TWO
Fuck Natches. Fuck dying. Alex had lived dangerously all his adult life; he didn’t see a reason to stop now.
Alex knew if Natches caught him fooling around with his baby sister, then death would be the least of Alex’s worries. But like an addict, like a man addicted to the scent, the taste of one woman, Alex found himself enthralled. He found himself unable to walk away.
Fourteen years separated their ages, but nothing separated the desire he could feel burning between them except the clothes they were wearing.
She was as wary as a doe, standing before him, poised to run, quivering, uncertain about the next touch to come. She ached as much as he did. Something about that knowledge almost humbled him. That the same hunger that filled him could fill her as well. Just as strong. Just as deep, despite the distance in their ages.
If she hadn’t told him she was a virgin, he would have suspected it now. She didn’t know if she should stay or run, if she should allow him to touch or if she should fight it. Fear and need battled within her, and Alex had to force himself to rein in his lusts, the hard-core center of his hunger, to give her a chance to come to terms with what he sensed was unfamiliar ground to her.
“Natches will kill me for this.” He let his lips touch her ear, and she jerked, inhaling a harsh breath as she swallowed with a tight reflex of her throat. “He warned me, Janey. Six years ago. Not to touch you.”
Natches had threatened to cut Alex’s dick off if he ever touched Janey.
“I can tell you’re really scared of my brother,” she said, her voice breathless, her expression intent as she stared straight in front of her, obviously battling whatever emotions, or needs, were rising inside her.
“I stayed away,” he breathed against her ear. “Six years, almost seven, Janey. I stayed away.”
He moved in closer to her, his hands tightening on her hips as he pressed his hips against her, letting her feel the hardened state of his cock beneath his slacks.
She gave her head a little shake and shuddered.
“Why are you doing this?” Her hands moved to his wrists.
Small, graceful hands. Her nails dug into his flesh as she held on to him. She didn’t relax against him, but she wasn’t fighting him either. Like a creature unused to any touch that didn’t involve pain, she was debating what would come next. If the gentleness would dissolve.
Alex wasn’t surprised by the fury that rose inside him, but he was surprised by the fact that the hunger rising inside him was overriding it. Christ, he needed to touch her. If he didn’t, then the pressure building inside his balls was going to destroy him.
And if he did, the need was only going to get worse.
He could feel it. It was one of the reasons he’d left town immediately after her rescue. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t returned until he was forced to. Because staying away from Janey had been damned hard before. He had a feeling it was going to be impossible now.
“Janey, I’m not going to force you,” he told her, letting his lips drift over the shell of her ear.
Her breathing was harder, faster. Her lashes drifted over her eyes and he watched her face flush, slowly. Need made her skin take on a rosy glow, made her lips look poutier, prettier. He almost groaned at the need to feel them under his.
Her hands tightened on his wrists. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what you want from me.”
He turned her slowly, slowly, in case she wanted to run, in case she needed to run. Tipping her chin up, he stared down at her with a sudden gentleness he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling.
“Whatever you want to do,” he told her softly. “We can do whatever you want to do, Janey. But we start right here.”
And his head lowered.
Janey’s breath caught in her throat. She stared up at him, eyes wide, caught, held, like a deer in headlights, as she watched his face lower. One hand threaded in her hair, pulling her head back for him. His arm curved around her hips, lifting her to him.
She had never seen his expression like this. Tight with lust, his eyes flinty with it, brows lowered, brooding. When his lips touched hers, she felt something inside her explode. A radiant heat, a need, cascaded through her, filling her senses as her lips parted, her hands gripping his arms, trying to lift closer to him. Trying to draw herself into him. Trying to take as much of this feeling, this sensation racing through her, as she could consume.
Her lips parted as his slanted over them. His hand gripped the back of her head, one arm anchored her back, and she just wanted to crawl into him. She wanted to be closer, wanted more. She whimpered with the need, feeling his lips grow harder, hungrier, in response.
Oh yes. This was what she needed. His lips opening over hers and his tongue pressing against hers. Deep, hard kisses that burned her lips and filled her body with sensations she hadn’t expected.
There was no fear allowed here. This was her kiss, her first kiss, her first real kiss that swamped her with such blazing pleasure that she couldn’t fight it. She didn’t want to fight it.
She could feel years of need exploding inside her. Years of fantasies and dreams about this one man. The one man she had always known she could never have. It wasn’t their ages; it had been the danger Dayle represented to anyone she would care for.
And now that danger was gone. She could have; she could have this man. Her hands tightened on him, her need for his kiss growing more desperate. She could have so many things she couldn’t have had six months ago.
“God! Janey.” Alex lifted his head, only to lower it again.
His lips moved over her jaw, beneath it. Her arms tightened around his neck and she tried to get closer, tried to steal the kiss back.
Then he was bending closer, his hands gripping her rear and lifting her, pulling her against him.
“Put your legs around my waist,” he growled. “Hold on to me, baby. Hold on tight, and I’ll give you what you need.”
She obeyed instinctively, then cried out when her skirt bunched at her hips, and she felt hard, muscled abs between her thighs.
But his lips were on hers again. His hands kneaded her butt, his lips ground against hers, tongue curling over hers. Driving explosions of light erupted behind her closed eyelids. She could feel him in every cell of her skin and she wanted to feel him deeper.
Between her thighs, she could feel herself growing wet, swollen. Throbbing sensation pounded at her clit, inside her vagina. She was a mass of sudden internal explosions of need, and nothing mattered but this wild crescendo of pleasure now pounding through her.
The sensations were frightening, exhilarating. They burned over her flesh, seared her insides. She felt herself growing dazed, sensually weak and unable to sate the need for more and more sensation.
“Alex.” She moaned his name when his head jerked back, the strong column of his neck flexing with strength as she heard him inhale, hissing a breath from between his teeth as he gripped her rear and lowered her. Lowered her just enough to allow the thick wedge of his erection to press between her thighs.
He was huge.
Janey stiffened, her eyes widening, staring into his narrowed gaze as he moved her against him, stroking the soft silk of her panties against the distended knot of her clitoris.
Technically, she knew exactly what he was doing. Technically, she knew exactly where this was heading, where over the years, she had rarely gone past the fantasy of just this kiss.
“You know what I want.” His voice was hard, his gaze fierce.
No, she didn’t know what he wanted. Technically, yeah, she knew. Physically, emotionally, she was suddenly terrified of the need whipping through her. Burning her. Because it didn’t make sense. Because it went too deep, was too blinding. Because it made her feel weak, dazed. Unable to fight against the swirling flames building inside her.
“Let me go!” She was pushing at his shoulders when she didn’t mean to.
Suddenly, a sense of panic overwhelmed her. Not fear of Alex, but fear of herself. Fear of the sensations, the emotions she couldn’t quite grasp.
“Let me go, Alex!” She struggled out of his grip, stumbling as he set her back on her feet, his expression dark, forbidding, as she pushed away from him, almost falling before she steadied herself by the couch and jerked her skirt back down over her thighs.
“Leave. Please.” She kept her back to him.
She was shaking. Quivering from the inside out and she couldn’t make sense of it. She was hot and cold at the same time, spiked with energy and yet lethargic.
“It’s natural, Janey.” He spoke as though he knew.
Janey swung around, glaring at him. “You don’t know what I feel, Alex. Don’t pretend you do.”
His eyes were steely gray but calm as somber determination lined his face and his expression grew heavy.
“You’re twenty-three years old,” he said. “You lived in a vacuum of no touch, no affection for too many years. And then you had to suffer through the hell Nadine and Dayle put you through. A man’s touch will be scary at first. Frightening. But it will ease.”
Janey shook her head at his confidence, his sheer arrogance.
“And of course you’re the man to get me past that fear,” she said harshly. “Why didn’t I come up with that on my own?”
His lips quirked at her mockery. “Maybe your senses are a little off balance right now,” he suggested. “I’m sure, in time, you would have considered it.”
She glared at him. “Why don’t you just go home, or go find your little blond piece of fluff and leave me alone?”
“That’s no longer an option.” His voice hardened. “The blond fluff, that is. I’ve developed a taste for you, Janey. And I want more.”
Janey felt as though her head were spinning. He couldn’t be serious. She stared up at him. He was over six feet, broad, so muscular he made her mouth water. Powerful. And large in every way.
This wasn’t a nice, steady, unassuming man. This was Alex. Bold. Larger than life. A warrior who knew who and what he was and how to use that perfect body of his. In a variety of ways.
“What if I don’t want more?”
Oh yeah, she saw that one happening. She was going to be fantasizing about that damned kiss for the rest of her natural life.
He almost smirked. That little tug at his kiss-swollen lips clenched her stomach.
“You want more right now,” he told her, his gaze flickering over her. “Don’t bother lying about it either. Your nipples are still pointed hard beneath your shirt and your face is still flushed. I’m not some kid you can lie to, Janey. I know your pussy is hot and probably so damned wet I could drown in it.” His voice turned to a growl; his lashes lowered. “I want to drown in it. I want to run my tongue through all those hot juices and eat you until you’re screaming for more.”
Oh God. Her knees were weak. Her legs were going to collapse right beneath her and leave her a puddle on the floor moaning just for that.
“Then maybe I need someone younger,” she bit out. “Maybe I don’t like where all that knowledge of yours came from.”
He grinned. It wasn’t an amused grin either. It was knowing.
“You’ve been touched by a man now, Janey. A kid isn’t going to still that fire inside you. You’d grown past that at seventeen and we both know it. That day at the lake, the boys rumbling around there, twittering and playing their damned games for your attention didn’t faze you. Nothing did. Until you caught me staring at you.”
She hated the fact that he was right. That somehow, something inside her had matured past the “boys” her own age a long damned time ago. And any chance she would have had to experiment with men was snatched from her grasp with a single phone call from Dayle. A warning. She had been under his control and he didn’t let her forget it.
“Why are you doing this?” She shook her head, confused now, uncertain.
Alex was more than just a man. He was more than just physically powerful. There was a confidence, a dark edge inside him that made her wary.
She had a feeling Alex would push boundaries she’d never imagined. He’d demand more than she had to give, and sometimes she feared she had very little to give anyone.
Janey had learned early just how easily everything she cared about could be sucked right out of her life. She didn’t think she could bear to lose anything more.
“I don’t have time for you.” She shook her head. “I don’t have the strength for you, Alex.”
“Then you better find it, Janey.” He moved, a ripple of strength, and as she watched he was crossing the room and moving to the back door. “Because I have a taste for you now. But even more, you have one for me. It won’t be that easy to forget.” He paused at the door. “And don’t make the mistake of thinking just any man is going to fill that taste. I wouldn’t be happy.”
“Threatening violence, Alex?” Her heart thudded with sudden wariness.
He shook his head, that grin sending a surge of anger through her.
“I’d never hurt you, Janey,” he promised, his voice raspy, graveled. “But if you want a chance to navigate your own way through this, then don’t pull another man into the battle. Or I’ll keep you in my bed for a week and show you just why that won’t do.” His expression shifted, became harder, more sexual, darker. “Oh, baby, I’ll show you exactly why no other man will do.”
Her lips parted to blast him. Yell at him. Curse him. And she would have. She’d never done that in her life, but she would have, if he hadn’t slipped out the door and closed it behind him, leaving her staring at it in dumbfounded fury.
Arrogant. Conceited. Overconfident. Prick.
“Asshole,” she spat into the empty room before clamping her lips closed.
God. She never called anyone names. She never confronted anyone. She never got too close to the fire. And what the hell was she doing now?
She lifted her hand, touched her sensitive lips, and closed her eyes against the pleasure. Then she couldn’t help herself. Her fingers trailed down her neck, over the curve of her breast, to the hard points of her nipple.
She gasped. A surge of feeling rushed from the hardened point straight to her clit and exploded in a detonation of need before she jerked her hand back.
Once, a long time ago, Janey had known how to touch herself at least. She was a woman. And she’d ached for touch, anyone’s touch, and had been too frightened to defy Dayle by accepting a lover.
So she had touched herself. Something she hadn’t done since Dayle had allowed Nadine to touch her.
She bit her lip and paced to the kitchen. She fought the memories, but they were there. The way Nadine pulled her T-shirt over her breasts, loosened her jeans. And Janey hadn’t been able to fight her.
She leaned against the table, pressing her hand over her mouth to hold back the instinctive need to be sick. She could barely tolerate touch since that, even her own. Until tonight. And tonight, nothing had filled her head but Alex’s touch.
There had never been anything more frightening in her life than being unable to move, unable to fight, forced to let that evil bitch touch her.
And Dayle had just watched.
A sob tore from her throat. He had just watched, amused, indulging his depraved sister with affectionate humor.
“I hate you!” She yelled the words, her hand jerking a kitchen chair from the table and slinging it with jerky strength across the floor.
It crashed into the wall as she pressed her fists into her stomach and fought the tears that would have fallen from her eyes.
She wasn’t crying. She hadn’t cried since the day it happened, and she wouldn’t cry now. She would be okay. By morning, she’d have her control back in place, she’d bury the hurt and the pain and force that mask on her face, and she’d do all the things Dayle had refused to allow her to do as she grew up.
Tomorrow, the restaurant was closed. She had a girls’ night out with one of the few people she had ever connected with as a friend. Drinks and snacks at the local bar. She’d never been to a bar. Music and wild men acting like fools, she was told.
The thought was terrifying, but she would do it. Because she wasn’t dead. Because there was so much she had never done, and she needed to learn how to live.
She didn’t need to learn how to want Alex Jansen, though. That was a recipe for disaster.
As she stood there, she heard a plaintive meow from outside, a demanding sound and the pad of soft little paws against the door as the monster stray tapped impatiently.
“Decide to come visit me again?” Janey called out in a shaky voice as she moved to the door and opened it to allow into the house the mangy, overgrown cat that had somehow managed to target her.
She shook her head as he moved to the food bowl in the corner of the room. As he ate, she showered, changed into loose pajamas, and returned to the living room, where the large orange male cat was curled up on her couch.
She knew the routine. She sat down on the other side, turned on the television, and waited.
Still wary, the cat crept across the couch, watching her from slitted, narrowed eyes. Warning her not to dare to touch him. She watched the news, one arm propped on the arm of the couch, watching the animal from the corner of her eye.
He was beautiful. Scarred, ragged. The tip of one ear was missing; his nose had a thin scar through it. But his fur wasn’t matted anymore. He had cleaned himself up nice, and she had managed to secure a flea collar around his neck a week ago.
He growled as he neared her, and she ignored him, because she knew he was all bluff. If she moved her arm or shifted to him, he’d take a swipe at her, but otherwise, it was all for show.
Finally, he moved against her. Watched her. Then took a heavy paw and patted at her hand. She lifted her arm and a second later he was curled in her lap, allowing her fingers to shift through his fur as he purred against her and settled down for a nap.
He was finally fattening up. He’d been bedraggled, skinny, when he first showed up more than two months before. He’d been in one too many fights, and pride and hunger had glittered in his topaz eyes as she set out a bowl of cat food mixed with hamburger.
Now, in the past weeks, he was demanding more than just food. He was demanding affection. Nothing and no one had ever demanded affection from her. Before the cat, she had just lain on the couch until she couldn’t hold her eyes open any longer, then trudged to her cold bed.
Now she stayed here until the animal grew tired of her petting.
The cat was safe, she decided. All he wanted was the food and a few strokes over his heavy body for a while, then he was good to go.
But tonight, he didn’t go. He lay there and lay there, until Janey couldn’t hold her eyes open another moment.
“Come on, Fat Cat.” She pushed at his heavy butt. “I have to sleep.”
Surprisingly, he didn’t scratch her for her daring. He rose, stretched, and hopped off the couch, looking at her expectantly.
“Time to go have fun, huh?” She moved to the door, then paused. He wasn’t moving behind her. “Do you want out?” He blinked those yellow eyes back at her sleepily. “Last chance.” She yawned. “I’m going to bed.”
When he didn’t move, she shrugged, checked the litter box she kept on hand, then checked the security system, and moved to the bedroom.
She turned down the heavy quilt, flipped the light on low, and moved into the bed. As she pulled the quilt over her, she was surprised to feel a heavy thump at the bottom of the bed.
Lifting, she stared down at the cat as he curled at her feet, his eyes blinking back at her. Wary. Warning. And her lips quirked as he growled at her.
“Night, Fat Cat,” she murmured, rather enjoying the warmth against her feet.
She could get used to this, she thought. Just a little bit of affection. It felt good. As she drifted off to sleep, the thought floated through her mind that she somehow knew Alex would demand so much more.
More than that kiss.
More than just a little sex.
A lot of sex.
She didn’t know if she should be frightened or excited. But as sleep took her and the dreams began to filter through her head, for once they weren’t nightmares. They were Alex. Kissing, stroking her. Alex murmuring against her flesh. Alex. Demanding.
Alex sat in his truck and watched the apartment far longer than he should have. The street had cleared of traffic, the old center of town was empty, all but deserted at this time of the night, and he was sitting there staring at a woman’s window like a lovesick fool.
Hell, how had he let himself come to this? He hadn’t even done this crap when he was a dumb-fuck teenager. And it looked like he was about to get caught.
Hell. Sheriff Mayes’s cruiser eased up behind his truck as Alex laid his head back against the seat and hit the electronic locks to release them. A second later, Zeke was sliding into the pickup, his sheriff’s hat in his hand, watching Alex with a considering expression.
“I’ve sat out here a time or two and talked to Natches, one of his cousins, or his uncle Ray. But this one is a first for you, Jansen.” He leaned back against the door. “Something I should know about?”
Alex stared up at Janey’s window. “I’m a fucking dead man.” He sighed.
He trusted Zeke. Trusted him more than the Mackay boys did, and had no doubt anything he said would stay with Zeke. Another slipup. A year ago, he wouldn’t have given a damn. Nothing would have induced him to tell the sheriff anything personal.
Zeke turned his head, looked up at the window, then back at Alex, and let out a soundless whistle.
“Damn, Alex. Natches is as protective over that little girl as he is his new wife and that skinny kid he had brought out of Iraq. Are you sure about this?”
“No.” He was damned sure he was going to end up fucking her, no matter what he told Zeke.
“You’re fourteen years older than she is, Alex. That’s a lot of years. If you don’t have more in mind than a few hot nights, then you better watch your ass. Or your head. Because Natches is damned good with a sniper rifle himself.”
Actually, Natches was better at it than Alex.
“Yeah. I better be careful.” But not because of Natches. Fighting Natches wasn’t what worried him. Hurting Janey. The thought of that bit at him.
Zeke sat silently then, staring up at the window with Alex.
“She tell you about the notes?” Zeke asked then.
Alex lifted his head slowly. He and Zeke were more than just friends. Before Zeke got out of the military, they’d fought together a time or two. They had more of a connection than Zeke had with the Mackay boys. Alex knew when Zeke was telling him something sensitive.
“What notes?” he asked carefully.
“Yeah, I was afraid she was keeping it to herself, especially after she made it a point to make me swear to investigate it myself. Hell. Damned Mackays. Every one of them is trouble in one way or the other.”
“What notes, Zeke?” Alex could feel the tension tightening in his body then, the hairs at the back of his neck lifting in warning.
“There’s been three in the past two months. Words cut out of the newspaper and taped to plain white paper. No prints, nothing unusual, no way to trace it. Always left somewhere she won’t miss them. The first was taped to the door of her apartment. The second shoved under the front door of the restaurant. The third was shoved under her apartment door. All three warning her to get out of town. That a traitor’s slut wasn’t wanted in Somerset.”
Damn. Alex felt his hands curling around the steering wheel, tightening. Violence raged through his body, and the need to exact vengeance slammed inside him.
“Natches doesn’t know?”
“She made me swear I wouldn’t tell a single Mackay.” Zeke smiled at that thought of that. “I haven’t told a single Mackay.”
No, he was telling Alex. Alex slid him a furious glance. The bastard.
“So I get to spread all the good news?”
Zeke shrugged before pulling a plastic envelope from inside his jacket. “I was out looking for you tonight anyway. I was waiting for you to heal up a little bit before we talked. You’re still officially deputized with DHS last I heard, so this is your business.”
Alex took the envelopes. “Copies?”
Zeke nodded. “All three of them as well as the report where we dusted for prints. We didn’t find anything. But I don’t like the tone of those letters, Alex,” he admitted. “They worry me.”
They worried Alex now. And what worried him even more was the fact that Janey wasn’t telling her family about them. They could protect her, help watch out for her. Yet she was taking it on alone.
“You weren’t able to find out anything?” Alex asked again, even though he knew Zeke would have told him if he had.
“Nothing. And I’m worried about her. I hear the crap that goes on in this county. And I’ve been in that restaurant to hear some of the comments she gets. She’s like a damned robot in there, and people can be mean. They keep striking until they see blood. Janey doesn’t show blood. It could end up getting her hurt worse.”
Natches was going to have to know about this. If Zeke thought the youngest Mackay cousin would kill him for fooling with his sister, it was nothing compared to what Natches would do if Janey ended up hurt and he’d had no idea there was a threat against her.
“Natches is going to be pissed at you, Zeke,” Alex warned him. “He’ll know you held back on him.”
Zeke shrugged. “It won’t be the first time, will it?” His voice was filled with amusement. “Be careful, though, Alex. Janey’s not the play-around type. She’s been hurt a lot in her young life. There’s no sense in adding to it.”
No. There wasn’t. But damned if he could stay away from her now.
“I know that, Zeke.” He knew it clear to the bottom of his soul.
Zeke nodded and left the truck, leaving Alex to stare up at that damned window as the light went out. She was going to bed. His body clenched at that thought of it. Did she sleep naked? Somehow, he doubted she did. She was young, a virgin; had she learned how sensual the sheets could feel against her naked flesh?
He would show her. Show her how erotic it could be to sleep naked, curled against his body, his hands petting her through the night.
He closed his eyes and breathed out roughly. His cock was pounding in his slacks, fully engorged and torturing him with the need for sex. Not just any sex either. Oh hell now, it had to wait thirty-seven years to get picky and decide it was getting hard for only one woman.
One younger woman.
He was hooked on her kisses, and he had a feeling he was about to get hooked on much more than those perfect sweet lips.
He groaned at that thought. Natches would kill him for sure, but after that kiss earlier, Alex decided, it just might be worth it.