Midnight Sins (11 page)

me a hell of a better than you’re pretending.”

“I’ve never pretended Rafe,” she told him,

refusing to hide, refusing to back down. “I’ve simply

learned how to accept reality.”

“Whose reality?” he snorted. “The truth or the

reality the barons attempt to force feed everyone?”

It was better that he was angry, she told herself.

So much better that he hate her. Because any other

emotion would just cause her to break the promise

she had made to herself. The promise that she would

never risk her soul again to the extent that simply

surviving seemed an insurmountable obstacle.

And the vow that he would never know what they

had both lost. That he would never, ever know exactly

how it had destroyed her.

“Good-bye, Rafer,” she said softly. “Take care.”

He didn’t speak as she turned and walked away,

but she could feel his gaze on her back. It was like a

caress. A dominant, fiery stroke of his hand along her

body. A phantom reminder of everything she couldn’t

have. Of everything she now denied herself.

CHAPTER 3

Eighteen months later

It was colder than a witch’s tit. The temperature

hovered just below zero with the windchill and a hard

western wind blew across the mountains with a

banshee’s moan. The blizzard had become a

whiteout, with the rapidly falling fluff piling fast and

hard against the house in heavy pristine drifts.

The weatherman said to expect a blizzard, and

he hadn’t been far off track. Problem was, this looked

li ke
blizzards
combined. The previous year’s mild

winter was cashing in interest during this late-season

storm. He was snowed in on a Saturday night watching

the snow pile up and wondering what the hell he was

doing back in Corbin County. And he was doing it just

after yet another funeral. Just after the death of

another man who tried to stand against his

grandfather, Marshall Roberts, and his two business

partners. The group everyone called the barons. He

was half-drunk, damned morose, and fighting

nightmares from a past he couldn’t seem to shake.

And son of a bitch if he wasn’t so fucking horny for

one damned woman that he could barely stand it. His

dick was iron hard, his balls throbbed. They were so

tight and the need to touch her was almost torture.

So it wasn’t exactly hard for Rafer Callahan to

convince himself that the woman standing on his

doorstep couldn’t be real.

Could she?

After all, why would this particular part of his past

show up now, of all times? Hadn’t she already shown

him that there wasn’t a chance in hell of ever having

her again?

Which was the reason he just went ahead and

convinced himself that she was the vision of his most

explicit, his naughtiest, his nastiest fantasies.

Sometimes, a man just needed something to

hold on to, and she was it for him.

“Hello, Rafer.”

Rafer stared hard at the young woman standing

on his porch, watching him expectantly.

He lifted his gaze, checked the position of the

moon, and gave a mental nod.

Yep, it was midnight.

Now all he had to decide was if this lovely, tooalluring

vision was a figment of his fantasies coming

to life or if fate was standing behind the lovely Cami

Flannigan, laughing her ass off while he stood there

with a hard dick.

Hell, he could always take his chances. After all,

he’d made a huge gamble returning once again to the

small town that had spawned him, hadn’t he? What

was that if it wasn’t the dumbest decision of his life?

This one couldn’t be any worse, now could it?

“You’re not naked,” he drawled, deciding to go

with the fantasy idea. And boy, did he have enough

fantasies where Cami Flannigan was concerned.

Black lace, candlelight, slick, wet flesh, and

hungry-feminine-moaning type fantasies that he

couldn’t manage to shake. He’d only had her three

times in the past five years and the last time was

three years ago. It wasn’t hardly enough.

The vision of creamy flesh and blue-ringed velvet

gray eyes blinked back at him before narrowing in

feminine offense. “I have to be naked to knock on your

door?”

There was a sudden snap to her tone that had a

smile wanting to curl his lips. Damn, he surely did love

that tone in her voice. It just made his dick harder, just

made all his little perverted fantasies push to the

forefront of his mind. But it also made him doubt that it

was possible this was a fantasy. Only the real version

of Cami spoke to him with that snap in her voice.

Yes she was acting less and less like a figment

of a fantasy by the second. Especially when she

propped a slender hand on her cocked hip and glared

back at him as though he had crawled from beneath a

rock. When had Cami begun looking at him like that?

A sigh of resignation escaped his chest. A man

could dream, couldn’t he?

“It depends on why you’re here,” he still answered

her, though, and he still kept to the program.

Fantasy. Erotic. Hard dick.

That little frown brewing between perfectly arched

—plucked or waxed? he wondered—dark brows

tightened.

Was her pussy still waxed? The first time he’d

glimpsed those perfectly bare folds he’d nearly come

in the sheets rather than her snug little pussy.

“I can’t imagine the reason why it would matter.

Did one of those bulls you breed butt your head a little

too hard or something? I’m stuck in the snow, Rafer.

Why else would I be standing in the middle of a

blizzard on your front porch?”

For his hard dick?

The words almost slipped past his lips.

“What did you say?” She blinked back at him in

outraged amazement.

Oops, maybe he hadn’t meant to say that out

loud.

He smiled back at her, still not certain. “I said

something?”

He arched a brow. He’d learned early that the

gesture tended to throw most people off and he used

it shamelessly.

Hell, maybe he’d just drunk too much damned

whisky. That was always a possibility.

Suspicion filled her eyes, narrowed them, and

thinned her lips. “I’m pretty certain you did,” she

informed him between clenched teeth. “And I’m really

certain it was uncalled for.”

Well, he didn’t know how uncalled for it was. It

was honest. A man could hope.

“I might be drunk.” He cleared his throat as she

continued to stare, anger beginning to shadow her

gray eyes. “Can I blame it on the booze?”

Hell, she did have pretty eyes. They looked like

the finest dark gray velvet with a narrow ring of dark

blue. He’d always said Cami Flannigan had the

prettiest eyes. Anyone could just ask his cousins,

Logan and Crowe, they’d tell it; Rafe said it often. So

often sometimes that they told him to shut the fuck up.

“‘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 pussy.

“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-byfour?”

A

ll 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