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The cords of muscles in his arms straining, his stare stayed on her, wicked and full of shadows of all things sinfully dark. And then his hand dove down, stroking her clitoris. She jerked at the touch, her body buckling and immediately spinning out of control. With a harsh thrust, his cock erupted deep within her, triggering the bursting of her own storm.
Another scream that he swallowed with a kiss as he landed on top of her, and he flipped them over, her body riding his as they both gasped their way back to reality.
His hands landed across her back, his thumbs rubbing into the sheen on her skin. “You’re exhausted, I’m exhausted, but I wouldn’t give this up for anything.”
“No?” She laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“No.” He trailed his left fingers up and down her spine. “Your body naked and all mine without any interruptions? No, never giving this up.”
“Please don’t.”
His hand paused along her back and she could hear his heart thumping in his chest under her cheek quickening.
“I need you, Vic.” The words came out sudden, raw and brutal.
She stilled for a long breath, her heart stopping in her chest. “What?”
“No matter what happens after we get your aunts free, I need you, and I cannot let you go.”
Her pulse thundered into motion, sending her limbs flailing. Ever since learning the truth of his original intentions for her at Seahorn, she realized she needed to read into the nuances of his words.
She didn’t like the current nuance. “What do you mean, after we free my aunts?” Her head snapped back, her hands pushing off of his chest. “You’re still going after my father and uncles—aren’t you? You still intend to make them pay?”
Silence. He wedged his elbows under him to lift his torso as he looked at her.
But only silence.
She scrambled backward in the bed until her spine hit the footrail and she froze, heaving a breath as she stared at him in disbelief. “Aren’t you?”
His jaw opened, then closed, then opened again, set hard. “I will make sure no one hurts you—ever.”
Her eyebrows lifted high. “Including my uncles? My father?”
His shoulders lifted. “If that is what it takes, yes.” The cut of his voice left no room for argument.
She wasn’t about to let him get away with it—with thinking that he could do whatever he wanted while she had to give up everything.
She leaned toward him, her fingers clutching the sheets. “You don’t want me to hurt, but don’t you understand how this will destroy me? How anything you do to my father and uncles, you are, in like, doing to me?”
“Don’t be dramatic—they’ve only hurt you, Vic. Your father especially—time and again. It is so plain to see—why don’t you understand that?”
“Why can you not fathom that I can be hurt by them yet still love them? They are my family, Rafe. You cannot hurt them.”
He swung his legs off the bed and his head turned to her. “I will do what I have to do.”
“But what if you’re wrong about what you think you need to do? What if you just have to listen to me, understand me? For as much as I want you, I cannot lose them. You do this and you will lose me in every way that matters.”
“It’s not up for discussion.” With a snap in his voice, he moved to the chair, grabbing his trousers and shoving his legs into the fabric, then angling the back of the chair to the wall. He sat, leaning back, the rear of his head clunking against the wall.
If he was going to sleep there, fine.
Fine.
She wanted nothing to do with him at the moment.
She crawled forward on the bed, pulling the sheet with her up to her hips and lay on the mattress, turned away from him. Her stare locked onto the red and gold fleur-de-lis print on the wallcovering until her eyes began to water, and then she shut them.
Thoughts wouldn’t quiet in her head, refusing to let her sleep.
