Deadly Sins

by Lora Leigh

“Take her back,” he ordered. “You’re not doing this to me again.”

  Again. He’d been ten when Saul and Tandy had given him his first pup. Three months after Saul’s daughter—Logan’s mother—and his son-in-law had died in a blazing crash on a mountain road, that pup had been poisoned.

  It had died in Logan’s arms, the vet refusing to answer his door, to help the boy who stood outside screaming for help. Begging the son of a bitch to save that dog.

  “I didn’t do it to you.” Saul met his gaze. “I had no reason to try to kill you, Logan.”

  “You killed the dog.”

  Saul shook his gray head. “The pup ate your food at that damned Social, in the community center. Your food. I wasn’t there and I sure as hell didn’t hire someone to kill a kid. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t a’ killed an innocent animal just to get to you. It broke your grandmother’s heart—”

  “Nothing about me ever broke either of your hearts.” It wasn’t possible. They would have had to care first.

  “Boy, you don’t know shit.” Contempt filled the words, then Saul glanced to his side.

  Skye was still standing in the doorway. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she seemed to be keeping watch.

  Her arms crossed over her breasts, a glare on her face. She didn’t look the least bit happy to see Saul Rafferty there.

  “That girl’s worried about you.” Saul lifted his lip as though to sneer before giving up the effort and shaking head wearily. “Tandy wanted you to have her. I brought her to you. It’s that damned simple.”

  “Take it back. She didn’t want me and now I don’t want either of you or your fucking dogs.”

  “No, all you want is your be-damned pride and your certainty that you have all the answers,” Saul bit out furiously, his aged body seeming to tremble. “That’s why I say your daddy was a damned sight smarter, Logan. He knew better than to just listen to his own fucking pride.”

  “And whatever he listened to got him killed,” Logan snapped. “Didn’t it, Saul?”

  It was their suspicion. Logan, Rafe, Crowe. They knew their parents’ deaths hadn’t been an accident. Their fathers had grown up on that damned mountain, had learned to drive on that road. They would have never headed across it during a blizzard.

  Unless they’d had no other choice.

  “You’re a fool.” Saul lost the anger in his tone. “A fool, boy, and you’re too damned blind and filled with pride to see it.”

  “Oh, I see it.” Hatred burned inside him and clashed with the memories of the boy he’d once been and had hung on to for so long. “I’ve seen it for a long time, Mr. Rafferty. Seen you for the monster you, Marshal Roberts, and John Corbin always have been. Tell me, did you kill my father’s parents like you killed your own daughter?”

  The old man flinched then. Agony filled his gaze, and though Logan wanted to deny it, wanted to convince himself that Saul Rafferty didn’t have enough feelings to know grief, still, he couldn’t deny it was there.

  It twisted his lined face and tightened his lips and caused the other man to shake his head slowly.

  “No,” he finally whispered, his voice so rough Logan could barely understand the words. “No, Logan. I didn’t kill them like I killed my own child.”

  Stunned, not by the non-admission so much as by the single tear that slipped from Saul’s eye, Logan could only stand in shock and watch as, head down, shoulders weighed low, Saul turned and walked quickly out of the yard.

  The sound of a vehicle starting up at the side of the street pierced the darkness long moments later and reminded Logan that the old bastard had forgotten something.

  “Son of a bitch,” he cursed as he stared down at the pup. It had curled against the side of his shoe and was now asleep.

  “Logan?”

  Turning his head he watched as Skye made her way across the short distance between their patios, her expression worried as she watched him.

  “Want a dog?” Keeping his tone cool and unconcerned was suddenly the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

  “She looks like she knows where she wants to be.” Bending to her knees, unconcerned of the grass beneath the delicacy of her gown, she ran the backs of her fingers gently down its tiny head.

  She was rebuffed quickly.

  A tiny growl and the pup moved from her, curling at Logan’s heel before he bent, picked it up by the scruff, and deposited it in the little doghouse Saul had brought.

  He stalked into the house then, slamming the door closed against the sad little whines it sent up at being barred from the house.

  “Logan?”

  She had to follow him, didn’t she?

  “Go home, Skye,” he told her wearily. “This really isn’t a good time.”

  “Is any time a good time for you?” Her tone wasn’t confrontational, but neither was it kind and caring.

  What the hell did he expect? He’d known months ago tact wasn’t her strong suit.

  “No. No time is.”

  He turned back to her as she shifted, moonlight spilled through the glass doors, washing over the gown and robe, making them no more than a shadow around her body, outlining her in an aura of dark magic.

  “Fine, I can leave.” She shrugged. “Stay here and enjoy your own miserable company, Logan, since no one seems to be good enough to share it with you.”

  Before he could stop her, she turned and stalked away from him, leaving the house quickly, careful to keep from slamming the door on the wiggling little pup attempting to get in.

  He waited.

  He made himself wait.

  He waited at least a nanosecond before he followed her, catching her at the big oak tree that sat between the two houses and pulling her quickly into his arms.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was the kiss that destroyed him. That brought home the realization that ignoring the attraction simply wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t ignore her. Not when she tempted him with a siren’s gaze and lips so lush he hungered to taste them.

  Not when she drew him, challenged him, and with every look assured him that teasing him, touching him, was her ultimate goal.

  Not when he held her like this and felt the perfect fit of her body.

  He’d fought it for six months. Now, too damned late at night for common sense, the darkness wrapped around them and the sultry summer heat sizzled outside the doors and inside them at the same time.

  He gave in to hunger and knew that moment when the loner inside him realized just how lonely he’d been.

  Logan stared into her dark eyes, realized his fingers were wrapped, tangled in long, dark, silky tresses, and he couldn’t let go. His cock tried to push past his jeans, her shorts, and straight into the heart of her feminine core. His entire body throbbed with the need to possess her until nothing else mattered, until no other hunger dared to intrude.

  He hadn’t even known he was going to kiss her. Hell, he didn’t even remember what she was saying as she laughed up at him, chiding him the way she did over whatever she was chiding him over. He couldn’t even remember what he’d done this time. All he remembered was that destructive thought that he knew the perfect way to shut her up.

  By kissing her.

  And now he had no idea how to stop.

  He wanted to pull back.

  He told himself he was going to pull back.

  He told himself he wasn’t going to let this go any further. She was his neighbor. She was off-limits. He didn’t mess with any women within a hundred miles of Sweetrock because they ended up dead.

  “What are you waiting on?” Her voice trembled along with her lips as sensually drowsy lashes brushed against her cheeks, then lifted as though weighted.

  That siren’s gaze, sensual and seductive, and filled with an innocent hunger that, frankly, amazed him.

  Amazed him that she could feel such hunger for him. That any woman who knew his history, knew the deaths that followed him, could possibly want him.

  His finge
rs tightened in her hair, slowly pulling her head back, tugging at the strands and her obviously sensitive scalp as a moan whispered past her lips.

  Oh yeah, she liked that.

  “I think I’m waiting for my common sense to return.”

  Sensual, sexual hunger tore at him, raced through his veins, tightened his gut, and left him all but shaking in the face of the knowledge that he couldn’t let her go.

  Surviving meant holding on to her just a little longer.

  “Should we be showing common sense at this moment?” The question almost brought a smile to his lips.

  He hadn’t had reason to smile in a very long time.

  Why wasn’t he surprised that the smile was tempted with this woman? A woman he couldn’t seem to take his hands off?

  Hell, he’d never had a problem letting a woman go before. He’d never had a problem stepping back or walking away. Sex didn’t control him; he controlled it.

  Until this woman. Now he had a very bad feeling she might end up controlling him.

  “I’m sure we should be.” But his lips were still lowering to hers, settling against them, rubbing over the softest silk in the world as he parted them.

  Sensation sliced through him again. The instant his lips touched hers a sizzle of heated electricity seemed to sweep through him, bringing his senses to heightened alert.

  Damn. It was like sinking into pure sensation.

  Her lips parted beneath his as his tongue swept over them, licking at the soft flesh, tasting the inner sweetness, and becoming drunk on the ambrosia.

  Each cell of his flesh was drinking her in and becoming intoxicated with her.

  He’d never felt this with a kiss in his life. He’d never felt his entire body come alive in quite this way. And it was definitely coming alive. Every nerve ending was suddenly tingling with heat. His flesh was drinking in her touch at every point of contact.

  Pressing her tighter against the trunk of the tree he’d braced her against, he suddenly wanted more than he’d ever believed he would want from a woman.

  He wanted her against him. Naked. Just this willing. Just this hot, with nothing between them. No clothes. No gowns. No second thoughts. No regrets.

  No knowledge of where it could end.

  In her bed or in his.

  He wanted her lush, naked body spread beneath him, her thighs parted for him, her cries filling his ears as he sank inside her.

  His lips lifted from hers just enough to move to the side and place a delicate kiss at the corner of hers. “Skye, you’re killing me here.”

  Her head turned, following him, brushing against his lips.

  And all thought evaporated.

  It could have been the first time he’d kissed a woman for all the finesse he could grasp. There was no finesse. There was no sense of time or place as he kissed her like a man dying for touch, for sensual pleasure.

  And he couldn’t understand how such pleasure could exist in such a simple touch as two lips melded together.

  His tongue swept over hers, then tangled with it in an exotic dance. His hands slid down her back, gripped her hips, then slid to her thighs and lifted them.

  Ah hell yes. He wasn’t about to break the kiss again to groan in pure undiluted fervor.

  He wouldnt do it.

  He wouldn’t remember the past, the present, or the nightmares he often walked the night to forget.

  Tugged at the strands of hair he held, his entire body tightened at the throttled little moan that fell from her lips. He ground his hips against hers. He swore he could feel the heat and dampness of her sweet little pussy through their clothes.

  Against his chest her breasts pressed like firm, hot weights, her nipples hard enough he could feel them through his shirt.

  He wanted to do more than to feel them through cloth. He wanted his hands on them, his fingers playing with them. He wanted to take them into his mouth and taste the sweetness of them.

  Pushing his hand beneath the hem of her shirt, he stroked up her stomach until he was cupping one of the full globes with desperate fingers as she arched against him.

  He’d never believed pleasure like this could exist in just a kiss. Hell, not for a man. A woman maybe; they were softer, sweeter. They thrived on the romance and the soft words and gentle touches. A man was just fucking hungry.

  And he was damned hungry, but he was also experiencing the pleasure. The pleasure of touching her, the pleasure of her touch.

  But even in that hunger he felt something more. A something that had his self-preservation instincts screaming out in alarm. A something he knew could very well end up destroying them both.

  *

  Skye wasn’t expecting the sensations that assailed her.

  She hadn’t expected it when she had realized there was a confrontation going on between him and someone else.

  She’d had no idea it was his grandfather.

  She’d had no idea it would end here.

  Skye tightened her hold on the man leading her through an abyss of sensation and didn’t know whether to cry out in fear or scream in pleasure.

  She was crying in pleasure.

  Shards of pure, unadulterated excitement sang through her body as his hand cupped her breast, his thumb and forefinger gripping her nipple and applying just the right amount of pressure. As she gasped, arching to him, a shudder raced through her body and seemed to explode between her thighs. The detonation was an explosion of hunger. Her senses were flooded with a need that didn’t make sense, as her sex grew impossibly wetter, preparing, begging for possession.

  A startled moan of protest escaped her throat as his lips suddenly pulled back for her. A tingling rush of heated sensation attacked her scalp as he pulled her head back and blazed a path of erotic pleasure down her neck.

  Highly sensitive, soaking in his touch and begging for more, her skin heated, and another moan escaped her throat as his teeth rasped against her flesh.

  “Logan.” She needed more. More of the pleasure and the heat that came from each touch, each stroke of his lips against her flesh, each exciting touch.

  She felt like a virgin again, experiencing her first sexual touch. No, she couldn’t say that. Because even then it hadn’t been this exciting or this sexually dark.

  She could feel him holding back, holding on to his control, and the knowledge of it sent a rush of bravado racing through her.

  She didn’t want his control.

  She wanted him out of control. She wanted all that dark, intent hunger she could feel threatening to escape.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he growled, his voice rasping, as dangerously sexual as the knowledge of the hunger he was holding back.

  “Bet me.” Oh, she knew what she was doing, and she knew now exactly what she wanted.

  This was why she couldn’t stay away from him. Why she had taken one look at him and all she could think about was his touch, his kiss.

  Not just the reason she was here, or the sister she needed vengeance for. God no, she needed him for her as well.

  A stinging little nip of his teeth against her neck was her reward for her challenge.

  But if that was her reward, what was the slow lowering of the straps of her grown until they cleared her breasts?

  Skye held her breath, waiting, watching, as his gaze dropped to her breasts, despite the fact that it had to be too dark for him to actually see much.

  His thumb raked over a nipple again, drawing a quick, muted moan from her lips.

  “How pretty.” He cupped the mound, lifting it further. “I’ve been dying to taste those hard little nipples. Every time I’ve seen you I’ve watched your nipples harden, press against your clothing as though begging for my lips.”

  Oh yeah, that was exactly what they were doing.

  She could beg him verbally if that was what he wanted.

  She would probably end up doing it anyway.

  His head lowered.

  The warmth of his breath was the first warning
of what was to come. When his tongue raked over the excited little tip, though, nothing could have prepared her for the sharp burst of radiant heat that exploded against it.

  His tongue licked, rubbed against her nipple as though to soothe it, but it only grew tighter, harder.

  Needier.

  “You taste like candy, Skye.” His voice was a dark rasp of hunger. “I have a helluva sweet tooth.”

  The almost-playful quality in the sexually roughened male tone had a flood of weakness racing through her. A lassitude edged with hunger and need.

  His hard, corded body tightened beneath her touch as her hand slid from his shoulders to his neck, then buried itself in the overly long strands of dark blond hair.

  The thick strands were just slightly coarse against her fingers, caressing her palms as she filled her hands with them and tried to bring him closer. She just wanted to bring him closer. To make him assuage the need his playful tongue was building as he bent his head to the hard peak of first one nipple, then the other.

  His tongue was a velvet rasp of exquisite pleasure as it rubbed over the sensitive tip. His tongue hardening to probe at the bundle of nerve endings as she arched to get closer, to feel more.

  It wasn’t enough. Oh God. Just a little more pressure. Just a little more sensation.

  His teeth suddenly gripped the taut point, tugging at it, sending a furious rush of nearing rapture to tighten through her womb, to clench at her clitoris and spill a rush of dampness between her thighs.

  It was like being thrown into a wild vortex of increasing sensual eroticism. A pleasure she had no idea how to counter and absolutely no desire to fight.

  “Yes.” She couldn’t hold back the little moan as he sucked the tip into his mouth, the suction of his mouth sending pulse after pulse of heat surging from her nipple to the tight, furiously throbbing bud of her clit.

  Each draw of his mouth pulled at the tip with demanding pressure, increasing each sensation until she felt a swirl of overriding, overwhelming ecstasy building in her womb.

  She wanted him. Every touch. Every fierce stroke she could get.

  Rolling her hips and stroking the hardened bud of her clitoris against his jeans-covered thigh only increased the pleasure. It hurled her down a brilliant white-hot path to the complete sensual destruction that was only a touch away.