The dishes he came up with astounded her. Fresh greens fried in garlic and olive oil rather than the traditional country favorite of boiling them down first. Fried fresh, tossed, and served with crisp fried chicken, rolls, and mashed potatoes with a bit of cheddar cheese and sour cream added.

Traditional and unique. It was becoming one of the favorite dishes prepared there.

As usual, the kitchen was running like a well-oiled engine. The staff was too scared of the short, volatile little Italian-American to let it run any other way.

“Desmond, you’re my angel,” Janey declared, grinning as he turned and swatted at her, though his black eyes glinted with mischief as his wife, Angelina, rolled her eyes.

“Janey, his ego is bad enough.” Angelina laughed.

“And his food is perfect.” Janey blew him a kiss. “Besides, we both know you love his ego.” She wagged her brows suggestively, then ducked out of the doorway as Angelina laughingly threw a dish towel at her.

Moving through the dining room, she stopped at several tables, chatted, and made certain everything was running smoothly there before making her way back to the hostess station to relieve Hoyt.

“Everything okay?” she asked as he eased back from the small, waist-high counter and the electronic table display that sat on it.

“Everything’s running smooth,” he assured her. “Natches and Major Jansen are enjoying their meal. I replaced their server with one of the young men.” He frowned. “I’ve warned Tabitha about her flirtatiousness, if you don’t mind.”

Janey stared back at Hoyt’s sincere, concerned expression and had to bite back a protest. Hoyt thought the Mackay cousins and Alex Jansen were some kind of superheroes.

“Fine,” she finally said. She’d talk to Tabitha before she left. The girl was one of her better waitresses, and it was her friendliness and outgoing personality that had many customers asking for her by name.

Hoyt nodded and returned to the checkout counter while Janey turned and tried not to stare at Alex. He was obviously enjoying his steak. No doubt on the house and compliments of Natches. She shook her head. At least she didn’t have to worry about feeding him later. But it didn’t solve her more immediate problem of how exactly to deal with her new lover.

It was a problem that continued to plague her, especially while Alex and Natches lingered, talking to Hoyt in the lobby as Tabitha covered the register.

They lingered too long to suit her. They made her nervous. Thankfully, there were no comments that could cause Natches to lose his temper. Or Alex. She knew what Natches was capable of. He would break bones. Alex, she wasn’t as certain of. There were times she wondered if he wasn’t the more dangerous of the two.

She knew he was.

Once they were gone, she breathed a sigh of relief. And hours later, her calf muscles aching from strain, she turned the final lock on the doors and headed back to the office. And hopefully a glass of wine.

She could feel Alex waiting for her before she ever reached the office door. She could feel her body, as tired as it was, preparing for him. Standing outside the door, she pressed her forehead against the wall, closed her eyes, and tried to force back needs that she’d never had to fight before. Feelings she hadn’t known before.

Right now all she wanted to do was curl in his arms, have him hold her. Then she wanted him to fuck her until she was screaming, begging for more. And she wanted to feel him coming inside her again. Feel that heated wash of possession, even knowing the danger of it.

Tomorrow, she was going to have to call the doctor, and get in quickly. If she wasn’t pregnant now, then she soon would be. She had a feeling Alex’s little soldiers were just as effective at their job as he was at his.

She pressed her hands against the wall, palms flat, and reined in the tears that wanted to escape. She was finally free. She could finally feel a measure of security, and what had she done? She’d gone and let herself love a man who didn’t believe in love. Who didn’t believe in giving himself, only his body.

And Janey didn’t think that luscious body was going to be enough to ease the ache building inside her.

Because she wanted, hungered for, so much more from him.

And yet he was offering so much more than she had ever expected. A husband, children of her own, a chance to build the life she had dreamed of—if only she could ignore the fact that he simply “cared for”

her.

She felt the sigh that eased from her chest. It felt lost. She felt lost. Amid a county that wanted to fry her for her father’s sins, simply because there was no one else to torment, and emotions she couldn’t seem to control anymore, Janey could feel herself spiraling out of control.

It wasn’t hysteria rising inside her. It wasn’t anger. It was something so deep, so primitive, that she couldn’t explain it, couldn’t describe it, even to herself. It was a need to mark Alex, to imprint on him in the same way he had on her.

A damned love bite on his neck wasn’t enough. She wanted his heart.

She lifted her head and pushed back from the wall. Gripping the handle, she turned it slowly, opened the door and stepped inside.

And there he was, waiting for her. Stretched out on the couch, one arm behind his head as he read some kind of electronics magazine. And it must have been damned stimulating reading, because he was hard.

Janey closed the door and leaned against it, staring at the thick wedge of his cock beneath his jeans as he laid the magazine carefully on the glass-topped table.

“What do you want, baby?” His voice was a growl, a hard, rough rasp of male heat.

What did she want? Oh, she knew what she wanted, and she knew in what order she wanted it.

She licked her lower lip. “I want you. In my mouth.”

He rose to his feet. “Let’s go.” He held his hand out to her.

Janey shook her head. “I don’t want to wait. I want you here. Right here.”

He moved to her, slowly, as her gaze lifted to his. “Do you want to get naughty, sweetheart?”

Her lips tilted. “I’m a Mackay, Alex. I don’t want to get naughty; I’m naughty by birth. By genetics.

Remember?”

She wasn’t talking about her parentage. Her cousins were considered three of the wildest men in the state of Kentucky until they fell in love. And she, the lone female, had been left behind. Forced to hold herself back. Not from sex, but from being herself. From letting that core of the woman she was free.

And with this man, it could be free. She might have to protect her heart, but he held her body in the palm of his hand. And she was determined to hold at least that much of him.

“And how do you want me?” He stopped before her. Tall, broad, powerful.

“In my mouth. I want to feel you in my mouth, Alex. I want to taste you.” She wanted to own his heart, but she would make do, for tonight, with his cock. “All of you.”

“Then take it, Janey,” he ordered her softly. “If you want it, baby, take it.” He paused, then whispered,

“Own it.”

FOURTEEN

Own it. Oh, she wanted to own it, but there was so much more she wanted.

“I had a fantasy once,” she whispered.

He was breathing harder, definitely. “Really?”

“Really. Remember the night you caught me sneaking into the bar when I was eighteen?” One of the few times she had managed to get up the nerve to slip away from Dayle Mackay’s house while he was out of town, and have fun.

His lips twitched. “I remember.”

“You were furious.”

“I was so fucking hard my balls were blue.” He stood in front of her, not touching her, watching her. “I wanted to fuck you so bad I couldn’t breathe.”

Janey licked her lip, her stomach clenching at the knowledge that even then he had wanted her.

“I came home and touched myself,” she whispered, laying her fingers on his chest. “I was so wet. My clit so hard.”

“You’re killing me.”

“I imagined you were really furious,” she continued. “You tore your belt off and lashed my hands behind my back. And told me you were going to teach me what happened when good girls went to bad places.”

“Fuck.” His eyes closed; lust filled his features.

“Once you had my hands secured behind my back, you pushed me to my knees.” She could barely speak. Excitement was racing through her body, tearing through her mind.

“Janey. This is very bad.” He inhaled roughly. “You don’t want to start sex games with me, baby. I’m a fucking master. And you’re too damned tender.”

“You pushed me to my knees, and I couldn’t touch you,” she continued raggedly. “Then you pulled your cock from your unzipped jeans, pulled my hair with your other hand, and fucked my mouth while you whispered very naughty phrases. And when you came, you pulled back, because you wanted to watch

your cum shooting in my mouth. You wanted to see me taking it, accepting you. And I wanted it,” she breathed. “I still want it.”

It had been one of her favorite fantasies for years. Alex, his gaze thunderous and hard, his expression tight with sexual hunger.

As her hand trailed down his abdomen, he caught her wrist, drawing her gaze back to his.

“Playing games with me might not be a good idea,” he warned her. “Especially this kind of game, Janey.”

“Come play with me, Alex,” she murmured, hunger and need clashing inside her. “Let me be your fantasy, too.”

It slammed into his gut. It sent arcing though him a wave of heat so powerful that Alex wondered that he didn’t come in his jeans that second.

Lust. A lust unlike anything he had ever known. Hunger he’d beaten down over the years, determined to conquer. Because in the back of his mind, he’d always known he’d have her. And he didn’t want that part of himself interfering. He didn’t want to frighten her. Didn’t want to ask more than most women wanted to give.

And now it raced through his system like a runaway train, determined to have its way. He watched her eyes, his body stiffening, his dick tightening until it felt as though it would burst.

She wanted the games? The hard edge of a sexual intensity so sharp it cut through the senses like a blade? Oh, he could give it to her. Give it to her and make her love it, if it didn’t destroy both of them first.

Before she could counter, he twisted her around, pressing her firmly against the door as he felt her gasp.

“Once you open the cage, the animal doesn’t go back in,” he growled at her ear. “Be sure, Janey.”

“Are you scared, Alex?” Her ass ground against his dick.

“You should be scared.” He held her wrists in one hand and jerked his belt loose with the other.

His cock was throbbing now; he could feel the pre-cum dampening the crown. The thought of what he was about to do tightened every muscle in his body and had his balls tight with lust.

Hell, this went deeper than lust. It was a craving. A fucking addiction. One of the wildest damned fantasies he had ever known.

He looped the belt around her wrists, tightened it, and secured it. She couldn’t get loose unless he let her go. She would be restrained, helpless. He could have her any way he wanted her.

“That Mackay courage is going to get you in trouble, sugar,” he drawled, nipping her ear, tangling his fingers in her hair and tugging her head back. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

Her lashes lifted; sparkling green eyes, so light they were almost colorless, looked back at him as her pouty lips parted, her tongue stroked over them.

“You have no idea how much more I want.”

Damn. Hell.

The rasp of his zipper was the only sound in the room. He didn’t loosen his jeans, just the zipper; then he drew the swollen shaft of his cock free.

His dick was violently engorged, the crown so fiercely swollen it felt bruised.