by Lora Leigh
She heard the pain in his voice, felt it tighten her chest. No, Rowdy would never hurt her, but fear was an insidious disease, and fighting it took more courage than she thought she had.
“We’re going to take this nice and easy,” he crooned. “We’re going to go upstairs and you’re going to sleep, baby. I’m going to lie right beside you so you know no one can get to you, no one can hurt you as long as I’m there. Okay?”
“In my bed?” She jerked back, staring up at him. “Ray will skin us both alive.”
“Dad will deal with it.” His expression hardened, determination glittering in his eyes. “He already is. You’re not sleeping; you’re not eating. We’re going to change that, starting tonight.”
“Oh, are we now?” The high-handedness in his voice pricked at her.
“Kelly.” He tilted his head, staring down at her, a smile quirking at his lips. “Are you going to fight me, baby? Really? Remember the last fight we got into?”
“You put another snake in my drawer, and I’ll start calling you Douglas,” she sniped. “I can’t believe you’d threaten me like that.”
He smirked, his gaze drowsy, his expression so sensual it was enough to make her panties damp. And they were damp. Yeah, she was scared spitless at times at the thought of touching him, having him touch her, but he could make her so wet, so fast, that it wasn’t even surprising anymore.
“I’m just going to lie beside you, that’s all,” he whispered. “If you can’t sleep, then I’ll lie on the floor. But I’ll be there, Kelly. Will you trust me enough to let me be there? Remember yesterday morning, baby? You trusted me enough to almost bare those pretty little nipples for me. Keep trusting me, Kelly.”
She was breathing roughly; the realization of it forced her to try to regulate it. She hated this weakness, this fear. Even the sessions with the psychologist hadn’t been able to erase it.
“I would trust you with my life, Rowdy,” she whispered, knowing she did.
“Come on then.” His arms wrapped around her as he led her to the stairs. “Let’s go on up and see if we can get some sleep. I don’t know about you, Kelly, but I’m dead tired.”
She hadn’t had nightmares in months, she thought as he turned out the lights and led her upstairs. She wasn’t sleeping well, but when she did sleep, she wasn’t waking screaming as she did in those first months. It should be safe. She could have something she had always dreamed of. Rowdy in her bed, sharing his warmth with her. Maybe even holding her. Surely she could handle that?
SIX
Kelly wasn’t really surprised when Rowdy stopped at his bedroom to get a pair of soft, gray cotton sweats similar to her own. He slept in the nude, so the concession he was making wasn’t lost on her.
“Okay?” He led her to her bedroom door, opening it carefully before stepping in ahead of her.
Kelly drew in a deep, sustaining breath, battling the confusing emotions racing through her. She had waited for Rowdy for so long that she wasn’t certain how to adapt to this abrupt shift between his careful distance and his sudden closeness.
“I’m fine,” she answered as she stepped in behind him, noticing the tension in his body.
“I’ll change in the bathroom.” He closed the door behind her.
Kelly fisted her hands in her T-shirt as she bit her lip, fighting to hold back her nerves as Rowdy disappeared into the other room. She gazed around her bedroom, taking in the frilly curtains over the dark shades, the white lace of her comforter. It wasn’t exactly a man’s room.
Yet, Rowdy hadn’t flinched at it. He had filled it, overpowered it, and pulled all focus toward him. Not that she had expected anything less.
She was still standing in the middle of the room when he came from the bathroom long minutes later. She couldn’t stop her gasp, couldn’t help the leap of her pulse at the sight of him.
He was obviously aroused. In those pants, there was no way to hide just how well-endowed he was either. She swallowed nervously as her gaze moved over hard, flexing abs, sun darkened and powerful, to a wide chest and an expression blazing with hunger.
She took a step back, watching as his eyes narrowed on her.
“Come on, baby. We passed this point.” His voice was rough, deep, a rasp of black velvet across her raw senses.
“I’m fine.” Her hands knotted in the material of the shirt as she felt the flesh between her thighs heating further, dampening.
And her breasts. They felt heavy, swollen, her nipples almost painful with their sensitivity.
“I don’t think I can sleep with you, Rowdy.” She fought to keep her breathing under control. “I don’t know if I can stand it.”
He didn’t argue with her. He stepped over to the bed and pulled back the blankets before staring back at her.
“I’d never hurt you,” he whispered. “Come on, get into bed. Surely you’re not going to let something like a hard-on scare you off, Kelly.”
That wasn’t just a hard-on. It was Rowdy’s hard-on, and she was dying for it with the same intensity that she was terrified of it. Not because she was afraid he would hurt her, but because she was afraid of her own emotions, her own desires.
But when he extended his hand to her, she was helpless. Flushed, uncertain, she moved to the bed, crawling into it stiffly and lying down as he moved in beside her and reached over to turn out the small bed lamp.
And there he was, lying on his side beside her as she stared up at the ceiling, fighting to keep from touching him, from begging him to touch her.
“I told Dad I came back for you, Kelly.”
Her gaze flew to his eyes, barely making out the glittering depths in the darkness of the room as she felt his hand move, felt it as it moved gently to her stomach.
“Rowdy…” She couldn’t breathe. His hands was like a flame through the material of the shirt she wore, pressing against her stomach as she felt her womb spasm with need.
“It’s nice and dark,” he whispered then. “Like a sweet, warm dream. Your dream, Kelly. What would you do in your dreams? What would I do to you?”
She couldn’t help the tiny moan that fell from her lips. She had many, many dreams of what she wanted Rowdy to do to her, with her. The things she would do to him, if she only knew how.
“This is dangerous.” Her voice sounded strangled in the darkness around them as her hand gripped his wrist.
“Do you trust me?” The question had her breath catching on a sob.
“With my life,” she answered readily. And she did.
“Trust me to touch you. To bring you pleasure, Kelly. Let me touch you.”
His hand moved, his fingers bunching in the shirt to drag it over her stomach.
“They’ll hear me.” Her hands clenched harder around his wrist. “You don’t know what you do to me, Rowdy. You can’t understand—”
“Do you know what I want to do to those pretty breasts?” He shocked her to silence again. “I want to take this shirt off you, Kelly. I want to bare them and touch your hard little nipples with my fingers, then with my mouth. I want to show you how good just a touch can be.”
The material of her shirt began to rise as she tried to draw enough oxygen into her lungs to protect the incredible sensuality of his statement.
“But you might get loud,” he whispered with a thread of amusement. “And I think I’d like you loud, Kelly. I want to hear you screaming in pleasure, begging me for more and more until you know you can’t take more, but you want it anyway. And that’s when you need a harder touch, more sensation. That’s when pleasure becomes almost painful and when the pain becomes ecstasy.”
She shuddered as his hand moved against bare flesh and the shirt rasped over her hard nipples as he drew it slowly from her.
“Excellent,” he crooned. “I’m going to get you naked before the night’s out, baby. I’m going to hold you against me and feel the sweet, sleek warmth of your body. Would you like that?”
His hand cupped the hard swell of her breast as her breath
rocked from her body and she arched, jerking against the touch as a million sensations began to riot through her.
She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.
“How pretty,” he sighed, looming over her, his gaze on her face despite the warmth of his fingers caressing the globe of her breast. “What will you do when I get my fingers on those tight little nipples? Or my mouth between your soft thighs?”
“Rowdy, please”—her voice was a breath of sound as she shuddered beneath him—“I don’t know…”
“Shhh. Just lie here with me,” he whispered. “Let me feel you come for me. Just here in a bit, baby. Let me touch your sweet body and show you how good it can feel. Then you can sleep, right here against me.”
Let her come for him? He was going to make her come? Here? In her bed?
Then she almost did come. His finger began to circle her nipple, drawing an incredible circle of fire around it as his head lowered, his lips barely touching hers.
“Get ready,” he whispered. “Let’s see how much you like this.”
His thumb and forefinger gripped the violently sensitive peak and exerted just enough pressure to throw her into a maelstrom of sensations. Fire tore from her nipple to her clit, surging to her womb as she felt it flex in hunger.
Her lips parted on a fractured cry that he took into his own mouth. His lips covered hers easily, gently, absorbing her cry as they moved against her with restrained hunger.
His fingers were tugging at her nipples, both of them now, shifting against her until he rose half over her, surrounding her with his heat.
“God, I would have loved to have heard that cry,” he groaned against her lips.
Kelly could feel the tremors racing through her body, feel the soft wetness gathering between her thighs. Her hands lifted to his shoulders, her fingers pressing into the hard muscle as his lips smoothed over hers again.
“I just want to feel your nipple in my mouth,” he whispered. “I want to slide my hand to your pretty thighs and see how wet and soft you are there. How much could you stand, baby, before you screamed again?”
Not much. She was weak. She was entranced by the pleasure tearing through her body and she could do nothing to stop it.
“I want you naked, Kelly,” he breathed against her lips. “Will you be naked for me, baby?”
One hand moved to her hips, curling into the waistband of her sweatpants as he began to push them down her thighs.
“Rowdy…” Was she scared? She was terrified, but not of being hurt. She couldn’t make sense of the sensations racing through her, pleasure and fear, confusion and dazed hunger. They were flooding her, drowning her with conflicting needs.
“We’re just playing, Kelly.” He moved back, sliding the pants down her legs before pulling them free of her body.
She was naked now, exposed if it hadn’t been for the darkness of the room.
He lifted her hand again, kissing it before he surprised her by laying it over her lips.
“Shhh. We don’t want anyone to hear.”
She didn’t think he really gave a damn if anyone did hear, but she pressed her fingers to her lips, certain she would die of embarrassment if her mother or Ray heard her pleasure.
She saw the flash of his teeth in a wicked grin before his head lowered.
It was a good thing she covered her mouth before his lips touched her aching nipple, before they surrounded the sensitive peak and drew it into his mouth. Because her cry was barely muffled with one hand as the other flew to his head.
Her back arched, and she swore flames burned over her body as he began to suckle at her. He wasn’t slow and easy. He didn’t ease her into it, he didn’t tease her into it, he devoured her, and she was helpless beneath it.
“God. Baby.” He buried his head between her breasts then, his breathing rough and hard as his hands moved down her waist, her hips. “You’re going to my head faster than the whisky did.”
She needed more. She pressed against him, certain she was going to scream for more if he didn’t touch her again.
“Easy. Easy.” His breathing was a rough groan as his lips moved along her chest, her collarbone. “Come here, baby. Let’s ease this fire before I lose my sanity.”
He pulled her to him as he moved her hand from her lips and covered them with his own. Then his other hand went between her thighs.
Kelly jerked against him, her hand latching onto his wrist as she felt his fingers part the wet folds.
“Oh God, you’re bare.” His voice was tortured as his fingers moved over flesh despite her hand gripping him. “Sweet heaven have mercy.”
His thumb flicked over her clit as his fingers parted the swollen flesh.
“Easy. We’re going to do this quick, baby. If we don’t, I’m going to end up taking you here, in your bed, and then we’ll both be screaming.”
His lips covered hers again as his thumb moved along the outer edge of the sensitive bud of flesh as his fingers began to caress the greedy opening.
She was crying out beneath his lips. One arm latched around his neck as the nails of the other bit into his wrist. It didn’t deter him. His thumb caressed, rotated, then pressed against her with diabolical results.
Stars exploded before her eyes as she jerked beneath him, shuddering violently as pleasure whipped over her nerve endings and devastatingly clashed through her senses.
She could feel her juices rushing from her sex, feel his fingers rubbing through them, intensifying her climax as a growl vibrated against her lips, covering her fractured scream.
And she was lost. She was distantly aware of his release, the movement of his free hand, the feel of his semen washing over thigh, which only intensified her own pleasure and egged at her fears. Not her fear of his touch, or the fear of being with him. But the overwhelming fear that there wasn’t a chance in hell that she could handle him.
Kelly eased into sleep within minutes of Rowdy cleaning them both up and tucking the blankets around her. He felt her relax against him, felt the soft sigh that left her lips. Moving slowly, he eased the blanket further over her shoulders, feeling her head on his arm, her silky hair against his chest as he held her. It was killing him, the pain, the fear he knew she had to have endured. He could feel his heart breaking in his chest even as a killing rage burned in his soul.
She was his. She had been his as long as he had known her and by God he wasn’t letting her go. She knew him, knew he would cut out his own heart before he’d hurt her—that trust was still within her. If it weren’t, she would never have been able to climax so sweetly for him, or sleep in his arms, to allow him to hold her, her sweet body tucked so close against his own. Naked.
He stared into the dimly lit bedroom, his eyes narrowed, his mind working. Whoever dared to hurt her, to stalk her, wouldn’t be breathing for long. He wouldn’t be breathing two seconds past the time Rowdy learned who he was. And that was a silent promise, a vow he made to Kelly. She would never be hurt again.
SEVEN
Maria opened Kelly’s door the next morning, not really expecting what she saw. Ray had warned her the night before, but he had been drunk, amorous, so she hadn’t really taken him seriously. Perhaps she should have—the shock wouldn’t have been so great.
She was used to coming in to find Kelly napping in the large wingback chair on the other side of the room, the television droning in the background. The room was silent now, and Rowdy was staring at her through slitted eyes from the bed.
He was wrapped around her sleeping daughter like a living vine. Kelly lay on her side, her back pressed against Rowdy’s front, her head sheltered beneath his chin. One hard leg lay over her daughter’s fragile ones beneath the blankets, his arms surrounding her as her hair tangled over them. He was bent over her, wrapped around her, and Kelly was sleeping peacefully.
It was more than obvious that they both were naked. Kelly was her baby; seeing her sleeping in a man’s arms, especially Rowdy’s, was disconcerting. She had expected the closeness
they had before her marriage to Ray to develop, but not in this way. As siblings, very close friends, but never this. This terrified her.
The sexual tension that vibrated from the two whenever they were together had always worried her, deeply. She had been terrified for years that Rowdy would break her daughter’s heart. What she saw now filled her with conflicting emotions. Rowdy would protect Kelly, and, ultimately, that was Maria’s greatest wish. Her daughter’s protection. But what he could do to her baby’s heart was almost more than she could bear.
As she stared at the two, Rowdy’s frown darkened, his gaze narrowing at her. “What?” he mouthed.
Ray had warned her, she had known herself what was coming.
“We’re going to the marina.” She mouthed the words back at him, hoping her daughter would continue to sleep.
He nodded with a subtle shift of his head, never really moving. Content. That was how he appeared. Content where he was, holding Kelly close.
She backed slowly from the room, her hand lingering on the door panel for a moment as she fought the worry building within her. Maybe Ray was right. Maybe Rowdy was all Kelly truly needed to get past the attack. Maria hoped so. The shadows in her daughter’s eyes broke her heart, but even more the worry that whoever had attacked Kelly would return terrified her. Until they caught him, Maria knew she would never sleep easy.
Kelly came awake slowly, her senses alive, her skin tingling at the warmth that surrounded her. There was no momentary fear, no surprise. Rowdy was holding her. She could feel him wrapped around her, spooned against her as though she had been made for the position.
She was aware of something else as well as she lay there, her body tucked into his. He was hard. His erection pressed against the crevice of her buttocks, a thick intruder, waiting. She bit her lip, stiffening in his arms, her muscles tightening. Pleasure and fear combined inside her. And the pleasure was stronger. The culmination of what felt like a lifetime of fantasies and needs rose inside her, blocking the fear, pushing it back until nothing mattered except Rowdy.
“Easy, baby.” His voice was drowsy, calm. “It’s just a hard-on.” He snuggled against her, tucking her closer to his chest as her hands gripped the bedspread and she fought to level her breathing.