NINETEEN
Kelly was furious. The anger that sizzled through her carried her through the afternoon and into that evening.
It was the fear making her angry and she knew it. It was making her crazy. And Rowdy, Dawg, and Natches weren’t helping matters. They were making a target of themselves rather than her, daring a madman to strike out at them. Endangering all their lives, and it scared her to death. And that’s where the anger stemmed. Toward the bastard who thought she should belong to him rather than the man she loved. A monster who wanted to terrorize her because she wasn’t the good girl he had decided she should be.
She snorted at that thought. The fantasies she’d had over the years where those three men were concerned were anything but good. But they were fantasies for her. She liked the fantasies, she liked pretending she was daring enough, cool enough, to control Rowdy and his cousins.
But the truth of the matter was that she was anything but cool, calm, or collected when it came to Rowdy. And as hot as the thought of having all three men focused on her was, as hot as it had been in the boat, something still held her back. Made her wary.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
She whirled around with a gasp, wishing now that she had turned the lights on. Natches was shadowed from the hall light, a dark form leaning against the wide entrance into the room.
“You didn’t hurt my feelings,” she snapped. “You pissed me off.”
He sighed. “I didn’t mean to piss you off either.”
Natches flipped on the light. He grinned at her as she watched him warily.
“Do you remember how Dawg and I rushed to the hospital after you were attacked?” he asked, his voice soft, a bit sad.
And they had. Ray swore the doctors had almost had to call security to get them to leave the hall outside her room.
“I remember.”
He brushed back the long hair from his devilishly handsome face. Natches was a charmer, with the face of a fallen angel and eyes that invited a woman to be bad.
“We knew you were ours even when you were a little girl,” he said reflectively. “Not in the sense we knew it after you grew up, but we claimed you. Watched out for you—”
“I love Rowdy, Natches,” she whispered, halting what she feared was coming. “And don’t try to tell me you love me in the same way, because we both know better.”
His lips tightened. “We’re a set. You’re destroying it, Kelly.”
He stared back at her, his light green eyes wary and somber but she could feel the anger in him. She was changing the rules and he didn’t like it.
“I don’t mean to, Natches,” she whispered. “I can’t be what you want, I can’t do what you need.”
“You knew that was part of it,” he growled. “Everyone knows that’s part of it.”
Kelly tipped her head to the side, watching him. Of the three cousins, Natches had always been the most alone. Dawg had his sister after his parent’s death, as well as Rowdy’s parents. Natches’s parents were cold, almost inhumanly so. Scions of the county, with more money than they needed and less heart than anyone Kelly had ever met. How a brother of Ray’s could have turned out like that, she couldn’t figure.
And Natches had always suffered for it, until he was old enough to leave. Dawg and Rowdy were his family. They were all he really claimed. And though she couldn’t see him as needy, she could see the regret that egged at him, the fierce determination not to lose that connection he had with the other two men.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “What Rowdy does when he leaves me—”
“You think he’s going to leave you?” Mocking laughter filled his voice then. “Hell, Kelly, what do you think we were fighting over when you walked in? Rowdy gave us the ‘hands off.’ He’s gone all white-knight possessive on us for some damned reason, and it has to be because you refused to do it.”
She stared back at him in surprise.
“He did what?”
“You heard me,” he grumbled. “Son of a bitch dared us to touch you. You have his dick tied in so many knots he doesn’t know what he wants.”
Now, that just didn’t sound like Rowdy. Rowdy wasn’t a man who didn’t know what he wanted. And he always meant what he said.
“I didn’t know that was what you were arguing over—”
“Because you’re not the one who would have problems understanding the concept.” Rowdy’s deep, angry voice broke in on the conversation as he stepped into the smaller entrance next to the stairs.
He stared back at Natches, his eyes narrowed, his body corded and tense.
“Hell, back down, Rowdy,” Natches sighed. “I just wanted to apologize for hurting her feelings, not take you on.”
Natches pushed his fingers wearily through his hair. She could feel the sense of resignation moving around him and the sadness of it pricked at her.
Kelly shivered as Rowdy moved next to her, his arm going around her waist, pulling her against the warmth of his body. As he did she caught the look that flashed across Natches’s face. It was so quick that she wondered if she imagined it. Envy, regret.
“I accept your apology, Natches,” she told him softly. “And I’m sorry, this isn’t what I intended.”
Rowdy tensed at her side.
Natches’s grin was crooked, charming, but the sight of it made her chest ache. It was a ruse. Natches wasn’t taking this well, and of the three men, she wondered if perhaps he was the one who needed the sharing the most.
“Time for me to slip out and see if we can catch our evil neighborhood stalker now.” He straightened from the doorway, flexing his shoulders as he turned toward the hallway. “Catch ya’ll later.”
As he disappeared she felt Rowdy’s hands slide through her hair.
“Are you okay?” He tilted her head back, staring down at her with a slight frown.
“I’m not an emotional wreck, Rowdy.” She grimaced at the concern in his eyes. “You’re suddenly treating me with kid gloves and it’s getting on my nerves.”
“What do you mean by that?” His frown darkened as she moved away from him then turned to face him.
“You told Dawg and Natches to keep their hands off me?” She leaned against the center island and crossed her arms beneath her breasts as she stared back at him. “Why?”
His eyes narrowed. “We’ll discuss this later.”
He turned away to the fridge, opening it to grab a beer as she stared back at him in surprise.
“Says who?”
“Me.” He unscrewed the bottle top with a hard jerk of his fingers.
“And you think that perhaps this doesn’t concern me in some way? That maybe I don’t have a say in it?”
“Drop this, Kelly,” he warned her, his voice grating as his eyes flamed back at her. “This isn’t a conversation I’m ready to get involved in where you’re concerned, not right now.”
“Fine. I’ll drop it.” She uncrossed her arms, straightened her shoulders, and lifted her chin defiantly. Drop it? Oh she could drop it all right. “I’ll drop it completely, Rowdy. And you can go to hell at the same time you find yourself someplace else to sleep. If I’m not able to decide for myself whether or not I’ll screw another man, then I’ll be damned if I have the brains to decide if I want to screw you.”
She stalked from the kitchen, fists clenched, her teeth grinding. God, when he had gotten so damned arrogant? So impossible to deal with? She didn’t know when it had happened, but where she was concerned, it could stop now.
When had she become so damned stubborn?
Rowdy watched Kelly as she stalked from the kitchen, then listened to her stomp up the stairs muttering to herself before he moved.
Self-control, he had tried to warn himself. Things weren’t exactly stable right now. Between the stalker, his argument with Natches, and his own revelations about himself, he knew his temper wasn’t exactly calm. But this was just too much.
Moving quickly up the stairs behind her, he caught the bedroom door as she was attempting to close it, pushing his way in before he slammed it forcibly.
“Did I ask you to follow me?” she hissed, her gray eyes dark and gleaming with irritation as she faced him.
“You didn’t have to ask.”
Before she could blast him with whatever her lips were opening to say, he jerked her to him, lowered his head, and stole the sound with his kiss.
It was like sinking into ecstasy, fire, all the pleasure he could have ever imagined. He caught her little gasp with his lips, felt her hands grip his shoulders, her nails biting into the fabric of his shirt as he turned and lifted her, pressing her against the wall as he devoured the sweetness of her lips.
Her kiss. He loved her kiss. The feel of her lips softening beneath his, her body straining against him as his hands moved over it, pushing beneath the thin material of her shirt to cup her swollen breasts.
She was ready for him. He could feel it in the way her tongue met his, the hot little moans smothered by his lips. God, he had dreamed of this. Dreamed of touching her. Loving her.
Pulling his head back, he jerked her shirt over her head, staring down at her, fighting to breathe as he watched the heavy lift and fall of the firm mounds.
He loved her breasts. His hands cupped them again, fitting over the fragile lace of her bra, his thumbs raking over the tender tips as he stared back at her.
“You’re mine.” He could hear the guttural tone of his voice, but he also saw the effect of it in her eyes.
They darkened in hunger as she drew in a hard breath, her tongue licking over her swollen lips.
“I need you,” he whispered then, desperately, hungrily. “All of you, baby. Sweet and hot, and crying for me.”
He took her lips again before he made a fool of himself. Before he went to his knees and begged her to see, to understand the selfishness rising inside him. It sliced through him like the sharpest blade. The thought of another man touching what was his, taking the innocence, the sweetness of Kelly was more than he could bear.
“Rowdy…” She shuddered in his grip as he released her bra, drawing it from her shoulders before his hands went to the clasp of her jeans.
“This is mine.” He worked his hand between them to push her jeans roughly over her hips before cupping the hot, wet mound of her pussy.
His fingers delved beneath the silk of her panties, so desperate for the feel of her that taking time to completely undress her was more than he could consider.
His fingers moved through silken heat, parting the bare folds to sink into the sweet, tight depths of her slick core.
She arched into the touch, pressing against him, driving his finger further inside her as she cried into the kiss. The hot little sounds she made as he touched her had his cock throbbing in demand. He needed her. Needed to taste her, to touch her.
Now. He had to claim her.
The sharp knock at the door had his muscles clenching further in denial.
“Rowdy, we have movement out here.” Dawg’s quiet voice was dark with imminent violence. “You in on this, man?”
“No.” Kelly clutched at his shoulders as he moved back.
Son of a bitch, if he caught the bastard stalking her he was going to rip him apart with his bare hands.
“I’ll be back.” He pulled her jeans quickly back in place.
“Don’t go out there,” she cried out, her face paling as her fingers gripped his arm. “It’s too dark Rowdy, and you don’t know where he could be hiding. Wait—”
There wasn’t a chance in hell he wasn’t going out there.
“You’re mine,” he snarled, sealing the claim with a hard kiss to her lips. “All mine, Kelly. And that bastard is going to figure that out at the end of my fist or my gun. I don’t care which.”
He pulled away from her, jerking the door open and closing it before Dawg could see her, her sweet breasts rising over the lace of her bra, her pale face staring back at him with equal amounts of fear and anger.
The fear was going to be gone.
“Let’s go hunting.” He took the rifle Dawg handed to him and headed downstairs.