Rafe: Devil’s Flame MC, Book 1

by Hart, Romi

  But he had no inclination to move at that moment. And the only thing he could think about when bondage came to mind was tying her up and going for round two, taking his sweet time to memorize every inch of her body and using her until she was so spent she couldn’t lift her limbs.

  Her hand came up to stroke his hair, surprising him, and he opened his eyes to find her watching him lazily through hooded eyes. “Well, big guy, you were certainly worth losing to,” she said softly, giving him a teasing grin that had his cock twitching again already.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he told her honestly. He didn’t like that she was getting caught up in the crossfire, but he had to find a way to draw Jake out of his proverbial hiding place. Kira was a means to an end, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to suffer. And maybe, if he could offer her a little kindness, and she really had gotten some satisfaction from the sex, she wouldn’t have too many regrets. Hoping to extend the golden glow that surrounded the moment before drawing down the storm of wrath that he knew awaited him, he asked, “You want to stay the night?”

  She quirked a brow at him. “Really? I figured this would be a notch in your belt and a ride home.”

  He shrugged. “I told you I can be a gentleman. And it’s not entirely unselfish.” He traced a finger over her hip, making her shiver. “I can’t say I wouldn’t want to take advantage of a sexy woman in my bed sometime later tonight. Or again in the morning.” He winced, wondering what would happen when he refused to take her home in the morning.

  But for now, he set the inevitable aside as she smiled at him, rolling over so the length of her body was sprawled on top of him. God, she was sexy! “Well, I’m not one to stick around, but I wouldn’t mind another go myself. I’ll stay.”

  4

  Kira woke with a smile, despite having gotten precious little sleep. Three rounds with Rafe had been outrageously satisfying, and yet, it still wasn’t enough. The sex was insane, full of passion and need, and it wasn’t just because a night in Rafe’s bed would truly have her brother pulling his hair out and tearing into every guy who even looked at him the wrong way for the next week.

  Rafe was intoxicating.

  Even though she knew she had to go home today, she was in no hurry to crawl out of the bed, even when she rolled over and found Rafe already gone. She deflated a little, having hoped to rouse him with a little lip service, but she should have expected him to be up and about already. She tended to sleep in after a night out, and she assumed it was probably after ten by now.

  She stretched languidly, sitting up and looking around for the first time. The room was sparsely furnished, with only the bed and a utilitarian chest of drawers. A small mirror hung on the wall next to the door, and the window was dirty but looked out over an empty field full of motorcycles in varying stages of repair. The floor was covered in industrial carpet, and her clothes were scattered across it. Inhaling deeply, she pushed to her feet and started collecting the items so she could get dressed, stopping to assess her own state of dishevel in the mirror.

  Her hair was a mess, ratted and wild, but at least her makeup was mostly still in place. There was a lot of benefit to using quality waterproof products. She took a moment to look through the drawers, trying to find a brush or even a comb, but she had no luck. She did find a rubber band, and wincing, she pulled the mess into a loose knot at the nape of her neck until she could do something else to get it under control.

  When Rafe still hadn’t come back, she decided it was time to go in search of him. She opened the door and nearly ran into him, his broad chest an inch from her face. The spice of his cologne hit her, and then she looked up at his freshly shaved face and the wet tendrils of hair curling around his ears and neck, and she nearly swooned.

  He scowled. “Where are you going?”

  “I was going to come hunt you down, since you left me in here alone.” Kira narrowed her eyes at him. He seemed nervous, and as he stepped into the room and shut the door, she caught a quick glimpse of two other men outside, seeming to stand sentinel on either side of the door. Were they guarding her? Why would they need to do that?

  “I just went to shower,” he said, sounding distracted and tugging at his cut. Something was off, and Kira couldn’t quite figure out what it was. But there was a tingling sensation on the back of her neck that made her nervous. It usually meant trouble, and that was the last thing she needed this morning.

  “Look, I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass. If you have things to do, I can catch a ride home some other way, or I can cool my heels here for a while until you can take me.” For some reason, she really liked Rafe, more than most of the men she flirted with and more than most of the men she’d slept with. He was certainly better in bed than most. She hadn’t enjoyed sex like this since Shaw, and Rafe just might have put him to shame with his bedroom prowess. She didn’t want to piss Rafe off, thinking she might be able to at least set up a temporary arrangement to do this again. Wouldn’t that be the real kicker? Getting great sex and keeping something going with a good guy who grated on her brother’s nerves.

  Rafe scratched his chin, looking like he had something to say but was loathe to say it. That didn’t bode well, and while Kira hadn’t expected any professions of love, she found herself disappointed at the idea of this having been a one night stand, for more reasons than she cared to think about. “Have a seat,” he finally told her, motioning toward the bed.

  Kira hesitated only a moment, then turned and perched on the edge of the mattress, not bothering to get comfortable. If he was going to give her the ‘thanks and see you around’ speech, she didn’t plan to stick around. She’d call Tara if she had to, get a ride back to her car. She waited as he paced back and forth across the small room in front of her, noting the tense set to his shoulders and, for the first time, that he hadn’t donned his cut. It gave her a better look at his broad chest and narrow waist, and wicked thoughts crept through her head, despite the situation.

  Finally, he sighed and stopped to stare at her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  It was a flat statement, and Kira blinked at him. What the hell was he talking about? Playfully, she gave him a tentative smile and asked, “What, you can’t get enough of me?”

  He flinched slightly, and alarms went off in her head. “Don’t get me wrong, Kira. Last night was fucking amazing. But there are bigger, more important things going on, and until I get those taken care of, you can’t leave.”

  Now, she frowned at him. “Am I in some kind of danger?” Nothing else made sense, but she couldn’t imagine something had changed overnight, or that Rafe would know if someone had a target on her back when she hadn’t heard anything. “If I am, you don’t have to worry about it. My brother—“

  “Is the problem,” he cut her off, and her jaw dropped. Had she understood him right? “You aren’t leaving unless that son of a bitch comes out of hiding.”

  Shocked and appalled, Kira just stared at him. “Are you telling me you slept with me and brought me back here because you have a beef with my brother? I mean, I’m not stupid. I knew your club had a rivalry with the Diamond Kings, but you seemed like a decent guy. Not someone who would use me just to piss my brother off.” And yet, that was exactly how the night had started for her. Rafe had been a means to an end that turned out to be more fun than she counted on. Still, he was acting like this was a hostage situation.

  He rubbed his chin again, looking disturbed. “Well, I feel like we might have a mutual interest there. I heard you enjoy pissing your brother off.” Kira winced internally. He had a point, but she wasn’t going to admit it.

  He shook his head. “It’s about more than that, Kira, trust me. And for the record, when I met you last night, I had no intention of sleeping with you. I was just going to bring you back and give Jake a good scare so he’d man up and stop being such a damn coward.”

  She stood and stepped up to him, jutting her chin out defiantly. “Oh, yeah? You thought you could just tie me up somewhere
and wait for Jake to come crawling to you, begging you to release me?”

  “That was the plan.” His face was a mask of stoicism, but his eyes spoke volumes, rage and frustration clouding the beautiful jade coloring.

  “Then what was last night? A bonus?” She didn’t know why, but Kira’s heart ached at that thought. For some reason, it didn’t matter that there was some reason Rafe wanted to call her brother out. She hated Jake. But the fact that Rafe might have simply taken advantage of an opportunity to put another notch in his belt and hadn’t actually wanted her hurt her feelings. It was insane. She didn’t do feelings, especially when it came to sleeping with someone to spite her brother. But she couldn’t seem to get over the idea that there was at least some chemistry between her and Rafe.

  “A bonus?” He laughed sarcastically. “If anything, it was a complication.” His eyes smoldered now as he looked her up and down, lingering longer on her chest. “I didn’t want to get involved with you at all, not even physically, but you set me on fire. You tempted me in ways I couldn’t resist, and now, I have to live with the consequences of that. You have every right to be angry and hate me. But your brother fucked up a long time ago and still hasn’t paid for his mistakes. I’m going to fix that, and since nothing else seems to catch his attention, you’re the bait now.”

  Well, if anything would get Jake to make a stupid move, it was family. His sense of responsibility to protect Kira certainly was a weakness, and while she didn’t understand what it was that had Rafe so disgusted by her brother, based on her own experience, she couldn’t blame the man. “Why didn’t you just tell me, if you knew how much I hated him?”

  Rolling his eyes, Rafe started pacing again. “Come on, Kira, he’s your brother. It doesn’t matter if you want to kill him yourself. You haven’t because he’s blood. If you were me, would you have trusted you enough to tell you what was going on? Or would you have played it safe and assumed you would run straight to him with the information out of some misguided sense of loyalty?”

  Again, he had a point, but it enraged her. “You don’t know shit about my relationship with Jake, okay? For the record, the only reason I haven’t killed him is because I don’t want to disappoint my family by ending up behind bars.” She dropped to the bed and put her head in her hands. She didn’t care if she had to stay here, but she didn’t like being forced. “I can help you out. I can stay here and wait, while you try to get in touch with him. I don’t mind.”

  “Good, because you don’t have a choice, any more than I do.” She glanced up at him and saw pain and regret lining his handsome face. “Like I said, I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you. I didn’t expect to be so damned attracted to you.”

  Kira scoffed. “Well, honestly, I just wanted Tara to go back to the Kings and tell them how much I was flirting with you. I didn’t intend to go home with you at all. And then one thing led to another, and I really wanted to.” She looked up and met his eyes, his seeming as haunted as she felt. What had Jake done to him to cause Rafe to feel the same level of hatred she did? She wanted desperately to ask, but he’d already made it clear he didn’t trust her. And in his position, she would have felt the same.

  But damn, couldn’t they just crawl back into bed and forget everything else?

  Rafe shook his head. “This is a disaster.”

  With a groan, Kira told him, “Not exactly what a girl wants to hear after admitting she had an amazing night in your bed.”

  The sudden burst of laughter, complete unexpected, broke through the harsh expression on his face, curling a genuine smile on his lips. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.” His eyes raked up and down her, the smile turning a bit salacious. “You were incredible.”

  Pride and satisfaction warred with her desire to punch Rafe for this whole scheme. If they’d met under any other circumstances, she wouldn’t have to practically kick him in the balls to get him to admit he’d enjoyed himself. “Good of you to admit it,” she teased. Then, she let the levity subside. “Look, I don’t know what my brother did to you, but I agree that he’s a piece of shit. I can’t stand him, and I would love nothing better than to cut his tongue out and feed it to him. But he’s also ruthless, and if he finds out you’re holding me hostage, he’s going to fly off the handle.”

  “Good,” Rafe barked. “That’s what I want. I want him to face me like a man and own up to his shit. And then I want him dead.” Kira flinched, and she saw the muscles in his jaw working, his eyes clouding with regret. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings or upset you. But Jake Hawthorne doesn’t deserve to live. And if you know your brother at all, you’ll agree with me.”

  It wasn’t that Kira had never considered a world without her brother. She’d thought of several ways to take him out, plenty of satisfying means to the end that she could manage on her own. But when it came down to it, Jake was blood, and while she hated him with such intensity it drove her mad on occasion, she couldn’t do it to her family.

  But she didn’t deny that Rafe had a point. “Like I said, I don’t know what you have against him, but he’s hurt a lot of people, including me. And I don’t blame you one bit for wanting to rip his head off and throw it to the wolves. But using me in this little game isn’t going to go well.” Kira didn’t want to see Rafe or his MC get hurt, for reasons she didn’t dare explore under the circumstances, and Jake was already halfcocked and missing a few screws. If he found out that Kira was considered a prisoner, he wouldn’t hesitate to raze the entire clubhouse and torture Rafe until he was a crumpled ball of pain before he died.

  “And how am I supposed to trust you?” Rafe asked, starting to pace yet again. “Sure, I’ve got resources that tell me he’s not your favorite person, but he’s your brother. And you’re a woman. I know women.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked, ready to be offended.

  “Women manipulate to get what they want, Kira. You don’t want to be held here, so you’ll say whatever it takes to get out.” He pointed a finger at her. “You’re sexy, and you’re a distraction, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see through you. You’re also smart and self-sufficient. I can’t bank on anything you say, especially since family is involved.”

  He had her there, but she wasn’t going to take the verbal assault on women in general. “I don’t care what you’ve experienced in the past, Rafe. I’m not a con artist. I say what I mean. I don’t need to play games to get what I want.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Really? Then why the hell did you seduce me last night?”

  Kira gaped at him, hands on her hips. “Wait a minute, big guy. Who seduced who? Weren’t you the one who came into that bar with the intention of stealing me away on the back of your bike so you could have your revenge on my brother for whatever the hell he did to you?”

  “And who was hellbent on taking home a biker and pissing him off?” he countered, closing in on her. His proximity threatened her ability to think straight, to breathe, and to function in general, but she stood too close to the bed and couldn’t step away. “You seduced me. Like I said, I had no intention of sleeping with you.”

  Her chest heaving, she looked up at Rafe defiantly, daring him to touch her. “I guess we both had an issue with self-control, then, didn’t we?”

  “Maybe,” he said, his voice little more than a growl as he seemed to loom even closer. God, he was gorgeous. And imposing and enticing. “What are you going to do about it now? Try to seduce me again? Maybe prey on my attraction to you in hopes I’ll feel guilty and let you go?”

  Kira let one side of her mouth quirk up in a grin. “No, if anything, I’m going to seduce you into taking me back to bed.” She locked eyes with him, his blazing and hers demanding that he make up his mind. It was a standoff, and it wasn’t fair. She didn’t want this other issue hanging over them. All she wanted was the incredible arousal that coursed through her veins and the desire she could see and feel heating Rafe from head to toe. There was so much passion in him, a
nd Kira wanted to drain it from him, feel it as they entangled their limbs and the sheets into one messy ball of erotic sensation.

  But he didn’t move, other than his chest heaving and his pupils dilating. Oh, he wanted her alright, but his pride and some misplaced sense of chivalry prevented him from doing anything. Kira didn’t want to be a regret. She didn’t want to be a tool, either. But if she had to choose, she would rather be a means to an end and show him that he didn’t have to be scared of her. He could take as much as he wanted, and she would still feel good about it in the end.

  So she pushed up on her toes and grabbed the back of his neck, yanking him down into a kiss that sparked flames the size of a bonfire in her belly. If that didn’t draw him in, nothing would.

  5

  Rafe’s cock reacted so fast his head spun, and he couldn’t do anything but kiss Kira back. He dove in with the same fervor he’d had the night before, plowing into her like a man starved for sex. He forgot about his vendetta, about his pain and anger, and all he could focus on was the way her tongue met his thrust for thrust, her passion matching his.

  As she pushed herself against him, Rafe’s hands found their way under Kira’s shirt, stroking her breasts with rough fingers, making her whimper into his mouth. He shoved his pelvis against hers, grinding and letting her feel the hard line of his erection. She had driven this contact. God help him, he was putty in her hands, and she could decide how far this was going to go.

  With a jerk of her arms, Kira wrenched him around so the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed, and he lost his balance, falling hard on his ass. He didn’t mind as Kira crawled up on him, straddling his lap and running those demonic hands that wove dirty, evil spells over him down his chest.

  A harsh rapping on the door caused both of them to freeze, and Rafe cursed vehemently under his breath. “Ignore it,” Kira plead in a whisper, her lips brushing his ear in a way that made his cock jump and press against the heat of her core.