She could feel the insanity of that need clawing at her until she and Rafe bent closer, his fingers turning inside her pussy as he twisted his wrist to the side, thrust his fingers inside her, then ground his palm against the swollen, violently sensitive bud of her clit.
It tore through her then. Ecstasy exploded with a white-hot brilliance that tore at her mind, ripping it from its moorings as pleasure expanded, exploded, enraptured until she swore her spirit was torn from her own body and shot straight to Rafe’s.
The emotions that swirled through the pleasure were a combination of so many things, so many hopes, needs, and dreams that she had never known she had.
The bond she had always sensed between them seemed to open up, to burn around her, as she stared into the rich brilliant blue of his eyes as he tightened before her, his expression tightening, his body tensing, his teeth baring a second before she watched his release flood his expression and the sensitive recess of her rear.
Hard, fiery spurts of semen blasted inside her, the sensation adding to the ecstasy, pushing it higher, increasing it, rocking the very foundations of her knowledge of herself and Rafe.
As though such pleasure could never be contained, it exploded again, imploded, tore through every particle of her body, then tossed her through the sensations until she found herself trembling beneath Rafe, shuddering at the extremity of the sensations as she fought to catch her breath.
She was wasted. Exhausted. She was so weak she could only whimper helplessly as she felt him slowly pull free to collapse beside her.
She was used to Rafe cuddling her afterward, but when he wrapped his arms around her he pulled her close to his heart, holding her more firmly than he had before.
And she hadn’t even realized how she had needed this each time they had been together. To be held so snugly, so close, that there would be no chance of slipping free of him, whether he was asleep or not.
Drowsiness gripped her, exhaustion settled inside her, as she felt the heavy lassitude of sleep slowly easing over her.
She roused only seconds later as she felt Rafe running a warm, wet cloth over and between her thighs, reaching back to the slick cleft of her rear. He cleaned her as though the thought of her comfort was uppermost. He had every time. Each time they had been together he had taken the time needed to rise from the bed, collect the cloth, then clean her gently.
Her lashes lifted drowsily, as she was uncertain whether she wanted to wake enough to watch him or not.
“Sleep, baby,” he murmured tenderly as he dropped the cloth to the towels that lay beside the bed. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
About what?
She didn’t ask the question, though. Instead, she let sleep overtake her, though she didn’t slip into the deepest reaches of it until she felt Rafe return to the bed. When his arms went around her, he pulled her into his embrace and the heavy beat of his heart against her ear lulled her into a sleep more peaceful, more fulfilling, than any she had known before.
CHAPTER 24
She had expected Amelia to show up before dawn, to slip into the house as she had done when they were teenagers and grounded for some transgression.
What Cami didn’t expect was to come sharply awake just after dawn to the heavy crack of her bedroom door against the frame.
Before her eyes were open Rafe was moving.
He rolled her from the bed, still naked, moving with a powerful surge of strength as he took her over the side of the bed to the floor, the weapon in his hand trained across the room.
She couldn’t blame him for it. He’d been trained to react and to move at the slightest sign of danger.
After all that had happened in the past weeks, who could have blamed him for leveling that weapon on her father?
Her sperm donor, she liked to call him, because there was nothing fatherly about Mark Flannigan.
“What the hell are you doing here, Flannigan?” Rafe growled, even as he wondered where his cousins were.
“Now then, wouldn’t it just surprise you to know I’m here to see my wife’s daughter.”
His wife’s daughter, not his own. Rafe caught the mocking inference in Mark’s tone, and from the flinch of her body he knew Cami had caught it as well.
“I need my robe,” she whispered almost silently, more than uncomfortable at the thought of being naked in front of her father.
Rafe had no such problems, though.
Rising to his feet as he cast Mark a scowl, Rafe padded across the room to where the silken robe was draped over the lady’s chair that sat in the corner.
Pulling it quickly over her arms, Cami kept her gaze on her father and wondered why he was there. In the time since she had bought the house from her parents, not once had either of them come by to see her home.
“There was no need,” he assured her, his gaze scathing as it flickered over her and Rafe again.
Rafe still hadn’t dressed. He was too busy sitting on the bed and watching her father warningly. She could have told Rafe that no amount of warning could stop whatever her father had in mind to say.
His gaze flicked back to her again.
“How disappointing,” he told her, a sneer pulling at his lips. “I would have never expected such a betrayal of your family, even from you.”
Even from her, as though betrayal were something he had grown to accept as a part of her.
“Your opinion of me or anything I do isn’t anything I lose sleep over, Mark,” she told him casually, knowing that the worst thing she could do was allow him to see how easily he could wound her.
She had learned better than that years before.
“What I’d like to know is how he managed to slip past Logan and Crowe,” Rafe stated.
Mark snorted. “They were out back for some reason.” He shrugged comfortably. “I have a key.”
“I’d like that key back,” she informed him. “Is Mom okay?”
“As if you care,” he accused her. “You’re too busy fucking her daughter’s murderer to even check up on her.”
Cami could only shake her head. She called the facility daily and went to visit whenever she could.
Her mother didn’t even recognize her. Cami doubted her mother even thought of her when she did have the presence of mind to remember her.
“What do you want, Mark?” Cami asked wearily as Rafe rose to his feet, pulled his jeans over his legs, and pulled the zipper up nonchalantly.
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard how you were consorting with these bastards.” Mark flicked his fingers to Rafe to indicate not just him but also his cousins, who weren’t in the room at the moment.
“I don’t want to hear this.” Cami lifted her hand, seeing the rage in her father’s face and wishing she had changed the locks to the house when she had the chance.
“You don’t want to hear this,” he sneered back at her. “This is how you repay the love and loyalty Jaymi felt for you, isn’t it? They killed her, Cami—”
“They didn’t kill her, and I won’t deal with you at the moment. Leave, Mark.”
His expression twisted in fury. “Give me the courtesy of calling me Father, you little whore.”
The conversation was over as far as she was concerned. The accusations she could handle; the name-calling was much harder to overlook or to turn the other cheek on.
“Your mother heard what you were doing here, in her home, in the room where she once slept in her bed,” he snarled back at Cami as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and watched her as though she were a foul odor he couldn’t disperse.