Page 30 of Protected from Malice (Blade and Arrow Shadow Team #1)

EDEN

“Eden, baby, you feel so damn good.”

As Rafe sinks deeper inside me, I moan with pleasure.

My inner walls quiver around him.

Desire blossoms into an aching need.

I clutch his biceps, my nails digging in.

My legs fall apart as I welcome him in. As I turn over my body to him.

“Rafe,” I groan, “Oh?—”

But then he shifts slightly, hitting that magical spot that makes my brain dissolve into mush.

Rafe stills. He braces himself on one arm and looks down at me. His gaze searches mine. “Are you still okay?” he asks. “If you want to change?—”

“I’m good,” I hurry to reassure him. “This is perfect.”

He stares at me for another second. “I just want to make sure. Since this is different from before.”

Different meaning he’s on top this time, instead of me. I figured Rafe would like it this way—he’s definitely the dominant type in everything else, so it stands to reason he’d prefer being in control when he’s having sex, as well.

But he hasn’t pushed me for it. He hasn’t even mentioned it. We’ve had sex—though it sure feels like something a lot deeper than that—eight times now, not that I’m counting, and I’ve been on top for each one of them.

Which I’m definitely not complaining about. And in the beginning, it was just what I needed. Being the one in charge, controlling the pace, being able to look down at Rafe and see the blatant evidence of his desire for me… It was amazing. It is amazing.

But this morning I decided I wanted more.

I wanted to know all the ways Rafe was holding back.

I wanted to feel his intensity. His strength. His passion. I wanted to know how it felt for Rafe to take control for a change.

And what I’ve discovered is it’s incredibly freeing. Because I trust him implicitly, there’s no fear involved. No triggers. This is Rafe unrestrained, his emotions on full display, his instincts taking over as our bodies come together in a new kind of ecstasy.

“I love it,” I tell him. “Being like this.” My lips quirk. “The only thing that’s not okay is you stopping.”

Rafe leans down and kisses me. “Well, I guess I’d better not stop, then.”

I wrap my legs around his waist, holding him to me. “You’d better not.”

Then I give my inner muscles a little squeeze, smiling to myself as I feel him twitch inside me.

I’ve discovered Rafe really likes it when I do that, just like he likes it when I nip at the sensitive skin below his ear or take him in my hand and stroke him slowly, building the anticipation until he can’t take it anymore.

“Brain,” he growls. But there’s a hint of amusement to it. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Me?” I widen my eyes innocently. “Nothing.”

Then I give him another squeeze.

He thickens inside me. Throbs. Stretches me deliciously.

His hand comes to my leg, lifting and draping it over his shoulder. Now I’m wide open for him, so when he thrusts into me again, he sinks even deeper. Filling me more completely.

“Rafe, oh it feels so?—”

Words can’t express how it feels.

He strokes my cheek; a tender touch amid this frenzy of need. “It’s the best feeling in the world,” he finishes. His eyes are dark with emotion as he looks at me. “Being with you is better than anything.”

My heart melts.

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 so close .”

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. ”

The police were the ones who discovered the proof that Rickard tried to run me off the road in the form of paint residue left on the bumper of his truck.

Rickard denied it, of course, claiming he never intended to hurt me.

Which is impossible to believe considering he hired a random criminal off the dark web to abduct me.

“We think he either intended to stage a rescue,” the police detective told me, “or he was following you and got over excited about it. Either way, the proof is there that he was responsible.”

So Rickard is out of the picture. There’ll be a trial, of course. But Rafe told me not to worry about the outcome. “He’s not getting off,” Rafe vowed with a dangerous glint in his eye. “With our contacts, we’ll make sure of it.”

Am I angry at myself for not noticing him sooner? Of course. After the assault, I thought I was being so careful. But Rickard was too. He only picked places to watch me where he could blend into the crowd, like a busy restaurant or a packed grocery store.

Rationally, I know it’s not my fault. That no one can be on alert all the time.

Actually, that’s not true. Rafe is. Indy is. So are Tyler, Ace, and Webb. But they’ve trained for it. I’m just a scientist who gets lost in her thoughts more often than not.

“Eden.” Rafe kisses my head again. He tugs one of my curls and releases it. “As much as I’d love to lay here all day, I have to get up.”

“Oh.” I lift my head from his chest and purse my lips in a mock-pout. “I was hoping we could have a lazy Saturday together. Breakfast in bed, maybe some trivia and a documentary, then—” I kiss his neck. “Another round of this?”

His lips curve up. “We can do all of those things. Except maybe make it brunch instead of breakfast.” Sitting up, he hugs me before setting me off to the side and tucking the blanket around me.

“I have a meeting at the hotel with the guys. A virtual meeting, really. But it should only take an hour or so. Then I can come back and we can have our lazy day together.”

I watch—ogle, really—Rafe as he gets out of bed, admiring his naked body as he moves. “A meeting?”

Rafe stops halfway to the bathroom and turns. My eyes immediately jump below his waist and he chuckles. “Brain. You’re going to make me miss the meeting if you look at me like that.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” I tease. A beat later, I sober. “Of course, if you have a meeting, I understand. Is it about my case?”