Page 92 of Protected from Malice
My Rafe. He hides his feelings, but they’re there all the same. And one of the things I love best about sex with Rafe is it’s one time he lets me see them. When they aren’t kept behind shields he’s constructed to protect himself, shields that allow him to do what other people can’t. When he’s pure Rafe. Strong. Brave. Kind. Protective. Vulnerable, though he’d never want anyone to know.
He pulls almost all the way out, then sinks deep again.
Heat builds at my core, spiraling out.
My other leg goes over his shoulder.
My belly quivers.
My lungs forget to work.
I’m on fire for him.
“Rafe, please,” I plead, “I’m soclose.”
His features are taut with need. Perspiration glistens on his muscled chest. “What do you want?”
“You. Deeper. Now.”
I don’t sound like myself. I sound like a temptress, my voice low and husky with desire.
The corner of Rafe’s mouth tips up. “That, I can do.”
And he does.
Oh, he does.
Over and over until I’m almost mindless with the sensations surging through me. Until my body doesn’t feel like my own, but one possessed by pleasure.
Once I finally fly off the edge, it’s only a moment before Rafe follows along with me, his body going rigid as he pulses inside me. I look up at him, memorizing the angles of his face and the way his stubble shadows it. Memorizing the exact colors of his amazing eyes. Committing to memory the emotion inside them.
As always, Rafe drapes me over him as the aftershocks ripple through us, hugging me like he never wants to let me go. With one hand, he pulls the covers over us and snuggles me against him, then kisses the top of my head. His breath feathers across my hair as he asks, “Are you good?”
I press my lips to his neck. “I’m good.” A beat. “Better than good. I loved it.”
“Ah, baby.” His hand strokes down my back. “So did I.”
We lay together in silence for a few minutes after that, both of us lost in our thoughts.
Me? I’m thinking about the future. A future I want to have with Rafe.
I’d already been thinking about it before, and now that things are getting back to normal, it’s on my mind all the time. How long will Rafe stay in Portland now that the danger is over and my case is nearly solved? A week or two, like we initially discussed? Or could there be a possibility for him to stay longer? Maybe even?—
No. I don’t want to get my hopes up too soon.
But it’s hard not to. Especially when Rafe has been staying with me at my house ever since we left the hotel, helping to make sure it’s completely secure. Forget the video doorbell and small camera outside the patio door. Now I have cameras everywhere.Motion sensors on all the windows. Panic buttons in every room. And his most recent project; installing a six foot fence with locking gates around my backyard.
So my house is safe. And I’m happy about that.
Another thing I’m relieved about? That my would-be kidnapper is in jail.
Actually, both of them. The first intruder, who was just the hired muscle, and Chris Rickard, who never even entered my mind as a possible suspect. He was just one of dozens that liked my posts online; posts I honestly never gave a second thought to. I never even met the guy, although apparently he’s been stalking me for months.
Just thinking about it makes me feel all icky inside. All the times I thought something felt off, I was right. He’d been obsessing about me. Meticulously collecting every photo and mention of me online, all the way down to printing a copy of my PhD thesis and highlighting parts of it.
I don’t know the details of how Rafe and Indy convinced Rickard to confess. I didn’t ask, and Rafe hasn’t told me. All I know is Rickard called the police, confessed all his crimes—stalking and being a co-conspirator in two attempted kidnappings—and the evidence the police found backed it up.
Or the evidence Rafe and the team arranged for the police to find, I should say. I know Tyler went through the laptop and burner phone first before they had the items anonymously sent to the police. “We just want to have backups,” Tyler explained, “because evidence has gone missing before. We’re not leaving anything in this case to chance.”
