“I know what she did,” he whispered, as though reading her mind.

Janey cringed at Alex’s words and tried to push him away from her.

“No, Janey,” he whispered. “No secrets between us. Not like this. I won’t hurt you.”

“Yes, you will,” she protested, her voice hoarse. She couldn’t seem to maintain that veil of cool disinterest with Alex as she did with everyone else. “You won’t be able to help it.”

He lifted his eyes from her breasts to her face. “Do you think I’m that rough?” he asked her.

“You could probably make me beg you for any touch you wanted to give me,” she admitted. “But I can’t handle you, Alex. Not right now. Not like this.”

He grimaced. “No games, Janey. I promise. I’m too old for games. We agree to just this, and no one gets hurt.”

Just this? Just sex?

She watched him, miserably aware that she wanted him with a strength that was going to destroy her.

She knew it would. She could feel it coming.

When his lips touched hers, there was no fight left in her. Except the fight to see how much deeper she could make him kiss her. Her lips parted beneath his, a moan slipping past her throat as her nails dug into the material covering his shoulders.

Tongues dueled. Licked. Tasted. One hand moved from beneath her breasts to cup her neck. His hand was so large that his palm and fingers curled from the side of her neck all the way around the back of it.

His fingers were calloused, rasping against her flesh.

He was so big, so hard. She wanted to feel him over her, around her, surrounding her. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her hands flattening to feel the flex and power of his muscles beneath them.

God, that turned her on. The way he kissed her, the way his muscles tensed as the kiss deepened, the way he groaned into their kiss, a sound as hungry as her own. But it was darker, sexier.

“Damn, I love your lips, Janey.” He sipped at them, nipped at them. “They fit me, baby.”

Janey forced her eyes open in time to watch his head lower.

She stiffened as his tongue stroked over her collarbone.

“I’m dying to taste your nipples,” he rasped, his hand moving from her neck back below the breast, where it had rested before. “I want to feel them hard and hot against my tongue. I bet they’re sweet. As sweet as candy.”

His hands moved, drawing the straps of her bra from her shoulders, easing the cups just beneath her nipples.

“Alex. Alex. I don’t know about this.” She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t seem to draw enough oxygen into her lungs. Couldn’t find the strength to push him away.

“Are you scared of me, Janey?” He breathed the words over one nipple. “Do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

She shook her head, but she didn’t know if that was an answer.

“Watch me, darlin’,” he crooned, looking up at her, his lips lowering farther. “Watch me love this pretty nipple. See what it’s supposed to feel like.”

At the first touch of his lips, sensation tore through her nipple to her clit. Janey arched, driving the tip between his lips, against the moist, hot flesh of his tongue as he licked over it.

She froze. She swore the ability to breathe was forgotten as she felt the pleasure erupt inside her. Like flames. Like tiny explosions set off beneath her flesh and searing her with their heat.

“How pretty,” he murmured, pursing his lips and kissing the tip before sucking it gently, easily, back into his mouth.

Just her nipple. He licked it with his tongue as he sucked it slow and easy. His palm cupped her breast, nearly swallowing the curve before she could even consider fear. Calloused palm and fingers, just holding

the swollen flesh. Cupping it. Framing it as he sucked at the hard, sensitive tip.

“Alex.” She was breathing again, rougher than before. She felt fevered, too hot, too sensitive. She had been cold earlier. She shouldn’t be hot now.

His head lifted, but only to move to her other nipple. As he treated it to the same careful caresses, Janey closed her eyes and fought to hold on to her senses. She was sure there was a reason why she shouldn’t be allowing this. She knew there was, but the reason slipped beneath the pleasure.

Her hands held the back of his head now, trying to force him closer as she arched to him, watched his lips drawing on her, the way his cheeks hollowed as he suckled her. He kissed the hard nipples. Let her watch him lick them.

Oh, that was so good. Watching his tongue lick over the hard tip, curl against it. Her thighs clenched as sensation tore across her nerve endings again, shattering between her thighs, filling her clit, the aching depths of her pussy. She didn’t know how to fight this. She didn’t want to fight it. She wanted it to continue forever.

“I knew how sweet your pretty nipples would be.” He kissed one peak, then the other. “Hard against my tongue. Like sugar candy.”

Her nails dug into the back of his head, wanting him there again, wanting her flesh in his mouth again.

“I’m going to kiss your clit just like that, Janey. Kiss it slow and sweet. Draw it into my mouth and lick it nice and soft while I suck all its sweetness.”

She wasn’t going to survive this. She was going to melt into a puddle of pure need at his feet if he didn’t stop saying these things to her.

“Then I’m going to push my tongue into your tight pussy.” His expression tightened, lust flaring hard and deep in his eyes. “I’m starving for you, Janey. For every touch, every fucking taste.”

She was going to orgasm from his words alone. She was going to flame out of control and scream out in need if he didn’t do something. Fast. She could feel herself peaking, feel the pleasure building and tearing through her until she didn’t think she would survive the culmination of it.

His hands gripped the band of her pants, drew them down as she lifted to him. She needed this, too. She wanted it. Wanted his mouth on her. Wanted the pleasure and the torturous heat tearing through her.

Her lips parted to beg. Her breath had gathered to push the words out, when a hard, loud knock sounded at the door.

“Delivery, Ms. Mackay,” a young male voice called out. “Hey, hurry. Your cat’s growling at me.”

Janey flinched. Alex moved.

He pushed the straps and cups of her bra back in place and had her shirt over her head before she could blink. His expression was no longer sensual, no longer filled with lust. It was tighter now, harder.

She pushed her arms slowly through the shirtsleeves and readjusted her pants. Yeah, now she remembered why she should have never allowed him to touch her.

Shame burned through her. Jerking from the couch, she moved quickly to the kitchen, aware of him behind her, sliding to the side of the door. He checked the privacy peephole before moving to the side, where he wouldn’t be seen.

Damn him. Damn Dayle Mackay and this town and her own stupid, traitorous body.

She jerked several bills from the kitchen drawer where she kept extra cash and moved to the door. She shot Alex a glare, hating him as much as she hated herself at that moment.

She swung the door open, pasting a smile on her face for the young delivery boy. Fat Cat shot into the house, sliding past her legs and heading for his food bowl, no doubt.

She handed the boy the money. “Keep the change, Robby,” she told him as she took the food.

“Wow, thanks, Miss Mackay. And tell your family I said hey. Natches was in the pizza house last week right at closing. He had to sweet-talk the owner into opening the kitchen long enough to bake his wife one of those pizzas she’s been craving.”

Another forced smile, a little laugh. “Chaya likes her pizza.”

“Yeah. And always right at or right after closing.” Robby grinned. “They always give Natches grief, but he talks them into it.”

“He can be a charmer,” Janey agreed.

“Night, then, Miss Mackay.” Robby nodded his shaggy head. “Take care.”

“Good night, Robby.”

She closed the door and locked it. She paused for a second, then turned, tossed the food to the table, and faced Alex.

“There’s your damned food. What you don’t want, put in the fridge. You can eat it tomorrow night. I’m going to bed.”

And he let her go. She felt his eyes on her, felt the hunger behind her, but he let her go. Only Fat Cat followed, meowing softly as he jumped up on her bed and stared at her as though questioning why she wasn’t watching the news. Why she was crying.

And yes, there were tears. For just a moment. As she sat at the edge of the bed, risked Fat Cat’s displeasure, and pulled him into her arms.

His fur caught her tears, but the ragged sobs were contained inside her chest. Where they had always been contained, all her life.

The man she had always fantasized about had touched her, and he was ashamed of her. Now just how was that for hell?

FIVE

“Faisal, Desmond needs more cilantro for the dinner course this evening. I need you to run to the grocery and pick up whatever you can find.” Janey caught Natches’s adopted son as he entered the restaurant several days later.

The young man, dressed in black slacks and a white shirt for waiting tables, moved to her quickly, his black eyes and desert-dark skin a sharp contrast to the white shirt.

“Janey, Mary Lee just called in sick,” Hoyt called out from the register counter. “I’m calling Tabitha back in if she can make it.”

Janey shoved the cash into Faisal’s hands. “Do that, Hoyt,” she called out before turning back to Faisal.

“Jane, Natches says I am to stay here. I’m not to take my eyes from you,” Faisal told her softly, concern reflecting in his dark eyes. “He will be upset if I go to the grocery.”

“I’ll be more upset if you don’t go,” she told him impatiently. “Look at this place, Faisal. Who would be crazy enough to try to attack me in this chaos?”

Waitresses were moving around preparing the tables and waiting stations. There was pandemonium, as usual, just an hour from opening.

“I need that cilantro and I need you to go after it now, before Desmond has a meltdown in the back. If that happens, I’m going to tell him it’s your fault.”

Indecision and a flicker of wariness flitted through Faisal’s dark gaze. Everyone was scared of Desmond’s wrath, even Janey.

“Go.” She pushed at his shoulders. “Natches will never know. Cross my heart.”

He went reluctantly, casting a worried look over his shoulder as he headed out. Janey smoothed her hands down her pencil-slim skirt and moved quickly to help the waitresses prepare for the first rush of customers. Once the dining room was prepared and the doors opened, it was a madhouse of keeping service and quality at perfected levels while ignoring the jibes and comments of many of the customers.

“Hoyt, we’re going to need more flowers from the florist.” She moved quickly to the register and wrote the sticky note before taping it into the memo program of the register computer. “We’ll be in sorry shape if we don’t have them first thing.”

The assortment of small flowers in a tiny vase at each table was a personal touch that she knew would be missed if they weren’t there.

“I can pick them up on my way in.” Hoyt nodded, making a note in his PDA as well. “I should have the

morning clear. The nurse will be with Mother in the morning.”

A frown creased his forehead as he made the note.

“How is she doing?” Janey paused to lay her hand on Hoyt’s shoulder. He’d lost his father in Iraq several years before, and now, with his mother’s illness, the young man seemed more worn with each passing week.

“Her medication seems to be working better.” He gave her a thankful smile. “Hopefully, she’ll rest this week.”

“I hope so . . .”