The Nauti Boys Collection

by Lora Leigh

  She was swamped with pleasure. Taken by it. Her hips writhed above him as he held her to him, thrusting against his tongue and driving it deeper into the aching core he possessed.

  Her cries and his groans filled the clearing.

  His fingers pierced her ass and her pussy simultaneously. His lips surrounded her clit, drew it in and sucked it with wicked force.

  Crista cupped the fingers of one hand around his balls, fondled and caressed as the other hand stroked the steel-hard shaft and her mouth sucked the head with hungry greed.

  His fingers pumped inside her, fucking her with strokes that, combined with the heated suckling of his mouth around her clit, threw her into an orgasm that would have had her screaming, should have had her screaming. But Dawg’s release had him arching, pressing his cock deeper into her mouth and filling it with the creamy essence of his semen.

  They collapsed long seconds later, Crista’s head pillowed on Dawg’s thigh as he turned to her, his lips pressing into the inside of her knee as they fought for breath.

  “I won’t let you go,” he finally told her, his voice dangerously calm, stunning her as the words reached her ears. “No matter what you do, Crista, I’ll never let you go again.”

  EIGHTEEN

  He remembered.

  As he felt Crista’s orgasm shaking her body, the memories washed over him like a wave of crashing emotion. How she had found him in that damned ditch, the truck he had been driving then so damned stuck his liquored mind couldn’t figure out how to get it free.

  Her voice had been soft, filled with pain, and it had soothed the ragged edges of fury tearing at his mind. He had let her lead him from the truck to Alex’s car, and as she drove them to the marina, the scent of her had wrapped around him like sunlight.

  He had made her laugh.

  He leaned close to her and said something about Alex letting her out to play with the big boys, and she had laughed at that.

  Once they got to the marina, she had kept him from falling from the docks into the dark water below. Leading him to the Nauti Dawg, she kept up a steady, whispered conversation. Teasing, her voice urged him on and made his dick so damned hard he had been amazed. He’d thought he’d drunk enough whiskey that night to keep from getting a hard-on for days.

  But he had been hard for Crista.

  And once he got her into the houseboat, getting her into his bed hadn’t been that hard. She had wanted to make certain he was safe. That he was comfortable.

  He had fallen back on the couch, and she eased his boots and shirt off. As he struggled with his pants, she helped there, too, even as she blushed to her virgin roots. And as she began to move away from him, he had cupped his hand around her head and had drawn her lips to his.

  From that moment she had been his. His in a way that no other woman had been. She had taken to his touch as though she had been created for him alone. And perhaps, in a way, she had been.

  Now, eight years later and nearly two hours after the memory had seared his mind, he walked behind her, back to the houseboat, the still-full picnic basket in his hand and Crista’s stiff shoulders in front of him.

  She had clammed up the minute he had made his declaration.

  “We need to talk,” she had stated as she rose from beside him and began looking for her clothes.

  “So talk.” Dawg had sat up, draped his arm over his upraised knee, and watched her struggle into her clothes.

  She had shaken her head angrily. “Not here. I can’t do this here.”

  And now, he was more than interested in whatever the hell had her so damned mad.

  He had fucked up eight years ago; he admitted it. But not to the extent she thought he had. Half-formed thoughts had slipped past his lips, unfinished. The possessiveness he had felt rising inside him then had shocked him, left him reeling and off balance.

  Now, eight years later, he was reasonably more mature, but he still felt like he was in over his head with Crista Ann Jansen.

  As they stepped onto the deck of the Nauti Dawg, Dawg unlocked the door and ushered her in as he lifted his brow at her continued silence.

  She had barely spoken in the truck. The closer they had come to the marina, the quieter she had become.

  “Here we are.” He placed the basket on the table and turned to face her, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head.

  Her gaze flickered around the room before coming to rest on him. Her lips parted, and at the same second, a hard knock sounded on the glass door behind her.

  Crista jumped as though a gunshot had sounded rather than the sound of knuckles against glass.

  “Who is it?” he barked out.

  “Dawg, I have Cranston with me. Open the damned door.” Natches’s voice was anything but happy.

  Pressing his lips together, Dawg stalked to the door and whipped the panels to the blinds back to see Cranston’s stocky form standing behind Natches.

  Grimacing, he opened the door again, watching from the corner of his eye as Crista turned to the visitors with an edge of curiosity.

  Timothy Cranston stepped into the room, his briefcase clenched in his hand, his gaze going straight to Crista. Dawg closed the door, watching as the special agent watched her with an intensity that had a frown pulling at his brow and Crista’s.

  “What’s going on, Natches?” Dawg didn’t bother to soften the suspicious tone of his voice.

  “You’re not going to believe this, Dawg.” Natches’s smile was cynical, cold. “I’ve had a few hours to digest it, and I still don’t believe it.”

  “Cranston?”

  The special agent was still watching Crista, his gaze narrowed on her as she stared right back at him, a challenge glittering in her brown eyes.

  “She’s about the right height. Right eye color, right hair. But I’ll be damned if you’re not right about the differences.”

  Dawg felt his body tense as Cranston walked slowly around Crista then.

  “Did you turn your boat into a auction block, Dawg?” Crista snapped irritably as the agent tracked every curve and hollow in her body.

  “There’s a difference in the curves. You were right there, too,” he muttered.

  “Natches,” Dawg bit out warningly. “What the hell is going on?”

  Dawg could feel the warning tingle in his gut, the itching at the back of his neck. The way Cranston was watching Crista was getting his hackles up and pissing him off. And it wasn’t doing much for her, either. She flashed him a hard look, a warning to do something about the bulldoggish little man who kept watching her like a strange little puzzle he was trying to figure out.

  “You’re not going to believe it.” Natches shook his head. “I’m still not certain I believe it.”

  “Why not explain it and give us the chance to believe it, Natches,” Crista retorted with mocking sweetness as she edged away from Cranston and moved closer to Dawg.

  It was the first move she had made toward him since their time in the clearing. Crossing the last few feet to her, Dawg wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him, ignoring Cranston’s sardonic look and Natches’s quiet reflection.

  He could feel Crista’s fear in the face of Cranston, though. She knew who he was; she knew the danger he could represent to her. A danger Dawg swore he was never going to let touch her.

  “Does this have anything to do with Agent Dane attempting to follow us earlier?” Dawg asked.

  “Plenty.” Cranston’s bright brown eyes gleamed merrily as he ran his fingers over his short gray hair and flashed them a victorious smile.

  Victorious. As though a battle had just been won.

  “You going to explain it to us anytime soon?” Evidently, there wasn’t a pending arrest in the works. Cranston wouldn’t have made the mistake of trying to bring in Dawg’s woman without help.

  Timothy grinned cheerfully. “You know, my wife, Angie, she’s always telling me I need to get to the point faster. But sometimes…” He stared back at them with a scary sort of pla
yfulness. “Sometimes, you just have to have fun getting there, don’t you Dawg?”

  Dawg glanced at Natches. His cousin had lowered his head and was shaking it pitifully at Cranston’s theatrics.

  “Dawg, who is this person?” Crista finally asked.

  She should have stayed quiet, he thought with a silent groan.

  “That’s right.” Timothy stepped forward, his palm outstretched. “We haven’t met, have we, Miss Jansen. I’m Timothy Cranston, Special Agent Timothy Cranston, with the Office of Homeland Security. I’m Mr. Mackay’s boss.”

  “Homeland Security?” She looked up at Dawg, moving slightly away from him. “I thought you were with the DEA.”

  Cranston chuckled at that. “Oh, my, no. Your friend Dawg is with the ATF, though attached temporarily to OHS. He didn’t tell you that?”

  Crista let Timothy shake her hand, but she was watching Dawg, her expression tightening in anger.

  “He didn’t mention that.”

  “That’s Dawg for you.” Timothy nodded as he stepped back. “He’s good at keeping secrets, aren’t you, Dawg?”

  Dawg sighed. “Get to the point, Timothy.”

  Cranston rubbed his hands together in anticipation once again.

  “Now, what Dawg probably didn’t tell you as well was that the night he broke several federal laws and dragged your pretty butt out of that warehouse, we were in the process of arresting a small team of former military assholes who thought they could hijack several experimental missiles while en route to Fort Knox before continuing on their way to a storage site. We managed to round up the thieves as well as one very sly little mercenary middleman who was buying those missiles for a high-level terrorist.” He looked at Crista with sudden sharp curiosity. “He didn’t tell you that, did he?”

  “He didn’t.” Crista moved farther away from Dawg.

  Timothy nodded in satisfaction as he flashed Dawg an approving look. “I’m disappointed in you, son, but glad to see you still know how to keep your mouth shut.”

  “Timothy.” Dawg wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t pretending.

  Crista had put several feet between them and was now watching Dawg and Timothy as though they had sprouted horns and fangs.

  “Okay, here we go then.” Dawg watched as Timothy tossed his briefcase to the table and rubbed his hands in that gleeful manner he had. The man was positively bubbling with satisfaction. It was enough to send a chill racing down Dawg’s spine.

  Timothy was no one’s vision of a special agent in charge of any investigation, but that was exactly what he was, and he was damned good at his job.

  “Yesterday afternoon, after your good friend and cousin here was regaling the customers in that little diner in town about how your girlfriend stalked out on you, and possibly was on her way to Virginia, she supposedly walked into the detention center where our hijackers are being held and requested a visit with the leader of our merry little bunch of thieves, Camden Cole. Our boy Camden lives just outside Fort Knox. Someone checking in as Miss Jansen here met with Mr. Cole, discussed friends and family for a few minutes, gave Mr. Cole her love, then left.”

  Timothy opened the briefcase and began pulling photos free.

  “Meet Camden Cole.”

  Crista moved closer to the table, her eyes locked on the picture of the stern older man. Hazel eyes stared back with cool detachment in a face as unemotional as a robot.

  “I know him.” She was shocked that she did know him. “He worked for the electric company. He was at the house just after my parents died. Alex had requested a new meter be installed.”

  “Bingo.” Special Agent Cranston beamed at her as though she had answered a particularly difficult question. “That was just a few years ago, wasn’t it?”

  Crista nodded slowly as Dawg stared at her in surprise. He had been unaware that she had been in town at that time, she had made certain of it.

  “Alex asked me to come in and take care of a few things while he was out of the country.”

  “So, yesterday, while Miss Jansen was supposedly on her way to Virginia, she shows up at the detention center.” Another picture slapped down in front of her, causing Crista to freeze in shock.

  “That’s not me!” But it looked like her. The hair, the profile, even the clothes.

  “So Natches spent a considerable amount of time informing me after Dawg got my agent lost in the mountains this afternoon.”

  Crista stared back at him as she felt fear beginning to build inside her. “I was with Dawg yesterday. All day.”

  “And Natches was in town spreading tales of your desertion.” He shook his head sadly and cast Natches a chiding look filled with mockery.

  “Sometimes you have to tell a few lies to get to the truth.” Natches’s smile lacked any humor.

  “We were in the office after we found the attempted breakin,” Dawg reported. “I kept her up there until well after closing.”

  “Yeah, Natches was telling the customers about that one, too.” Cranston nodded. “He hinted you blamed her for the breakin?”

  Dawg grunted as Crista stepped back and stared at the three men.

  “Who is in the picture?” she asked.

  “Looks like you.” Cranston gazed back at her blandly.

  The patently false look of innocence would have been amusing at any other time.

  “Crista, look closely at the rest of the photos,” Natches said softly.

  Crista moved back to the table as Cranston laid out half a dozen glossy color and black-and-white photos. There were none that showed the woman’s face clearly. Most were in profile, and all looked remarkably like her.

  “I have clothes just like these,” she whispered shakily, feeling Dawg move closer to her, his hand settling comfortingly at her back.

  The neat, almost businesslike outfits were identical to those hanging in her bedroom closet.

  “Agent Dane checked your home and confirmed that these same clothes were hanging in your closet.” Cranston nodded.

  “You were in my home?” She stared back at him in shock. “Without a warrant?”

  “Honey, it’s a criminal investigation; of course we searched the house with warrant in hand. The clothes are now in custody and on their way to the lab for tests.”

  “What kind of tests?” Shock filled her voice now, not just her mind.

  “DNA tests, little girl.” Cranston frowned. “We’re looking for DNA other than yours. Criminals don’t always think about the many ways DNA can be found. A stray hair, sweat, sometimes blood from something as innocent as a scratch. We’re hoping our boy here left something.”

  “Boy?” Dawg latched onto that word before Crista could make sense of it.

  “Natches caught it.” Timothy shook his head. “Right here.”

  He pulled one of the pictures free and handed it to Dawg.

  Crista stared at the picture. It was a full frontal shot, though whoever was posing as her had turned their head to the side, allowing hair identical to Crista’s to cover their face.

  It took a minute, but she saw it. She blinked, certain she wasn’t seeing clearly. The breasts were covered in the soft, chocolate brown silk of the blouse the other woman was wearing, draped over the mounds that were approximately the size of Crista’s. But with one difference. In this picture the soft material of the blouse had gaped where a button had come undone and revealed a very hairy portion of flesh beneath the breast.

  Crista blinked and looked again. Male chest hair?

  “We went over the other pictures once Natches caught that.” Cranston said. “And he found a few other anomalies. Such as this.”

  The next picture had a red-marked circle around a dark spot on a smooth, creamy, hairless arm that appeared female.

  “This picture was taken by another agent in France, where our young person here met with Akron Svengaurrd, the mercenary that brokered the deal on the missiles.”

  Once again, there were no facial features, but Crista focused on the red circle that po
inted out a blemish of some sort.

  “I’ll be damned,” Dawg muttered, his voice suddenly heavy, bitter. “I can’t believe it.”

  “He disappeared just after the missiles were stolen,” Natches said then. “Remember? We wondered where the hell he had gone? He also knew Cole, he worked for Cole’s father for a while on their farm near Frankfort. We cleared him on the investigation here because the connections were all superficial. Hell, Cole had a lot of acquaintances here in Somerset.”

  Crista stared hard at the picture, certain she was missing something. Then she saw it, remembered it. A small blemish, more a birthmark, on a friend’s wrist.

  “Johnny,” she whispered, seeing the familiarity in the curve of his face then, in the way he stood, even dressed as he was in her clothes. “It’s Johnny Grace.”

  “He visited the detention center deliberately,” Natches said then. “To implicate Crista. Every move he’s made has been made to implicate her, to distract Dawg, and possibly me as well. He had to cover himself, and this was the best way to do it. He thought you and Crista had argued, and she was heading to Virginia. The detention center is on the way, a short little detour that she could have reasonably made. Bam, she’s arrested, bad guys thinks she has the money, good guys crucify her. And Johnny was damned good; those fucking mercenaries really thought he was a she. They would have killed Crista first chance they had to arrange it.”

  Behind her, Dawg was dangerously silent. Crista swore she could feel the fury whipping through the room now, from Dawg as well as Natches.

  “He made friends with Crista first thing when she returned, because he knew her history with Dawg, and he knew Dawg’s fascination with her. He was one of the few people that could have known what happened when she left eight years ago,” Natches bit out.

  “Yeah. He worked at the clinic when Crista had the miscarriage. An orderly or something,” Cranston added.

  Crista felt her world crash around her then.

  The silence in the room suddenly became heavy, tense, and filled with danger. She didn’t dare look at Dawg; she couldn’t. She could barely breathe, could barely form a thought.