I followed Rafferty into his grandparents’room—now his room, if the clothes on the floor were any indication—which had the same simple wood paneling as everywhere else. Unfortunately, it was also cold as fuck.
I shudder-shivered. “Is there a window open?”
“Sorry it’s so chilly in here,” he said, placing his hand on my lower back. “We never got around to fixing the ductwork.”
I leaned into his body heat. “I don’t mind as long as you’re volunteering to keep me warm.”
“Always a fucking menace,” he said, shaking his head with a stupidly fond look.
“Whatever,” I said, grinning at him. “You like that I’m a menace.”
His mouth twitched with an aborted grin, and he gave me a squeeze before stepping to the closet. “Imight be able to prevent you from freezing to death at least.”
He attempted to open the bi-fold doors with a flourish, but they got stuck halfway. Admiring the broad muscles in his back, I assumed he’d force it open. Instead, he wiggled them back onto their tracks and carefully slid them the rest of the way open.
It reminded me of something my father used to say.If you wanna be gentle like that, son, you better learn how to fight.
The biggest surprise in all of this wasn’t that Rafferty fucked me to within an inch of my life. It’s that, at his core, the man was as gentle as he was powerful.
Which was problematic on so many levels.
Grinning at the plethora of sharp cardigans, snazzy short-sleeve button-ups, and slacks with elastic waistbands, I asked the question I’d been curious about for a solid year.
“What was that move you pulled on me in the courthouse?” I asked, stopping at a pair of neatly hung flannel plaid pajama bottoms.
Rafferty removed them from the hanger and presented them to me over his forearm. Like a butler, only hotter.
“Aikido with a hint ofMortal Kombat.”
“Finish him,” I cracked, shaking my head as he knelt in front of me. “God, it pisses me off how charming you are.”
“That’s how my grandma raised me,” he said, popping his brows.
I’d prefer to be naked for the duration, but I really was chilly in this refrigerator of a room, and he’d seen enough of my shrinkage.
“You know…the vehicle I was in flew off a bridge tonight,” I said, stepping into each leg hole. “I had to shimmy out a window to escape into a freezing lake and walked three miles in the snow. And I was still able to take it up the ass.”
“Yes, you were very brave,” he said, sarcasm thick as he ran his nose along my spent cock.
Rafferty pulled the bottoms up to my waist like I was a little kid. I didn’t complain because, after a year of prison, it felt nice to be cared for.
“You want a tee or the matching top?”
“Neither. I don’t like wearing shirts to sleep.”
He stood, biting his lower lip as he admired my chest, and I glared up at him. “My point, before you distracted me, is that I was definitely not offering my ass on a platter after court that day. You nailed me with one punch, and I couldn’t take a deep breath for three months.”
“I apologize for the level of violence,” he said, palming my rib cage, playing his thumb over the ridges. “You were too quick to be reasoned with, and there were too many people in the courtroom.”
I raised a brow. “You caved in my ribcage because I was too fast?”
He shook his head, his expression genuinelyapologetic. “I broke your ribs with your own forward momentum because it was the most efficient way to secure the room.”
Honestly, I got it. Rafferty was a protector to his core, and if I represented a threat to innocent civilians, he was going to neutralize me with as little impact to them as possible.
“You collapsed one of my lungs,” I groused, even as I tracked the bulge in his sweatpants.
“I know. I’m sorry.” He held up his hands. “Tell you what: as soon as I can go again, I’ll give you a nice, slow apology fuck.”
