The Nauti Boys Collection

by Lora Leigh

  And he wasn’t certain he wanted to hear the answer to that question. The same reason perhaps that he didn’t have a lover. Because he couldn’t have Rogue.

  “Does it matter why?” She stood still, determined as he moved to her, stopping within a breath of touching distance.

  He stared down at her, feeling things he knew he had no right to feel. Things he knew he shouldn’t feel, not for this spritely little woman-child that was much too young for him.

  He was playing a dangerous game tonight and he knew it. But he needed a taste of her. Just enough to hold him over, to dampen the lust raging through him.

  “Don’t play games with me, Zeke,” she breathed out wearily. “Honestly, I don’t have time for them. I don’t have the strength for them right now.”

  “Have I ever played games with you, Rogue?” he asked, reaching out to touch her cheek, knowing, damn, he knew this was a mistake. The worst mistake he could possibly make right now. Because he couldn’t follow through. He couldn’t have her and revenge. It wasn’t possible.

  She didn’t answer him. He could have used one of her smart remarks right now. Something to remind himself that she was way too young. Twenty-six, even if it was almost twenty-seven, was too far from thirty-seven years old. Eleven years. Two years less than that which separated Alex Jansen and his fiancée, Janey Mackay, Zeke thought. But just because Alex could handle it didn’t mean Zeke could. Hell, his son, Shane, was nineteen. He was closer to Rogue’s age than Zeke was.

  “You don’t play games,” she whispered, her expression softening, transforming, turning sensual, tempting.

  Damn, the things he wanted to do to her. The ways he wanted to do them. He was here to question her about her cousins’ deaths; instead, he found himself relishing the softness of her cheek. Skin like satin and silk combined. And as he looked, he realized it was all but devoid of makeup.

  She looked like a temptress with those violet eyes though. Those long, riotous red gold curls flowing around her, making a man wonder what it would be like to be bound within them.

  “This is a bad idea.” He sighed, lowering his head and allowing his rougher cheek to brush against hers. “Tell me to leave.”

  “Leave,” she breathed as she softened against him.

  He almost laughed. Damn her, she could make him laugh when no one else could. “That wasn’t an order, Rogue.”

  “Oh. It was supposed to be an order?” A little, knowing smile tugged at her lips.

  Oh yeah, she knew he wanted her until he ached with it. And she wanted. She wanted with the same hunger. He could see it in her eyes.

  Her shoes dropped to the carpet, the light thud barely registering in his head. Hell, he could barely hear anything over the race of his own pulse and the thunder of lust in his veins.

  He let his lips skim her cheek. The need for her threatened to erode his control and his senses.

  “I’m leaving,” he told her. “This is too damned dangerous.”

  “Of course it is.” One small hand clenched on his upper arm. The fingers of the other were pressing against his stomach. She could feel his abs flexing; he could feel the warmth of her through the material of his shirt.

  His cock pressed imperatively against his jeans. The hard throb was making him crazy. It had made him crazy all evening. How much hell was one man supposed to endure before the hunger overrode control? he wondered. And what was it about this one woman that threatened his control?

  He let his lips brush against the curls at the side of her face. They were soft, fragrant. Like silk that smelled of dawn. He wanted to crush them between his fingers, hold her in place, and eat her up with kiss after kiss. He wanted to taste those lush, sensual lips. He wanted to feel her tongue against his, hell, he wanted all of her.

  “You’re teasing me.” Her voice was weak, a hint of need quivering within it as she shifted closer to him. “Don’t tease me, Zeke. Kiss me, or let me go.”

  “You’re supposed to tell me to leave,” he reminded her.

  “Kiss me or leave. Do one or the other.”

  “Kissing you would be a very bad idea.” So why wasn’t he stepping back? Why wasn’t he letting her go? Instead, he was moving closer, one arm curling around her back as he gripped her jaw with his hand and lifted her head.

  “Or one of your better ideas,” she retorted breathlessly.

  He didn’t give himself a chance to think, and he should have. He should have considered the consequences, and he damned sure should have considered the spark that blazed between them even when they weren’t touching.

  He should have considered it, because each time he did, he knew better than to draw closer to the fire. He knew better than to let his hunger get the best of him. But he didn’t consider.

  He brushed his lips over hers as they parted. Light as a whisper, he let himself feel her lips. He came back for a taste. The barest taste of that full lower lip, and it was ambrosia. Nectar. It was the sweetest taste of flesh that he swore he had ever known. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was the lightest flavor of his favorite drink that lingered there. The slightest hint of the dark, potent whisky he preferred.

  “Zeke,” she whispered his name against his lips. “Please. Don’t tease.”

  She didn’t whimper, she didn’t beg. It was a demand given in the tone of a woman who accepted that the tease might be all she would receive.

  But the man wasn’t teasing. Zeke didn’t tease. He was almost as helpless in the grip of the sensuality weaving around them as she was in his hold. He lifted her closer, notching the hard width of his cock against her as he turned and pressed her into the wall, his lips parting, his tongue pressing between hers, his need controlling every objection his head was listing as he allowed himself to sink into her kiss.

  Her arms were around his neck. Her legs lifted until her knees rode his hips, and hell, he was lost. He was barely aware of the fact that he was jerking her skirt over her hips. Short-assed skirt. It tempted him. Teased him. Made his hands itch to jerk it up and see what she was wearing beneath.

  Feeling what she was wearing worked, too. Or not feeling it. All he could find was the thinnest scrap of material running between the cheeks of her ass, a tiny triangle covering the hairless folds of her pussy.

  He was doomed. He was going to hell. He was going to be flayed by the whips of guilt and remorse the second he managed to pull his lips from hers. So why the hell should he bother now? He could keep kissing her, kissing her until the guilt and remorse were burned away to cinders beneath the hunger that blazed out of control.

  Because Rogue tasted as wild as her name, as free as sunshine. She was the promise of an eternal flame, the illusion of something he knew didn’t exist. The illusion of true emotion. Because in this kiss there was more than pleasure. There was the darkness he held within him rising to the fore, and the fantasies he knew he had no business considering with this woman tempting his mind.

  “Damn you!” He muttered the curse against her lips, because he couldn’t get enough. He couldn’t taste enough of her, couldn’t kiss her deep enough, wild enough. He couldn’t press his jeans-covered dick tightly enough between her thighs, he couldn’t feel her heat close enough. They were both damned. Because he couldn’t stop. Because the feel of her, the sweetness of her was too much. She kissed like a dream, and God knew, he had given up on dreams years before.

  “Damn me?” Rogue gasped, breathless, nearly panting as flaming little fingers of sensation raced over her body.

  Her lips were swollen; she could feel their tenderness as his kisses moved from her lips to her jaw, to her neck. His lips caressed; he might have nipped with his teeth. She was certain he had. But oh God, his tongue. He was licking over her neck as though taking greedy, tiny tastes of her flesh. And between her thighs. His fingers were between her thighs, tucked beneath her rear as her knees gripped his hips, caressing, feathering over the silk triangle of the thong she wore. Caressing the damp material as her juices eased from her sex.

>   She could feel how slick she was, how wet. Her flesh was swollen, her clit throbbing. Her pulse raced, adding to the sensitivity of her flesh, the ache of need between her thighs.

  Moaning his name, her head fell back against the wall, her eyes closing as she felt his lips at the top of her breasts, above the scalloped edge of her camisole top. The top button of her vest eased open.

  “This is insane.” The words sounded torn from him.

  Insane? It was the most pleasure she had ever known in her life.

  “Damn. Rogue. This has to stop.”

  She kept her eyes closed, her hands on his head, holding his lips right where they were, brushing between her breasts. The feel of them, like rough velvet stroking her, was a heady sensation.

  She was going to have to let him go. She knew it. She could feel it. She was going to have to let him walk away and spend the night alone. Again. Without him. Without the comfort she needed, without the man she needed to hold on to.

  She fought the tightening in her chest, her throat. The tears that wanted to fill her eyes and she held back, trapped inside her heart.

  “So stop.” Her head fell forward, her lips pressing against his forehead, her fingers still gripping his neck. “All you have to do is stop.”

  And kill her. And take away something she hadn’t known she was missing until now. She hadn’t known how good it could be, how hot it could be. She hadn’t known how his touch could send pleasure tearing not just through her body, but deeper, to that untouched core of her. To that part of her that had always held back, that had always remained aloof.

  She wasn’t aloof with Zeke. She wanted to beg. She wanted to plead with him not to stop, not to take the warmth away from her. Not to steal his touch when she had waited so damned long for it.

  A second later, he was easing back from her. Rogue forced her knees to unclamp, forced herself to find her footing as he slowly, so slowly released her, then stepped back from her.

  “Did you get all you wanted?” She resorted to sarcasm to keep from crying. “If so, as I said before, you know where the door is.”

  She turned, almost stumbled actually, to get away from him and find the relative comfort of her bedroom, her big bathtub, heated bubbles that in no way would replace his touch.

  “I’m too old for you, Rogue; you know that as well as I do.”

  A second later she found herself pulled against his chest, her back flush against him, absorbing his heat and his anger.

  She shook her head slowly. “It’s not the age, Zeke,” she said softly. “That’s your excuse. Why don’t you just admit it? Your reputation can’t afford me, and we both know it.”

  Silence filled the air between them. She felt his fingers tighten at her hips, his chest expand behind her.

  “You think I won’t fuck you because you could hurt my reputation?” There was an edge of mockery to his voice that was cutting. “Oh, Rogue, sweetheart, you have no damned idea how wrong you are. I won’t fuck you, baby, because I know what no one else knows. I know exactly why a relationship with me would destroy both of us.”

  “Oh really?” She didn’t see destruction. She saw the need, the aching, dark loneliness that no one else could help ease. A hunger that only Zeke could fulfill. That she had always known only Zeke could fulfill. “And what is it that you think you know?”

  “I know, Caitlyn Rogue, how very innocent you are next to me and what I know I’ll end up taking from you. You’re not a woman who will let a man fuck her for the emotionless pleasure of it. You’re not a woman who could ever give what I need easily. And you’re not a woman a man can walk away from without regrets. You’re too young for those regrets. And I’m too damned old to want to see them strapped on you. Think about that. Remember that. Because the next time you invite me to your bed, you just might find more there than you expected.”

  If he expected her to take veiled threats and innuendo as an excuse, then he’d better be thinking on that one again.

  She tossed him an angry little snarl as she jerked out of his arms.

  “What, Zeke, do you like to get frisky with your handcuffs?” she snapped, turning on him and nearly bursting into flames at the look on his face. “Do you like to play the big, bad sheriff when you fuck your women?”

  His lips quirked with an edge of amusement that she simply didn’t appreciate. Almost a smile as those predatory brown eyes roved over the loosened front of the leather vest.

  “Me getting frisky with the handcuffs would be the least of your problems,” he growled back at her, and she almost believed him.

  She pretended to shiver. “Should I whimper and beg for mercy?”

  “Probably.” There was a grunt of laughter. “One thing is for damned sure, you’d end up spanked. Does that smart mouth of yours ever stop?”

  “Only when I’m kissing cowardly sheriffs with more excuses than handcuffs.” She smiled tightly. “Go home, Zeke. I’m tired of playing with you tonight. I tell you what, the next time I’m in the mood for a little slap and tickle I’ll give you a call. Seems that’s all you’re willing to put out at any given time.”

  Oh, she was pissed. She glared back at him, seeing the amusement, the careful watchfulness he displayed. He thought he could walk into her home and just play the big, bad dominant lover throwing out his little warnings? Who the hell was he this week? The dom from hell? Bullshit. She’d heard how the sheriff liked to fuck for years. All night. Hard and heavy. He was like a stallion ready to mount and ride at any given time, one widow had drawled drunkenly during a pity party of epic proportions when her studly sheriff had stopped coming to her bed. Rogue was tired of hearing the damned tales from women drowning their sorrows in her whisky.

  “Smart-ass.” His voice lowered, deepened. “That one was free, sweetheart; keep it up and I’ll start running a tab for you. And I do collect.”

  She pretended to shiver. “I’m shaking in my shoes.”

  He looked at the shoes on the floor, then back at her feet before his lips tightened and he gave his head a hard shake.

  “I’m getting the hell out of here,” he told her. “If I hear anything about the twins, I’ll let you know.”

  “Just send one of your little deputies,” she ordered furiously. “I’ve decided I don’t like playing with you after all, Zeke. I think it’s time for me to consider other potential buddies.”

  He stopped.

  Zeke could feel the blood exploding in his head at her angry little threat, and the fact that she just might be serious. Was she serious? He stared into her eyes, keeping his eyes narrowed as he gauged her expression.

  Yep, she just might be serious.

  “I wouldn’t jump into anything if I were you,” he warned her. He tried to keep the warning light, but he failed miserably. He knew what he sounded like. Like a man warning his woman back from a boundary she was getting ready to cross.

  He couldn’t have her, but he’d be damned if he was going to stand aside and watch some other bastard take her now that he’d had a taste of her.

  That thought froze him as effectively as Rogue’s warning had. Hell, he was losing his fucking mind.

  “Fuck it,” he suddenly snarled. “None of my damned business.”

  “None of your damned business,” she agreed, evidently angrier now than she was to begin with.

  Zeke watched the flush that mounted her cheeks, the glitter of battle in her violet eyes and almost, just almost wondered at the dominant spark that seemed to trigger a cascade of lust in his gut.

  Damn her. She wasn’t supposed to challenge him. Get pissed, yeah. Challenge him? Hell no. It was the one thing he’d fought to keep from happening over the years. Rogue challenging him wasn’t something either of them wanted to test right now. Not while the taste of her lips lingered against his, while he could still feel the slick, silken juices from her pussy against his fingertips.

  “Be careful, little girl,” he told her gently. “Challenging a big dog is a hell of a lot different than thos
e little Chihuahuas you run with sometimes. They bark at the wind and tuck their tails between their asses and run when I growl back. Remember that. And you better consider that there’s a reason for it. I’m not a lapdog you can curl up with, pet and stroke a few times, and consider it a done deal. You’re a baby next to me, Rogue. It’s not the years between us that hold me back; it’s the fact that you and I both know there’s things about me you don’t want to tempt. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so damned determined to push me.”

  Her brow jerked up. A perfect little sarcastic arch.

  “I’ll be sure to have nightmares tonight,” she drawled. “Lock up when you leave, Sheriff. I’ve had enough of the deep, dark warnings and dominant male bullshit. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for more.”

  She sauntered past him, and he let her go. He had to force his fingers not to curl into fists to hold back the urge to reach out for her. He had to force himself not to follow her when the bedroom door closed.

  Hell, he had to force himself to leave her apartment. To stride across the room, turn the lock on her door, and step outside before pulling it shut behind him. Forcing himself down the stairs and through the bar was even harder.

  Because he knew what she was doing. She wasn’t in a damned bubble bath. He felt her gaze the minute he stepped from the bar. She was up there watching him, the same as he had watched her enter the bar countless times. And he wondered if she was remembering the dark promise of that kiss they had shared, because he knew he sure as hell wouldn’t be forgetting it.

  The kiss itself was a challenge. He should have known the minute she began battling for his taste, pressing for more, for a deeper caress, a harder taste, that he was in deep trouble where that woman was concerned.

  He should have known Rogue wouldn’t listen to a warning, that she wouldn’t see reason. She was young, impulsive, wild as the wind. Too young. Son of a bitch. He jerked his truck door open and lifted himself into the seat before slamming it closed. He wanted to ram his fists into something; he wanted to howl at the fucking moon, race back inside and show her how a man hungered, how a man took his woman, and exactly how a man expected a response.