Wicked Lies

by Lora Leigh

  “Hurry and discuss whatever the hell it is you need to discuss with them. I’ll wait in the kitchen, how’s that?” She pushed past him, aware of his gaze on her until she turned into the kitchen doorway and slid to the side where she couldn’t be seen.

  God, her hands were shaking.

  Staring at them, she tried to tell herself no one else had noticed it. She’d kept her hands pushed into her jeans, her fingers out of sight, just as she’d been very careful not to let them see her eyes.

  She’d always been terrible at keeping anything from her brothers. They could tell when she was hiding something the moment they saw her. She’d never figured out how they managed that one, and they hadn’t revealed their secret, either.

  She was older now, she told herself. She was a much better liar than she’d been as a teenager. She’d had to learn to lie, or she would have died a long time ago.

  Now she just had to wait for Jazz and his little discussion. He surely wouldn’t tell them who she was while she was standing there. He knew how desperately she feared them knowing the truth.

  He wouldn’t betray her. She had to believe that, because anything else would destroy her trust in him. A fragile, cautionary trust her heart was clinging to with a strength that refused to let go. With a hope that refused to diminish.

  * * *

  Jazz watched the Maddox brothers. Cord, Deacon, and Sawyer were no man’s fools. Or woman’s. Not for a second had Cord taken his eyes off Kenni, but not until she informed him that he could talk all he liked, she wasn’t going to listen, did he see a reaction in them.

  Cord had actually flinched, while Deacon and Sawyer’s eyes had widened in some surprise, or disbelief. If suspicion hadn’t been there before, it was now.

  When Sawyer had tried to get his brother’s attention, Cord had shot him a look so hard, so filled with a demand for silence that Sawyer had immediately backed down.

  “Why are you here, Cord?” Jazz asked him softly, hoping to keep the confrontation he feared the other man would instigate from Kenni’s hearing.

  Cord shook his head. Propping his hands at his hips for one long second he looked at the floor, his gaze so intense that Jazz actually had a moment’s concern as he wondered what the other man was thinking.

  When Cord lifted his head his face was carefully blank, his emerald eyes cool and without emotion.

  “I had two of my men watching her house.” The information came as a surprise to Jazz. “They reported seeing two men slip inside about dawn. They were dressed in black with their faces covered. Before my men were in position to find out who it was, they left. One of them was carrying a pack at his shoulder, though, and I wondered what they’d found.”

  “You didn’t tell me anyone was watching the house.” Jazz had known there would be, though. Cord wasn’t sloppy and once he realized Kenni’s identity was false, he’d have covered his bases.

  “Yeah, my bad,” Cord drawled, the icy tone of his voice causing Jazz to watch him warily. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Damn, they were all in trouble now. He would have been amused if he weren’t certain it would get him killed at the moment.

  “You do that.” Jazz nodded. “And while you’re at it, whoever’s watching my house better disappear, too. Right fast.”

  If Cord could have tensed further, then he did, while his brothers watched in surprise.

  “No one’s watching your house.” That was a hint of anger in Cord’s green eyes now. “Yet.”

  “The watcher’s fair game then?” Jazz pushed. He wanted to be certain. When he took the watcher out, he didn’t want to chance killing one of Cord’s men.

  “Like I said, yet,” Cord assured him. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be going now.” His eyes narrowed on Jazz, though. “You and I will talk later, I believe.”

  Jazz stepped back from the doorway, watching the three men more closely now. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.

  Following the Maddox brothers to the kitchen he watched them pause, their gazes moving to Kenni as she deliberately avoided their looks. Leaning against the wall, she stared at the toes of her boots, arms crossed over her breasts, silent and obviously guilty of something.

  He almost grinned. He would have, but he was aware of Cord watching from the corner of his eye, tracking every reaction Jazz might have. He was obviously suspicious, but evidently he wasn’t suspicious of the right thing yet. Because if he had even a second’s thought that his sister was standing in that kitchen, then World War Three would look like a picnic compared with his rage.

  Without another word Cord left the house, followed by his brothers. Tension filled the three men, as well as anger. Whatever they’d come there to find had eluded them, and they weren’t happy about it.

  As the door closed Kenni moved quickly past him, brushing against his chest and sending a rush of hunger straight to his already hard cock. If she was going to keep up that attitude, he’d end up fucking her before they left the house.

  She was rolling beneath the bed again as he returned to the bedroom doorway. Jazz waited. The sound of material ripping had his brows lifting. The only thing it could be was the thin cover beneath the box springs.

  Moments later she rolled into sight once again, clutching the small, tablet-sized laptop, a leather bag hanging from her arm. Jumping to her feet, she tossed him an imperious little look before brushing past him again and heading for the back door.

  “Kenni, you’re pushing,” he warned her before she made it to the door her brothers had passed through minutes before. “That’s not a good idea, sweetheart.”

  Jerking the door open she stomped outside and he could have sworn he heard “Bite me” before she stepped past the threshold.

  Watching that cute little ass twitch with feminine ire had his cock throbbing as he pulled the door closed and followed her to the truck. It was so damned cute, he just might have to give her what she was asking for when he got her home. He was going to bite her.

  * * *

  “Why did we leave? Goddammit, Cord…”

  “Don’t take His name in vain,” Cord murmured as he watched the girl stalk from the house, her rounded little nose lifted disdainfully. Like a princess with the scent of a peasant far too close to her delicate senses.

  That profile, the jut of her chin, the expression on her face. They were eerily familiar. Too familiar, even though he knew better, knew he had to be imagining the resemblance.

  He wiped his hands over his face. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

  “Then answer me,” Sawyer demanded. “Why?”

  “It can’t be her,” he whispered. “You know it can’t be.”

  The silence behind him was heavy, filled with certainty and fury. They were certain, but he couldn’t allow them the luxury. He’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t possible.

  “You know better,” Sawyer retorted, the low, dark undertone a warning that his youngest brother wasn’t accepting the truth Cord needed him to believe. “You saw it as well as I did. You knew her as well as we did, Cord.”

  He shook his head. No, he’d known her better than anyone else. She’d been his shadow, as dear to him as his own child would be, he imagined.

  And because he knew her, for a second, one grief-stricken, horrified second, he wondered …

  “She would have come to us. If she was alive and here in Loudoun, she would have come to us, Sawyer. If she was alive period, she would have come home.” She wouldn’t have left him wondering, searching in vain, if she had been alive.

  It wasn’t possible.

  Neither Deacon nor Sawyer said anything further, but that didn’t mean they’d taken his word. Suspicion was a horrible thing in a Maddox. It made them stubborn, determined to find the truth.

  They’d searched for her for years. Based on one homeless drunk’s certainty he’d seen someone shoot the pretty little blond girl who escaped with the man wearing a marine’s uniform,
they’d searched for her.

  Cord had almost driven himself insane with that search, and Deacon and Sawyer hadn’t returned much better. They hadn’t been there when Slade had needed their help. Cord hadn’t been there when Jazz had tried to contact him for help. They’d come too close to losing control of the Kin because of their search for her and it had taken the better part of two years to regain it.

  And now Annie Mayes with her eerie familiarity was throwing their lives into chaos again.

  He wasn’t going to allow it.

  Putting the truck he’d driven into gear, he pulled out from the neighbor’s hidden drive slowly. It didn’t matter what he told them or how much he tried to make himself believe: He’d seen what Sawyer had seen and he had to force himself to leave.

  Kenni had never been able to hide anything from them. The slightest secret and she couldn’t even look them in the face. She could lie to anyone and everyone, even their parents, but when it came to her brothers, she gave herself away every time.

  She couldn’t look at them, she hid her hands, studied the tips of her shoes, tucked her hair back nervously with two fingers only.

  Give her green eyes and soft, dark-blond hair, and their sister lived.

  Or was she hiding as he’d suspected for so many years? Hiding and too scared to come home because someone told her she was being hunted by the Kin.

  He’d come upon the rumor while in New York the summer it had happened. The suspicion that the body found with his mother wasn’t his sister. That rumor had sent him and his brothers on a quest that lasted nearly eight years.

  He’d sworn to himself that his years of searching were over. He’d chased every rumor, followed every lead he could imagine, and hadn’t even glimpsed her.

  She was gone. It didn’t matter the grief that shook him in acknowledging it. She’d had been taken from them in the same fire they’d lost their mother in and there was no changing that.

  Or was there?

  CHAPTER 14

  Jazz didn’t slam the door closed after entering behind her. He actually closed it so quietly that the snick of the lock had her swinging around in surprise, facing the brooding, heavily lashed glare he directed down at her.

  He seemed so much taller when he had that look on his face. The one that indicated he was a hell of a lot angrier than he appeared.

  “Do you have death wish?” he asked a little too calmly.

  “Not really,” she answered with a shrug as she turned and moved toward the kitchen, ignoring the increasing tension behind her. “Do you?”

  She had only a heartbeat’s warning before his fingers locked around her upper arm, swinging her around and lifting her to him.

  “I’m beginning to believe that’s exactly what I have,” he growled just before his lips came over hers with a hunger and determination she wouldn’t have expected.

  Any resistance she may have had disintegrated as he carried her to the formal living room just off the entry.

  Shadowed, the drapes drawn over the large windows, Kenni was only barely aware of the dark shapes of furniture. The wide couch he laid her on was perfect, though. And as his lips continued to ravage hers, he disposed of their clothes quickly and efficiently, dropping them to the floor beside the couch.

  Powerful, experienced, his lips moved against hers, parting them and tasting her with his tongue. Like a fire pouring through her senses he burned away any thought of protest. Not that she wanted to protest.

  Pleasure raced through her, gathering force and swirling in her senses until nothing else mattered. Until only his touch filled her reality, only his hunger sustained her.

  Gripping his shoulders, Kenni lifted closer to him. Had it only been the night before that he had taken her? How had she survived without his touch since?

  Her nails bit into his hard flesh, tested its strength as his callused palm gripped her hip, his fingers flexing against her touch-starved flesh. How had she lived without this? Without the hunger that poured over her whenever he touched her?

  “Damn, you make me crazy. Fucking insane to have you…” His voice rasped with anger and lust as his lips moved to her neck, his fingers caressing from her hip to her stomach, trailing waves of fiery pleasure in their path.

  His touch sensitized her flesh, had her lifting her hips, desperate for more.

  “That’s it, baby, come alive for me.” His voice whispered over her as a light nip to her neck sent weakening flashes of sensation straight to the swollen bud of her clit and beyond.

  Burying her hands in his hair, her fingers tightened in the strands as erotic, electric sensation pulsed in her vagina. Thighs tightening, hips arching, she moaned, sinking beneath the waves of swirling, aching rapture that pulsed through her nerve endings, building and growing with each touch.

  Slick, heated moisture spilled from her vagina, the muscles clenching involuntarily, demanding touch there as well. Demanding the pleasure she knew he could give her. Adrenaline-laced and throbbing in excitement, blood poured through her veins, her heart pumping it through her body furiously as pleasure flooded her system. If the need tearing through her senses didn’t abate soon, how would she survive it?

  Fiery sensation wrapped around one hardened nipple then, so sharp, so sweet Kenni cried out, arching closer as Jazz’s lips surrounded it. Drawing on it, suckling it with hungry demand while his palm cupped its mate, his fingers finding the stiff point.

  “Oh God, yes. Jazz, please.” It was more than good. It was a blazing path to rapture, to ecstasy. A path she raced along eagerly.

  The heated, hungry suction eased. The lash of his tongue became lazy, tormenting licks.

  And it wasn’t enough.

  Oh God, she needed more.

  The callused warmth of his palm rasped against the flesh between her thighs, his fingers parting the swollen, bare folds he found there.

  His thumb rolled against the sensitive bud of her clit, the caress causing lashing pinpoints of sensation to spread through her like torturous licks of static electricity.

  Digging her heels into the cushions of the couch to lift herself closer, Kenni writhed beneath the caresses. Desperate, so needy, she ached for him. That fiery pleasure-pain, the explosions of rapture. The knowledge that she belonged to him.

  “I love touching you,” he murmured against her breast, “especially this pretty flesh.” His fingers tucked into the narrow slit, caressing through it with slow, teasing strokes. “It’s so pretty. All pink slick flesh, your honey clinging to the lips like a heavy, thick dew.” His thumb eased lower, spreading the slick response as more rained from the clenched depths of her vagina.

  “Did you really think I would let you run away from me, Kenni?” he crooned as his fingers found the snug entrance he sought and rimmed it gently. “That I would chance losing this?”

  His fingers sank inside her before she guessed his intention. Two-wide, penetrating, parting her flesh as her hips arched violently, a moan escaping her lips, her senses shattering.

  Her fingers fisted at her sides. Waves of ecstasy raced through her with the sudden release exploding through her with the force of a tidal wave.

  Jazz caressed the spasming muscles of her inner flesh with the tips of his fingers. They rubbed and explored, turning what should have been a release into a rapid race back to that peak of desperation.

  “What are you doing to me?” Hips arched, desperate, Kenni fought against the rising, burning lashes of agonizing need only to lose to the pleasure spearing the tight depths of her clenched vagina.

  “That is so beautiful. Watching you come while my fingers bury inside you. Feeling you tighten around me and knowing I can push you back, make you explode all over again,” he groaned as her hips jerked, burying him deeper. “That’s it, baby, lift those pretty hips for me. Fuck my fingers.”

  The muscles surrounding his fingers spasmed furiously, flexing in response to the explicit demand.

  “Jazz.” The stimulation tore at her senses, wrapped around the
m and poured fuel on the lust burning inside her.

  His fingers flexed again, rasping, caressing, pushing her to another peak until Kenni feared she would never survive intact.

  “Are you close, baby?” His lips were at her nipple again, moving against the sensitive peak as her breathing became quicker, harder.

  “Don’t stop…” She could feel the rapture tightening in her womb. “Please, please don’t … Oh God, Jazz … No.”

  He stopped.

  Pulling his fingers free of her he turned her so quickly she barely registered the fact that she was on her knees before he moved behind her. Holding her hips in place Jazz pressed her knees farther apart, the head of his cock pressing against her, opening her.

  “Slow and easy,” he demanded, holding her still as she tried to push back, to take him with one of those quick, hard thrusts she knew would push her over the edge instantly. “Let me feel you, baby. Feel your sweet pussy milking me right in.”

  A cry escaped her lips, her breath locking in her throat for a second as she felt him pressing inside her.

  Pleasure-pain erupted through the tender flesh, wrapped around her clit, and sent furious pulses of building hunger through the responsive depths.

  The pleasure was so sharp and sweet she couldn’t imagine never knowing it again as the fiery burn of the penetration attacked tissue unused to possession before him.

  Slow and easy, just as he’d threatened. Kenni’s back arched, her vagina clenching violently as she felt her juices spilling with rapid pulses to each fiery stretch of her flesh.

  Jazz eased inside her, groaning as she tightened around each inch that burrowed through her flesh. His hips shifted, moved, pushing him deeper. His fingers flexed at her hip, tightened, holding her in place.

  Desperate cries spilled from her lips with each hard stroke of his cock inside her, impaling her with a mix of pleasure and pain she found intoxicating. Then he eased back, slow, easy, teasing her with the retreat. Only to return, working her tender flesh open again, penetrating it with a fiery heat that burned through her senses.

  She couldn’t bear the pleasure. It tore at her, drove her higher on waves of building heat and shattering ecstasy.