by Cait London
Ben stepped out onto the porch and stood in front of the door as if reading Hogan’s emotions. “I’ve been there, boy. Better give her time to cool off,” Ben said.
In her upstairs bedroom, Jemma couldn’t resist easing aside the curtain to look down at Hogan. He stood there, looking up at her, his tall body outlined in the silvery moonlight. The tug of his body curled around hers, the memories of his mouth suckling gently, rhythmically at her breast, sent a hot sizzle through her. He looked so lonely outlined in the moonlight, and she ached to hold him tight. Hogan could be sweet, almost boyish, but he was a man of dark, uncertain needs.
Jemma crushed the lace curtain in her fist. Could she trust him? He had a lover who wanted him and yet he had shed Simone easily— for the moment. Hogan was a Kodiak, and that meant he’d want a family, because that need had been bred into him, whether he liked it or not.
She hadn’t thought of herself as a lover. Yet with him, she had made love and enjoyed the hunger and excitement. She loved the image of Hogan moving over her, his face dark and intent as though nothing mattered but what would come between them.
Jemma’s hand rose to protectively cover the racing pulse at her throat. He would want too much.
She opened her other hand. The earrings glittered in the dim light his trademark stamped on a small disk. The gift was symbolic, she knew, marking their time together. She closed her fist over the earrings and brought her hand to her heart. She’d known him for years and yet that sweet gift had shaken her— before his lover Simone had slashed through the tender moment.
Tall and lethal and brooding, Hogan stood waiting for her to come to him. She couldn’t until she knew what moved inside her— the aching tenderness warring with her fears of what Hogan would expect from her— the restrictions and tethers....
Jemma slashed away tears with the back of her hand. “Whatever happens, I will not be a fill-in for his lover. But he can be so sweet and tender and if I didn’t know that, I’d be just fine.”
Then because she wasn’t one to hide in the shadows when her emotions were burning, Jemma shoved open the window. “I love the earrings.”
“Why don’t you come down here and tell me?” he called back to her.
Because she didn’t dare come close to him, to see that grin upon his face— no more than a flash of white in the dark night— Jemma slammed the window down.
He looked up at her and took his hat from his head, sweeping it in front of him as he bowed. Then he straightened, put his hat on his head, and blew her a kiss. Hogan strolled to his pickup and got inside. He backed it up to the house, climbed up on the cab, and gripped the porch’s roof, levering himself up. He walked across the roof toward her window. He rapped on the pane. “Are you going to kiss me good night or what?”
Because the move was so atypical of Hogan’s contemplative, predictable nature, Jemma opened the window and stared at him. “What are you doing, Hogan Kodiak?”
“Kissing my sweetheart good night— unless you’d rather come to my place. But if you do, you’re not coming back tonight.”
“You’re not going anywhere until I kiss you, are you?”
He stared at her, face harsh and intense in the moonlight. Jemma found herself reaching for his head, wrapping her fingers in his smooth, crisp hair, and pushing her mouth against his. It wasn’t a sweet kiss, but Hogan’s hand reached out to cup the back of her head, drawing her into a long, tender kiss.
He leaned back, inhaled roughly as though he wanted to climb into the window and make love to her, and then shook his head— “You’re going to need more casting time. Do you want me to help you or not?”
“Not tomorrow.” She wanted time to think about this new Hogan, one who smoothed her hair and took her palm to his lips. The gesture was humbling, a proud man yielding a bit to her.
“You’re backing off, aren’t you? Afraid?”
“Yes. I think we’d both better think about this,” she whispered, because Hogan had known her too long, and recently, too well. “You’d better go. Be careful. I wouldn’t want you to break that neck before I do it.”
He chuckled, the rare sound delighting her, before he crossed the roof and dropped to his pickup bed. Ben crossed to him, and after a brief talk, their rumbling voices too low for Jemma to distinguish, Hogan’s sleek truck purred into the night— headed toward town.
Carley came in and plopped full length on the bed. “He’s becoming a bit of a Romeo with you. Who would have thought that Hogan could be so romantic? He’s headed into town. Aaron is probably already at the Lucky Dollar, brooding about Mom and Dad’s romance heating up and Savanna not taking his flirting seriously. Mitch is gone, too. When you get right down to it, they’re all boys. Disgusting male showoffs, seeing who can spit the farthest.”
Carley’s frustration did not cover her love for her family.
“And you love them,” Jemma murmured, because she knew that Carley’s family was her life.
“Desperately. If I could have one wish, it would be that somehow, all of us could find peace as a family. Dysfunctional is a word I know well.”
Despite her own tumultuous emotions, Jemma moved to sit by Carley. “You haven’t been down to that place— where it happened, have you?”
“No. I thought about it, but there hasn’t been time. I haven’t had a minute alone, and I need that, to think. I know I have to put it past me, but I just can’t.”
“What we need is a break. We’ve been planting gardens, fighting with Kodiak men, and generally kept like a harem here in the house— doing ‘women’s work.’”
Carley lifted an eyebrow. “One of us wasn’t. You certainly looked mashed when you turned up this morning.”
“I’ve been mashed before. I was married, remember? But then it was all very scheduled and clinical, and frankly not that much fun... Let’s track them down like dogs at the Lucky Dollar. A girl’s night out, okay?”
Carley’s eyes lit up. “Do you really think it will be okay? I’ve never been there before. It’s all dark and seedy-looking.”
“The question is, do you want to go?” Jemma ached for Carley, for the experiences she had feared to take, her life overshadowed long ago by her attacker. Carley had never dated or played, her nerves skittering when a man came too close.
*** ***
Aaron placed his beer mug down on the tavern’s battered table. “I bought that old Simmons place, all five thousand acres of it, next to Dad’s. It’s a good investment. I can sell it for a profit, or— Holy—” he exclaimed, eyes widening as Carley and Jemma walked in the door.
Jemma’s hair was piled on top of her head, tendrils curling down around her face and down her nape. With her hair held away from her face by combs, the citrine earrings glittered daintily at her ears. She scanned the dark bar, the three-piece band and a singer whose lusty voice caught the sensual tempo easily in an aching slow song of love gone wrong. Jemma’s red sweater and tight jeans and red boots said she’d come to play. She eyed the cowboys lined up against the bar, and they were taking in her long, tall, and hot look.
Carley was smaller, more rounded, compact, dressed in a black sweater and neat slacks, her light blond hair catching the dim neon light.
In an unfamiliar setting, she eased back toward Mitch, who had come to wrap his arm around her protectively. He bent to her ear, talking above the loud music, and gently took her into his arms. Carley stood very still, her hands against his chest, her face pale as she looked up at him. He moved slightly, smiling tenderly down at her, and Carley looked away, but her body swayed stiffly to his direction, a safe distance away.
Hogan slowly placed his mug on the table and forgot about convincing Aaron that Dinah wouldn’t hurt Ben again, their affection obvious and growing. Hogan looked at the woman who had just this morning demanded as much as he— and now she was obviously ready to romp and stomp with the local playboys. She glanced at him, tossed her head, and looked away, but Hogan had seen that dangerous, wary look.
He pushed away from the table and walked toward her, disliking the anger and jealousy riding him. This wasn’t sweet, innocent Jemma, but a woman on the prowl— the chameleon changing as it suited her. She was out to prove that she could do as she liked— without the confinements of a relationship with him.
He’d never coerced a woman into fidelity, but he wasn’t having another man’s hands on Jemma while she looked like steam heat, her face carefully made up, her lipstick glossy and waiting. She was still burning about Simone’s call, but Hogan wasn’t letting that come between them. “You’ve had a long day, haven’t you? Seems like just this morning you were groaning about getting up before dawn.”
She crossed her arms and ignored him, tapping her boot to the music. Then she flicked a long, lazy look at him. “Maybe it was who I was with.”
Hogan couldn’t resist smiling. Jemma knew how to handle herself in flirtatious situations; she controlled them and eased away before her target knew what hit him.
But she hadn’t gotten away this time; Hogan had staked a very vital claim that he intended to explore with her. He flicked the dangling citrine-and-carnelian earrings, studying the glitter reflected upon her smooth jaw. “Red, we both know you like me.”
“Correction. I tolerate you. I make allowances for your arrogance, your dark moods, whatever.” She lifted one sleek eyebrow, eyeing him haughtily as though he was a stranger she was putting in place. Jemma was very good when she was cool and cutting. But then, Hogan had seen the other side of her, all glittering with anger, soft with desire, and Carley was proof that Jemma loved without reservation, when she gave her heart.
He couldn’t resist laughing, enjoying her reluctance to admit she liked him. He strolled a finger down her throat and watched her tense, dark heat flashing up at him. “This is a little low-class for you, isn’t it? It hardly rates with Cannes.”
“I’m just a country boy at heart. Are you going to dance with me, or am I going to have to carry you out of here?” He loved challenging Jemma. She responded with fire and storms, igniting easily; everything was right out there, bright as sunlight, with him, her emotions easily read.
Her eyes widened at that threat, because Hogan was always controlled. Yet he’d already carried her out of the house and climbed up on the roof to kiss her. Both uncharacteristic actions told her that he would carry her out now.
“I guess one dance wouldn’t hurt. But don’t think you’re going to do more than that.” A moment later, when he had folded her close against him and was swaying to the music, Jemma leaned back to look up at him. “You’re aroused,” she stated flatly.
“You do that to me. I’m afraid that’s a constant state when you’re around.” He drew her closer, that softness he had to have, his body humming with desire. Then he gave himself to the sheer pleasure of her body moving with his. He wondered how a man who had never thought about sweethearts and tenderness could feel so fine, with his arms around one special woman.
“Any woman would do that to you. I think you’re easy, and I may have been. But I am not going home with you tonight, Mr. Hogan Kodiak.”
“Maybe,” he said, giving her a fighting chance, because he intended to have her in his bed all night, waking up to her. Hogan smoothed her back, nuzzled his cheek against hers, and let himself drift in the slow music and the warm, soft woman in his arms.
She eased the harsh storms within him, kept them at bay. She was tough, too, determined to succeed, but beneath that, she was pure, sweet-soft, hot-blooded woman— everything up front with him. “Carley needed this. You probably had to browbeat her into it, but it was right. She needs to start life, and, from the looks of it, Mitch is ready to help.”
He studied his sister, her life trapped back in the moment of the attack. Carley moved stiffly, wary of the man holding her body. Mitch’s expression was tender, as if he’d dreamed of holding her that way.
“I love her,” Jemma said. “But you have no idea what a pain she can be when dragging her into a new situation. She shakes, Hogan. The fear in her eyes is worse. I hate the man who did this to her. I didn’t know if it was the right thing, coming into town without one of you, but I just had to get her out where she could feel life.”
“We’ll get him.”
“We will. I believe that with all my heart,” Jemma said firmly. Then she eased closer, and Hogan placed his cheek against her soft vibrant hair, letting it settle in a caress against his skin. He eased into the new emotions within him, the softer ones she had brought him, and gathered Jemma closer.
Across the bar, in a shadowy corner, a man sat studying the Kodiaks and that witch, Jemma. She was pushing his Celestial Virgin into that Chicago lowlife’s bed, and she’d have to pay. In the dim light, Carley looked up at Mitch, her soft smile proving her enjoyment of the slow easy dance, their bodies barely moving.
The man’s fist hit the table, jarring the glass he’d just emptied. Carley was his, and he’d send her a warning to remind her.
He’d deal with the Kodiaks, too, for coming between him and his Celestial Virgin. Then he’d show her the caves where the Chinese women had serviced their masters... just as Carley would tend him.
*** ***
Aaron braced himself above Savanna, his body taut and slick with sweat, racked with the sexual explosion that had just passed.
Savanna hadn’t asked about his dark mood; she’d opened the door to her apartment and when he was inside, she’d silently stripped away the dark red satin robe, letting it pool to her feet. Naked and slender, she’d turned to him. As teenagers, they’d been lovers, bodies burning, but now her slender body, her sleek black hair spilling over her softly curved body was more sensual, more arousing. Aaron had carried her to her bedroom, and they’d made love silently, hungrily. Now her hair lay in glossy stripes across the black-satin pillowcase. She smiled softly and traced his mouth. “Better?”
His body eased, but not his emotions, Aaron slid away, lying on his back beside her on the black satin sheet.
Savanna smiled and patted his chest. “You’ll get over whatever it is. Just another Kodiak moment, or rather war.”
He’d known her all her lifetime. She knew Aaron as well, knew that he enjoyed women. Savanna had never pushed him; she’d always listened and knew exactly how the stormy family’s dynamics affected each member. She was the only woman he could talk to honestly, skipping the bull. “Dad is going down for the count, looking at Mom. She’s not going to stay past the danger to Carley. Mom is pure city.”
“Give her credit, Aaron.” Savanna rose out of the bed they had thoroughly mussed and pulled on a robe. She smoothed her long hair over her shoulder, and it gleamed down to her hips, swaying as she walked out of the bedroom.
Aaron lay there, aware that Savanna was the only woman who ever walked away from him. Irritated by Hogan, by Ben and Dinah, by Carley fighting life, and Mitch determined to root her out into a life, Aaron jerked on his jeans and followed Savanna.
“Coffee at this hour?” he asked when he found her making coffee in the small kitchenette.
“It looks like a long night, and I have to open the clinic at six. Richard takes care to see that his mother gets her medication and is comfortable before he leaves the house. It’s a convenient arrangement for me. I get time off in the middle of the day to catch up on shopping and whatever.... May as well drink coffee now and save time.”
Savanna’s actions said she could take or leave him, and her light treatment irritated. “Help yourself to whatever you want,” she said. “I’m taking a shower.”
“Savanna, do you sleep with Richard?” Aaron had to ask and disliked the jealousy rising within him. There was something about the two of them, their heads together, an intimacy that Aaron could not define—
Her answer was smooth and thoughtful, a woman who knew her mind and made her own decisions, blaming no one for her fate. “He hasn’t asked. But I’ve had men. I’m not the Celestial Virgin you dreamed of as a boy, Aaron. You were my first, but not my last.
I enjoy my body, and I have needs, just like you, Aaron. And I want a home with children and everything that comes with it. The way I see it is I’m just spending time until the right man comes along, and then there won’t be anyone else but him. I’m just culling them out for now, seeing what fits right.”
That winded Aaron: the thought of Savanna holding another man, wearing his wedding ring, bearing his child. He didn’t like the picture.
Savanna smiled at him as though reading his thoughts. “We’re not getting any younger, Aaron. You’ve been married, and it didn’t work, and you’ve been engaged, and that didn’t work, either. You might end up marrying some sweet young thing— eventually, but I want a man who is mine, who I can tend to in the good times and the bad. When I find him, I’m never looking back or at another man. He’ll be everything to me. Ben gave me an example of a man who is faithful and kind and generous. I think Hogan is like that, deep down, but he isn’t interested in me. Mitch is that way, too, and he’ll be a wonderful husband and father, but it isn’t there between us. Someday I’ll find who I want, and he’ll just fit, and that will be it... Click, like that.”
She patted his cheek and walked toward the bathroom, already stripping away her robe. Aaron tried to push down the nettling fact that he didn’t meet her standards for a husband. That was fine; he wasn’t in a marrying mood anyway, not after a divorce and escaping the charade of a bloodless society wedding. But the label “cull” scraped him raw.
Minutes later, Aaron stepped into the steaming shower and gathered Savanna to him, his body ripe with desire. “You said to help myself to anything.... I am.”
She laughed huskily, and found him with her hand. “You’re awfully good at that,” Aaron said with a long slow groan.
Savanna smiled slowly, knowingly, sleek and feminine in the stream of water and steam and sank to her knees. And then Aaron forgot everything—