head until he was glaring over his shoulder at his cousin. “Let me go, Logan, before I put you flat on your ass.”

And Rafe could do it. Maybe not for long, but he could do it.

“Hey, man, he’s walking away from her. See, you don’t have to play the big bad wolf after all.” There was more than an edge of amusement to Logan’s voice; he was practically laughing out loud. “Let’s not make a scene now.”

Rafe’s gaze flicked to where his cousin held on to his arm.

“Take your hand off me, Logan, or we’ll fight.”

They hadn’t fought in a lot of years, but nothing or no one was going to stand between Rafe and what he had already claimed as his own.

That was his woman standing over there, her gaze once again locked on the dancers, that hunger still glowing in her eyes, eating at his control.

It was a dance. All she wanted was a dance, and she deserved that dance, in his arms.

He’d never danced with her before last night.

He hadn’t been able to do anything but fuck her mindless every time he touched her. And he wanted more. More touches, more kisses, more fucking them both silly, and more dances.

Logan released him slowly. “Come on, Rafe; we don’t want to fight before we leave here, tonight. Archer would have to lock us up again. You know we wouldn’t like that.”

“Archer wouldn’t dare!” Rafe growled. “Aren’t you fucking tired of being stuck on the sidelines of these damned things, Logan? Not good enough to dance with their women because they’re fucking terrified we’ll marry into their money again or claim one of their prettiest women?”

Logan grimaced. “Since when did we give a damn? This little event isn’t an end-all or be-all, dammit. Stand your ground some other time, when you have something to back you besides just our fists.”

He knew what Logan was trying to say. When they had a financial hold on the town that couldn’t be refuted or denied. Once the financial benefits of the resort they had planned were felt, the county would change their tune fast. Damned fast. But Rafe would be damned if he would see another man take the opportunity to touch his woman while he was waiting.

He swung around, intent on stalking across the brick and tile square to where his woman stood and claiming her in front of God and Corbin County.

He came to a stop before he took his first step, his eyes canvasing the square slowly, moving over the chatting groups, the laughter-filled guests and flirting couples.

She wasn’t there.

Where the hell had she gone?

“She took one look at your face and ran.” Crowe’s golden-brown eagle’s eyes were lit with laughter. “My best guess is the little bird just flew away home.”

Flew away home, did she?

Rafe rather doubted it. She knew he would follow her home. She knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to get off that damned easy tonight.

Two weeks.

He’d waited two fucking weeks for her, and he was tired of waiting.

He’d never waited for a woman in his life.

He’d never chased one down in his life, but he was doing it now.

Striding across the square, his gaze moving over the area, searching the shadows, knowing she was there, feeling her there, he became the hunter the military had taught him to be. The hunter pure primal lust was turning him into.

He slipped into the darkness, knowing how to blend into the edges of the party and how to canvas each section of the town square until he found her.

Did she really think she could show up here and get away without dealing with him?

She hadn’t called until last night and he’d been in a damned dead zone. She hadn’t driven by the ranch; she hadn’t indicated in any way, shape, or form that she even remembered a single moment they’d spent screwing each other’s brains out. Well, he was of a mind to remind her of it tonight. And tomorrow night. And the night after.

He’d seen her face, he’d seen her eyes, and he knew she was just as hungry as he was. She was having just as hard a time keeping her eyes off him as he was having keeping his eyes off her.

He moved slowly around the couples that had sought out the privacy of the shadows as well. He ignored the whispers in the shadowed little coves and private seating areas. Not private enough to engage in anything illicit, at least not until later, once everyone was a little freer due to drink. Just private enough to afford a bit of intimacy.

She was here.

He swore he could feel her, like a warmth, a comfort that went beyond the physical.

The physical was there, though.

His cock was so damned hard he swore he could pound nails with it. The head was engorged, flared and aching, throbbing in need.

The remembered feel of her pussy gripping it, milking it, was burning him alive. The need to feel it again was making him fucking crazy.

To sink inside her, inch by slow inch, as her pussy flexed and rippled around the sensitive crown.

He paused.

He’d moved farther into the shadows, closer to the parking lot, a soft mountain breeze playing through the trees when he caught a subtle, elusive scent.

“You’re hunting me,” she accused me. “I can feel you.”

He turned slowly, his gaze zeroing in on the small private seating area. This one was more private than the others, closer to the parking lot, more heavily shadowed by the unlit trees around it.

Turning, Rafe moved slowly through the night, moving into the unlit, sheltered area until he was standing in front of her, staring down at her as he lifted his hands and gripped her slender, rounded hips.

“Are you hidden well enough?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice calm, indulgent. “By all means, we can’t allow anyone here to see us together, can we?”

Her hands lifted to his chest, her fingers flattening against it, just beneath the edges of his jacket. He could feel the warmth of her palms through the thin cotton shirt he wore beneath the black evening jacket.

Like a stroke of sensual fire against his chest. Damn her, that tentative, shaky touch and the sound of her accelerated breathing had his balls tightening violently.

She stared up at him with those hungry eyes, her expression almost dazed as her lips parted to breathe.

“I don’t want anyone to see me like this,” she whispered. “To see me shaking and barely able to breathe because you’re too close to me.”

“Can I get too close to you, kitten?”

He jerked her fully against him, the height of the heels she wore lining up her sensitive little clit to the hard wedge of his cock through their clothing.

She breathed in roughly.

Her nails curled, rasping over the fabric of his shirt as her lashes fluttered almost closed.

“Yes, in public you can get too close to me,” she admitted. “And when you do, I lose my mind.”

She lost her mind and forgot her resolve. When he was anywhere close to her she forgot what she had promised herself and wanted nothing more than to touch him.

She’d seen him several times in the past two weeks and forced herself to run in the opposite direction. A few times literally.

“And losing your mind is such a bad thing, is it?”

The indulgent though subtly angry tone of his voice had a flinch jerking through her. “You ask so much of me,” she whispered, staring up at him as she fought to keep from laying her head against his chest. “I’ve watched for you every night, Rafer.” The words felt torn from her.

They were torn from her, because they were words she would have held in if she could control herself whenever he was around.

“It goes two ways, baby,” he assured her. “You have my number. You know where I live.”

She shook her head slowly, her lashes feeling sensually heavy as his fingers began to stroke her hips through the light velvet of her dress.

The nights were still a bit chilly in the higher elevations of the mountains. In this area, surrounded by the trees and snow-topped mountains, the nights were never hot and balmy, even in the summer.

The dress that had been perfectly comfortable before she saw Rafer was now too hot, too heavy. She wanted it off; she wanted his clothes off. She wanted to be as close to him as skin would allow.

“I called last night,” she whispered. “You didn’t answer.”

“Dead zone,” he said.

“What are you doing to me, Rafer?” she whispered. “Why are you doing this me?”

His hands tightened on her hips, lifting her, wedging his cock tighter against her lower stomach.

“Because I can’t get you out of my fantasies,” he growled as his head lowered, his lips at her ear, caressing the sensitive shell. “Because all I have to do is think of you and my dick is so hard I’ve sworn it was pure iron. Because I can’t get you out of my fucking system and I think I’m going to end up hating you because evidently you can get me out of yours.”

“Oh, can I?” she asked hoarsely, her breathing rough. “Is that why I’m not sleeping every night? Is that why I lay and watch my door, praying you’ll walk through it, or every time my phone rings at night feel my body sensitize and prepare for you and then see it’s not even you?”

She could hear the desperation in her voice even as she felt it in her body.

Her head tilted to the side as his lips moved over her ear, his tongue probing at the outer shell, his teeth nipping at the lobe as she fought back a moan.

She could feel the echo of the pleasure washing through the rest of her body, rasping over her nipples, sending fingers of agonizing pleasure raking over her clit.

Her womb clenched, an involuntary spasm shuddering through it as sensual hunger tore through her with fiery desperation as his lips moved to a violently sensitive area just below her ear.

His lips touched her, parted, delivered a stinging little kiss that had her hands sliding to his shoulders as she tried to get closer, tried to burrow beneath his flesh.

“You haven’t come to me, Rafer,” she panted roughly. “I waited.”

“I waited for you, baby,” he whispered. “You didn’t call. I won’t beg you every time we come together.”

“Do you want me to beg?” She was so ready to beg.

She could beg so easily if that was that he wanted her to do.

“No, I want you to dance with me, Cami.”

Her hands tightened on his shoulders.

He wasn’t going to make this easier for her, was he? It would be all or nothing. And didn’t he deserve it?

All his life he’d been pushed to the back, told he didn’t deserve the same things other men deserved, and each time he entered Corbin County he became a secondary citizen.

And he wasn’t.

In so many ways, Rafer deserved so much more than others in this county could ever deserve.

He drew back to stare down at her, his eyes meeting hers, demand darkening them and tightening the fingers that clenched her hips.

She laid her head on his chest, feeling one broad hand move from her hip to the back of her head, his fingers threading through the short strands of her hair. Closing her eyes, she tried to soak in the warmth and confidence that was so much a part of him.

“Let you claim me,” she whispered, knowing what he was demanding.

“Deny you belong to me, Cami.” He sounded uncompromising yet incredibly gentle, even understanding. He knew what he was asking of her, knew what it could possibly result in, and still he was demanding it.

She fought the emotions rising inside her, her face tightening, clenching with the effort it took to hold back the instinctive objection to everything he wanted.

She swallowed tightly. “I can’t belong—” But she wanted to. She wanted to so badly that the need throbbed through her veins and pulsed through her clit. It wasn’t just a sexual need or a sensual pleasure. “I can dance with you,” she dragged in a harsh breath.

The need was a hunger to be close to him, to allow the intimacy of a dance to pull them together. It would hold them and allow them to claim each other in public. He would do it in full view of not just their enemies but also the threatening caller that who finally called that evening as she made her way to the town square.

And this time, the threat had been more explicit.

Rafe tensed against her.

Oh, she wasn’t going to do this.

Rafe stared down at her, calculating the best way to stake his claim. To impress upon her, and every man who would lust after her, that she was his. Convince her clear to her soul, that she was his. That no other man would touch her, no matter what, no matter where.

And there was only one way to effectively do that. To claim her, to mark her in a way everyone would damned well understand.

She was a stubborn woman and she had it in her head that she wasn’t going to allow any kind of public claim. That she was either not risking her heart, or not risking her pride by being publicly claimed by a Callahan. He had to admit, at this point, he wasn’t certain which it was. But he did know what he had seen moments before. Another man trying to touch her, to take her, to claim her.

Cami’s reputation as a woman without a claim was coming to an end, and it was coming to an end tonight.

Lowering his head, nearly nose to nose with her, Rafe felt his teeth pull back in a primal snarl.

“Be very, very careful,” he warned her, his voice rough, hoarse. “I saw that bastard touching you, Cami. I saw his hand on you and I saw his invitation to you, to dance.”

Her eyes widened, her lips parted.

“Don’t.” He laid his finger against her lips. “No objections. Don’t even bother arguing. Trust me, Cami. To the bottom of your soul trust this: If I see another man touch you, see him lay his hand on you, then I swear to you I’ll break his hand. And God help us all if you agree to dance with any man other than me!”

Shock resounded through her.

The sound of his voice, the warning, the fury that glittered in his eyes, had trepidation surging through her even as he jerked her closer. His fingers tangled in the hair at the back of her head, pulled her head back, and his lips covered hers.

It was like pouring gasoline on fire.

Barely banked on a good day, the hunger suddenly flamed, raged through her, and stole her control. Her hands buried themselves in his overly long hair, tangled in it, and pulled him closer. Like roughened velvet his lips rubbed over hers, slanted, his tongue meeting hers desperately.

She tasted him. Male heat and flaming hunger. There was a hint of the beer he must have drunk earlier, and that smokey wine taste of his cigar. Just a hint of it. Just enough to make her long for more, to have her reaching to get closer, to taste the kiss deeper.

What was she doing?

She moaned in need. She was aching for him. The ache was becoming more intense by the night, the hunger to just have him near tearing at her.

His fingers clenched at her hip and in her hair as a male groan muted and filled Rafer with a need for her that was nearly intoxicating by itself.

She had never been wanted as Rafer wanted her. She had never been kissed, tasted, and touched as Rafer touched her.

And she had never ached for another man as she ached for Rafer.

She was shocked as he pulled back, but she didn’t fight as he wrapped his arm around her back and led her the short distance to the edge of the dance area.

She didn’t care at that point who watched, who saw. She didn’t care what they saw.

She could feel the hard, thick wedge of his cock pressing against her lower belly between their clothes. Suddenly, she wasn’t chilled any longer, she was warm. No, she wasn’t warm, she was hot. Blazing. Fiery.

She could have melted ice as she stared up at him.

The flame of hunger in his gaze sank inside her. It washed over the places in her soul that she wanted to remain hidden, that she wanted to remain chilled.

She didn’t want to thaw. She didn’t want to feel the additional ache, the loss, the hungry need that went so far beyond the sexual.

But that was exactly what she felt.

As he moved her across the dance floor, held her in his arms, and claimed her to everyone willing to see, Cami felt that part of her soul open and come alive.

Rafe watched the crowd.

With his head bent over Cami’s, one hand tangled in her hair, the other gripping her hip, he felt her melt against him.

She was accepting him. He could feel that acceptance to the bottom of his soul. And in doing so, she was accepting the claim he made on her.

With his gaze locked across the dance floor on Marshal Roberts, he stared back at his supposed grandfather with a fiery rage and unbidden fury he’d never been able to quench.

Until the old man turned away, replaced the western hat he invariably wore, and walked away.

He didn’t know what the old bastard was up to, but he would find out. There were a lot of things he intended to have answers to very, very soon.

Until then, he had Cami in his arms. Slow dancing, swaying, holding her as close to him as two people could get.

Until the music ended.

Cami found herself back where they had started, sheltered within the small grotto, staring up at Rafer as he stepped away from her.

A second later, she was free.

Trembling, struggling to stand upright on the five-inch heels as he steadied her, but only for a second, before letting her go and stepping back.

“Rafer,” she whispered.

She needed more. She was dying for more.

“Let me know when I can come through the front door, Cami,” he bit out furiously. “Until then, you damned well better remember every word of warning I just gave you.”

Before she could protest or argue, he was gone. Sliding through the shadows and disappearing, leaving her feeling suddenly deflated, lost.

She sat down slowly on the lovers’ bench behind her and covered her face with her hands.

She should have told him why.

She should have told him about the phone calls and that the last threat wasn’t just against her. The last time the caller had contacted her, he had threatened Rafe as well.

“You’re not being a good girl, Cambria. Don’t you know I’ll punish you even more than I did your sister? This time, your lover will feel my anger as well.

You’re not being a good girl.

In other words she wasn’t staying away from Rafe or keeping him away from her.

Maybe she should have told him—