Authors: Angela Smith
He gasped, as if that was the last thing he expected her to say. She closed her eyes and began to scoot away.
What was she thinking?
If only she could hang her head in shame without looking like a total idiot. If she were a child, she’d stand up and run, pretending it never happened. She could claim temporary insanity. She could escape to her room, but she’d have to face him eventually.
He touched her and pulled her closer. She opened her eyes. His lips found hers in a whisper-soft caress. His hand brushed past her cheek, and he gripped her behind the neck, holding onto her hair. Holding onto her.
His cadence turned hungry. Her fingers curled into his shoulders, anchoring onto his strength. She felt safe with him, but he couldn’t protect her from her own emotions, the one thing she needed protection from. Succumbing to anything but raw sexual hunger would be her downfall.
He drew away, shivering, a deep but barely perceptible tremble, as if holding back was killing him.
“Are you sure?” His voice was raspy, indicating a vulnerability she attempted to hide.
Standing, she took his hand and pulled him up, never more sure of anything. As much as she’d love to feel the soft earth beneath her, this was not the place for their first time.
Her legs were unsteady as they went to his apartment, but Camden took his time. He flipped on the lights, seeming to withdraw from her. Was he having second thoughts?
The light made things awkward, too glaring and obvious, emphasizing her doubts.
He opened a cabinet, searching, then pulled out a couple of glasses and poured them both a glass of wine.
She took a sip, second-guessing each and every action and body movement.
“I need a shower.”
She set down her glass and brushed her palms across his naked shoulders, rubbing down his back. She didn’t mind her men dirty, but the image of a shower together was too tempting to resist. “So do I.”
He turned to her, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her.
Fears fled—fear of falling, fear of feeling, fear of turning into a woman who depended too much on a man. Right now she wanted him, needed him, and nothing else mattered.
“The shower can wait,” he said.
***
Camden
He felt like a complete idiot.
He’d been with enough women to know what he was doing. He never stumbled. He never second-guessed himself. And his heart never pounded as furiously against his chest as it pounded now.
He was always a confident and self-assured lover, using every pleasurable moment to its fullest and knowing exactly what the woman wanted. Then he’d leave, walking away as if it was the best thing to ever happen, but it was time to move on.
He wanted Rayma, and he didn’t want to leave afterward. What that meant, he wasn’t sure, only that he wanted to touch her, taste her, experience her, and possess her. But if he didn’t stop acting like a teenager, she’d laugh at him and leave.
She was just a woman. He’d been with countless women in the past. Women he never really knew and never cared about. Though quality came before quantity, he was still a man who loved women.
Loved. Past tense. For now he could think of no other woman he wanted to be with other than Rayma O’Riley.
Instinct took over, and he wrapped his hand around her waist. His mouth came down on hers, and he tasted the tartness of the wine on her tongue, making him feel as if he’d already drunk the whole bottle.
She pulled away, trailing her hand down and off his arm as she took first one and then another step back. The femme fatale smile on her face almost did him in. He groaned and tried to grab her. Her smile only grew larger as she evaded his touch.
He grinned and hung his head in defeat but shot his eyes straight into hers.
He sprang for her, grabbed her, and drew her closer. Her fingers fluttered along his ribs to find the button on his jeans. His chest muscles jumped as her palms skated up to his head to undo the shirt tied there. Dirt fell onto his shoulders, and she merely flicked it away.
She removed his do-rag from his head and ran her fingers through his hair. She obviously had the control, and he liked it, but he wanted her to like it more. He slipped his hands up under her blouse and savored her soft skin, her perfect breasts, and tried to kiss her.
Grinning again, she backed away and sauntered closer to the bed. She removed her top and tossed it to the side. Her shorts soon followed until she was wearing nothing but a bra and panties. Panties he’d touched when he went to her house to get her things.
Panties he desperately needed to touch now.
“Damn, woman.”
She stood there as he ambled forward and touched her body in a light caress, trailing kisses alongside her neck and down her chest. Her hands went for his jeans and he helped her pull them off. His underwear soon followed, and she stroked him.
Their eyes held onto each other as her warmth burned beneath his hands, under those sexy lacy panties.
She backed away again when he tried to kiss her, standing up against the bed but not yet on it, teasing him. He continued his prowl, desperately wanting to kiss her but also wanting to see that glow, that fire in her eyes, that come-hither smile on her lips.
“You’ve pleased me with nothing in return,” she said as she trailed her hands down his chest. “Now it’s my turn to please you.”
“Pleasing you pleases me,” he said. “And we’re both going to enjoy this.”
Their mouths came together like magnets, strong and pulling. They fell to the bed. He stroked his hands up the sides of her stomach to her breasts. Keeping his mouth on hers, he pulled her away from the bed, arching her back just enough to unsnap the hindrance of her bra. He tore his mouth away from the softest, most exquisite lips he’d ever tasted, and pushed her back down to take a nipple into his mouth.
Heaven. This was heaven. The scent of her, the taste of her, the feel of softness and liquidity, velvet and solidity. His tongue played against the rigid peak of her breast. She found his hardness and tried to pull him closer, but he stayed back, needing to tease her, wanting to make this last but also wanting this to be the most incredible sex she’d ever experienced in her life, so she’d forget about any man in her past.
“Touch me,” she said.
He lightly nibbled her lip, teasing her as she had teased him moments ago, fighting his need to kiss her more deeply, keeping his mouth away from hers. “I am touching you.”
“There,” she cried.
He touched her moist center. She cried out and lifted herself up to him. He feared he’d mimic their time in the closet and lose control, so he pulled away to reach for a condom from his bedside table, trembling as he put it on. Her hands came to his, softly helping him. He thought he was going to lose it.
His finger delved into her wet heat again, deep inside until she shook and cried, then he entered her velvet smooth core as she pulsed against him.
In that one moment when nothing else mattered but the exquisite sensations of two people merging, he thought he was falling in love.
***
Rayma
“I was sixteen when I moved out of the house,” Rayma said. Camden was surprised she’d answered his question.
They’d made love, napped, and now he wanted to know more about her.
It was stupid to ask the question.
Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your past, your boyfriends.
There was no point in knowing more about her. He needed to distance himself, get on with is life.
But he couldn’t. He wanted her, wanted to learn more about her.
“I moved in with my nineteen-year-old boyfriend, who I thought was going to take care of me,” she continued. His gut twitched, and he forced himself to listen, forced himself to stop the urge to cover her body with his.
“I thought I was all grown up, and I was so ready to get out of the house. I was still going to school and working after. Warren lost his job and swore he was looking, but he was an alcoholic, on drugs, and had all kinds of parties till all hours of the night when I was trying to sleep. I loved investigating, that’s the career I knew I wanted to pursue, yet I didn’t investigate him. I didn’t even suspect him because he promised he loved me and would take care of me. I came home early one night and found him with a girl in our bed. Turns out that happened almost every night.
“I left him. Went to college by some miracle and worked hard, got good grades. Met Kevin right before I graduated. He seemed perfect, but no way would I let what happened to me happen again. James, who was working for the Austin Police Department, ran a background check on him. Kevin found out about it. He was furious and left, saying if I couldn’t trust him, we had no relationship. He’s married with two kids now.”
Camden held her tightly and ran his fingers through the strands of her hair as he listened to her story, wishing he could have been there those many years ago to see her through.
It wouldn’t have mattered. He would’ve been just as much of a jerk, maybe more so, in his immature asshole days.
They’d slept off and on, cuddled next to each other, then made love again. She’d teased him, tormented him, promising payback for the teasing he’d done to her earlier. Afterward, he asked her again about her life, hoping it wouldn’t draw her away from him. To his surprise, she opened up to him, though he wasn’t sure how much he needed to know about her ex-boyfriends. It was a conversation he never had with lovers. It indicated an intimacy he never wanted to feel.
Until now. With Rayma.
“Then there’s Keegan,” she continued. “I was about to turn thirty and thought I was finally ready to settle down. I thought most men my age would be mature. Keegan…”
Camden stiffened. Was she still in love with the guy? It hadn’t been too long ago. Was she still trying to get over him? “What happened to him?”
“Have you ever heard of Wesley Webb?”
“The racecar driver?” he asked, and Rayma nodded. “Hell yeah. I read his biography when it came out. I’m a race fan when I have time, but I rarely do. I keep up with the goings-on.”
“His wife, Caitlyn, the one who wrote his biography, was my best friend and roommate in college. If you’ve read the book, you’ve heard about Keegan. And you’ve heard about me.”
“You were her best friend?” Camden rose, and she had to take her head from his shoulder to let him. He needed a better glimpse of her.
“Yes.”
“My God.” He remembered the story. It had been plastered all over the newspapers—paper and online—at the time, and when the book finally came out, Camden snatched it up and read it. Wesley Webb found out his real father was actually an uncle he never knew existed. The uncle had a son, Keegan. The two of them were living with stolen identities and had committed a host of crimes to cover it up, including murder. When Rayma found out the truth, Keegan and his father locked her and Caitlyn in a basement, intending to kill them.
Her life had been hell. No wonder she didn’t trust men.
“There’s more,” Rayma said.
More? How could there be more? What else had this woman been through? And why had he considered it a good idea to not read her files?
“The man I thought was my father abused little girls. And boys.” Her voice cracked.
His throat barely opened for his next words. “Did he hurt you?”
“He tried. The first time, it was just a light touch, thank God. The next time, I ran away from him before he could do any damage and I told my friend. She told her mom. Come to find out, he had abused her and some other kids. Some I didn’t know, some I did.”
Camden wanted to jump up and find the bastard. “I should kill the—”
“No,” she interrupted. “He paid his penance. I survived, became stronger. That’s who I went out to meet today.”
“It made you stronger?” he asked, trying to mask the creeping animosity. Men who hurt children were scum, and Rayma would always feel the effects from what her purported father had done.
“It did,” she said.
Camden disagreed. “Do you call not trusting people becoming stronger?”
Rayma shrugged, her shoulders brushing his skin. “I guess I’ve never really trusted people, have I?”
Camden, propped on one arm, leaned over her. His thumb traced her jaw, down to her lips. “With good reason,” he said.
She shuffled to sit up, and he moved aside to let her. “Wouldn’t you have read this in my files?”
“I haven’t read your files.”
“You…” Her voice trailed, and she shifted against the headboard. He wanted to discourage any doubts she had, but wasn’t sure how to do so if she didn’t believe the truth.
“Haven’t read them,” he finished.
“Why not?”
Camden leaned on the headboard next to her. “Because I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel right doing so.”
“But they do exist?”
“Sure. There’s a file on you. As undercover officers, we have to ensure our safety and those around us. That means knowing everything there is to know about the people who are directly affecting our jobs.”