by Lora Leigh
He watched as her shoulders straightened then, her chin lifted. He didn’t know what the hell she had in her mind now, but he knew exactly what she intended to do, and he’d be damned if he would let her.
She was not walking out on him again. Not like this. This was the closest he’d managed to get to her since the night her daughter had died. And then, it had been comfort, not need, not hunger. She had needed someone to hold on to. Someone to take her away from reality while she found a way to handle the coming grief.
He’d given her that. He wasn’t willing to be that someone to her again though. He wasn’t a warm body to hold back the pain, and damn her to hell, he was sick and damned tired of being relegated to her past. A part of a memory she desperately wanted to forget.
“I would have divorced him for one night with you.” And all the need, the hunger, the driving, aching desperation he felt himself was echoed in her voice.
Her declaration surprised him though. And he could tell by the tone of her voice that it filled her with guilt.
She turned to him then, her gaze haunted. “Using the excuse that our marriage had been lost before then doesn’t help. I took vows, and I meant them. But I was going to leave him, even before I knew he had betrayed me. I was going to leave him, Natches, and I made that decision because of you.”
He could feel the “but” coming, and he knew it was going to piss him off. He could feel it in the tension gathering in the air around them.
“He was a bastard,” he snarled before she could say anything more. “You knew it, even if you didn’t have proof of it.”
He had known it. Any man who allowed his wife to face danger alone deserved to lose her to another man. Women were precious. Women who loved, who honored their vows, were more precious than the finest gems. And Chaya would have honored those vows until the ink dried on the divorce papers. He knew it. And sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t hated that part of her.
“That doesn’t excuse it,” she said, staring at him from where she sat, her expression somber, her gaze flickering with guilt. “I wanted your kiss, Natches. I wanted you; I wanted your touch and your voice whispering all those naughty little secrets you used to whisper to me when I was in the hospital. I wanted it. I was married, and I ached for it. And I paid for it.”
It took a moment, one long, disbelieving moment, for that comment to soak into his head and light the spark of his normally rational temper.
“Son of a bitch.” He stared back at her in complete amazement. “I’ll be a son of a bitch. You’ve let that bastard steal your soul even from the fucking grave.” His voice rose as he spoke. “Is that how you’re blaming yourself now, Chay? That Beth was taken from you because you wanted me?”
Anger poured from him as he watched her flinch, saw the truth in her eyes. Stubborn pride lined every curve of her body. She actually believed what she was saying. Believed every word of it.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
“I understand this, by God. If you were my wife, Chaya—my woman—you’d never, fucking never, be on a mission without me. You’d never face danger alone, and you’d never know a night that I wasn’t in your damned bed. How long had that bastard been out of your bed?”
“That’s not the point.” Her voice trembled. He could see the fear in her eyes now, a fear that made no damned sense because she had to know he would never, never harm her. But damn her to hell, he was so furious with her that he wanted to slam his fist into a wall to relieve the rage burning inside him.
“The fact that he was fucking every trainee he could get his hands on didn’t matter either, I guess,” he sneered, furious, consumed by that fury as he realized the ways she had made herself pay for her daughter’s death. And her hunger for him. “The fact that he managed to get your baby on a plane to Iraq without your knowledge because he was fucking your sister before the two of you left didn’t matter either, did it?”
Her face only tightened further. Her eyes raged though. He saw her eyes; he saw the banked fury, the agony that she tried to dim, tried to hide.
“Did it matter, Chaya?” He strode to her, his fist slamming into the top of the bar as she flinched from the sound of his voice and the crack of his flesh against the Formica. Hell, he cracked it again, and he didn’t even give a damn. “Answer me, damn you!”
“That was no excuse,” she screamed back, shuddering from head to toe, everything he needed to hear, everything he wanted to know, in her voice now. She wanted. Just as he did, she ached and she hungered for what was between them, and she was too damned scared to take it. “That didn’t give me the right—”
“No, it gave me the right.”
Before he could stop himself, and God knew he didn’t want to stop himself, he jerked her into his arms and slammed his lips down on hers.
He wanted to be gentle. She deserved it. She deserved sweet, liquid kisses. She deserved gentleness and warmth, and all he had was hunger, lust, and heat.
All he had was the need to taste the passion without the grief. The woman without the pain of loss.
And he had her. He felt the first resistance, shock and surprise. Her hands pressed against his shoulders, then her fingers curled. A second later, she made that whispery, whimpering little sound of surrender that he had only ever heard from her lips.
They parted beneath his kiss, opened to the stroke of his tongue, and a second later, a firestorm of need rocked through his body.
She kissed like a wanton, like a woman whose need for pleasure had grown to the same torturous depths his own had grown to. Satin-soft lips slanted beneath his; her tongue met his, licked and consumed and had him strung as tight as a banjo string within seconds.
It wasn’t enough. The kiss was only the tip of the iceberg. He needed so much more from her. He needed more than he had known in that fucking desert, more than he had fantasized of over the years. He needed her rocking in his arms, lifting to his thrusts.
He groaned into the kiss, lifted her closer, felt the soft swell of her stomach cushioning the hard-on raging beneath his jeans, and knew he couldn’t live without tasting more of her.
She was like a drug in his system, impossible to get rid of. And there were times he wondered if he didn’t embrace this particular addiction. Her lips moving beneath his, her moans filling his head.
He fought back a growl as she tore her lips from his. He needed more.
“I need more of you.” Her lips were on his neck, biting, sucking, kissing, as her hands lowered to his belt. “I need to taste you, Natches. Taste you all over.”
“Ah, hell.” Her fingers were lowering the zipper, parting the material, and shoving it aside to release the fully engorged, throbbing length of his cock.
As he watched, she went to her knees. How many times had he dreamed of this? Dreamed of her taking him like this.
“Damn you.” He flinched in agonizing pleasure as her lips parted and took him.
She was too hungry for preliminaries, and that only made him hotter. The head of his cock disappeared into her eager little mouth and immediately set flame to wildfire.
It flashed through his body, drew his balls tight, then had them knotting with ecstasy as her nimble little fingers began to caress and play with them.
And she sucked. She sucked his cock into her mouth, nearly to her throat, and drew on it, milked it until he was growling with pleasure. Her free hand wrapped around the shaft, stroked, tightened on it, and drove him crazy.
His hands were in her hair, his hips moving, fucking her mouth, and he loved it.
“Is this how you used that little toy, Chay?” The thought of that damned dildo infuriated him. “Did you think of this, baby? Of me inside your mouth, fucking those sweet lips?”
He had been dying to do just that, and she had filled her mouth with something else? Damn her. Not again. Never again.
She moaned around his cock head, and he nearly came from the pleasure of it. Sensation rippled through
the shaft, into his balls, and up his spine. Holding on wasn’t going to happen for long. He could feel the cum boiling in his balls, knew he wasn’t going to be able to hold back.
“Damn you. Suck it, baby. Show me how you sucked that damned toy and thought of me.”
His teeth clenched as she moaned again, her mouth tightening, her tongue stroking and licking and drawing him so damned tight he felt as though he were going to break.
He was going to come. Ah, hell. Close. So damned close.
A second later he jerked back, fury pulsing, raging through him. Chaya fell back with a cry as he pushed her to the side and jerked the gun from the top of the couch where he had placed it and cursed furiously.
The door had crashed open, Dawg and Rowdy rolling into the apartment like pure vengeance itself as Natches stared back at them in unholy fury.
“What the fuck are you two doing?” He barely had time to pull his finger back from the trigger as the men rose from the floor, their own weapons lowering.
Sometimes some information just took a minute to process. His head was still filled with the sweet scent and the heated feel of Chaya’s mouth.
And rather than searching for her own weapon, what the hell was she doing? Laughing. He glanced at her in disbelief. She lay on the carpet behind him, their bodies sheltered by the couch, which faced the door, and she laughed.
Her lips were red, her face flushed, and she was laughing with such damned amusement it made his back teeth clench.
And pure fury was burning in his brain, demanding he take action now. That he kick them out of his apartment with his foot up their asses for daring, even daring, to interrupt his pleasure.
The bastards were shadowing him.
There was no other explanation for their presence or the lock that had been torn free of the door. He only barely remembered hearing and ignoring their knock. He hadn’t cared enough to answer the damned door because his head had been ready to explode with ecstasy.
He slowly fixed his pants and tightened his belt. He laid the gun on the counter cautiously, watching as Chaya stared at him in something akin to wary surprise as she climbed to her feet, her eyes still bright with her laughter. He was glad someone was amused.
“Natches.” She laid her hand on his arm, her voice shaking as she obviously fought back more of those feminine, joyous giggles. “It’s just Dawg and Rowdy.”
She was staring at him now in rather the same way he would eye a rabid animal. And she had good cause to watch him just that carefully.
He turned back to his cousins, her hand still on him, and he was loath to break that contact. It was the only reason he wasn’t charging them now. The only reason any of them were still standing rather than busting the walls of his apartment with their heads.
“You broke my door,” he said carefully, staring at the two men as they watched him just as carefully.
Dawg sniffed, blushed to the roots of his black hair, cleared his throat, then glanced at the door and the lock that had ripped from the wall. “Yeah. Well. We were just coming up for a beer. Thought you could use some company and thought we heard fighting. Right, Rowdy?” He nudged Rowdy.
Dawg was obviously lying through his teeth, and Natches knew it. He turned to Rowdy then, forcing his fingers not to curl into fists as Chaya kept her hold on his arm.
Her grip had actually tightened in response to the flexing of the muscles beneath her hand.
“Right, Rowdy?” Dawg hissed again. Under other circumstances it might have been comical. Dawg was bigger, heavier, and his fist was a damned sight harder than Natches’s. Sometimes. But it was obvious he didn’t want to return to his wife bruised.
Natches turned to Rowdy.
And Rowdy grinned, because he knew. Natches saw in his eyes the knowledge that Chaya held him back, that Chaya could always hold him back.
“Nah, we were freezing our butts off outside because we thought Agent Dane might have a little more up her sleeve than a few questions.” Rowdy’s grin was cocky, which only pissed Natches off further.
Dawg winced. “Dumb ass,” he muttered to Rowdy.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys,” Chaya laughed, and Natches felt her move.
“If you try leaving this apartment, then I’m kicking their asses the minute you walk out the door,” he warned her.
She paused, and when he glanced at her, he could see the caution in her eyes again. “There are two of them, Natches.”
“And I have pure mad on my side. Want to take bets who will win?” He made damned sure she saw nothing but determination in his gaze.
“Looks like you’re going to have to head to the Dreams tonight anyway.” Dawg cleared his throat, and it might have placated Natches, seeing a hint of nerves in his cousin, if the amusement hadn’t been so bright in his green eyes. Dawg was clearly enjoying the fact that he had interrupted something here.
“I need to get back to my hotel.” Chaya stepped back, and Natches let her.
He was careful to keep his expression bland as he glanced at her. She might try to run, but she wasn’t going far. Hell, she was going to finish what she started before the damned interruption, and he was going to make sure of it.
“We’ll, umm, fix the door.” Dawg smiled, clearly enjoying the fact that, for the moment, Natches was leashed. “You go ahead and take Miss Dane back to her hotel, Natch. We’ll have that beer at the boat.”
“If I see you on my boat tonight, I’m going to shoot you, Dawg,” Natches warned him, and he was afraid he just might be serious. “You can try the beer tomorrow afternoon, not a moment before.”
Natches moved too fast for Chaya to avoid him this time, his fingers curling around her upper arm before pulling her with him to the door. “And make sure you nail the door tight. Some bastard walks in and steals my beer, and I’ll kill you for sure.”
“Natches, I’m not going to that damned boat,” Chaya protested as they neared the door. “I have a job to do. You’re taking me back to my hotel. Period.”
“Sure I am,” he agreed.
She almost paused, would have if he hadn’t tugged her after him. “You are?”
Had he agreed too easily? He almost smirked.
“Sure I am. Sometime. I’m sure you’ll need more clothes in a few days.” He hardened his voice, firmed his grip, and ignored her curse.
She could bitch until hell froze over, but they weren’t finished. Talking, fucking, he’d take either one he could get, or both, but tonight, he wasn’t letting her go.
Dawg rubbed at the back of his neck as he heard Natches’s jeep drive off, and he turned to Rowdy slowly. His cousin had a thoughtful expression on his face.
Rowdy was a thinker. He always had been. He rarely jumped into anything impulsively, unlike his two cousins. He always weighed the evidence, the pros and the cons, and sometimes he could be damned scary in his predictions.
“You could have backed me there, cuz,” he finally sighed when Rowdy stayed silent.
When his cousin turned to him, it was with a smirk that almost had Dawg bursting out in laughter.
“Why bother?” Rowdy grinned. “She has a chain around his neck thicker than a junkyard dog’s. He wasn’t about to jump into a fight. That boy doesn’t want a bruised body right now either, Dawg. We both know that one well.”
Damned if they didn’t.
Dawg remembered a time when a good fight and a good drunk was almost as good as sex. Now, since Crista, a fight, with the bruises, busted ribs, and/or swollen lips, was something he avoided at all costs. He liked the feel of Crista’s hands on his body, demanding and wild as she moved against him. The thought of losing so much as an ounce of that pleasure to pain was intolerable.
Evidently, Natches was already considering that fact. Dawg chuckled at that thought as he moved to help Rowdy with the door.
“She’s still not pretty,” he told his cousin. “But at least I didn’t smell the smoke.”
Rowdy grunted. “Smoke wouldn’t have mattere
d to Natches, Dawg,” he pointed out.
And that was the damned truth. Even last year, when she was lighting up every time Natches came around her, their cousin hadn’t been able to stay away.
“She’s still not pretty,” he said again.
“What’s your problem with her looks?” Rowdy paused as they propped the door up and Dawg went in search of a hammer and nails. “He won’t have to use a bag for her head. Hell, Dawg, I don’t care what she looks like. Natches isn’t ice anymore. He was scaring the shit out of me with that cold attitude of his. We’re not far from losing him forever, if you haven’t noticed.”
And Dawg had noticed. Natches had been drawing further and further away over the years. He pulled the hammer and nails from the kitchen drawer and moved back to the door.
Her looks shouldn’t bother him, and Dawg knew it. Crista had just torn into his butt the night before over a similar comment.
“It’s not just her looks,” he finally admitted.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s her eyes. Look at her eyes, man. They’re dead inside. That woman isn’t even alive, and you can see it in her face. Her expression and her eyes. She’ll destroy Natches.”
Rowdy was quiet for long moments then. The sounds of the hammer striking wood and the four-inch nails sinking into the frame were the only comment Dawg received.
Finally, the door was secure, and Rowdy was just staring at it.
“She’s not dead inside,” he finally said, his voice soft.
“Same as.” Dawg shrugged. “You didn’t work with her last year. She’s cold inside, man. She can get nervous as hell, she can get scared, and she did a fine laugh tonight, but there ain’t no love in her for anyone.”
Rowdy shook his head at that. “There’s too much emotion.” He looked at Dawg then. “Just like Natches. And she’s determined to hide it. You can’t see past that need we both have to keep protecting our little cousin, Dawg. Sometimes I think we forget he’s all grown-up now.”
“And just as alone as he ever was,” Dawg growled.