Ghostly Justice (Seven Deadly Sins, #2.5)(20)

He wrapped his arms around her body, both holding her close while pinning her with his weight to the bed. He planted his feet on the floor for support. He buried his face into her neck, her thick hair smelling wonderfully like lavender and soap and rain.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear. He didn’t know if she heard him, didn’t care. His body was filled with intensity for this woman, a love and passion so profound, so deep, it made him near-crazy. “I love you,” he repeated.

Her legs wrapped around his waist while her hands were around his neck. She had put herself in a vulnerable position, all for him. Moira was hardly helpless, her steel shields making her rough around the edges. But right here, right now, her complete trust in him, in them was the strongest aphrodisiac.

“Rafe,” she gasped. “Rafe.”

Her muscles clenched around him and he lost himself in her.



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Moira finished brushing her hair, damp from their shared shower, then slid into the bed Rafe had warmed for her. She thought for a moment he was asleep, then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her warmly. She sighed, a blissful moment of happiness in her crazy and dangerous life.

She rested her head on his bare shoulder and said, “I love you.”

He kissed the top of her head and held her, his right hand caressing her arm. They didn’t speak for several minutes, but sleep wasn’t quickly coming. Then he said, “I was scared tonight. Something was happening to you on the dance floor. I don’t know what it was, but you were in danger.”

“We’re always in danger.”

“This was different.”

Moira didn’t discount Rafe’s concerns, but she’d faced witches more deadly than Rex and Tessa. So had he. And after battling two corporeal demons, the two witches hadn’t terrified her. She didn’t enjoy the bloody visions she had while Tessa touched her, but she was blocking the worst.

“It wasn’t fun, but I was handling their battle magic.”

“I think they were trying to distract you and weaken you. I heard something—that Baphomet was coming.”

Moira raised her head. “Heard?”

“A voice.”

“A ghost?”

“I don’t know.”

She lowered her head. She didn’t know if he was telling the complete truth. “I think,” she began slowly, “that both of us are becoming more...sensitive to the supernatural energy around us. I don’t like it, but it is what it is. As long as we don’t use magic, we’ll be okay.” She hoped. She didn’t understand it anymore than Rafe did. Magic had been a part of her life from the very beginning, until seven years ago she’d turned her back on that world after so many people were hurt or killed.

“Maybe.”

“Do you think Carter is going to make it?”

“I don’t know that, either. I’m more worried about the curse they put on him than the poison.”

“We should have known he was in danger.” It had been bothering Moira ever since they took him to the hospital. “He didn’t know what to expect. We shouldn’t bring outsiders into our war.”

Rafe didn’t say anything. He stared at the ceiling.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I knew Carter was in trouble. I told him not to drink anything, but I should have gotten him out right then. Except I knew you were in danger. More danger than you thought.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were!”

She flinched from his sudden rage. He wrapped his arms around her tight; she put her palm over his pounding heart.

Maybe she was threatened. She had certainly been in pain, but they hadn’t gotten in.

“You can take care of yourself, I know that,” he said. “But sometimes you push it. You don’t care what happens to you as long as you stop them. But I care.”

“I had a death wish for a long time after Peter was killed,” Moira admitted. “But not anymore.” She rolled on top of him and kissed him firmly. “I have too much to live for.” She kissed him again, then settled back down. “I have a responsibility to send the Seven Deadly Sins back to Hell. We face evil that most people don’t even believe exists. I hate it, but I can’t turn my back on it. But I promise not to be reckless. Not when I have you to live for.”

“You have more than me.” Rafe stroked her back, giving her more love and comfort in the easy caress than she had before she’d met him.

“But you’re the most important. Before you, I really didn’t care about anyone or anything except finding my mother and stopping her. But now? I dare to see a future. Because of you, I have hope I never believed in.”

As Moira drifted off to sleep, one leg and one arm draped over his body, Rafe considered his true motives in choosing to help Moira first, over Carter. At the time he’d been so irritated—angry—at the cop for how he treated Moira, how he looked at her, how he touched her. Jealousy, plain and simple. A feeling so completely foreign to Rafe he didn’t know how to deal with it. It didn’t help that Moira was striking. She’d never flaunted her sex appeal—he doubted she even gave it any thought—until tonight. But when she needed to, she used everything at her disposal. And tonight, that meant her body and her beauty.