“Sweet Cami,” he whispered as his lips lowered to hers.
He meant to only brush them, to comfort her, to hopefully ease the pain both of them had endured over the years. A pain that could have been eased, that could have healed if stubbornness and pride hadn’t held them apart.
But her hands lifted to his chest, small, delicate and warm, lying against it with a tentative, almost hesitant caress as her lips parted beneath his.
Gentle, heated, the need that rose between them was unlike any he had felt, even with her, in his life. As though something had come together that morning. Something he couldn’t fight or deny, something that slipped free of his soul and began to fill his heart as their kiss deepened, grew hotter, and began to meld them together.
He had dreamed of finding her soft heart, of feeling her kiss infused with that “something” that only her acceptance of that emotion could bring.
And she was accepting it. Accepting it and holding it close to her as she was pulling him close to her.
Disposing of their clothing was easy.
Her hands pushed at the material of his clothing as his hands removed hers, his fingers brushing against her flesh and feeling the softness of her flesh and the hunger rising between them both.
It had been there since she had been sixteen. It had only grown through the years.
Drawing her to the nearest piece of furniture in the room, Rafe sat back in the chair behind him, drew her forward, parted her thighs, then drew her to him.
He watched.
Hell, he couldn’t help but watch as the tight, saturated flesh of her pussy eased over his cock head, drawing it inside, sucking it into her body with slow, sweet milking motions of the tight muscles and silken tissue.
Pleasure whipped every cell of his body as he held her hips and watched as she shifted hers, rolled them, and slowly took him.
Her hands were braced on his chest, her head thrown back, pleasure suffusing her expression as she began to thrust against him, above him.
“God, yes, baby,” he groaned as she finally slid down, taking his full length as her pussy began to flex and clench on his flesh. “Ride my dick, baby. Take it up that tight little pussy.”
He was dying for her.
He hadn’t expected this. Not this hunger that surged so hot and fast, searing over his nerve endings and burning through his senses. And he sure as hell hadn’t expected her head to lower, her eyes to meet his. “I love you,” she whispered as she began to move harder, faster.
Though still tender and bruised, she took him, her pleasure obvious, her need rising.
His hips rose, thrusting up, shafting her with the thick width of his cock as he felt her tighten, watched her eyes open wide, then watched her orgasm wash through every particle of her being.
Just as Rafe felt his own release explode in his balls, surge through his cock, and in hard, powerful jets, spill inside the giving depths of her body.
* * *
Son of a bitch, she had slipped out of the bed on him again.
Rafe came awake hours later, the knowledge that Cami wasn’t by his side surging through him.
It took him a moment to remember where he was, what had happened, and to know his cousins would never allow her to leave the house.
After showering and dressing, he went in search of her.
She was in the kitchen, staring in the cabinets with a frown.
“Dinner,” she mumbled. “I don’t know if I have enough for three mountains pretending to be men.”
The teasing edge of amusement in her gaze had his lips twitching.
“Yeah, especially after you helped us build a hell of an appetite.”
He moved to her, kissed her neck, then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him.
He kissed her gently at first, and would have gone for more if his own stomach hadn’t decided to begin growling.
Cami laughed at the sound before pulling away from him and moving back to the ingredients she had laid out.
Just then, Crowe’s cell phone rang and they heard his cousin walk down the hall to take the call.
It wasn’t long before Crowe came back.
His expression was a hardened demand that spurred Rafe and Logan both into action.
“What’s happened?” Rafe questioned harshly as Cami moved to his side, her face etched with concern.
“It’s Archer on the phone,” Crowe growled. “Jack Townsend’s garage outside of town just exploded. Jack’s tow truck and Jeannie’s car were both in the parking lot and no one saw them leave.” He glanced at Cami as a small, unconscious sob finally tore from her, only to quiet just as quickly. “It looks like they were killed in the explosion.”
CHAPTER 20
Cami felt numb inside as Rafe pulled the Denali SUV into the parking lot of Jack’s Towing and Repair just outside Sweetrock city limits no less than fifteen minutes later. Staring at the burned, charred mess of the building, she couldn’t imagine how anyone could have survived such an explosion. Especially if they had been in the apartment overhead where Jack and Jeannie had lived.
More than half of the garage was just gone, with the debris scattered through the parking lot, vehicles lying in a tangled mess here and there. One lay in the field across from the garage. There were more than half a dozen that had been parked in the waiting lot, ready for needed repairs.
There was no repairing the damaged messes they were now. Cinder blocks, mortar, and metal had been slammed onto the vehicles. The wreckage defied any sense of logic or attempts to make sense of what had happened.
Cami stepped out of the truck, aware of being surrounded by Callahans and all the eyes that turned to them as three hard-cored, hard-muscled, steel-eyed Callahan men wrapped themselves around her and defied anyone to attempt to get close to her.
As she stared up at the garage, her heart in her chest, she tried to blink back the tears she couldn’t hold back any longer. She couldn’t believe this had happened.
“This wasn’t an accident,” Crowe muttered from behind her and Rafe as she felt his arm tighten around her back, his hand falling to her hip, his fingers gripping it firmly, as though she would attempt to tear herself away from him.
At the moment, her emotions were so torn, conflicted, and thrown into chaos that she couldn’t imagine moving away from the only person who seemed to ground them.
“No,” Rafe growled. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“How can you be so certain?” she asked faintly. “Why would anyone want to hurt Jack and Jeannie?”
“We’ll find out,” Rafe promised as Cami glimpsed Archer amid a group of volunteer firefighters and several state police officers.
Catching sight of the Rafe and Cami, Archer lifted his hand in acknowledgment before excusing himself and moving quickly across the debris-strewn parking lot. “The fire marshal is refusing to allow anyone onto the premises.” Archer’s voice was low as he reached them, his gaze filled with somber anger. “I can’t check for the bodies, Rafe.”
Cami wanted to close her eyes; she wanted to deny that this could have happened. That there was a chance that Jack and or Jeannie could have been in that building. But Jack’s tow truck was there, as was Jeannie’s little gray car. Was there even the smallest chance that they weren’t in the building?
“Neighbors saw Jack going in maybe half an hour before the explosion,” Archer sighed. “They didn’t see anyone else.”
“He was at the house the other day,” Cami told Archer softly. “He remembered the accident Jaymi was in just before she was killed; his father towed the car in and repaired it. The brake lines had been deliberately cut.”