There was a shadow of hurt in Cami’s gaze before she looked down at her coffee, but there was also a shadow of deception in her eyes. She was hiding more half-truths and shadows of lies than Rafe could have ever guessed.
What the hell had happened to her since he had been gone?
Rafe glanced at his cousins in a silent exchange that had the other two men making their excuses and leaving the kitchen. Several minutes later the sound of the front door clicking shut had her head lifting once again. She was obviously surprised that the other two had left the room and she was now alone with Rafe.
And she didn’t look comfortable with him.
What the hell did it take, he wondered, for her to get a clue that she was stuck with him?
“Why haven’t you and Amelia spoken for the past few years?” he finally asked Cami.
She breathed out heavily as her shoulders lifted in an uncomfortable, defensive little gesture more telling than words.
“Things happen.” She shrugged. “It began before we graduated college. That last year actually. I started work as a substitute and Amelia already had an offer for her own classroom in Aspen for a while.” Cami smiled at something that she obviously still found to be a pleasant memory before rubbing at the side of her neck a bit nervously. “Something changed that year, I guess. No matter what I did, I couldn’t stop her from disassociating herself from me.”
Rafe knew she had been twenty-two that year. She and Amelia had roomed together at college and watched out for each other as they navigated the much larger city after being raised in near isolation in Sweetrock. It didn’t make sense that they would have just grown apart.
“There’s more to it, Cami,” he probed. “The half-truths are only going to piss me off. Now tell me what the hell happened before I have to begin questioning others. You don’t want to push this much further.”
Her lips thinned as a flash of anger clouded her eyes. She glanced away from him for a second, obviously searching for some other way to get out of answering the question.
Rafe stalked to the table, planted his hand on the top of it, and leaned close as she stared back at him in surprise, her eyes widening as he leaned in, nearly nose to nose with her.
“I asked you a question,” he growled furiously as he felt that primal instinct itching between his shoulder blades again. The secrets she was keeping had somehow contributed to the isolated, near-friendless life she was living at the moment.
“Lie to me and I’ll paddle your ass.”
Delicate little nostrils flared. “Perhaps I’ll like it,” she snapped back. “Go ahead and try it, Rafer.”
“Oh, you’ll like it,” he promised her as he came in closer. “You’ll love it, Cami. You’ll beg for it. Your pussy will become so hot, so wet, so desperate for release that you’ll beg me to fuck you. You’ll beg for my cock as deep and as hard as you can take me.”
Her face flushed, her eyes darkened.
“And I’ll even give it to you,” he promised, dropping his voice until he knew the lower, rougher tone would take on a brooding, rasping quality that never failed to affect her.
And it did.
Her face flushed, arousal heating her cheeks at the very sensual promise.
“And that’s supposed to convince me—”
“Do you know what that does to a woman, Cami?” he whispered. “You don’t see yourself as submissive. You’re an independent, freethinking woman. But once you’ve come until you can come no more, once you think it’s all you can do to breathe, once you think it’s over.” His voice dropped further. “I’ll do it again, Cami. And I’ll do it again. And when it’s over, when it’s all you can do just to breathe, what you’ll realize is what will sear you to your very soul. You’ll realize I didn’t just spill my come inside you so many times, pumping it as deep inside you as possible. You’ll realize I own you. Heart and soul. You’ll be completely mine, Cami, and you’ll love being mine. You’ll ache for more of it. You’ll come to me when I so much as whisper your name, because I’ll be buried so deeply inside your soul that you won’t be able to cut me out. There will be no forcing me out. Is that what you want now? Is that a step you think you’re ready to take at this moment?”
It was a step she had already taken and one she that had nearly destroyed her. Those horrible, bleak days were still a part of her, still a part of her memories, and the scars were still a part of her soul.
It would destroy her to belong to him so completely again. And she couldn’t risk his attempt to do just as he said he would, because he could. She was too weak where his touch, his kiss, was concerned. Too weak, too hungry. He was already too much a part of her.
“Now, I’m going to ask you again, kitten. What happened?”
She swallowed tightly. “Amelia used to keep a diary,” she whispered, her gaze lifting to him as the anger faded from her gray eyes and they darkened in pain instead.
He eased back slowly. “And someone found it?”
Cami drew in a slow, deep breath. “It wouldn’t be hard to guess. Her father did while helping Amelia move the year we graduated. He learned both our secrets.”
“And what were those secrets?” It was worth a try.
Cami shook her head, stubborn determination smoothing all but the final, last vestiges of emotion. “It’s her secret,” Cami whispered. “I’ll never betray her, not in any way.”
“She betrayed you, evidently.”
Cami only shrugged.
“And what did he learn of your secrets?” Rafe asked her instead.
“He learned of the night we had spent together and how I felt about it.” She licked her lips nervously. “How I felt about you. And while he was being nosy, he learned something Amelia had fought to hide from him. After that night, she never spoke to me again.”
That secret must have been a huge one. If Rafe remembered correctly, there was some sort of gossip surrounding her return and the hasty marriage that took place weeks later.
“She’s married now, isn’t she?” he asked to be certain.
“She’s married,” Cami agreed.
“And how did Wayne handle these secrets?”
Her lips quirked bitterly. “He was very disappointed in both of us, he said. And he was, but I really didn’t give a damn. Shame wasn’t the reason I didn’t tell anyone, and shame has never been the reason I didn’t want anyone to know we were lovers.”
She rose slowly from her chair.
She felt as though she had aged ten years. As though exhaustion were so much a part of her now that there would never be any shaking it off.
“Cami.” He moved to touch her, to draw her into his arms, to give her what little comfort he could.
Her hand lifted imperatively, a demand that he stop as he watched a hard shudder shake her body.
“I don’t have friends for a reason,” she whispered. “I don’t have my parents for a reason.” She lifted her gaze to him and it didn’t take a frigging diary to see the pain that filled her eyes. “Because you never had to fuck me all night long, spank me, or make yourself so much a part of me that I couldn’t exist without you, or without that part that I’ll suddenly be living and breathing for.”
He heard the tears then. They didn’t fall. They didn’t fill her eyes. They were stuck in her soul, a wound that never healed, that never eased. And it broke his heart.
“Cami?” What could have happened? How could he have hurt her in such a way without ever knowing he had done so? Fear lanced through him then. Fear that somehow he had damaged her, taken from her something she hadn’t willingly given because his hunger had been so strong, so wild.
“You did the night we spent together.” He froze at the statement. “You left a part of yourself inside me that I never wanted to be free of. That I never wanted to live without.” Her voice was ragged now, torn, until he moved for her, desperate to hold her as she jerked back from him, leaving him staring at her in shock as her expression twisted in rage. “And I lost it anyway, Rafe. I lost the baby I already loved until it felt as though my soul had been seared and then ripped from my very spirit. But I was still living, I was still breathing, and I was alone. And I’ve stayed alone. That way, I didn’t lose again. I didn’t suffer again. And I sure as hell didn’t ever take that risk again until I decided to see if rumors were true and drive by the ranch.” Her breathing hitched as she held her hands to her stomach, the rage and anger in her voice ripping his soul apart. The image of complete aloneness that
