“So you did come to fuck me out of your system,” he said, ignoring her warning. His eyes were narrowed and intense, and she couldn’t read him. And those stupid kisses were messing up everything.
“You have a hearing problem…among others.”
He huffed a laugh, and his lips quirked on one side, but it wasn’t a smile. His eyes were still dark as they lowered to her mouth. “I always did love that smart mouth of yours.” He lifted a hand to her face and ran his thumb over her lips. A rough, slow rub that pulled her mouth open. “Such a dirty, sassy, smart mouth.”
His thumb moved across her cheek, but he didn’t meet her eyes. His cock was right where it should be, riding the heat between her legs. And he was hard. His expression, his voice, his touch, everything about him told her he was hungry. And her body was conducting a mutiny. She wanted him worse right now, even hurt and pissed off, than she ever had—including their first night. Because now she knew exactly how much pleasure he could deliver. Now she had memories of his passion. And it took every sliver of resistance not to rock her hips against him. Not to bend her head and taste him.
“Did it work?” His question was low and rough.
“What?” She frowned, pushing against his chest to lean away. “What are you—”
His gaze cut to hers, deliberate and hot. “Did it work? Did you fuck me out of your system?” He waited only a heartbeat to continue. “Because you are infused in my blood.”
“That’s lust, Rafe. You should recognize it by now. And it’s not what I want anymore. It’s not enough. I may want you, but I don’t like you right now. And honestly, anyone who could pull away from me so completely for so long, as if I didn’t exist, doesn’t even deserve any part of me.”
“I did that because I had to,” he snapped. “Because talking to you and seeing you got too hard. I knew I’d never be able to have you all to myself with this twisted little family we’ve created. I couldn’t stand seeing you with other guys when you came to town. And I couldn’t stand the way you turned away from me and went running to your boyfriends when not one of them was there for you the way I was. That night in New York, I realized my expectations were way out of whack. And I knew I had to put some distance between us. The fact that you were mad at me over it only helped.”
His anger turned sullen, and Mia’s mind darted to the last time she’d seen him. To the week from hell in her previous apprenticeship and how she’d called him in a moment of weakness when her boyfriend at the time had been too busy at work to take her call. Then her mind jumped forward, to the way he’d shown up in New York that very night to make sure she was okay, only to have her boyfriend show up fifteen minutes later.
Before she lashed out at him for not telling her how he felt, she caught herself. He couldn’t tell her. Not without messing things up in their family. Just another illustration of how Tate and Joe always came first. In this case, he’d also been thinking of Mia. She knew him, and she knew Rafe wouldn’t have wanted to mess up her relationship with Tate and Joe either.
His hand slid around the back of her neck and into her hair. It felt so good, Mia’s eyes closed. All her anger waned, and desire spiked in its place. She couldn’t change him. She didn’t even want to. His loyalty was one of the things that made him Rafe. One of the things that made her love him. She only wished…
It was stupid to wish. She felt like she’d been wishing her whole life.
She had to stop wishing and just accept reality.
He shifted beneath her, rubbing against her, reminding her that this was her current reality. And that she could either take what she could get or get nothing.
When his strong hand pulled her head to his, she didn’t resist. But he only pressed his forehead to hers and massaged her scalp.
“This past week has been hell on earth.” The distress in his voice pulled her eyes open, and she found his closed in a look of pain. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I feel like shit over this situation with Tate and how much it’s hurting you. I don’t know what to do to make any of this right.” His jaw clenched. “I fucking slept with my phone, hoping you’d call or text me back.”
A huff of humor and disbelief passed her lips, and her heart skipped.
But Rafe didn’t smile. He opened his eyes and looked deeply into hers with a kind of misery she understood too well. “I can’t believe you’re leaving.”
Her heart wrenched open against her will. She framed his face with her hands, tilted her head, and kissed him. The hand at the back of her head tightened and pulled her deeper into the kiss as he opened to her. The sparks instantly caught fire. Their tongues met, and hunger exploded deep in Mia’s body.
A sound of longing and desire rolled in Rafe’s throat. A growl that reverberated through her. He released her waist and gripped one of her wrists, but just left his hand there as he kissed her and tasted her and moaned with the pleasure of it. All Mia’s worries and hurts fell away. She could only focus on the heat and taste of his mouth. The way he kissed her like he never wanted to stop. Like he couldn’t get enough.
When he broke the kiss abruptly, Mia fell into him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his jaw, his neck. Licked the spot behind his ear.
He groaned and lifted into her.
“Oh…” she breathed, swamped in the delicious pleasure he pushed through her lower body.
His fingers flexed and released. “Mia, God,” he rasped, his voice low and hungry. He combed his hand through her hair and wrapped his arm around her head, clutching her close. “Need you.”
That didn’t just snap her restraint, it bulldozed every barrier. She turned her head and kissed him again, open and hot and wet, while she dropped her hands to his waist and worked his belt open.
He broke the kiss again murmuring her name. “Mia, Mia, Mia…”
“Wallet,” she managed through her quick breaths.
She flipped his button open, pulled his zipper down, and moved his clothes out of the way to slide her hand over his thick, hot length.
Rafe’s hips pulsed. He clenched his teeth around a curse and dropped his head against the sofa, eyes closed, face tight with pleasure. The sight pumped lust and power and need through her body.