Rafe (Inked Brotherhood 5)

***

After I finish my shift, I untie the apron from around my waist, grab my bag and head out. A black Mustang is parked right outside, and I grin.

Rafe climbs out, all six feet of handsome, muscled boy, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans, blond hair falling in his face. He’s smiling, flashing those killer dimples at me, and my heart skips a beat when he strides up to me and wraps his arms around me.

“Meg.” He lifts me up in a bear hug and swings me around before placing me back down on my feet. “Hey, girl.”

My arms wrapped around his neck, I smile up at him. “Hey.”

“Ready to go home?”

I laugh at his eager expression, but when he walks me backward until I’m up against the car and he presses between my legs, I have to swallow a moan at the feel of his thick length.

“My place or yours?” I breathe, looking up into his luminous eyes.

“I don’t care.” He leans down, brushes his mouth over mine and my knees go weak. “Home is where you are.”

I bury my face in his chest, not knowing what to say. Philly isn’t home anymore. Mom isn’t home. But Rafe… Rafe is everything.

“Your place,” I finally say, my voice muffled against his leather jacket. “Let’s go to your place.”

“My place it is.” He kisses me thoroughly, leaving me breathless and totally aroused, before he steps back and opens the door for me. He winks and shoots me a wicked grin. “Good choice. I have a bigger bed.”

***

Rafe’s bed is bigger. Double the size of mine, in fact, and made up in dark colors—a dark blue quilt and pillows. Huge black and white posters from rock concerts cover the walls. A few black lacquered shelves on one side hold books and a few framed photos.

I’m standing at the door to his bedroom, feeling unaccountably nervous. That’s not normal, right? We slept together more than once already. But it was always at my place. Being here feels…serious. More intimate. This is his man-den, his most private space, and he’s let me in.

Crap, I’m overthinking this, and it isn’t helping with the stupid nerves.

Even less when he comes into the room, brushing past me, pulling off his sweater and T-shirt and letting them fall to the floor. He places a condom package on the small bedside table—yeah, he’s serious about this, all right—and switches on a spotlight over the bed. He turns it facing upward, so that it illuminates a poster of the Sex Pistols.

He fiddles with the spotlight, and I study his broad back, entranced, caught in the play of muscles along his shoulders and across his ribs. There’s the thick scar running the length of his shoulder blade, as if the knife cut downward, scraping the edge of the bone.

Oh shit. I lean against the door frame as the images of the murder come rushing back. I open my mouth to ask him about it, tell him what I know, except I can’t imagine how that will help him.

He chooses that moment to turn around, and the question dies on my lips. Muscles ripple on his powerful chest and arms, and the V leading down into his pants is pointing to that bulge between his thighs that shows me how excited he is.

God, he’s beautiful. Golden and bright, with a core of fire. Blond hair falls in his eyes and he shoves it back, shooting me a smile. His amber eyes are bright, warm. Trusting. Then they dip down to my breasts, the pupils dilating, swallowing the amber.

“We need to talk, you and I,” he whispers, his voice sending bolts of desire into my belly. He rubs the back of his head, and I watch, mesmerized, the play of his biceps under colorfully inked skin. “Meg…”

He stalks toward me, and I’m frozen on the spot, caught between the intensity in his gaze, the animal grace of his movements, and his words. Talk?

Then he’s grabbing my hands, pulling them around his neck, and kissing me, pushing me into the door frame.

“God, you’re so pretty,” he says, lips trailing over my mouth to my cheek. “I’ve wanted you for so long, and now you’re here, and you’re so much more than I expected. You’re sexy and you’re smart. You’re kind.” He runs his hands over my hips, then behind, over my ass. They curl under my thighs and he lifts me against the wall, pressing between my legs.

A moan leaves my lips and my eyes flutter close. “God, Rafe…”

“I wanted you, but I never thought I’d need you so much.” He kisses my neck, buries his face there. “Every morning I wake up and wish I could be next to you. Every night I go to bed and imagine you there. I know you need a nice guy in your life, not someone like me, but I feel so good when I’m with you. Like I can breathe again, like…like I look forward to tomorrow.” He huffs. “I’ve scared you a few times, and I’m not easy to be with, but…”

“Hush one second.” I wrap myself around him, my heart thumping. “Are you asking me out, Rafaele Vestri?”

He chuckles, a deep, delicious sound, and pulls back just enough to look at me. His lashes lower. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Will you go out with me, Megan Durant?”

He knows my family name! No idea why this little fact makes me giddy. I’d laugh, but his gaze is strangely unguarded and full of emotion. Full of hope and need and that ever-present pain.