by Lora Leigh
Moving to the fireplace once again she tipped her head to the side and studied the pictures on the mantel. There were pictures of Declan with Natches in Iraq. The young man had been only eleven. His immigration and adoption papers listed him as twenty-one when he’d come to the United States, but she knew from one of the reports she glimpsed in Duke’s file that he was actually only seventeen.
His life as a child mirrored hers in a lot of ways. The son of a U.S. serviceman who returned home and the young Afghani girl he’d married and left behind, Declan hadn’t had an easy life.
He’d been orphaned at five and learned to survive in the harsh desert landscape and within the village where his life had meant so very little to his mother’s family. Natches and Chaya’s adoption of him and his move to the United States likely saved his life. The older he became the higher the chances that he would have been taken into one of the rebel groups, where he would have eventually died.
These were the pictures she’d tried desperately to ignore the first day Duke had brought her there. Pictures of everyone except Chaya’s first child.
Alone now, the house finally cleared of all the Mackay family members save those that lived there, she found herself helplessly drawn to the family portrait on the fireplace mantel. Natches, Declan, Chaya, and Bliss. Her eyes narrowed at the picture hanging on the wall in the background of the photo. She leaned in closer, certain it couldn’t be . . .
“That’s my sister, Beth.”
Angel swung around to see Bliss stepping in from the doorway on the far side of the room leading to the hall. Dressed in shorts and a tank top, her feet bare, her long hair left loose in heavy curls to the middle of her back.
“The girl in the family picture.” The teenager walked to her slowly, her emerald eyes solemn as she stared at Angel. “She’s my sister. But Mom lost her when she was only three.”
Not “she died,” but “Mom lost her.”
“I see.” Angel turned back to the picture, her heart racing sluggishly in her chest at the sight of the inclusion of her picture.
“She used to have Beth’s pictures out everywhere, but when I started asking about her more and more, Mom moved them upstairs to Beth’s room. Every time she tried to talk about Beth, she cried.”
Angel felt herself flinch. “Your father showed me the room.”
Bliss blinked in surprise. “Wow, they must really like you, Angel. Mom doesn’t let anyone but me and Dad in that room.”
“It’s a nice room,” she said, once again finding herself at a loss for words.
“Mom was married before Dad,” Bliss told her. “When she and Dad built the house, she had Beth’s room put just the way it was in the house Beth lived in with her. All her clothes and dolls and everything.”
Bliss stopped beside her and stared at the picture, her expression a little sad.
“Every year on her birthday Mom buys her a present and every year at Christmas Mom puts a present in her bedroom. Twenty years. Mom still cries every year. . . .” Bliss’s voice trailed off and Angel felt as though she’d taken a blow to the chest.
“Why? She died.” She wanted to hate the mother that left her to die in that hotel. She didn’t want to glimpse a mother that had grieved or felt sorrow for the death.
“Did she?” Bliss asked softly. “She’s still alive in Mom’s heart. And she’s still alive when Mom hides in her room and cries for her.”
Angel inhaled slow and deep, careful not to let the teenager see how her words affected her.
“You don’t sound jealous,” Angel said softly. “Some kids would be.”
“Jealous?” Bliss shook her head. “No. I wish she was here, though. Sometimes I need someone to talk to that wouldn’t blab to Mom and Dad. My cousins are cool and we keep each other’s secrets, but a big sister would understand things they don’t. And maybe she would help me make sense of stuff.”
Angel glanced over at the teenager, seeing the shadow of that confusion on her face. “Bran?” she asked softly, remembering the young man Bliss had been fascinated with all summer.
Bliss lowered her head and shrugged. “I guess he went back home. Annie heard Uncle Rowdy tell Dad that Bran was packing up to leave. I didn’t get to tell him good-bye. And I was sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Angel asked softly, knowing how affected the teenager was by the young man.
“Dad caught me flirting with him last week. Just a little bit . . .” Bliss hurriedly explained as Angel turned to her again. “He wasn’t flirting with me at all. We were just talking. And I’m afraid Dad went and talked to Lucas Mayes and told him to keep away from the marina.”
Oh yeah, Natches would totally do that.
“Well, your dad’s just trying to protect you. I’m sure Bran can understand that. Bran seems like a smart young man, Bliss. But he’s still a man.”
A man with problems Angel hadn’t quite figured out yet and hadn’t had any intentions of delving into actually. Until now. It seemed Bliss was a little fonder of him than Angel had first suspected.
“Angel?” Bliss was careful not to look at her, and Angel followed suit, staring up at the pictures again instead.
“Yeah?”
“Why, if what I’m feeling is natural and what I’m supposed to be feeling, because of the birds and bees stuff, does it just happen with one boy, and not all of them? Shouldn’t I be boy crazy? As in plural ‘boys’?” The confusion in her voice was heartbreaking and it was so like Bliss to overanalyze it.
Angel frowned at the pictures, wondering what she was supposed to say now.
“Times like these,” she said softly, “are when I get really angry that my momma left me to be raised by Tracker’s parents. Because right now, Bliss, when I would give the world to have the answers for you, all I have is ignorance.”
The year she turned fifteen they were in three different countries and conducted six different missions. Angel carried her own weapon and she knew how to use it. She had used it. She’d already killed a man, nearly died, was almost raped, and spent twelve horrific hours locked in a tiny, cramped crawl space beneath a hut some whack job had tracked her to.
She didn’t have the answers her sister needed, and God knew she wished she did.
She slid her arm around her sister’s shoulders instead and pulled her to her.
“Growing up isn’t supposed to be easy, though, from what I understand,” she told Bliss. “It’s supposed to be filled with uncertainty, and feelings no one else seems to have and all these weird hormones attacking your body and emotions you don’t know how to handle suddenly flooding your heart. Just let yourself feel, Bliss, but remember, don’t ever forget, that right now, young men are feeling all these things, too. And right now, at your age, it’s just a tiny spark compared to the light show you’ll find it can truly be once you’re older, and your body and emotions are more in sync.”
Bliss was silent for so long Angel was certain it was one of those times when the younger girl just tuned out what she didn’t want to hear.
“What if I still feel it for the same guy when I’m older?” she asked then.
“When you’re older, six years’ difference in age isn’t a big deal,” she told her sister gently, remembering that Duke was six years older than she was. “But right now, if he hadn’t tried to gently reject you, then I’d have to kill him. Ya know?”
A snort of laughter erupted from the girl.
“God, you sound just like Mom.” She giggled before a disgusted groan tore from her. Both arms went quickly around Angel’s neck in a hard, fierce hug. “You would make an awesome big sister, Angel. Because you’re the best.”
Apparently in good spirits once again, her heartbreak momentarily abated, Bliss released her and almost skipped across the room to return to her bedroom.
“God save me from teenagers,” she muttered, shaking her head before turn
ing to the kitchen.
She’d put a soup on for dinner, then go outside and check that boundary line around the yard. She knew there was a trick to getting through the naturally growing fence. She just had to find it.
And she was determined to find it.
• • •
It was late before Angel heard Duke enter the bedroom after his shower. Sitting on the patio once again, comfortably curled into the chaise longue, the bottle of whiskey beside her, she enjoyed the last of the cigarro she’d begun the night before.
“Wench,” he murmured, taking a seat on the lounger at her knees and reaching for the smoke. “I was dying for one of these while dealing with those damned cousins of mine today.”
She relinquished it, almost grinning at the gripe in his tone, not to mention the fact that he was shirtless and all that gorgeous muscle was on display for her viewing pleasure. Barefoot, wearing nothing but a towel, and completely unashamed.
“Which cousins?” she asked, letting the man and the night begin to soothe the ragged edge of emotion that had scraped her nerves raw over the day.
“All of them,” he snorted. “Sometimes I think the ones I was raised with are just as damned hardheaded and stubborn as Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches ever were.”
And that was saying something.
“Have they found anything new?” she asked.
“Nothing yet. Thankfully, DNA collected from Bliss’s hands is due sometime tomorrow, as is that from the two assailants from the safe house.” He inhaled the fragrant smoke of the cigarro; his eyes narrowed as he seemed to glare at the patio doors before exhaling. “Did you get the picture I sent you earlier of the guy the security cameras picked up across from the safe house? He was watching it the night it was attacked. The way he was hunkered down in that car trying to avoid the cameras . . . There’s no way he was unaware of them.”
“I didn’t recognize him.” Laying her head back on the lounger she gazed up through the weaved, ivy-covered hardwood crossbeams that made the roof of the patio.
“I was hoping someone would.” He sighed, handing her the tobacco back when she reached for it. “How’s Bliss doing today?”
“She’s hanging in there,” Angel assured him, thinking of the conversation she had with her sister about Bran. “She’s incredibly resilient.”
She gave him the last of the cigarro, watched as he finished it then tapped the fire out in the ashtray she’d placed on the table next to her.
She liked this, she thought. The antibiotic injection Ethan had given her was working. Tonight, she was relaxed, mellow. And she’d missed Duke.
“She’s not the only one,” he murmured. “I know someone else in the family that’s very resilient.”
“Yeah, Natches bounces back pretty fast, too,” she agreed with a straight face. “Amazes me how well that man adapts to new situations.”
Before she could guess his intention, he bent, lifted her, and a second later tossed her over his shoulder.
“Duke Mackay, you’re a dead man.” She gripped his hard hips as he strode into the bedroom, one arm holding the backs of her thighs as she giggled—good Lord, he had her giggling.
His hand landed lightly against her rear, the material of the shirt all that separated their skin. The little sting and resulting pleasure of the caress wasn’t hampered in any way, though. Damn his hide.
“Neanderthal,” she gasped when he patted her bare butt before tossing her to the bed.
Coming to her elbows as he whipped the towel from his lean hips, she found herself having to fight to breathe.
Tanned muscle, his chest rising and falling as quick and as hard as her own, the green of his eyes gleaming with carnal intent, wicked and hot.
“Unbutton the shirt,” he demanded with a quick upward tilt of his head. “Slow.”
Now this was interesting.
Working on the first button she watched his expression, the way his lashes lowered, giving him a sexy, erotically brooding look as a flush tinted his sun-bronzed cheeks.
“I’ve thought about this all day.” The darker, deeper rasp of his voice caused her lower body to clench as pleasure tightened her sex.
“What have you thought about it?” Releasing the buttons slowly, she could feel her sex growing wetter, slicker.
“Watching you unwrap all that soft, silky flesh.” The anticipation in his expression was intensely exciting. “You have the softest skin, all flushed and warm like a summer peach.”
Heat flushed not just her face but her entire body. She released the final button but left the shirt as it lay against her.
His gaze dropped down her body, sliding along the bare skin between the open edges of the material.
“Just the sweetest, juiciest peach.” The sensual tilt of his lips as his gaze came back to hers made him look like a sex god. Hot, powerful, hard. “And I can’t imagine anything as sweet and juicy as my own personal peach.”
“You really do have a thing for peaches, don’t you?” She gave him a devilish grin.
“Spread the shirt open,” he demanded. “Let me see my peach.”
The playful wickedness gave the intensity a softer edge, the feel of an adventure rather than something to be wary of.
“You’re crazy.” She grinned, breathless, blood thundering through her veins, heat rushing through her body.
“Naw, I’m so fuckin’ horny my dick’s like iron,” he groaned, one hand stroking the length of the shaft as she parted the edges of the shirt.
“Can I do anything to help?” she asked, running her fingertips from between her breasts to the top of her sex before stroking upward once again.
She’d never done this, teased sexually, but she could definitely see the benefits of it. The absorbed, fascinated look on his face could become addictive. Maybe it was addictive. An invisible drug rushing through her system as her fingertips reached her breasts again.
Spreading her fingers she cupped one mound, let them curve over the swollen flesh before rubbing over the nipple with the tip of one finger.
“Son of a bitch.” He breathed out, his voice hoarse, guttural with lust.
Feeling his gaze on her, knowing she was pleasing him, making him hungrier for her, Angel became bolder. As he watched, she gripped her nipple, rolled it, and couldn’t hold back the moan that escaped her lips as pleasure shot through her senses.
“God, yes,” he encouraged her further. “Spread your legs for me. Let me see how juicy you’re getting, baby.”
The demand had the wet heat spilling harder from her vagina, slickening her, making her sex highly sensitive.
Lifting her knees and pressing her feet into the mattress she spread her thighs, the brush of the AC against her inner flesh a caress all its own.
“Oh hell yeah.” He breathed out, the sound roughened and filled with lust. “You’re so slick and wet, baby. You just keep petting those pretty breasts while I eat all that sweetness.”
Coming up on the bed between her spread legs, he slid his hands beneath her rear, lifted her to him, and sent his tongue licking between the sensitive folds to the engorged bud of her clit.
Angel jerked in his grip, her hips rising to him, her fingers tightening on her nipples, increasing the lash of white-hot sensation tearing through her.
She would never grow used to the explosions of building sensations. Her senses flooded with the drugging sensuality she only felt with Duke. Only his touch could do this to her. Only his hard male groans and the carnality of his lips and tongue consuming her intimate flesh.
Arching, crying out, her entire being was completely possessed with every slow lick through the narrow slit, every lashing caress against her clit and shocking thrust of his tongue inside the aching center.
Writhing beneath the pleasure, her head tossing on the pillow, she had no thought of rushing it or falling into the chaotic
grip of the orgasm awaiting her. She didn’t want to rush it, didn’t want to miss a single second of the ecstasy building and burning inside her. She wanted to hold this to her forever. She needed to memorize every surge of deepening sensation. Every lick, every thrust of his tongue and draw of his hungry mouth.
As the intensity of the pleasure rose, her fingers curled into the thick, heavy strands of his black hair, holding him to her, her hips rising and falling, grinding against his ravenous lips and tongue. Deep pulses of sensation began building in her womb, in her sex. Hard, convulsive spasms that echoed to her clit as his mouth enclosed it, sucked it, his tongue licking, stroking . . .
The explosions shattered her.
One second she was flying on the pleasure, the next she was spiraling through the maelstrom of complete ecstasy she lost herself to. For blinding, rapture-filled seconds she jerked in his grip, her body thrashing against the onslaught of pure ecstasy.
• • •
Fuck.
He couldn’t wait. If he didn’t slip inside the silky vise of her pussy he was going to pump his release onto the sheets instead of the milking heat of her body.
Forcing himself from the lush sweetness he’d found, Duke rose quickly to his knees, coming over her as he held her beneath him, her gasping cries echoing around him. He positioned the tortured length of his cock between her thighs and thrust into the clenching heat. . . . Ah God.
Releasing her hips he braced his knees in the mattress, fisted his fingers in the blankets next to her, and gave himself to the desperation clawing at his balls. An inch at a time he penetrated the clenching grip of her pussy. Each thrust sent him deeper, increased the pleasure and the tension gripping his balls.
Just another minute. Just another second in time to experience the most exquisite pleasure. To burn in the center of the flame his Angel possessed.
Each thrust was agony and ecstasy. Each second without coming, without spilling himself inside her . . .
She tightened beneath him, hips writhing, a low, breathless wail tearing from her. The feel of her coming around him again, so fucking tight and hot, rippling around his cock, clenching on the throbbing shaft, was too much.