“You know what you need to know. Has nothing to do with shutting you out.” He folded his fingers around mine, his green eyes simmering as he lifted my hand and sucked a finger into his mouth.

“Rafe,” I whispered, squeezing my thighs together.

“Is that sweet pussy still wet?” Licking his lips, he released my hand. Damn. I fell into submission with a delicious shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. That tingle traveled from the follicles on my scalp to the soles of my feet. How did he do this to me? Every. Fucking. Time.

“You’re not gonna tell me what’s going on, are you?” I hated the way my voice came out weak and pathetic. Breathless. He had me. He knew it. I knew it.

“Stand up,” he said.

“Rafe?”

“I said stand up.” He raised a brow in challenge.

Rising on shaky legs, I crossed my arms. “Happy?”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Not yet.” He patted the tabletop. “Get your sexy ass up here. Let’s do something about that ache you’re trying to hide.”

Holy shit. My ability to articulate an intelligent sentence vanished. I slid onto the table, and he pushed me into a reclining position then urged my legs around his shoulders. I braced my palms on the back of the bench where I’d sat, my head hanging over the edge of the table, and tried not to dwell on how he was using sex as a diversion.

He slid his hands up my inner thighs, and I was lost as his fingers parted my folds.

“You want me to taste you?”

I squirmed under his hands, under the hot flush of his breath on my pussy. “Yes…please.”

“I’d do anything for you. You know that, right?”

I did know that. He’d risked his life for me, but would he share what made him vulnerable? Would he unburden his fears and let me help carry the weight? I longed for his trust as much as I longed to feel his cock inside me.

“Why did you leave? Help me understand.” For the first time in my life, I felt like I was the strong one.

He reached for something behind him. “Take this,” he said, rolling an apple over the ink of his name, between my heaving breasts. I caught it before it fell to the floor, one hand bearing my weight for a few precarious moments.

“Why?” I eyed the red apple.

“Bite into it, and keep your hands on that seat. If you drop the apple, I’ll stop licking your cunt.”