It didn’t hurt, that was the first thing she noticed. The bitterness was there. The pain was there, but Cami found herself unable to care about that either.
She stared back at him, wondering though if Jami had known …
“That’s enough.”
Cami swung around as Rafe pushed the door opened and stepped inside.
He stood tall, broad, strong.
And Cami could feel the emotions tearing free inside her then.
“Bastard,” Mark Flannigan growled insultingly. “You have no say here.”
“No, I do.” Cami swung around then and this time, she let her gaze rake over him in satisfaction. “You haven’t hurt me, Mark. You didn’t even surprise me. You have no idea how proud I am that you are no father of mine.”
His brows lowered furiously as his hands fisted at his side.
“It’s time you left,” she told him. “Leave now, and don’t bother coming back. Because you’re not wanted any more than you ever wanted me.”
CHAPTER 19
Cami stalked into the bedroom.
She’d intended to retreat to her room alone. To hide, lick her wounds, and find a way to repair the shattering of her defenses.
Rafe wasn’t allowing her to rebuild anything, though. He was behind her, surrounding her as the door closed behind him, and she felt him watching her silently.
“Could I please have some privacy?” she asked, aware of the belligerence in her tone as she turned back to him, her insides shaking with the emotions flooding her.
“So you can turn into that pretty little robot you were before you broke down and told me about our child?” He arched his brows in surprise that she would ask. “I doubt it, kitten. But you can try to convince me if you want.”
Try to convince him?
“And how am I supposed to do that?” Then his words sank in, and she felt her expression tighten in anger. “I was never a robot.”
Rafe could feel himself breaking apart inside. Chunks of his soul being shredded as he stared in her eyes and saw the pain, the depth of it, and the years she had all but carried it alone.
“Do you know what amazes me, Cami?” His voice softened.
“What?” She was breathing roughly, her breasts rising hard and fast as she glared back at him.
“That you wanted my baby.”
Her eyes darkened.
She’d just learned the man she had called Father all her life hadn’t been. That he thought, at fifteen, she should have suffered her sister’s fate, and that his hatred for her, that she hadn’t, went soul-deep, and that hadn’t seemed to faze her.
What had fazed her was revealing to Rafe that she had lost their child.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
She shook her head.
“Cami, answer me.” Moving to her, he gripped her chin gently, aware of the bruising of her flesh, and turned her gaze to him. “Why?”
Her lips trembled. “You were safe. If I had told you, you would have come back here. They might have tried to hurt you again.”
Nothing could have shocked him more.
“What?” He could hear the confusion in his own voice.
“The barons, this town.” Swallowing tightly, she was obviously fighting her tears, her pain as she continued. “They wanted to destroy you and Logan and Crowe. I wasn’t going to help them, Rafe. I couldn’t.”
A single tear slipped free.
“But, Cami, that was my child, too,” he said softly.
“And if I hadn’t lost our child, I would have told you.” That intriguing ring of blue around the soft gray seemed to darken. “I would have told you then, Rafer. I would never have taken something so precious away from you.”
And she wouldn’t have.
He framed her face with his hands. “Cami, I would have still held our child as precious,” he whispered.
“And everyone here would still be waiting to find a way to destroy everything you were fighting for. They would have convicted you for Jaymi’s murder, Rafe, and for the other girls’. They would have stolen your life if they had the chance.”
“Instead, you let Mark Flannigan steal yours.” Lowering his head, he touched her forehead with his.
“He hasn’t had that power since he refused to allow me to talk to Mom when I lost our child,” she revealed. “Probably a lot sooner.”
God, how alone had she been?
He hadn’t been here for her. He hadn’t protected her as he had sworn to, not just to Cami, but also to himself when he’d realized how much she cared for him so long ago.
“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.
