she sensed. She had to sense the intent rising inside him. The certainty that after tonight the rules would definitely change between them. If they didn’t, then he might have to just lock her in his bedroom and keep her fucked into submission.
“So many secrets,” he said as he laid her in the bed, took the extra towel he had grapped, and hurriedly dried himself. “I should have known you were hiding from me, Cami.”
Then he returned his touch to the lover he should have fully claimed long before now. If he had, then there would have been no secrets between them.
“I should have never given you the time I thought you needed to be free,” he told her as he used her towel to dry her gently from head to toe. “You’ve never been free, have you, Cami?”
Her tongue licked over her lips in a charming, nervous little gesture. “Whenever I was with you. I was always free with you, Rafe. I was always me.”
Until she had lost their child. Until there were secrets she had to protect.
Allowing her freedom had been the point of staying away from her, though. He had believed that to be free she needed to be away from him. That his possessiveness, his dominance, would restrict her, would bind her to him rather than allowing her to be certain what she wanted.
The truth was, even with the possessiveness, she would have at least had someone to hold on to. Someone who loved Cami just for herself, just for the compassion, the kindness, and the laughter she gave. Those were gifts she never expected payment for. She hadn’t even asked for the same compassion and kindness, let alone the laughter. And it was a good thing, because she damned sure hadn’t had it.
Tossing the towel aside, he came over her, his lips covering hers as she met his kiss with a soft, whimpering little sigh.
He loved the sounds she made as she loved his touch, reached for it, pleaded for more. There was something more exciting, something more intense, about loving Cami than there had ever been with any other woman.
The pleasure was sharper, more intense, and more heated than anything he had ever known before.
As her fingers speared through his hair, gripping the thick strands, Rafe could feel her giving herself up to each sensation, allowing it to immerse her, to swamp her with the ecstasy.
She gave herself to him, completely, and he loved every second of it. There were no pretenses, no simulated moans, arches, or faked responses.
It was all completely natural, completely Cami. It was a woman reaching for the pleasure she was owed, willing to pay any price for it but, even more, willing to love in return for it.
As she arched to him, her thighs spreading as he came between them, Rafe let his lips wander from hers, to her jaw, to the sensitive flesh beneath and then along the side of her neck. She tilted her head in response, allowing him access to even the most tender skin just below her ear and shuddering with pleasure as he kissed it gently.
Kittenish little sighs and rumbling moans met each caress, assuring him he was drawing her deeper and deeper into the pleasure he wanted to create for her.
He wanted her completely immersed in his touch, reaching eagerly for the rising rapture beginning to spread around her. Through her.
With his lips, his tongue, the rasp of his teeth over her nipples, the feel of them against his tongue, he pushed her higher. His lips surrounded one tight peak, drawing it inside and working the engorged, sensitive tip against his tongue as he pleasured the other with his fingers.
Her nails bit into his shoulders as she fought to hold on to him. Hips lifting, her mound pressing against his hip as he lay between her thighs, she rubbed the silky, slick flesh against him.
Each touch, each stroke, each kiss designed for the ultimate pleasure for her, the ultimate surrender.
It was that surrender he needed. That complete feminine submission to every stroke, every caress, ever naughty act. Only in that submission would the subconscious trust, the bond he needed between them, come. He wanted her to trust, to know, to instinctively understand that he was more than just her lover; he was her other half. The one she told her secrets to. The one she made secrets with.
“Rafe,” she whispered his name, the imperative hunger rising inside her as he continued to kiss his way down her body, stretching out between her thighs to taste the lush sweetness spilling from her sex.
Bright, wicked shards of sensation whipped through her senses as she felt Rafe’s lips brush against the mound of her pussy as his hands pushed beneath her, lifting her to the caress.
His tongue licked over the silken folds, slid into the narrow slit hidden by the swollen, flushed lips of her cunt.
Knees lifting, she spread her thighs farther, her heels pressing into the bed to lift her closer to him.
She could feel his finger at her rear, parting the curves and sliding into the narrow cleft to caress her entrance gently with the tip of his finger, erotic, an edge of the forbidden. Cami felt her senses awakening further, reaching eagerly for each new sensation. Fingers of electric pleasure raced up her spine, wrapped around her senses, and spread through the erogenous points of her body.
Her nipples tightened further, aching with such sharp need that her fingers lifted to them, gripped them, tugging at them as her hips churned beneath each hungry swipe of his tongue over her clit, through the swollen folds, and lower to the entrance to her pussy.
There he rimmed the entrance with his tongue, flickered against it as he slid one hand back while the other caressed and played at the entrance there.
Cami felt her fingers clenching in his hair and fought to pull at it too sharply to remember that Rafe was attached to his hair and she really didn’t want to cause any loss of the thick blue-black strands that framed his face.
But God, it was so hard to restrain herself. The pleasure was streaking through her. It tore through her senses, wiping away any thought but that of his pleasure. Of the incredible feel of his fingers, his lips and tongue, stretched between hers.
She was only distinctly aware of the fact that he was preparing her back entrance, lubricating it by slow degrees as he drew his fingers back, returned with the lubricant, then repeated the process.
She knew what was coming. She knew what he planned to do, and the conflict rising inside her in regards to it did nothing to halt her pleasure of it.
If she decided she didn’t want it, then she would do something about it the moment she decided it. But not right now. Not yet. Not until she saw where the pleasure was taking her, how extreme it could become, and until she actually found the strength to make herself refuse him.
She couldn’t do it.
The pleasure was too wild and much too intense.
“Oh God, Rafe.” Her hips jerked as she felt the first finger press inside her, sliding past the tight ring of muscles that clenched almost violently, involuntarily, around his finger.
Cami gasped for breath, the alternation of pleasure and pain sensations exploding through her body with such quick progression that she couldn’t keep up.
“That’s it, baby,” he groaned between her thighs as he laid another kiss over her clit. “Just let me have you. All of you, Cami. Give it all to me.”
Give him everything? But hadn’t she already done that years ago? Hadn’t she already given him her deepest heart, the most vulnerable depths of her soul? Hadn’t he owned that since the night she met him?
His finger began to move slowly, pulling back, leaving her body, returning, slicker than before, pressing back, and heating her further as the lubricant prepared her.
Cami could feel herself climbing that edge of sensation so sharp, so intense, as rapture teased the edges of her senses.
With each stroke of his fingers she wanted more. She wanted to feel that sharper, more exacting pleasure. She wanted each thrust to stretch and burn to push every limit of pleasure that could exist.
And God only knew why she was aching for it. Reaching for it.
“Rafe, please,” she cried out as he returned again with only the same thrust, though it was slicker, wetter, than before.
“More, kitten?” he asked, his tone strained. “Tell me what you want, baby.”
“You know what I want,” she moaned desperately. She could feel the desperation rising inside her, sense it
