CHAPTER 23
Rafe was aware of the confusion in Cami’s gaze as he pulled the detachable shower from the mount and carefully washed Cami from head to toe.
As he ran the soft, soapy cloth between her thighs to wash away his semen, his gaze flicked to her face. Her expression was somber, her soft gray eyes filled with conflict, with hunger, and with the saddened memories of all she had lost.
“I should have never let you run as I did,” he whispered as he knelt in front of her, running the suds-filled cloth along her soft thighs, then across the gentle curves of her pussy.
He knew if he touched her flesh it would be softer than the rich lather covering it, silkier, warmer.
“You didn’t let me do anything, Rafe,” she assured him. “I do as I wish.”
He let a grin tug at his lips. The fire inside her was often hidden, that temper that he knew she had often controlled and tempered with her compassion. But it was there, just waiting to flare free.
She was independent, but she’d had no choice in adapting to independence. What she didn’t know was that all that lovely independence was perfect; it was fine. But he possessed her. She was his, from her very lithe, sexy body to the depths of her fragile feminine soul. She belonged to him.
She sensed it, though he doubted she had considered the consequences of it.
He wouldn’t stand back and allow her to slip away in those hours before dawn any longer. He wouldn’t allow her bed to be separate from his, and he sure as hell had no intentions of allowing her life to be separate from his.
Leaning forward, he laid a gentle kiss against her hip, his lips lingering against the almond-fragrant flesh as her fingers threaded hesitantly into his hair.
When he pulled back to stare up at her, it was to see the storm raging in her gaze and in her emotions as she watched him.
“What makes you think you could have changed any of the decisions I’ve made?” she asked him then. “It wasn’t your choice, Rafe. It was mine.”
If that was what she wanted to believe, then that was fine. He’d let her run scared, thinking she needed to realize things on her own, to live, to be certain of the future she wanted. He had never imagined that she would have seen it as his disinterest.
The fact that she hadn’t told him about their child proved that was exactly how she had seen it.
“I let you run,” he told her firmly. “I knew you were avoiding me. Just as I knew you were no longer letting your friends know your schedule when you came home from school.”
Awareness flickered in her gaze then. “It wasn’t a coincidence that you were always there.”
“You’ve always said you don’t believe in coincidence,” he reminded her. “I thought you would have figured it out.”
“You always knew when I was coming home and when and where to meet me,” she whispered.
“I’m smart like that,” he agreed. “Then you stopped informing your friends of your schedule or posting it to the Web journal you kept. You started avoiding me. I should have put a stop to it then. I would have, if I’d even considered the possibility that we would fall in that one percentile where the pill you were taking would fail.”
“I had the dosage increased when I heard you were back in town,” she admitted as he looked at her again. “I think I knew I couldn’t stay away from you.”
“I wouldn’t have allowed you to stay away from me.”
He’d been growing tired of waiting for her. If she hadn’t shown up during that blizzard, then he would have shown up on her doorstep afterward, and he knew it.
Directing the spray at her thighs, he gently rinsed the soap from her flesh as he parted the delicate folds and watched as streams of water ribboned over her belly where he directed the spray, between her thighs, over the silken folds of her pussy.
Lather washed over her thighs, along her legs, and to the shower floor below. The thick suds caressed her flesh and were washed away as the scent of sweet almonds filled the air. He’d never thought almonds could be so damned sexy.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I’m not finished yet,” he told her, and he wasn’t. “Do you think a quickie in the shower is enough for me? Was it enough for you?”
It wasn’t enough for her. He could see the embers of need still glowing in her eyes and in the response of her body.
Tonight was theirs.
Tonight he would make up for everything he’d never been able to have with her. It was for all the nights they had been apart. It was for all the regret that had filled them both for so long.
It was for all the nights she had slipped out before dawn, all the nights he hadn’t been certain if she was adventurous enough, experienced enough, for the hungers that swirled inside him. It was for all the years they had been apart whenever he had longed to touch her. Whenever she wasn’t in the room with him. Whenever he thought about her. Ached for her. Dreamed of her.
Hell, for all the nights he simply hungered for her, and those hungers were often darker, more sexual and erotic, than he’d shown her thus far.
“Could it ever be enough then?” Confusion darkened her eyes as he watched her face flush in response to the stream of spray he directed over the soft pink bud of her clit.
“I doubt it, but we’ll find out, love,” he agreed, running his fingers over the soft pad of flesh. “We have a few things to clear up here, and tomorrow we’ll talk, and we’ll clear up the rest.”
He directed the spray to her clit again, teasing her with the pulse of the water pounding around it. He was rewarded by the quick, sharp intake of breath and the response flaring in her gaze as he glanced up at her.
“What do we need to clear up?” Her legs parted farther, just a fraction. It was an unconscious shift, a need rising inside her to get closer to the pleasure that was as much subconscious as it was conscious. A primal, instinctive need to get closer to the ecstasy each touch promised.
Rafe couldn’t blame her. He could feel it himself. It was the reason why no other woman would do. Why he would wait six months, a year, for sex with Cami rather than taking another woman.
After that first time, it had nothing to do with the sex act or just the physical sensations. It was about a pleasure that went so much deeper than flesh and a release that burned hotter, burned deeper, than simply emptying his tight balls. It was something that couldn’t be found anywhere but with Cami.
Her pleasure was his. Touching her, stroking her, was as exciting to him as it was to her. He could spend hours just touching her, just making
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered as he bent forward, laying a kiss against the gentle rise of her mound at the crease of her thigh. “Why like this?” She indicated him kneeling in front of her, touching her, just because he could.
“Because I love touching you.” Rising, he replaced the shower head before kneeling in front of her again. “Because I’ve spent too many nights wondering what it would be like, Cami. And regretting the fact that you always slipped out before I could.”
The heated water washed over them, keeping her warm as he let his hands cup the rise of her buttocks and clench gently.
Her breath caught in another sharp intake that signaled her pleasure rising. His fingers eased between her thighs then, finding the soft fall of her juices beginning to build there.
Slick feminine heat met his touch as her lashes fluttered in surrender and in acceptance of whatever touch, whatever hunger, he gave her.
He chose that moment to move.
Straightening, he quickly turned off the steamy water before jerking a towel from the heated rack he’d turned on earlier and wrapping it quickly around her. Picking her up in his arms, he was surprised there were no objections as her arms looped around his shoulders.
She was staring at him suspiciously, perhaps uncertainly. She didn’t know what to expect, but he knew what
