The Nauti Boys Collection

by Lora Leigh

  “You’ll explain why later, right?”

  He nodded slowly. “Later. I promise.”

  Licking her lips nervously, Rogue moved to the closet where she pulled her leather riding jacket free, then lifted the keys to the Harley from the small peg inside the closet.

  “Here you go.” She tossed him the keys after closing the closet door and turning back to him. “Sorry, there’s no secret door to slip out of. You’re going to have to take your chances going down the stairs, I guess. Unless you want to climb out the back window and shimmy down the drainpipe or something.”

  He glanced toward the bedroom window as Rogue’s gaze narrowed.

  “Explanations would be nice,” she finally told him.

  He nodded slowly. “Explanations will have to come later though. Let’s go.”

  He grabbed his own leather jacket from the couch; she hadn’t even noticed it until then.

  Shrugging it on, he opened the door, looked down the stairs, then led her from the room before locking the door behind them.

  Rogue stayed silent, though the questions were beginning to build in her mind. She followed him down the stairs, then the short hall to the back door. They slipped from the bar as silently as he had obviously slipped inside, and he led her straight to the covered carport behind the bar where she kept her Harley parked.

  He straddled the cycle quickly and inserted the key as Rogue swung onto the padded back hump. The throb of the cycle’s engines between her thighs was always an exhilarating, almost sexual sensation that gave her a reckless little thrill.

  She pulled on the helmet Zeke handed her as he pulled on the extra that he had taken from a hook just inside the carport. Within seconds, the kickstand was up and he was backing the motorcycle from the covered shelter before turning the handlebars and accelerating from the back lot.

  The small graveled drive that led from the back lot across a rough meadow exited at a small country road that broke off from the interstate. Zeke turned onto the small country lane before revving the engine and speeding away from the bar.

  Resting her hands on his tight waist, Rogue rode behind him silently. She could feel the tension burning in him, feel the need, for whatever reason, to get her away from the bar.

  She wondered if his absence that day had anything to do with his tension now. According to his secretary when she’d called earlier, he had an appointment out of town and Kendal hadn’t known when he would be back. Now, he’d had Alex drop him off at the bar and they were escaping on her cycle rather than in his Tahoe?

  She couldn’t bitch about escaping with him though. There was something incredibly fulfilling about riding free behind him, his warmth buffeting the cool night air as she held on to him.

  She’d never enjoyed riding behind anyone else. She’d always loved the control of wielding the cycle’s power herself. But somehow, with Zeke, it seemed natural, right. The feeling was almost as powerful as lying in his arms after the explosive orgasm he gave her.

  The night sped by, the wind chilly but not cutting. There was a hint of warmth to the air, the certainty of the land that summer’s heat was heading its way. In front of her, the certainty of her lover’s heat seemed to wrap around her, enclose her as he navigated the darkened back roads toward his home.

  The drive wasn’t long, no more than half an hour, but the cell phone at her side had activated twice, and she had a feeling she knew who it was.

  Her brother. Or Jonesy. They couldn’t know she was with Zeke, but they would guess that she was heading to see him at the least.

  Why, she wondered, was John so intent that she leave Somerset and return to Boston? What drove not just Jonesy but her brother to such lengths to supposedly save her from Zeke? It bothered her, first Jonesy, then John. Both were pissed at the thought of her being with Zeke and she couldn’t figure out why.

  The broken heart was her risk to take, and the risk was one she wouldn’t miss out on, not now, not after waiting this long for the chance to steal his heart.

  But was she stealing his heart, or was she fooling herself? She’d been throwing herself at him for years; had he just finally taken what was offered, or did it mean anything to him?

  She had to let herself believe that it meant something, at least for now.

  Clenching her eyes closed for precious seconds, she held on to the hope, the prayer, that more would come of this than a broken heart.

  Her eyes opened as he made the turn onto the side road that led into his farm. The night seemed darker, the stars blotted out by the thick covering of pine that reached into the night sky. She felt isolated from the rest of the world, as though she and Zeke were riding into a place where nothing else could touch them, where nothing existed but the two of them.

  When he broke from the heavy tree cover it was to make the short ride to his home. He pulled the motorcycle up to the garage doors, stopped, and kicked down the stand before swinging off, leaving the engine throbbing as he moved to open the garage doors.

  Rogue slid into the seat he vacated, relishing the heavy heat he left, kicked up the stand, and pulled the cycle into the garage before cutting the motor and pulling off her helmet and hanging it on the end of one of the handlebars as she watched Zeke move toward her.

  The cell phone at her hip beeped imperatively.

  Pulling it free, she checked the number, before lifting her gaze back to Zeke.

  “Jonesy and John are getting rather impatient,” she told him.

  “Do you usually check in with them?” he asked her.

  Rogue shook her head before flipping the phone open and bringing it to her ear.

  “I’m busy,” she told her bartender. “What’s the problem?”

  “Where the hell are you? John is going crazy trying to hunt you down and he’s making me crazy,” Jonesy growled. “Why can’t you just let someone know when the hell you’re riding off into the night?”

  Her lips thinned at the controlled anger in his tone.

  “Where is John?”

  “Hang on, you can talk to the little bastard yourself,” he snapped.

  The muted sound of the band, conversation, and general good times could be heard through the phone for long seconds as Rogue threw her leg over the cycle’s seat and waited impatiently as Zeke paced to the end of the garage before turning back, leaning against the wall, and crossing his arms over his chest as he watched her.

  “Where the fuck are you?” John snarled into the phone. “I’ve called every damned number you’ve ever given me trying to find you.”

  “Since when do I have to inform you of where I’m going or what I’m doing?” she asked quietly, aware of the sound of the bar fading in the background of the phone.

  “Since I suspect you ran off with that damned sheriff you insist on sleeping with,” he retorted harshly. “Get your ass back here, we need to talk.”

  “Is the bar on fire?” she finally asked sweetly.

  “Don’t fuck with me, Rogue.” His voice was grating and harsh. “No, the damned bar isn’t on fire, no one is bleeding, dead, or hospitalized, and you aren’t in danger of a lawsuit. What you are in danger of is the fact that Dad will be on the first flight out here if I make the call I’m getting ready to make.”

  Anger threatened to explode through her. Zeke was watching her with those cool, predatory eyes of his, as though he knew something she didn’t and he was just waiting on the explosion.

  John was exploding, Jonesy was acting damned strange, and for some reason, Gene, Zeke’s primary deputy, couldn’t get a call through to him. Zeke wasn’t even wearing his cell phone.

  “I’m not fourteen,” she said softly. “Nor does Daddy make the rules I live by any longer. Make all the calls you want to. But be warned, John, cause me too much trouble and I’ll leave you lying on the floor with your balls choking you. Understand me?”

  She flipped the phone closed before he could answer, then turned it off, all the while her gaze locked with Zeke’s.

  “I ass
ume explanations will be forthcoming,” she said.

  “You can assume.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I have the answers.” He shifted away from the wall and headed for the door. “Let’s go inside, Rogue. I’ll give you what I have. At this point, that’s about the best I can do.”

  His voice was heavy, laden with something bitter that clenched at Rogue’s chest and left her aching. It left her frightened.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Zeke could feel the anger brewing inside him. It was a dark, eternal core that had begun years ago, when he first realized how diseased his father had become. When, as a fourteen-year-old kid, Zeke had made his first kill.

  Disgust stirred, thick and oily, in the pit of his stomach, its acrid taste burning his tongue at the memories he rarely allowed himself to revisit. His nervousness, the complete fear that had washed over him when he’d picked up the handgun lying on a small table. The shock and surprise in his victim’s face when he’d turned, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

  Because his father had told him the man they were meeting would try to kill them and would then kill Zeke’s mother. That they had no choice but to be waiting on him, and the only way to surprise him was if Zeke took the shot.

  Fourteen fucking years old. So damned dumb loyal to his father that he hadn’t known his ass from a hole in the ground. All he knew was that his father said he was in trouble, that someone was going to try to kill all of them. As men, it was their place to protect his mother. They were the head of the house, the protectors, the defenders. And Zeke had bought into it until the second he fired that gun and saw the other man’s eyes, heard his last gasping breath as he whispered, “Why?”

  It played out in his nightmares sometimes, it lurked in the back of his mind when he was awake, and a part of Zeke had never forgotten that second of insight, as death glazed another man’s eyes, that he would never be the same again.

  Because of his father. Because he had idolized the man who had raised him, because he had trusted him, believed in him. Because he had been a stupid, dumb kid that the father he loved had manipulated.

  Zeke remembered a time when Thad Mayes had been a good man. When his father’s brown eyes had been clear with laughter and good humor. Until he had taken a devil’s bargain. A bargain that had destroyed his marriage, his relationship with his son, and, Zeke suspected, had eventually taken his life.

  Opening the door into the house, he stood aside as Rogue moved toward him slowly, her violet gaze dark with worry, her expression pensive.

  The need to touch her was almost overwhelming. The need to sink inside her and forget the horrors of the past was a hunger he could barely deny himself. The need to hold her in his arms, to feel her warmth. It went beyond hunger, it was a compulsion now, an addiction. He needed her touch until he could barely function for it at times.

  But under that fierce need was too much rage. It was dark and boiling inside him, demanding action. It was like a demon nipping at his soul, destroying his control.

  The anger rode him too deep to allow for touch. It was too much a part of him tonight, rising from his soul until it threatened to push through the very pores of his flesh.

  “What’s going on, Zeke?”

  He shook his head and held his hand out to her. “Come inside; this isn’t the place to talk.”

  Staying away from her would have been the best decision. If he’d had the strength. God knew, he didn’t have that strength. He’d had to fight every second for the past five years to remain aloof, to keep from taking her, until the battle had been lost.

  She had come to him innocent, sweet, and pure. Her illusion of sexual experience and wild disposition was just that, an illusion. It had taken him a while to see through it, to realize certain things about his tempestuous Rogue.

  She was sugar sweet on the inside; that hard outer core was so fragile that it defied understanding. She was too gentle, she was too much of everything that he didn’t deserve, should never have. And his soul had claimed her despite his best intentions. The dark, ragged core of his being had reached out to her and been comforted by her when Zeke knew he didn’t deserve that comfort.

  She licked her lips and his body clenched in longing. She took a deep breath, lifting her breasts against her T-shirt, and his hands ached to cup the firm mounds.

  She was young, precious. Could she understand the man he was, the man that had been years in the making?

  But she took his hand. Her fingers accepted his as they twined them through hers. Tiny, fragile, so fucking tender. Her hands were like silk and his dwarfed them.

  “A lot of people have been looking for you today,” she told him softly as he drew her into the house. “I assume John found you?”

  “John found me.” He nodded as he led her inside, then closed and locked the door behind them.

  He set the security alarm, just to be safe. He had no fear of his son walking in on them tonight; he’d made certain Shane was safe in Louisville and that Lucinda kept him there. It wasn’t the fear of his son seeing something he shouldn’t that rode Zeke now. It was the fear of being caught off guard before he could finish what he started.

  “Gene’s looking for you,” she told him then. “He was at the bar.”

  “I know.” And he didn’t want to talk about Gene, not yet. They’d been through hell together as boys, and Zeke thought the bond that had developed then would see them through their adult years. He had been more wrong than he could have ever imagined.

  “So you’re avoiding him?” she asked as he led her through the darkened house.

  He didn’t turn on the lights as he led her through the kitchen to the basement door. It was opened, the light below was still on, lighting the stairs as he led her down them.

  “I’m avoiding him,” he agreed.

  “Zeke.” She paused halfway down the steps, tugging at his hand.

  Zeke turned back to her. There was no fear in her eyes, but there was a hint of worry.

  “The answers I have are down here,” he told her, his jaw clenching at the truth of his life, a truth he may not be able to hide for much longer.

  His father had begun this legacy, and now Zeke was going to have to finish it. Finishing it would mean revealing the truth of the past, the truth of what he had nearly become and the boundaries crossed by men he had once respected.

  Dayle Mackay had started this decades ago. With his brother and a few military friends they had destroyed more lives than Zeke wanted to contemplate.

  Zeke had worked ten years to uncover the proof of what Dayle was, and in a few short months the Mackay cousins had managed to do what he had fought to do for a decade. But that was okay. He’d let them do it; he had known what they were doing, and he had stood back and watched it unfold as he had been ordered to do. Homeland Security had ripped through Somerset like a plague. Men he hadn’t known were involved had been uncovered as homeland terrorists working for a future destruction of the government as the nation knew it.

  He’d helped gather the evidence last year, and he’d kept his own secrets.

  Until now.

  “I was born in Somerset,” he told her as he led her into the basement.

  Boxes upon boxes of a life he hadn’t wanted to remember were opened now, their contents spilling along the floor and the tables he had used to stack them on.

  “I knew that.” Her fingers were stiff in his hold as she stared around the basement.

  “I left when I was fourteen. I was twenty-seven before I came back.”

  He glanced at her as she nodded slowly, her violet gaze locked on him.

  “I came back, because I thought surely, with Thad Mayes’s death, it couldn’t be as bad as it was when I was a kid. And if it was, I had a plan.”

  Bitterness welled inside him.

  “To become sheriff,” she stated.

  He nodded at that. “To become sheriff. To clean out the filth I knew lurked just below the surface of one of the most beautiful areas in the world. I’d make it safe,
I thought.”

  “You have made it safe, Zeke,” she ventured softly.

  Zeke shook his head as he released her hand. “No, the Mackay cousins and DHS made it safe. I worked for ten years to gather the evidence I needed, and I was blocked at every turn. I couldn’t figure out how it was happening for years.”

  He moved away from her then. “It took an old man’s careless comment to remind me of a few things, and then it fell into place.”

  He turned back to her and breathed out harshly.

  “I’m not leaving town,” she said then. “I can see it in your face, Zeke. You’re going to ask me to leave again.”

  He shook his head to that. “It’s too late for any of us to escape this fucking mess.”

  He turned and faced the contents of the boxes he’d emptied.

  “Mom was like a pack rat.” He sighed. “She had so much junk she had to rent a storage unit for it. When she died and the house burned around her, I just packed all these boxes away after I retrieved them, thinking I’d go through them someday. See what she had kept. I didn’t expect she had everything I had ever searched for. Once I found some of it, it wasn’t that hard to know where to look for the rest of it.”

  There were pictures, there were journals he’d never known his mother kept. Dozens of journals, each day of her life from the day she married Thad Mayes recorded. She had never told him about the journals and he had never known she kept one. After the divorce she never took pictures, so Zeke hadn’t remembered the camera she had carried with her during her marriage to Thad Mayes.

  He’d forgotten most of his life as a child, because remembering always brought him back to the scent of blood in the air, and the betrayal of a father he had adored.

  “What were you looking for?” she asked.

  “Proof,” he answered, turning back to her. “Proof that Dayle Mackay, Nadine Grace, and several of Kentucky’s highest ranking political figures were involved in treason. I knew.” He shook his head as he moved to the pictures. “I’ve always known, I just couldn’t prove it.”

  “Dayle and Nadine are gone,” she whispered. “They’re dead, Zeke.”