“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Pulling back, he shot her a disgusted look before picking up his coffee cup and moving to the sink. It was set in the sink gently, despite the tension raging through him. She had expected him to throw it. She would have.
“Fuck your ‘sorry,’” he grunted. “Your parents for all their love for each other and for Jaymi, they never gave a damn about you. And they had no compassion, and they sure as hell had no sympathy, for three little boys suddenly orphaned and about as alone in the world as they could get. When our parents died every damned one of them turned on us and the few that didn’t ignored it,” he accused. “Tell me, Cami, do you even know why the hell the fine citizens of Sweetrock hated my father and uncles more than they hated any others? What the hell did they do to inspire such fucking animosity toward their children as well?”
Cami could only shake her head. She’d had this discussion with her Aunt, and Ella Flannigan hadn’t been willing to supply the answers.
There had been excuses. There had been embarassment. But, there hadn’t been an explanation that made sense other than the fact that the barons had set the rules on their treatment and everyone seemed to follow.
Even among the teachers Cami had been friends with most of her life seemed unwilling to discuss the Callahan cousins.
She’d always felt as though her parents and their friends were unwilling to face whatever had happened in the past. They were definitely unwilling to discuss their own reasons for so blindly following the cousins’ families in that regard.
Sweetrock was a very small town. A church, a courthouse and sheriff’s office, a single grocer, and several feed and supply stores were all they could boast of. There were fewer than a thousand citizens; the last census counted 605 within the city limits.
“So you’re just going to lie about your little adventure with Rafer Callahan.” He strode back to the table and leaned over, his palms flattening against the tabletop.
“There’s no lie. It was snowing, my car was stuck, and I’m staying here until I can get the car out.” She had to force the words past her lips as she stared into the depths of his burning gaze.
There was anger there. A male fury that burned clear to his soul. But there was also betrayal, and she couldn’t blame him for feeling it or for hating her and everyone else in the county for it.
“If I could get you out of here now, right this minute, I would.” His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. “I’ll be damned if I even want you here.”
She rose slowly to her feet, watching as he straightened as well, his chest rising and falling harshly, those blue, blue eyes glaring at her with something akin to hatred.
“I can leave,” she stated.
It shouldn’t be too bad. If she could make it to her car before the storm began again.
If she could get through the freezing drifts before the cold got to her.
But here wasn’t a good place to be if—
Her eyes narrowed.
“Like hell,” she snapped back at him. “You had your chance to get me out of here and you blew it, big boy. It looks like you’re damned sure stuck with me until the storm lets up or someone can bulldoze their way through the snow to get to me.”
“Stuck with you?” he bit out harshly. “Oh, baby, the very last thing I am is stuck with you. Haven’t you heard the fucking rumors in this fine county? I kill women for a fucking hobby.” His voice rose on that last note, the incredulity she knew he felt lying just beneath the fury.
“You wouldn’t hurt a woman! You sure as hell wouldn’t hurt me!” she yelled back at him, suddenly incensed that he would even dare to use such a threat against her. “You would make one want to kill you instead. What the hell does it matter to you that the whole world doesn’t know we were fucking while I was stuck here? Do I have to spread my business around town to satisfy your male pride?”
Her hands went to her hips, indignation and anger surging through her so hard that her heart was pounding furiously kicking her senses into overdrive.
“My male pride doesn’t have a damned thing to do with it,” he snarled back. “But tell me this, Miss Flannigan, once someone rescues your tight little ass, will you even recognize me on the street?”
“I’ve never ignored you, Rafer Callahan,” she burst out, “and don’t you even pretend I have.” She jabbed him in the chest with her finger, shaking in admonishment as his gaze flicked to it with arrogant disregard.
“And when have you seen me on the street since I was arrested for Jaymi’s murder?” He stepped closer. The sound of Cami’s sisters’ name on his lips sent a rush of pain sweeping through her.
“I didn’t do that to you,” she said hoarsely, her throat tightening at the dark emotions that tightened his face. “I never thought you had anything to do with that.”
“How far does your belief in me go then?” he asked her roughly, the sound of his voice, scraping against emotions-raw and pulsing with a hunger that she didn’t understand. “Tell me, Cambria. Does it extend to going to dinner with me? To waking up next to me when there’s no storm to excuse your presence in my home? Tell me, does that belief extend to being my lover or just being my occasional fuck?”
Before she could stop it her hand flew out, cracking against his cheek with a suddenness that drew a gasp from her, and a sneer from him as she jerked her hand back. The red imprint stood out on his face. Rafe curled his lip in the insulting disregard for it, his eyes blazing as he reached out, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her against him.
“You get to pay for that little blow,” he growled, that hunger that had mystified her seconds before now glowing in his eyes like neon lights. A sexual, overpowering hunger so filled with demand that it nearly stole her breath. “If you’re just my occasional fuck, then I’m claiming another of my occasions right now, by God.”
CHAPTER 7
Cami wanted to protest. She wanted to smack him again, to hurt him as he had hurt her. She wanted to rail as much against fate and the past as against him and what he had said.
She wasn’t an occasional fuck, and she wasn’t afraid of the people of Sweetrock. She was afraid of doing as her sister had done, as she had nearly done three years before. Cami was terrified of giving him everything and losing it all if something happened to him. If the sins of the past were to strike out with deadly accurate fury, leaving her alone. So totally alone she would never recover.
That was it, she assured herself as his lips covered hers and stole her ability to scream or to rail at anything or anyone. As the hunger, a dark, bitter storm inside her began to rage.
She bit at his lips as they moved over hers, only narrowly missing as her teeth snapped together. A snarl grated from her throat.
“How bad do you want it, Rafer?” she snapped furiously as she struggled in his arms, her teeth snapping back at him again.
“Oh, I don’t think so, sweetheart,” he growled, one arm holding her locked to him as the other gripped her jaw. He exerted just enough to control her, just enough pressure to keep her from biting as his lips possessed hers.
Possessed her kiss, possessed each response he wanted, and sent a wave of fiery hunger, need, and anger slamming through Cami. Waves of cataclysmic sensation began tearing through her, mixing with the anger, the hunger, the overwhelming need for this one man. A need she was determined she would not allow to destroy her.
She pushed against his tongue as it thrust past her lips, tangled with it, and fought him for every second of the possession he was claiming. With each stroke of his lips, each arrogant thrust of his tongue, she was enraged anew at him. Enraged and desperate for every caress every touch. So hungry for him that her blood boiled with it, her flesh sensitizing for him.
The pure dominance was more than she could resist. There was something about him, something so wild and untethered, that she couldn’t help but be drawn by him. To hunger for him with a strength that made little
