“More.”
He chuckled. “Patience.”
“I’ve—”
Her words were forgotten as his next stroke found the entrance to her body and slid deep inside.
Annie gasped while Rafe swallowed a groan. She was tight. So tight. She would grip his cock like a glove.
A hot . . . fitted . . . satin glove.
Oh, hell. He wanted to make this last all night, but already he was about to explode.
Shoving himself upright, he paused to pull out his wallet and extract the condoms he thankfully kept stashed in case of an emergency. Then with blatant impatience, he kicked off his shoes and wrestled off his jeans along with his boxers. Both went sailing across the room.
Glancing up, he caught Annie staring at his straining erection from beneath half-closed lids, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
He could almost feel her gaze as she studied him with heated anticipation.
His cock twitched, and with hands that weren’t entirely steady he ripped open the condom and rolled it down his swollen shaft. He was desperate to be inside her, but there was no way he was going to miss the opportunity to taste her.
Lowering himself to his knees, he grabbed her legs and tugged them wider. She briefly stiffened, as if suddenly aware of how vulnerable she was to him.
Rafe smoothed his fingers up and down her calves, keeping his touch light until Annie at last relaxed. Only when he was certain she was once again lost in her desire did he bend his head to lightly brush his lips along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.
She made a choked sound, her heels digging into the mattress as he nuzzled higher and higher. He took his time before he at last reached her sweet spot, smiling as he heard the headboard creak beneath the force of her grip. Thank God the furniture was original to the hotel and not the newly fabricated crap. The bed was built to be sturdy as well as functional. Grasping her hips, he held her in place as he used his tongue to stroke through the heated honey that was waiting for him.
They groaned in unison as he found her clit with the tip of his tongue and teased her with ruthless determination. Annie arched her back, her muscles clenching as he urged her toward her climax.
“Not alone,” she rasped. “Please, Rafe.”
He got it.
Rising to his feet, he carefully covered her body and settled between her legs. Then, grasping his cock, he pressed it against her entrance. Annie instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips, giving him all the encouragement he needed. With one powerful surge he slid into the welcoming softness of her body.
Rafe cursed. She felt so damned good.
Tight. Hot. Sweetly inviting.
He held completely still. He wanted to savor the sensations that jolted through his body. But when Annie moved with a restless impatience beneath him, he was lost.
Slowly withdrawing until only his tip remained inside her, he claimed her lips in a demanding kiss before he thrust back forward with enough force to make the bed shake.
“Rafe,” she cried out, her nails scoring his back.
White-hot pleasure seared through him, making his muscles tense as he pistoned in and out, growing lost in the sensual pleasure clouding his mind.
Somewhere in the darkness was a madman who’d already taken two women and who was tormenting Annie with hideous visions. Not to mention an unseen enemy that continued to stalk Hauk. But in this bed nothing mattered but the fierce passion that seared between them.
Locking their gazes, he picked up the tempo, sinking into her, over and over, until he felt her tense beneath him. Her fingers clutched the headboard, her eyes squeezing shut before her cry of bliss split the air. Rafe hissed as she tightened around him, the sensation tipping him over the edge. He gave one last thrust, burying himself as deep as he could go.
Then the world fell away as his orgasm exploded through him with shattering force.
Chapter Twelve
Annie released a shaky sigh as Rafe rolled to the side and gathered her in his arms.
Wow.
That had been . . .
Wow.
Even with her limited experience, she knew the pleasure that had exploded between them was rare.
And wonderful.
Insanely, unbelievably wonderful.
As if sensing her stunned amazement, Rafe pressed his lips to her temple with a soft chuckle. “I told you I’d make you scream my name.”
She smacked his hard chest. “It’s not nice to be so smug,” she muttered, still faintly embarrassed by the knowledge she’d been so lost in sensations that she’d forgotten they were in a hotel where anyone could hear them.
Pushing onto his elbow, he gazed down at her, his dark eyes filled with an emotion that sent shivers through her body.
“I want to see you in my bed,” he growled in a low, husky voice.
She blinked in confusion. “I’m already here.”
“I mean my bed at my ranch.” His fingers stroked through her hair. “My father carved the headboard for my mother when she told him she was pregnant.”
“I’m . . .” Her heart forgot to beat. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be in Houston.”
“You’ll be in Houston.” He leaned down, capturing her lips in a kiss of sheer possession before lifting his head to regard her with a brooding gaze. “At my ranch. And in my bed.”
“You sound so certain,” she breathed.
“Sweetheart, I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
Annie shivered. Not from fear. Or at least, not fear of Rafe. She’d trust this man with her life. But at the ease with which she could see herself sharing a bed with Rafe at his ranch.
She’d be a fool to start weaving fantasies around a man who she barely knew.
Especially when he was caught in the thrill of playing hero.
Her hand lifted to smooth over his chest, enjoying the sensation of rough hair beneath her palm. Rafe Vargas wasn’t the sort of man who waxed. He was hard and raw and rough-edged.
“Rafe.”
Ignoring the hint of warning in her voice, his hands glided down her back, cupping her butt to press her against his thickening arousal. “Hmmm?”
“This is a night of madness,” she told him.
“The first of many.”
She shook her head. “That’s impossible.”
His eyes flashed with a sensual amusement. “Never challenge a soldier, sweetheart.”
Her fingers skimmed toward his ribs, halting as they hit a thick scar hidden beneath the hair. Annie stilled. During the throes of their passion she’d tried to ignore the numerous bumps and welts she’d felt on his back and across the flat plane of his stomach.
Now, however, she couldn’t halt the fierce surge of fury at the thought of the injuries that would have caused the scars.
“Was it your time as a soldier when you got this?” she asked softly.
His smile remained, but she didn’t miss the hardening of his jaw or the sudden wariness in his dark eyes. “I know, it’s not very pretty,” he said.
She held his gaze, gently stroking her fingers over the scar, a silent assurance that the sight of the imperfection didn’t bother her. It was only the knowledge of how badly he’d been injured that made her sick to her stomach.
“Will you tell me?”
He hesitated, the tension in his body making Annie fear he would refuse to answer. Then, with a resigned sigh, he met her searching gaze.
“You know I was in the military.” He waited until she gave a small nod. “My unit specialized in extracting and retrieving.”
She arched her brows. “Extracting and retrieving what?”
“Anything.” His expression was impossible to read. “Enemy leaders that our government wanted to question. Sensitive intel. Sometimes we rescued Americans who’d been taken hostage.” His voice thickened, as if the memories were still fresh. “My last mission went to hell when our helicopter was shot down and I was taken captive.”
She leaned forward, pressing her lips to the circular wound just above his heart. A gunshot. “Your captors did this to you?”
His hand lifted to tangle in her hair, his head lowering to brush his lips over her forehead. “Don’t ask for details, sweetheart,” he pleaded.
She brushed another kiss over a long scar on his shoulder. She wasn’t about to press for specifics of his torture. “How did you escape?” she instead demanded.
“I shared a prison with Teagan, Hauk, Max, and Lucas.”
She tilted back her head, not surprised to see his tight expression soften at the mention of his friends. “Your partners in your security business,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” He absently combed his fingers through her hair, almost as if he drew comfort from the feel of the thick strands sliding over his skin. “We plotted our escape for weeks and managed to elude our guards so we could disappear into the northern mountains. Two weeks later we finally reached a village with a transmitter so we could contact our base.”
Annie suddenly understood why Teagan had installed cameras in Rafe’s kitchen, and why Max was willing to seemingly drop everything to assist his friend.
They’d forged the sort of bond that could only come out of the horror of war.
And if she was honest, it had to be a part of why she and Rafe connected with such ease.
They both had suffered through trauma that few other people would ever comprehend.
She reached up to stroke her fingers down the line of his jaw, his whiskers prickling against her fingertips. “Do you still have nightmares?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted without hesitation.
“What do you do?”
“Accept I can’t change the past. I can only concentrate on the now and hope for the future.”
She blinked at his soft words. “Very enlightened.”
He turned his head to press his lips to the center of her palm.
“Not always,” he denied in wry tones. “There are some nights I call Teagan so we can meet at the gym and beat the shit out of each other.” He gave a light tug on her hair. “What about you?”
“I try to keep myself occupied,” she said. “School, helping my foster father around his ranch, work.”
“Did it help?”
“Most of the time. At least until . . .” Her words trailed away as a sharp shiver raced through her body.
“Annie?”
“Until the visions returned.”
With a muttered curse, Rafe rolled her onto her back, covering her with the hard length of his body. “You’re safe in my arms, Annie,” he said, the words sounding like a solemn pledge.
Abruptly realizing that time was swiftly passing, Annie wrapped her arms around his neck.
They could discuss their screwed-up pasts later.
Tonight might never happen again.
“I’m not so sure about that,” she teased. “You’re lethal to poor females.”
Taking her cue, he gave a low chuckle and lowered his head to skim his lips over her brow and down the length of her nose.
“Okay, you might not be safe, but I can guarantee you there won’t be any nightmares.” He nuzzled the corner of her mouth, reaching for a new condom and swiftly slipping it on. “For either of us.”
Her blood heated as he settled more firmly between her parted legs, the blunt tip of his cock pressing against the entrance of her body. “You guarantee?” she murmured.
He kissed his way down her jaw, and then the curve of her neck. “Do you doubt me?”
“No.” Annie’s brain threatened to shut down as pleasure ricocheted through her, making her toes curl in anticipation.
With a measured thrust, he pressed his erection deep inside her. “You don’t sound entirely certain.”
Her nails dug into his nape, her hips lifting at the delicious friction.
“Rafe.”
His kissed her. “Clearly I wasn’t as convincing as I should have been the first time,” he murmured, his lips tracing the curve of her throat as he slowly rocked in and out of her.
Excitement blazed through her as he nibbled ever lower.
“You were very thorough,” she choked out.
“Hmm.” His hands gripped her hips, his tongue tormenting the aching tips of her breasts. “It’s possible I missed a spot. Maybe I should do a double check.”
Her eyes slid shut in utter bliss.
“Or a triple check,” she suggested with a soft moan.
Rafe lingered as long as possible the next morning, making love to Annie until the maid pounded on the door for the fifth time.
Even then, it was only the fierce promise to himself that he would soon have Annie moved into his ranch where he could devote hours and hours and hours to satisfying her and easing his desire for her that allowed him to escort her out of the hotel and to his truck, which he’d left parked next to the exit.
Hitting the unlock button, he helped her climb into her seat before crawling behind the steering wheel and starting the engine.
On the point of putting the truck in gear, Rafe grimaced as he caught sight of the bag that he’d left on the floorboard. Leaning down, he tucked it beneath his seat, but not before Annie was forced to recall the unsettling encounter with Brody Johnson. “What are you going to do with the pictures?” she demanded.
He met her troubled gaze. “I’ll send them to Max.”
“Shouldn’t they go to the cops?”
Rafe shrugged. He wasn’t about to allow the pictures to be handed over to the authorities until Max had first looked at them.
He wasn’t a crazed conspiracy theorist, but it was human nature for cops to try and protect each other. It’d been the same when he’d been in the service.
If the sheriff had wanted the evidence to disappear, then he wasn’t going to be pleased to know he hadn’t fully succeeded.
Even if they didn’t reveal anything about the untimely death of Don White in his jail cell.
“He’ll forward them to the FBI once he has them copied,” he said.
She bit her bottom lip, looking insanely young with her drowsy eyes and hair that was once again braided.
She’d tried to weave the wet strands after they’d shared an early morning shower only to have him release them the second he’d hauled her back to bed.
He liked to run his fingers through the silken strands.
Now, however, he realized he preferred the braid when they were in public.
It meant that he was the only one who knew how beautiful the honey strands were as they spread across a pillow.
Just as he was the only one to know that beneath the jeans and casual sweater were lacy undies that made a man pant with need.
“Will Brody be in trouble?” she demanded.
“I’ll have Max send them anonymously.”
“Good.” She wrinkled her nose. “He’s pathetic, but I wouldn’t want to be responsible for getting him killed.”
Rafe gave a slow shake of his head. After all Annie White had endured, how did she continue to have such a kind heart?
Amazing.
And dangerous.
He reached to cup her chin in his palm. “Annie.”
“What?”
“Nothing about this is your responsibility,” he said, his thumb brushing her bottom lip. “Not when you were a child and certainly not now.”
She frowned. “I know.”
“Hmm.” He studied her pale face. “I’m not so sure . . . damn.”
“What’s wrong?”
He dropped his hand to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone that was vibrating.
He’d muted it when they’d entered the hotel last night. There was no way in hell he was going to allow their evening to be interrupted.
Now he glanced at the screen to realize he’d missed a dozen texts and an equal number of calls.
Scrolling through the messages, he muttered a low curse. He respected and truly liked his partners, but there were times when they could rub
his nerves raw.
“I should have known they wouldn’t be satisfied with cameras.”
“Your friends?” Annie asked.
“They’re in Newton.” He tossed his phone on the dash. “And they’re not happy I’m not home.”
“Did they discover something?”
“Nothing more than how to be a pain in my ass.”
She reached to lightly touch his arm. He was swiftly discovering that it was her way of offering him comfort.
And oddly, it worked.
“They’re worried about you.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re lucky to have them,” she said.
“I know, but—” He cut off his words. He didn’t want to terrify her by confessing his friends were going to either put her through the third degree or treat her as if she needed to be wrapped in cotton wool. “Sometimes it can be smothering,” he at last said.
Beside him, Annie grimaced. “Yeah,” she muttered. “I get that. My foster parents can be the same way.”
He glanced out the windshield, absently noticing the sun was shining brightly and the nearby businesses were bustling with activity.
Just a normal day.
It was easy to forget that there was a potential serial killer out there who was kidnapping women.
One who might very well be obsessed with the woman at his side.
Yeah, his friends were going to be interfering jerks who poked their noses where they didn’t belong, but there was no one he’d rather have at his back.
Or who he’d rather have protecting Annie.
Shoving the car in gear, Rafe pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the highway.
“Let’s go face the firing squad.”
Chapter Thirteen
He watched the truck pull in front of the house with a frown. He hadn’t been happy that Annabelle had been gone the entire night. How could he protect her if he didn’t know where she was?
With an effort he swallowed his anger.
Soon enough his work would be done and he would be able to take her someplace they could both be safe.
For now, all that mattered was that she was back in Newton, and it was time for him to return to his hunt.
Be patient, sweet Annabelle, he whispered, stepping deeper into the hedges as she hopped out of the truck and headed toward the house.