FIVE

What now?

Stepping from the shower, Lyrica gave in to a yawn as she hurriedly dried. Wrapping the towel around her body, she quickly used the blow dryer, taking the worst of the dampness from her hair before brushing the nearly straight black mass back from her face. It trailed to the middle of her shoulders, not quite as neat as she liked it but dry enough to be comfortable.

She dropped the towel and pulled a large T-shirt with a U.S. Marines emblem on the front over her head. As it fell past her thighs, she smoothed her hands down her sides, staring down at the gray material with a sense of regret. At one time, she would have been excited to be wearing one of Graham’s shirts. Now she was too nervous, the fear that followed her still too fresh.

The shirt was something to sleep in, and she needed to sleep. Desperately.

She couldn’t think yet. Exhaustion weighed on her mind, and the memory of that bullet firing in her direction was still too recent.

She was safe.

Graham had told her that a dozen times since he’d locked the doors behind them. No one knew she was there; no one knew who had come for her.

She was safe.

For this moment.

But she couldn’t hide at Graham’s forever. And hiding wasn’t going to draw out those who had decided she no longer deserved to live.

If she wasn’t certain she was being used to draw Dawg out, then she would insist Graham call him. At the moment, she didn’t know what to do. Anyone she called could be placed in danger, and she refused to do that to her family. She wasn’t hiding behind a Dumpster anymore. She had to figure out what to do without endangering anyone else she loved.

Breathing out roughly, she stepped from the luxurious bathroom and back into Graham’s bedroom.

God, how had she let him talk her into this?

Oh, yeah—he hadn’t asked. He’d simply followed her up the stairs when she’d been heading to the guest room and pushed her into his room.

Now, standing just inside the bedroom with the safety of the bathroom behind her and the sensually, sexually dangerous appeal of Graham in front of her, she swore she was going to lose her breath completely.

“Your little bunny isn’t going to appreciate me sleeping in your bed,” she told him as he turned from the television and the news he’d been watching.

Something flared in the rich, golden brown of his eyes in that second. Quickly hidden, but not unseen.

Her heart seemed to pause for one broken second before it raced out of control. Her entire body seemed to ignite, heat pouring through her, need assailing her.

“She hasn’t slept in this bed.” Tight, a deep, brooding rasp, his voice darkened as his expression tensed.

She glimpsed the hunger he’d quickly hidden in his expression. The fierce, savage angles, the way his gaze seemed to lick over her, pausing at her unbound breasts, the hem of his T-shirt, then flicking up again.

“She sleeps on the floor, then?” she asked, knowing she hadn’t hidden the breathlessness his look caused.

Damn him. She didn’t want to need him like this. She didn’t want to ache for him like this. She wanted to look over him as easily as she did other men, rather than dreaming of him, fantasizing about him, every chance she had.

“She doesn’t sleep on the floor.” He shrugged. “The connecting room.” He gestured to a closed door but didn’t finish the thought even as she watched him expectantly.

“So you don’t play in your own bed?” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I want to sleep in my regular bed. I like it fine. I’m not sleeping wherever your latest fuck sleeps.”

His jaw bunched almost violently, the muscles there jumping for several long seconds as he obviously ground his teeth over whatever he found offensive in her statement. And she really didn’t give a damn what he found offensive. She’d stopped caring when she’d realized how little taking her would mean to him.

“You’ll sleep right here, in my bed.” The snap in his voice had a surge of nervousness racing up her spine. “This is the most secure room in the house, the only one I’m one hundred percent certain can’t be bugged or accessed without my knowledge. That means this is where you will stay until I can figure out what the hell is going on.”

Her eyes widened.

“What about the kitchen?” He’d fixed breakfast, though they hadn’t talked much, she remembered.

“I took precautions. For the short time we were there, the precautions were enough. Over time, they’re not foolproof. And by god, I want foolproof,” he informed her, his tone deadly now.

Moving to the bed and jerking down the blankets on the left side, he then turned back to her, his expression still tense, his gaze fierce. “Sleep on this side. It’s the safest.”

“Why is it the safest?” She wondered if that was a question she should have asked at the moment. “Maybe I like sleeping on the right side of the bed.”

Did she really want the answer?

“Because I’m right-handed,” he drawled, the lazy response spoiled by the pure anticipation that flickered in his gaze. “I keep my weapon in easy access and I don’t want to be hindered by reaching for it with my left. And, baby, I’ve checked on you when you’ve stayed the night here. You sleep firmly on the left side of the bed and rarely move.”

Nope, she shouldn’t have asked. And she sure as hell didn’t need to know he’d watched her sleep.

“Perv.” She threw the accusation at him with a quick, disgusted narrowing of her eyes. “Really, Graham, I’m sure I should be surprised. But I guess I’m really not.”

The look that came over his face was one that had her stomach tightening, her nipples swelling, and the sensitive flesh of her clit pulsing with heated need.

Dammit, masturbating hadn’t been on her agenda before going to sleep, but at this rate . . .

“Perv?” he asked softly. “I can show you perv, sugar.”

Oh, yeah, she just bet he could. She had no doubts in her mind.

“Really?” Disbelief colored the short, mocking laugh that fell from her lips, though the question was weakened by the breathlessness that attacked her once again. “Sorry, stud, I never was much into being part of a crowd. I’m rather unique, you know.”

“Definitely unique.” The agreement was made with the air of a man who was most definitely considering the uniqueness of what she wasn’t offering.

The key word? Wasn’t.

But still, her knees were weak, her flesh too sensitive, the exhaustion that had been pulling at her suddenly dissipating, though a far too sensual drowsiness pulled at her as he began moving slowly toward her.

“I’m not sleeping with you, Graham. Forget it,” she snapped.

“The Chinese say if you save a life, then it’s forever your responsibility,” he informed her softly, completely ignoring the warning in her statement.

“Since we’re not in China—” she began, trying to speak over the rapid-fire beat of her heart.

“Doesn’t matter.” He was in front of her before she could take more than a few steps back. “I saved your life. You’re mine now, Lyrica.”

His chest brushed against the material of the shirt covering her breasts, exciting her already hardened nipples as she took another step away from him, her back meeting the wall.

She’d tried to ignore the fact that his chest was bare, that the light sprinkling of dark hair over its broad plane appeared far too warm. Just as she’d tried to ignore the fact that he, too, had showered. His hair was still damp, the fleece pants he wore loose. But they could never be loose enough to hide the erection rising hard and impressive beneath the material.

“Look at you,” he whispered, catching her hands as she moved to push against his chest, lifting them and securing them to the wall as his fingers curled between hers. “Wearing my shirt, naked and soft beneath it, and so damned certain you can rule me with all that feminine arrogance spitting from your eyes.”

Her eyes widened at the accusation. “I have no desire—”

“Don’t you?” Heavy, thickly lashed, his eyelids drifted over the hunger gleaming in his gaze, his attempt to hide it a forgotten exercise. “You have desire, Lyrica, and we both know it. You’ve been teasing me with those pretty emerald eyes since the first day we met six years ago.”

That first time. He’d been at the marina her cousin and his family owned, driving a wicked-fast ski boat, wearing nothing but cutoff jeans and dark glasses. Dawg had introduced them and Lyrica had fallen in love.

“That ended last winter.” It might have sounded more convincing if she hadn’t melted against him as pleasure ran through her body.

He was so warm. So strong.

His head lowered, the strong curve of his lips whispering over hers, the light rasp of the short beard, so bad boy and roguish, brushing against her flesh.

He was a rogue. A bad boy.

Dawg had been warning her about him for years and she couldn’t seem to make herself stay away from him.

“Don’t,” she whispered as strong teeth tugged at her lower lip. “I won’t be one of your women. You’ll break me if you try to turn me into one.”

She knew he would. She’d realized that during the blizzard, which had seemed to rage inside her soul as well as outside. A freezing, icy wasteland that had never thawed, never warmed without his touch. It was thawing now, though. Weeping, flowing from the needy depths of her body to slicken the bare flesh of her sex and her clenched thighs.

“Will I? Give me your kiss, Lyrica. Let’s see if you break or just melt around me like hot sugar.”

She was already melting.

Her lips parted for him, a moan whispering out as his covered them, his kiss hungry and mind-numbing.

Pleasure ricocheted through her system as languorous need built inside her. Straining toward him, her tongue met his, tasting him. She was drunk on the sensations rioting through her, becoming high on a pleasure she couldn’t resist.

He could be addictive.

He was addictive.

She had hurt for months after he’d held her during that snowstorm. Every cell in her body had ached for him, ached for the release that had been so close, that had teased and tempted only to be taken from her so quickly.

“Graham—” She strained against him, that ache intensifying now, tearing at her senses, heating her body.

Aching.

It hurt.

She needed him that desperately, ached for him that much. How much worse would it be after he had her? After she knew what she was missing, after the pleasure consumed her, burned through her, and left nothing but ash?

Could she bear it?

“No.” She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t let it happen.

“No?” he whispered with wicked eroticism, his free hand gripping her hip, holding her still as the heavy length of his erection pressed into her stomach.

It was far too tempting.

The feel of it made her far too hungry for him.

“Graham,” she protested breathlessly.

Hell no, she didn’t really want him to stop—she simply had no choice.

“I don’t hear a lot of certainty in your tone.” His lips feathered from her jaw to her neck.

The feel of his mouth moving over the sensitive flesh, stroking it, sent a frisson of exquisite pleasure raking across her nerve endings, drawing a startled gasp of surprise from her at the extremity of it.

“You’re just playing with me,” she cried out weakly, even as her head tilted to the side to allow him free rein against the rioting nerve endings pulsing beneath the flesh of her neck. “You know you are, Graham. I won’t be your toy.”

A cry fell from her lips as his free hand pushed beneath the hem of the borrowed shirt, moving unerringly to the swollen curve of her breast. Immediately, one exquisitely hard nipple was caught between his thumb and forefinger, and he rolled it with wicked experience.

“Oh god . . .” Her knees weakened.

Sensation raced from the imprisoned tip to the swollen bud of her clit. Pleasure coursed through the heated nerve endings, sending flash fire strikes of clenching, painful pleasure whipping through her vagina.

It was so good. So good.

“You’re such a little liar,” he growled, continuing to hold her wrists to the wall above her head as his teeth raked over her collarbone. “You want this just as damned bad as I do.”

Probably more, she thought, dazed, immersed in her body’s rush to ecstasy.

Before she could process the move, he had the borrowed shirt lifted, his hands releasing her wrists to whip the material over her head as he turned her, pushing her face-first against the wall.

Palms flat against the barrier, her breathing short and choppy, she moaned as his hands caressed down her sides before gripping the curves of her ass firmly. Electric heat raced from where his lips pressed against her shoulder before trailing kisses to her nape, then moving slowly, with shudder-inducing sensations, down her spine.

What was he doing to her?

She’d never read about this. The romances she’d stolen from her sister Zoey had never described this. Or described how she was supposed to handle it.

“You have to stop,” she whispered, closing her eyes as she rolled her forehead against the wall.

He filled his hands with the curves of her ass, parting them.

Her eyes flew open, a gasp escaping her as the damp warmth of his tongue slid down the crevice, pausing only momentarily at the tight, dark entrance between them. She went to her tiptoes, wicked pleasure shocking her.

Just as quickly her thighs were spread by broad, strong hands, wide shoulders holding them apart as he turned her, sitting between her thighs as his hands gripped her hips and his tongue speared into the drenched entrance of her vagina.

Shock no longer applied.

Disbelief was long gone.

As quickly as Graham made the move and penetrated her with licking, hungry strokes of his tongue, her senses were flung into such fiery chaos that reality no longer existed. Fighting to breathe, her fingers outspread, with the pads pressing firmly into the wall, Lyrica found her eyes opening.

Looking down the line of her body, she met the golden gaze of the man devouring her, flecks of rich, deep gold gleaming in his eyes as he stared up at her. As he let her watch, let her see his tongue as it retreated from the clenched depths of her pussy to move with languid strokes to the throbbing bud of her clit.

“You’ll destroy me,” she cried out, one hand moving from the wall to spear into the damp waves of his hair as he gave her clit an erotic, luxurious kiss.

His lips tightened on the bundle of nerves, suckling at it heatedly as his tongue flicked over it before licking with a deeper pressure just to the side, where the firm strokes seemed to ignite a spark that burned hotter, deeper through her sex.

She couldn’t fight.

With one hand he urged her thighs farther apart, the pad of his thumb sliding against the narrow entrance before parting her flesh, stretching it slowly and slipping inside. There, the rasp of the callused pad stroked, caressed, moving inside her as more of the slick heat flowed from her and carnal need began beating at her senses.

With the stroke of his thumb, the fiery lash of his tongue at her clit, a wicked, tantalizing pleasure and decadent intensity rushed through her like a flaming wave. Heat built and spread, igniting, and in a split second exploded through her senses in fiery waves of ecstasy that she knew she’d never recover from. A pleasure that seemed never to end.

She shook, her body jerking at each slamming tide of rapture, and a distant part of her, an instinctive spark of self-preservation, warned her, screamed at her, demanded that she stop the headlong rush into her own destruction.

A destruction born of a pleasure she didn’t know if she could deny herself.

“Fuck!” Graham’s curse was barely heard, the knowledge that he was moving from between her thighs, barely registering.

The broad, heated crest of his cock parting the bare folds of her sex ignited the need inside her once again. A need the violence of her orgasm had only increased.

“Graham . . .” Her voice was heavy, her senses whirling between the vicious, overwhelming need and that small glimmer of self-preservation. “I’m a virgin.”

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, rolled down her cheek, and preceded the hitch of her breathing as she fought back the heavy sob fighting to be free.

Was she insane?

The thick crest of his erection was pressed against the clenched entrance of her pussy, ready to thrust inside her, to send them both spiraling out of control, and she had to open her mouth?

Was she crazy?

She knew he would break her heart. Loving him as she did, aching for him as she had, it would only be worse now. It would scar her soul. It would tear her apart from the inside out until there was nothing left of the woman she had been, and the woman she would become would be a stranger to her.

And Graham would be Graham. Too wicked, too experienced, too impossible to contain or to ever fall in love with the innocent woman who had loved him from the moment she’d met him at a sun-drenched marina six years before.

He would just be Graham.

And she would become no more than another of the little playthings whose names his sister could never remember, and whose presence in his bed would be easily forgotten.

She would be no more than the current flavor of the month . . .

—

“What did you say?”

He was dying.

Graham stood poised at the very entrance to rapture, at the portal of agonizing pleasure, and he couldn’t push through. The head of his dick throbbed violently, blood pounding at the thick crest, and all he could hear was the whispered sob of a woman who knew only how to love. She had no idea how to just feel good. How to just take the pleasure for what it was, wring every last ounce of ecstasy from each touch, and still survive without hurting.

What he would do to her would go beyond destruction of the innocence in her eyes.

The sob that whispered from her was a sound he had never expected, despite the fact that he should have known. He did know, he amended.

She was a woman who still believed in love.

God help him, no woman could be that good an actress, could she?

“You’re what?” Lowering his head to press his forehead against her trembling shoulder, he swallowed tightly, fighting with every iota of self-control he possessed to pull back, to ease his tortured flesh from the slick, heated entrance of her body.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice shook. The words, so soft they were barely coherent, brought an agonized groan from his chest.

Damn her.

Damn him.

God, he was dying to have her. He couldn’t force himself away from her, couldn’t stand the thought of jacking off another night to the remembered taste and feel of her.

“You think this ends here?” he growled, the heightened lust and agonized need ripping at his senses. “That being a virgin is enough to keep me out of your body?”

A muffled sob sounded from her. “I’m sorry, Graham. I’m so sorry . . .”

“Six months.” He nipped at her shoulder, licked over the mark. “It’s been six months since I tasted you, Lyrica, and I’m so damned desperate to fuck you . . .”

He jerked back, her instinctive cry causing a grimace to tighten his expression. He pulled her around before dragging her to an easy chair and pushing her into it.

Surprise rounded her richly emerald eyes as the position placed her at the perfect height to allow him to push past her parted lips.

Gripping the base of his cock, he stared down at her, daring her to deny him. He was within seconds of begging her not to deny him.

He had to clench his teeth to hold back the broken growl of anticipation when she reached out, fingers trembling, to curl around the thick length, just above his own hand.

How innocent was she? he wondered. How much experience had the redneck bastards sniffing after her given her?

Was her innocence physical only?

Keeping her gaze locked with his, Graham slid his fingers into the mass of black silk at the side of her face, clenched, and held her still as he pressed forward.

—

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

What was she doing?

What was she allowing to happen?

The dark, plum-shaped crest touched her lips as they parted. The heavy veins that wrapped around the thick shaft pulsed and pounded beneath her grip.

“That’s it, baby,” he crooned, his voice tight, rough. “Part those pretty lips for me.”

Her first taste of him was a shock to her senses. She could taste herself, a delicate, feminine taste she hadn’t expected. Beneath it was a darker, male taste. Like a coming storm edging over the mountains.

Then he was filling her mouth, the clench and throb of his flesh pulsing against her tongue as she let it rub against the underside, just beneath the head.

The moan that slipped past her lips shocked her.

The hunger that rose inside her wiped away her hesitation.

This she had read about. She had watched it. It seemed a bit more familiar than what he had done to her.

She tightened her lips around the wide crest as he pressed deeper, filling her mouth with him, his hips flexing, thrusting in shallow strokes as she began to suck.

“Ah, baby, your mouth,” he groaned, the heavy lust and pleasure filling his voice and sending shocking waves of pleasure racing through Lyrica. “It’s so damned good . . .”

He wasn’t touching her. Just his pleasure, his verbalization of it, and she could feel the rising chaos threatening to overtake her again.

“Use both hands.” His voice was thicker, heavier. “Stroke the shaft for me, Lyrica. Stroke it while your hot little mouth makes me crazy.”

Dazed, growing higher by the second on the knowledge that she could make him so hard, so desperate, Lyrica tightened her mouth on him. Drawing on the flesh filling her mouth, stretching her lips, a moan escaped her throat, vibrated against the heated width of his erection, and had his hand tightening in the hair at the side of her head.

“Lyrica, sweetheart . . .” The pace of his thrusts changed, lengthening, quickening as her fingers stroked around the heated flesh of his shaft.

The heavy throb of his erection against her tongue increased as the salty male taste of pre-cum spilled on her tongue.

She was dying for him.

Whimpering in desperation, her hips rocking against the seat of the chair, thighs clenching at the burning heat in her clit, Lyrica knew she was becoming lost in the pleasure again. First in hers, now in his.

She was fighting a losing battle.

“That’s it. Ah hell, Lyrica. That’s it, baby, suck my cock, sweetheart. Rub your tongue right there . . .” His voice thickened. “Ah hell, it’s better than every dream I’ve had of fucking your pretty mouth. Every fantasy.”

She cried out, the sound lost in his heavy groan as his thrusts increased, the thick flesh driving nearly to her throat, pulsing and throbbing . . .

“That’s it,” he groaned again. “Fuck. Baby. I won’t last much longer. Look at me, Lyrica.”

Forcing her eyes open, she stared into the savage expression above her. His eyes were even more golden than before, dark blond hair falling over his forehead, the short, bad-boy length of his beard and mustache shadowing a strong jaw and chin. Perspiration beaded his face, ran in a lazy rivulet down the side of his cheek.

“Pull back, Lyrica,” he demanded roughly. “Fuck. I’m going to fill that pretty mouth if you don’t pull back.”

Pull back?

She hadn’t come this far just to pull back.

Tightening her lips on him, sucking at him harder, deeper, another moan escaped her throat.

“Ah fuck. Hell. Lyrica. Damn you. Damn you, take it. Every fucking drop.”

A hard throb of his cock and the first heated jet of his release hit the back of her throat.

Both hands were in her hair, holding her head still as short, quick strokes sent another pulse of salty male cum to follow the first. Then he was groaning her name, burying himself deep enough she nearly choked as several more quick, hot pulses of sperm shot to her throat and sent a rush of pleasure to explode in her womb.

How was that?

Crying, shuddering, her body was so tight, so racked by sensation and heat, that Lyrica felt a sob tearing from her rather than the groan she expected. She felt abraded from the inside out by the emotions rushing through her, mixing with her pleasure, excitement, adrenaline.

She was flying through space and time and nothing, no one, existed outside this moment, this man, and the pleasure he’d dragged her into.

—

Dressed, the dried sweat washed from his flesh, Graham sat in the easy chair next to the bed and stared at Lyrica as she slept, barely a half hour later. She’d collapsed into the chair as he’d pulled from her mouth, leaning into the upholstered back, the way her eyes drifted closed and exhaustion suddenly marked her expression breaking his heart.

She’d barely stayed awake through his careful cleaning of her face, breasts, and thighs. She’d showered, but excitement had laid a sheen of moisture over her flesh that would be extremely uncomfortable as it dried.

She needed to sleep.

He’d stolen precious reserves of energy from her. Energy she shouldn’t have possessed after the hellish night she’d endured as she fought to race from a killer.

Reaching out, he brushed back the long fall of hair that shadowed her fragile face.

Delicate black brows arched perfectly over her closed eyes. The thick, lush lashes that lay against her cheeks were surprisingly long. High cheekbones, that straight, autocratic Mackay nose, and stubborn chin.

She was so damned beautiful she still took his breath just as easily as she had that first afternoon he’d seen her standing on the dock of Mackay Marina. Short, too slender, her emerald eyes haunted, her face suffused with a flush as her gaze stroked over him . . .

He’d hardened instantly and hated himself for it. She’d been fucking eighteen. Barely eighteen, and all he could think of was pulling her beneath his body and fucking them both silly.

Until he’d come up on the wrong end of her cousin’s fist a few hours later.

He almost grinned as he cupped his chin and worked it at the memory of Natches’s blow.

Natches had outlined briefly, but very clearly, exactly what would happen to the son of a bitch who dared to follow through on the promise Graham’s eyes had been making as he’d stared at Lyrica.

Not that Graham hadn’t hit back. He had.

Like a snarling bear with a smarting dick, he’d put Natches on his ass before informing him that even on his worst day he’d never taken advantage of a kid. Not that Lyrica had been a kid. She was eighteen, lush, and so damned beautiful he’d barely been able to stand it. But she’d still been far too vulnerable, far too innocent for the likes of Graham Brock.

Tonight, she’d proved it.

Too innocent.

A virgin, and he’d fucked her mouth with a desperation and total lack of consideration that shocked the hell out of him.

And what made it worse?

He knew damned good and well he was going to be between her thighs, buried balls deep and fucking them both into a release that might end up getting him killed.

She was Natches Mackay’s favorite female cousin, and he was pure hell with that sniper rifle he still kept cleaned and ready to bury a bullet in a man’s head. Once he and his cousin Rowdy and Dawg Mackay—Lyrica’s brother—returned, they’d all three come after his hide.

Damn. It would be worth it, he thought grimly. The pleasure he found in this woman’s touch would be worth facing the wrath of the Mackays, their friend (and vengeful ex–government agent) Timothy Cranston, and whoever the hell was trying to kill her.

He’d take out the bastards who’d dare to terrify her. He’d fight her brother, both her cousins, and whoever Cranston wanted to send out for him.

It would be worth it.

But then what?

The question echoed through his mind, something he didn’t want to think about.

What then?

He wasn’t a forever man and he knew it. The option didn’t even exist. His secrets went deep and they threatened to destroy him if he wasn’t extremely careful. Him as well as the fragile, delicate woman he couldn’t seem to stay away from, if those secrets weren’t as dead as he hoped.

Added to that, someone was trying to kill her, no doubt as an act of vengeance against her brother and cousins.

The Mackays thought they’d taken care of the last of the homeland terrorists determined to destroy Somerset, Kentucky, and the world as they knew it last year. They were wrong.

Evidently they were still there.

Well hidden. Well funded. Determined to remain hidden and to destroy anyone who dared to threaten them.

But how in the hell did Lyrica Mackay threaten them? And why go after her and draw her brother’s attention back to them?

There were far too many fucking questions and he didn’t like the feel of any of them.

One thing was for damned sure, though—to get to Lyrica, they’d have to go through him first.