She could feel, hear, his heartbeat against her breast as her throat tightened with tears. Tears she couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow herself to shed.
Tears that didn’t make sense to her, because she had known, even before he touched her that first time seven years before, that between them there could never be anything more.
* * *
Rafe lay silently, petting Cami’s body gently as the shudders of her release began to slowly ease. The incredibly tense, violent vibrations of her orgasm had taken him by surprise. As though the pleasure had been pulled straight from some inner part of her feminine core and raced through her repeatedly before releasing.
It took long minutes for her body to slowly relax, for the tremors to ease and the heavy, satisfied lassitude to move in and do its work.
To keep her in place. To hold her to him while he tried to find a way to figure out exactly what had just happened.
What had begun out of arrogant male pride and a lust he had no idea how to combat had turned into something more, into something he wasn’t certain he knew how to control.
There was something about Cami that slid right past his defenses and locked inside a part of him that he simply wasn’t familiar with. A dark, dominant, primal part of his psyche that only awakened when he was with her.
And he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do about it or how to rid himself of it.
“What’s going on between us, Rafer?” Her voice was quiet, wary, as she asked the question. “How do you do this to me?”
In that soft, cautious tone she expressed the same conflicting feelings he could feel roiling inside himself.
“Hell if I know,” he breathed out roughly after several long moments. “Whatever it is, it’s damned good, though.”
It was a pleasure he would be loathe to lose after the storm was over and Cami left. He couldn’t imagine letting her go when the time came. Hell, he couldn’t imagine her walking away from him. Surely there was a way to convince her to stay, just for a little while. Just long enough to explore the pleasure, the dark, sensual need that drew them together.
“It’s snowing again,” she said rather than taking the current conversation any further.
Cami made all those dark hungers swirling inside him, so thick and heavy that it obliterated good common sense.
He stroked his hand slowly down her back, relishing the feel of her satiny flesh, the warmth of her skin, the feel of her heartbeat against his own.
“How long do you think we can stay apart this time without tearing into each other like love-starved teenagers the first time we see each other again?” That was what he was often reminded of since she had shown up on his doorstop the night before. “Do you really think you can escape this addiction another three years?”
She tensed in his arms and for a moment, the briefest weakening moment, he wished he had kept his damned mouth shut.
But the more realistic, logical part of his brain assured him it was a valid question and one she needed to be prepared to answer when they saw each other again. Reality sucked bad enough and there were times he’d give almost anything to escape it, but the truth was, there was no escaping. It. Better he face it now, and deal with it, than to have it surprise him later.
“This can’t happen again, Rafer,” she said softly, pulling out of his arms to sit up in front of the fire. She gazed into the flickering flames.
Her expression was somber, resigned, as she wiped a hand over her face and breathed in roughly. “We aren’t teenagers. And we’re going to have to simply accept that it can’t go anywhere and let it die as it should.”
With her legs bent, her arms wrapped around them, as her chin rested at the top of her knees, she looked like a little lost girl. Especially with that short mop of hair framing her delicate face. She was a woman, though, and she was talking about walking away from something neither of them had been able to deny each time they had been face-to-face with each other.
Her ability to fool herself, to weave daydreams and to believe them, simply amazed him.
“You don’t really think that’s going to happen anytime soon, do you, Cami?” he said mockingly.
No, she didn’t but she knew what was best for her heart, and allowing herself to fall once more into the emotional abyss that awaited her, if she allowed this to continue, was not what was best for her heart.
Turning her head, she stared back at him. He was so comfortable in his nudity, so confident in it that she could only envy him.
“Is this because of your parents?” he asked as he curled one arm behind his head and appeared as relaxed and comfortable as any finely muscled, highly sexual male animal.
God, the man made her breathless only seconds after an orgasm so violent she’d nearly lost her mind. As that thought hit her, so did his question. She stared back at him with a frown. “What? Is what because of my parents?” Genuine confusion filled her.
“Your refusal to admit there’s something between us,” he growled, a disgruntled frown tightening his brow.
“There’s nothing between us,” she agreed. God, she didn’t want to do this right now.
His expression tightened. She could see the male calculation that filled his gaze as well as the determination, and she knew what she had done.
“I’m not a challenge or a dare, Rafer, so don’t start attempting to see me as one. I have no intention of falling into some kind of love-trap with you and losing my soul.”
“Love-trap?” A black brow arched with deliberate arrogance. “What exactly is a love-trap, Cami?”
Her lips thinned. Twisting around, she searched for her clothes before gritting her teeth in frustration. Hell, she had left them in the kitchen. Actually they were scattered from the kitchen to where they were now. She grabbed Rafer’s shirt instead and pushed her arms into the sleeves before pulling the material around her.
“I’m not getting into this with you, Rafer,” she informed him as she moved to rise to her feet.
“The hell you’re not.”
Before she could avoid him, his fingers circled her wrist and pulled her back to him. Caught off balance, Cami found herself sprawled across his chest, staring back at him in surprise.
“And what is this going to accomplish, Rafer?” she questioned him, struggling to keep calm, to refuse to allow the past between them to overwhelm her.
“Tell me, Cami, do you know what everyone in town says when they talk about you?”