“‘Might’ hardly describes the situation,” she snorted with ladylike charm. “You reek of booze, Rafer.”
Cami called him Rafer sometimes, rather than the shortened version, Rafe, that most people used. He liked the sound of it on her lips. Especially when she was moaning it. She wasn’t moaning right now.
“That could be possible.” He nodded as his gaze raked over her shivering body. “It just seemed the night for it, I guess.”
He’d only just realized she was shivering, hard. Her hand had dropped from her hip and she was once again huddled against herself. She was obviously cold, dressed in nothing but jeans, boots, and a heavy hooded sweatshirt that proclaimed: Teachers Rock.
He wondered if she would let him warm her. He knew exactly how to do it. How to touch her so her eyes darkened in passion, how to make the juices slicken the delicate tissue of her tight pu**y.
“Stop undressing me with your eyes, Rafer,” she ordered. “Could you at least let me in where it’s warm? Or perhaps drive me home? My car is stuck in the snow out by the main road.” She waved her hand toward the drive, now covered in nearly a foot of snow in less than an hour. “Surely you still have a four-by-four?”
All his fantasies came crashing down on him. No fantasy. She wasn’t there for his hard dick, candlelight, or black lace. She was there because her car was stuck in the snow.
Lifting his gaze again, he stared into the blizzard. The whiteout conditions were only increasing. Travel would be impossible, let alone getting the car out of wherever it was stuck.
So this wasn’t the erotic fourth chance of a lifetime standing on his doorstep. The first three chances hadn’t been nearly enough to satisfy him, let alone to sate the hunger he had for her.
“Rafer, are you all right?” Suspicion laced her voice. “Are you smoking something you shouldn’t be as well as drinking too much whisky tonight?”
He snorted at that as his gaze dropped back to her. Short, sassy layered strands of dark brown hair framed almost kittenish features as big gray eyes blinked back at him. Suspicious gray eyes. She thought he was high?
He wasn’t that lucky.
“I told you, I might be a little drunk.” He sighed, glancing at the snow again. “But not too drunk to know we’re not going anywhere in this storm.” He turned back to her, arched his brow, smiled. “Looks like you’re stuck here with me, Cami-girl. Unless you want to take your chances in the snow?” He nodded toward the storm outside the porch. “Personally, I’m not willing to take that risk with my truck or my life.” And especially not with her life.
Rafe watched her still for the briefest second before turning to look out at the storm herself.
Her shoulders seemed to slump, as though whatever weight she carried was too much for her. He wished he could see her face, look in her eyes and read her thoughts as he had when she was younger. But hell, it seemed those days were gone. When she turned back to him, all he saw in her face, or in her eyes, was weariness—weariness and resignation.
That look made his chest ache. Son of a bitch, Cami should never have such a look in her eyes.
“Come on in; I’ll make coffee.” Hell, he might as well sober up. A man had to learn to keep his wits about him when dealing with a Flannigan. Especially this one.
“I can’t stay, Rafer.” Pure tempered steel filled her voice as well as her expression as she stared back to him, the quiet, even tone at odds with the conflict he could see in her eyes.
What the hell had happened to the sweet, loving Cami he had once known?
“Afraid temptation will get the best of you?” Letting his gaze drift over her, Rafe made damned certain she remembered everything he knew she wanted to forget.
She flushed. Her gray eyes darkened in both arousal as well as anger. Temptation was the least of her worries. It wasn’t the temptation that was going to get her back into his bed. It was the memories that would accomplish that. The memories of pleasure so hot, so intense it had sent her running in fear when she thought he had finally gone to sleep. Oh yeah, he had her now and there would be no escape. At least, not until someone managed to dig the snow out of his road.
His c**k throbbed, pulsing in memory of the sweetest pleasure he had ever known, buried in the ultratight, fiery hot grip of her pu**y. For a second, the remembered sound of her shattered cries, the feel of her going wild atop him, riding his dick until they both exploded in a release he swore marked something inside him. It was definitely a memory that tortured him with a hunger no other could slake. The memory of it had the power to keep him awake at night. And it made him ache.
Five years. For five years he had been tormented with that memory, unable to find that release with any other woman, and ache for the pleasure and the woman who caused it, until at times he swore even his back teeth hurt from the need.
“Stop, Rafer.” She shivered hard as the wind whipped around them and the memories heated them. “We agreed—”
“We didn’t agree to a damn thing; you f**king decided to pretend it didn’t happen without so much as consulting me. And I’ve had enough of the cold. I’m going inside.”
He turned and slammed inside the house, entering the warmth of the kitchen. Furious now, his drunk wearing off, Rafe stalked to the counter and the coffeemaker he prepped for morning.
Flipping the switch, he stood, waiting until the dark liquid began streaming into the pot. Behind him, the door opened, then closed again softly, bringing with it the sweet, clean scent of the blizzard and the woman he hadn’t been able to even try to forget.
He stared at the wall, anger churning along with the lust and creating a searing heat in his gut.
She still wore that familiar spicy scent he remembered. It tugged at a man’s memory making him think of summer, sex, and pleasure. The scent of her perfume became a little deeper, a little more evocative, and hot when she melted beneath him.
“What the hell are you doing out in a blizzard anyway?” he asked, keeping his back to her as he pulled two mugs from the cabinet over the coffeemaker.
“I was visiting my parents in Aspen.” There was no sense of reluctance or hesitation in her voice as there had been the last time she had spoken to him at that damned funeral. But it also wasn’t as husky and sexy as it had been the last time he’d had her. Or the first time.
His balls tightened in agony.