“This can’t happen again, Rafer,” she said softly, pulling out of his arms to sit up in front of the fire. She gazed into the flickering flames.
Her expression was somber, resigned, as she wiped a hand over her face and breathed in roughly. “We aren’t teenagers. And we’re going to have to simply accept that it can’t go anywhere and let it die as it should.”
With her legs bent, her arms wrapped around them, as her chin rested at the top of her knees, she looked like a little lost girl. Especially with that short mop of hair framing her delicate face. She was a woman, though, and she was talking about walking away from something neither of them had been able to deny each time they had been face-to-face with each other.
Her ability to fool herself, to weave daydreams and to believe them, simply amazed him.
“You don’t really think that’s going to happen anytime soon, do you, Cami?” he said mockingly.
No, she didn’t but she knew what was best for her heart, and allowing herself to fall once more into the emotional abyss that awaited her, if she allowed this to continue, was not what was best for her heart.
Turning her head, she stared back at him. He was so comfortable in his nudity, so confident in it that she could only envy him.
“Is this because of your parents?” he asked as he curled one arm behind his head and appeared as relaxed and comfortable as any finely muscled, highly sexual male animal.
God, the man made her breathless only seconds after an orgasm so violent she’d nearly lost her mind. As that thought hit her, so did his question. She stared back at him with a frown. “What? Is what because of my parents?” Genuine confusion filled her.
“Your refusal to admit there’s something between us,” he growled, a disgruntled frown tightening his brow.
“There’s nothing between us,” she agreed. God, she didn’t want to do this right now.
His expression tightened. She could see the male calculation that filled his gaze as well as the determination, and she knew what she had done.
“I’m not a challenge or a dare, Rafer, so don’t start attempting to see me as one. I have no intention of falling into some kind of love-trap with you and losing my soul.”
“Love-trap?” A black brow arched with deliberate arrogance. “What exactly is a love-trap, Cami?”
Her lips thinned. Twisting around, she searched for her clothes before gritting her teeth in frustration. Hell, she had left them in the kitchen. Actually they were scattered from the kitchen to where they were now. She grabbed Rafer’s shirt instead and pushed her arms into the sleeves before pulling the material around her.
“I’m not getting into this with you, Rafer,” she informed him as she moved to rise to her feet.
“The hell you’re not.”
Before she could avoid him, his fingers circled her wrist and pulled her back to him. Caught off balance, Cami found herself sprawled across his chest, staring back at him in surprise.
“And what is this going to accomplish, Rafer?” she questioned him, struggling to keep calm, to refuse to allow the past between them to overwhelm her.
“Tell me, Cami, do you know what everyone in town says when they talk about you?”
He let her push away, but only far enough to sit up again.
Cami turned her gaze away from him to stare into the flames flickering in the fireplace. “Do I want to know?” Wrapping her arms around her knees, she refused to stare back at him.
“Cambria Flannigan doesn’t give up,” he mocked out. “She’s a hell of a friend. Honest as hell. She’s even a cheap date. But she’s frigid as hell, no doubt a virgin, and refuses to let a man get even as far as first base.”
“Well, then, evidently ‘everyone’ is wrong.” Turning back to him, she wished she had kept her eyes averted.
“You’ve not been with another man other than me, Cami.”
“Maybe my lovers just know how to keep their mouths shut,” she retorted with a blatant lie. “And maybe, Rafe, I simply don’t want the emotional ties that go with a ‘relationship’,” she bit out sarcastically. “There are those of us who aren’t all about that commitment that goes with sleeping with certain men.”
She tried to rise to her feet again only to have him pull her back.
“What the hell are you doing, Rafer?” she burst out at the dominance in his refusal to allow her to move away from him.
“I’m getting fucking answers,” he snapped, his voice rising just marginally as his head lifted, his gaze flashing in anger.
“Answers to what, Rafer? Why I refuse to fuck around or fuck men who would just love to advertise it? What business is it of yours?”
“Liar!” His lips drew back as the word rasped from his lips. “You’ve been running from me for six years now, Cami. Sneaking out of the bed like a damned thief when the sun rises and avoiding me like the plague for the past three years. And I want to know why.”
“Well, it sucks to be you, Rafer,” she announced archly as she fought the anger she could feel rising more sharply inside her now.
“And what the hell do you mean by that?” he growled back at her, the muscles of his jaw flexing tightly.
“Exactly what I said.” Shrugging, her lips pursing to hold back the anger, she jerked her arm out of his grip before rolling quickly away from him and to her feet. “I need a shower. Do me a favor and stop listening to gossip. You should know yourself exactly how destructive it can be.”
She stalked from the living room, all but running from the living room and the questions she knew were getting ready to come from him.
Why had she begun ignoring him?
Why had she stopped making the trips to Denver that allowed him to waylay her for those few hours that allowed her to slip away at dawn? And why did she refuse to even question why they couldn’t resist that sexual pull that kept bringing them together?
And they were questions she simply refused to answer. There was too much pain, too many emotions she had no choice but to keep buried inside her.
“Things are going to go your way and be done your way, no matter what. Right?”
“Pretty much,” he agreed.
She so didn’t think so.
Rather than stating the obvious, she turned and stalked to the shower, slamming and locking the door behind her.
He should have followed her. It was his bathroom, his damned house. And by God, she was his damned woman. That was a decision he’d made six years ago, when she was more than eighteen years old. When he left the Marines, when he came back to stay, Cami would be his.
He’d kept track of her. The few contacts he still had in Corbin let him know if she was dating anyone, if it was getting serious, what she was doing, and if she needed anything. He’d taken the decision he’d made very damned seriously.
Cami was his, and he figured it was time he let her know that little fact.
She would fight him. He wasn’t certain why she would fight him, but it was more than apparent that that was exactly what she had in mind.
He hadn’t expected a challenge from her, but he wasn’t about to turn away from one either. It would only make her surrender sweeter, he thought. One of the reasons he’d looked forward to this return was the chance to finally claim Cami once and for all. He might not have that romantic, sweet idea of Prince Charming that she might think she wanted, but he knew how to keep her warm when the nights were cold.
He knew how to please her.
He knew how to protect her.
Now if he could just convince “her” of those few, though no doubt important, facts.
