Текст книги "Nauti Temptress"
Автор книги: Lora Leigh
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
EIGHTEEN
Brogan awoke with Eve cradled in his arms, the warmth of her naked body invoking a response he was certain he wasn’t quite ready for.
Hell, he wasn’t ready to face the warmth he could feel moving through him. The warmth threatened to overtake him and claim parts of him he hadn’t known existed until Eve. He felt drained, physically and emotionally, but his cock was assuring him it was more than ready to rumble.
He smiled against her hair at the thought. Her cheek was cradled against his heart, his arms holding her snugly to him, and for a few short minutes he actually contemplated going back to sleep. Until he felt her breathing pattern change, and he swore he felt her wake up.
There was an awareness that he could feel moving through him, a gentleness, an initial confusion and then a feeling of contentment and satisfaction.
“I didn’t expect you to be here when I woke,” she muttered with a drowsy smile against his chest as the fingers of one hand curled against the mat of hair that covered his chest. “Do you know how good it feels, Brogan, to awaken with you?”
He knew, because he felt the same. He didn’t just feel his own contentment, but he knew he was feeling hers as well. It had to be hers, because it was completely different from what he knew contentment felt like.
It was gentle; it was innocent. And Brogan knew he had no innocence left inside him. His innocence had been ripped out of him the day he learned his child had been deliberately destroyed before it could even begin to live. An innocent life barely formed because a condom had failed and had somehow acquired a tiny, tiny hole at the tip.
It had been so long ago, he should have forgotten it by now.
It had been years ago, and it still felt like yesterday.
“What?” she asked, watching him closely.
“What?” He shook his head, confused.
“That look on your face,” she told him. “What were you thinking?”
He breathed out heavily. “I was engaged once.”
“The fiancée who aborted your baby?” She nodded, her palm flattening against his chest comfortingly.
Pushing her hair back from her cheek, he watched as it fell about her face and over her shoulder.
“Like you, my father wasn’t married to my mother,” he told her softly, his fingers tangling in her hair as he felt a sense of comfort wrapping around him. “Like yours, my mother struggled—until I was five, when she was murdered by a drug-crazed teenager who had stolen a gun from home and came to the diner she worked at looking for a meal.” He shook his head bitterly. “If he had asked her, she would have bought him a meal, but he asked the owner first. When the old bastard wouldn’t feed him, he pulled the gun and shot Mom in the head. Then he turned back to the owner and asked again. He got the meal. He sat and ate it as Mom bled out on the floor and the customers in the diner rushed to save themselves.”
“I’m so sorry, Brogan,” she whispered, her compassion wrapping around him.
A bitter smile tugged at his lips as he let his hand cup her cheek for a moment, drawing in the gentleness that was so much a part of her.
“I want you to understand,” he explained. “As I said, I was five. My father didn’t know I existed. When Child Services showed up on his doorstep with me, he looked down, and I saw disgust curl his lip when he said, ‘Hell, I paid her to abort the little bastard.’”
Her eyes widened in outraged pain.
“He took me in, though.” He sighed. “Two weeks later I was in a military school four states away. I came back to Somerset during the holidays and for summers and stayed with my aunt until she died in a car crash when I was sixteen.”
“What an abrupt change from a loving home to a cold, emotionless world,” she whispered, her emerald eyes dark with distress, with banked anger at the thought of his father’s cruelty.
And yes, it had been cruelty.
“I was eighteen and working with the FBI as an informant against a particular clique of students I was a part of when John David Bryce was assigned as the director of the bureau office I reported to.” There was something about the fact that he was holding her, his hands stroking her shoulders, his fingertips relishing the feel of her soft flesh, that dimmed some of the fury he usually felt at those early memories.
“What happened?” she asked.
He snorted at the question. “I was the pride of my regional office because of the information I was reporting on a small, select group of students creating their own homeland militia group. I was pulling in information on their parents, political and military figures, their sharing of information and top-secret files. And when John David, or JD as I usually call him, came into the office he felt the need to announce the fact that I was his son. Pride and all that.” He grunted in disgust. “Thirteen years of being ignored by the bastard and suddenly I was his son. When graduation came I dropped out of the program and went my own way for a while. That was when I met Candy.”
The feel of her lips pressing against his shoulder soothed him, and he found he didn’t want to get pissed. He didn’t want that darkness to mar the peace he found with her.
“I missed you, Eve,” he admitted as she lifted her head and stared up at him.
Regret filled him at the memory of the pain he had caused her the week before, the feeling of betrayal he knew she felt. Hell, he didn’t blame her for feeling it.
“I missed you. More than you know, Brogan,” she admitted as his lips lowered, taking a small, lingering kiss before pulling back.
The memory of last night swept over him again. The feel of her coming for him, destroying his senses with their combined pleasure and the heat that had built between them. Even clearer, though, was the memory of her crying out her love for him, and how he’d known in that instant that the emotion that swirled and drew them together was indeed love.
Yet he hadn’t told her he loved her as well.
He’d tried. His lips had parted, the words lying ready on his tongue before instantly shrinking back in response.
As that memory tempted him, as the words waited, once again at the tip of his tongue, he found himself once again unable to utter them.
Why? What could be holding him back?
She stared up at him expectantly, waiting. She wasn’t going to ask, and she wasn’t going to beg for his love. He would give it willingly or she wasn’t going to take it at all.
She wanted more than what he was giving her. It didn’t take an extra or heightened sense of what she was thinking to figure that one out.
She was going to make him say the words, he thought, feeling his throat tighten at the thought of it. He hadn’t said those words in a hell of a lot of years. More years than he often cared to remember. He didn’t even know whether he was aware of how to say them now.
“I missed you a lot,” he tried, brushing his lips against her brow as she continued to stare back at him.
A backbone of pure steel, Timothy had once accused her. As stubborn and determined as the mountains themselves.
And she was at that. But his block against the emotion that he had lived with for so damned long was just as stubborn.
He couldn’t say it. He wanted to, but there was always the chance he could have the girl and protect his heart at the same time.
And that was important.
Eve stared back at him for long moments, feeling a hint of nerves, a bit of uncertainty, but also a great capacity to love that he was still holding inside him like a miser held on to his gold.
She wasn’t satisfied with that now. She wanted the love that he was still holding inside his soul like a captive he refused to release.
She wanted all of him, not just the parts of him that he was willing to give her right now. She wanted the heart he was so protective of, the one she knew belonged to her, yet that he kept just out of reach.
She wasn’t satisfied with just knowing he cared about her. She didn’t want to just sense those emotions held trapped inside him. They weren’t going to do her any good if they weren’t allowed to be free.
She waited.
If she didn’t get the words verbally, even though she could feel them as he stared back at her, then she wasn’t going to accept any of it. She deserved much better. She deserved all of the man she loved, not just an awareness that he could love her if he let his emotions free.
She wasn’t going to let it break her, though.
No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she ached for him or how it would kill her to lose him, she wouldn’t let it break her pride. There was no way to keep it from breaking her heart, but the rest of her emotions were salvageable.
Besides, if she was pregnant, her child would need a mother fully capable of caring for him. If he had to do without a father, then he at least needed more than just half a mother. Or a mother who couldn’t forget that she had had to beg his father to love her.
He. She kept thinking of the baby as a he. Just as Christa, Chaya, and Kelly had claimed they had done with their daughters, she had already assigned a sex to the child she might have conceived.
As she stared up at Brogan, he laid his forehead against hers and closed his eyes as though he meant to nap a bit more this morning.
It was apparent he wasn’t going to say a damned thing.
This time she didn’t have to fight the tears back, though her chest tightened with aching regret. There were no tears filling her eyes; there was only acceptance—an acceptance tinged with bitter regret.
“It’s time for me to get up,” she told him, pretending everything was fine. “I have things to do this morning.”
Slowly, watching her carefully, he let her go.
Uncertainty flickered in his gaze, and despite having sensed it in him before, she still found that small bit of vulnerability endearing. Brogan wasn’t a man who admitted to any sort of weakness, and he would see uncertainty in any area as a weakness.
“Will I see you this evening?” she asked as she moved to the closet and pulled out a light blue casual chiffon skirt that fell just below her thighs, along with a loose matching camisole top.
“Definitely,” he answered, propping his hand on his palm as he watched her, his gray-blue eyes reflecting simmering lust. “I may even be able to get away from the job early. We could go out to dinner.”
He was willing to take her out now? Why now? Because he was afraid she wouldn’t wait until he was ready to stake his claim? Her dinner with Chatham—or Doogan, as Brogan had called him—hadn’t pleased him in the slightest.
Brogan was ready to stake a public claim on her now, while he was always willing to walk away from the more private claim.
Her jaw tightened in anger as she turned away from him and moved back to the closet, where she pulled free a pair of flat, strappy leather sandals. She was not going to let him see how hurt she was, or how angry. If he didn’t want to own her heart, then screw him; she had no problem at all trying to take it back from him.
“If I’m not back when you return, then I won’t be much longer,” she promised, fighting to keep her voice even, her tone casual.
The last thing she needed was for him to suspect her plans.
But if he thought she was going to hang around Pulaski County and watch him flit around like a buck in rut while all the women swarmed him, like they had since he’d arrived, then he was crazed. She’d be damned if she would have to deal with the smart-assed territorial women who seemed to think he was their own personal prize.
It wasn’t going to happen.
“Where will you be?” Suspicion entered his gaze as well as his voice, though maybe he was finally figuring out that things weren’t going to go all his way any longer.
“I had a job offer.” She shrugged as though it didn’t matter, while she gathered clean underclothes together before heading to the shower. “I’m going to meet with the company’s owner today so he can explain the job.”
The offer had come from another of John Walker’s friends from Boston the day before. He had enough of those to go around, it seemed. At first she hadn’t been interested, until she had talked to her mother the night before.
“Where is this job, Eve?”
Brogan could sense the ax getting ready to fall, and he could kick his own ass for letting it go this far.
Staring into his eyes moments ago, Eve had shown him more clearly than words what it would take to keep her, and he had ignored her.
Stubborn arrogance, his father called it, and now Brogan might very well pay for it.
“Where do you think?” She laughed as though he should know. As though the question were moot.
“My guess is, outside Kentucky,” he stated.
Eve turned around slowly to face him, and the answer was in her eyes.
“Boston.” She confirmed his guess. “It’s a wonderful opportunity. I’ll be managing several offices and client lists. My degree is in business administration, and there are just so few—”
“I love you, Eve. . . .”
She froze.
Shock registered on her face as she stared back at him as though she were certain she hadn’t heard right.
“What did you say?”
Rising from the bed, he moved to her. Clasping her shoulders in his hands, he stared into the naked vulnerability of her gaze.
“I said I love you, Eve,” he repeated. “I love you, heart and soul. I don’t know why I’ve fought it. Even before we spent that first night together, I’ve known I loved you and that I couldn’t bear to lose you. I sure as hell don’t want you moving to Boston, where I’m afraid I would lose you forever.”
Joy exploded in her gaze, flushed her cheeks. Brogan swore he could feel it now: an explosion of heat and happiness that filled her entire consciousness and then whipped into his.
Before he’d left for D.C., the Mackay cousins had detained him for a few hours. Somehow, Brogan had found himself trying to vocalize the confusing mix of emotions he always felt whenever he and Eve were in the same room. Dawg called it a mating. Natches called it a soul thing. Rowdy had laughed at all of them and told Brogan to prepare himself; it was this little thing called love.
Some couples—most couples—waited years and years before they developed the ability to read or to feel each other so well. Then there were those very few who touched each other so deeply, so perfectly that first time that the bond was almost immediate.
For the Mackay men and their wives it hadn’t happened until each of their wives had conceived their first child. Each cousin swore it was the first time he felt his child kick. Connected as they were to their wives and, through their wives, to their children, that bond had kicked into place.
“You really love me?” she whispered as he came to her and framed her face gently. “You really love me, Brogan?”
“Past forever, Eve,” he promised to her. “How could you doubt it? You’ve felt it, the same as I have, since we spent that night together. I felt your heart touch mine, and I know mine touched yours. What else could it be but love?”
“It’s love,” she whispered, that explosion of happiness radiating from her soul to warm his own as she threw her arms around his neck and hung on tight. “Oh, God, Brogan, it’s love.”
A part of him had been dark for so many years, even before Candy. The deliberate destruction of his child had only cemented the bitterness that had raged in him for so long.
The moment he met Eve, he’d felt light touch that darkness. Each time she touched him with her smile he had become even more vulnerable to her. He’d become locked firmly beneath her spell.
“Have patience with me?” he whispered as he buried his face against her neck again, holding her close to his heart.
“Always,” she swore, and he was warmed by her heart touching his.
“It may take me a while.” Closing his eyes, he prayed—prayed he could keep the evil of his world from touching her. “I promise to get the hang of it soon.” He lifted his head from her neck; then his lips lowered, touched hers, and he belonged.
“I love you, Eve,” he vowed.
And her smile completed his dreams, filled his life with light, and once again Brogan knew hope.
“And I love you, Brogan Campbell. Forever and always. I love you.”
NINETEEN
There was something about Eve, Brogan decided, that just made it impossible to maintain distance.
She’d declined the job offer before they had shared a shower, then cussed him out when she realized she was too sore to take him again. She’d decided instead to make the trip to the store for the groceries her mother needed, kissed him with enough heat to damned near blow his tiny mind, then drove off.
Shaking his head at her particular brand of revenge, Brogan mounted the Harley, listened to the smooth throb of the motor, then pulled out of the inn’s gravel parking lot and headed toward the Mackay Marina.
He’d accomplished what they wanted; now he wondered what those three intended to do with, basically, a license to kill with impunity.
It would have been damned concerning if he didn’t know the Mackays as well as he did.
Fortunately, he did know them that well, and he knew they weren’t stupid men. They wouldn’t risk the agreement, especially considering the compensatory package was for the single purpose of ensuring that nothing risked their ability to protect their family, friends, and the county itself from the undercurrents of treason and homeland terrorism, and the people who had been attempting to use the sheltering mountains as a cover for their activities.
The same thing he intended his own agreement for. He wasn’t a stupid man either. While ensuring the Mackays’ protection, he’d taken steps to ensure his own, as well as that of any family he might have. How much more dedicated could a loving husband and father be?
He intended to find out.
Pulling into the marina’s nearly full parking lot, Brogan wasn’t in the least surprised to see the three men leaning against Natches’s black-on-black Mercedes Roadster, waiting for him.
They didn’t look too damned happy with him either. Especially Dawg. Brogan was guessing Eve had gone to her brother for advice while he was gone. Not that he could blame her. It wasn’t as though Brogan had been there for her, or had given her reason to believe he would return.
Pulling the Harley in behind the expensive little Roadster, he inhaled for strength. For a man who prided himself on never asking anyone for a damned thing personally, he was about to ask the Mackays for a hell of a favor.
Stepping from the bike, he moved the slight distance to the three men and stared back at them without so much as a hint of the nervousness he could feel in his gut. His nerves were on edge, a sense of foreboding that made no sense filling his gut.
As he stepped to them, the three men watched him with narrow-eyed suspicion.
“Dawg, Natches, Rowdy.” He nodded in an attempt at politeness. “Before we take care of business, I need to ask a favor.”
Dawg’s gaze sparked with anger as the other two watched him with cool suspicion.
“Seen Eve since you got back?” Dawg actually showed his teeth.
Brogan turned his gaze to Rowdy, usually the tolerant one of the group. There would be no hope there.
“Dawg, could you stop . . .” being an ass, he wanted to say.
“Have you stopped breaking her heart? Because once was too damned many times to hold my sister while she cried over your worthless ass.”
“I still say, get the papers we need, then tie his feet to cement blocks and dump him in the middle of the lake,” Natches grunted.
Brogan forcibly controlled his grin as he turned back to Dawg. As he started to speak, the door to the marina offices opened and Ray Mackay stood in the doorway. Dawg might be Eve’s brother, but Ray was the acknowledged patriarch of the clan.
“Brogan, son, is Dawg giving you problems?” Ray shot Dawg a warning look.
“Sir, I’ve been trying to ask Dawg to accept my request to marry his sister Eve, but he doesn’t seem too inclined to let me get the words out.”
Even Ray appeared completely shocked by the request.
“You’re joking,” Dawg said, the look in his eyes nearly dazed as he stared back at Brogan.
“And you’re trying to piss me off,” Brogan decided. “Now, while I’m away from her, I’d like to go to the bank and take my grandmother’s ring out of the safe-deposit box I have there. But it will do no damned good if you refuse the request.”
“Why?” Dawg was still staring at Brogan as though uncertain whether he should believe him.
Brogan shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans to keep them away from Dawg’s throat.
It would be simpler, easier to explain what he wanted, further, he decided.
“My grandmother left me her engagement ring and her and my grandfather’s wedding bands,” he gritted out in irritation. “But I can give them to my fiancée only if a male relative gives permission for her to marry me.”
Dawg frowned. “She won’t like wearing a ring your first fiancée wore.”
Yeah, Dawg was just trying to piss him off; that was all it could be.
“Candy never wore my grandmother’s ring,” he snapped. “No other woman has even seen it since my grandmother’s death. Candy had no male relatives to ask, so I couldn’t have done it even if she had known about it.”
“There are ways around that.” Natches grinned. “You could still have given it to her.”
“Dammit, I didn’t want to give it to her,” Brogan snapped furiously before turning back to Dawg. “Yes or no, dammit. And if you say no, I’ll show her the rings and tell her you’re the reason she can’t have them.”
Dawg’s eyes widened in mocking innocence. “I never said such a thing as no, Brogan.”
“You didn’t say yes, either.”
Dawg grinned. “Hell, I didn’t. Did I?”
Brogan took a step toward him, intent on cracking the other man’s jaw on his fist.
“How bad do you want that compensatory package, Dawg?” he asked instead.
“Pretty damned bad.” Dawg’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“I’ll take that as a yes then. . . .”
“Well, now, I don’t know about that. . . .”
“Hell, you have my permission to marry her,” Ray snapped, glaring at Dawg. “You want to see her cry again, moron?” he asked with more playful affection than true anger.
“I was going to give him permission,” Dawg growled as he propped his hands on his hips and stared at his uncle with a fierce frown. “There was no damned sense in making it easy on him.”
Brogan snorted at the smirk that curled Dawg’s lips then as Brogan glared back at him.
As Brogan opened his lips to say something particularly insulting, Dawg’s expression suddenly creased into one of concern a second before a blaring horn had the rest of them turning quickly. The two-year-old bright blue BMW barreled toward them quickly.
“Samantha,” Brogan shouted her name, sprinting toward the vehicle as it suddenly slammed into another parked car. Racing to the driver’s side, his heart in his throat, he jerked the door open, only just barely catching his baby sister as she toppled from the vehicle.
Mackays were cursing as Brogan caught her in his arms, the sight of her blood matting her hair from a jagged gash in her scalp, a deep puncture to her shoulder, and a slice across the side of her neck that only narrowly missed her jugular. Glimpsed, but not ignored by Brogan was the sight of her partner, Kraig, in the passenger seat staring unseeingly into the window, half his face blown away.
Brogan felt his insides freeze to jagged chips of ice inside his soul as he heard Dawg ordering an ambulance to the marina.
“Brogan,” Samantha sobbed weakly, her normally tanned skin paper white. “They have her; he betrayed me, Brogan. He betrayed both of us.”
“Who, Samantha, who do they have? Who betrayed you?”
“Kraig,” she sobbed weakly as he tore the bottom of his shirt before folding it to apply pressure to the wound at her neck, where she was losing more blood than she could afford. “I think I killed Kraig, Brogan.” She stared up at him, her gaze feverish and dazed. “I killed him, but he let them take her, I’m so sorry.”
“Who?” he wheezed, but he knew. He knew who had been taken even before she whispered the information. Samantha stared up at him miserably.
“Eve, I’m so sorry, Brogan, I tried to stop them but they took Eve,” she sobbed. “She was going into the grocery store when we pulled in. Judge Kiser’s big white truck pulled up and his foreman jumped out and grabbed her. I tried to get out of the car and save her, but then Kraig pulled a knife on me. He sliced me pretty good until I could get a shot off. My phone got damaged in the fight—thank God you told me you were meeting Dawg here,” she whispered hoarsely as Brogan stared down at her and felt a darkness unlike anything he had ever known before fill his soul.
Brogan could hear Ray, Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches as they contacted Alex Jansen, John Walker, and Sheriff Zeke Mayes, and ordered them to the marina.
“Forgive me, Brogan,” Samantha cried weakly. “Please forgive me.”
“It’s not your fault, Samantha, I promise, I don’t blame you,” he managed to say through the awful buzzing that filled his mind.
“Samantha. Samantha, sweetie.” Dawg knelt beside them as he tore his own shirt from his back, folded it, and pressed it to her head wound. “Did Kraig say anything?”
“He said you and Brogan would know why.” She stared back at Brogan painfully. “He said I would be dead, but you would know why.”
“No, Samantha.” He held her to him, cradling her against his chest as Dawg fought to stem the flow of blood from her wounds. “You’ve never failed me, sweetheart.” Brogan stared at Dawg, feeling nothing inside him, not even desperation.
Dawg blew out a hard breath. “I should have known—she told me DHS was watching Judge Kiser’s home and suspected him of being part of the Freedom League with Dayle Mackay, before Dayle’s death. I should have checked into it immediately.”
“When did she tell you this?” Brogan narrowed his eyes on Dawg. “DHS has not had Judge Kiser under surveillance.”
Dawg frowned back at him. “Eve overheard Jed talking about watching Kiser’s house. She told me about it the other day at the family reunion.”
The ambulance screamed into the marina followed by Zeke, Alex, and John Walker’s vehicles. Immediately the EMTs surrounded Samantha and the dead Kraig still in the car.
“Find her, Brogan,” Samantha cried as the EMTs lifted her carefully to a gurney. “They’re going to kill her.”
Agony threatened the ice that had his emotions in deep freeze, saving his sanity. As Brogan rose to his feet, Donny and Sandi pushed through the crowd surrounding them, and went straight to Dawg and pulled his attention to them as Donny hurriedly whispered something quickly in Dawg’s ear.
“Brogan, the office,” Dawg ordered, staring around at the crowd. They moved quickly to the marina office, closing the door behind them as Dawg turned to Donny as Brogan glared at them. Donny shocked him, though, Donny and Sandi. They flashed their badges and identifications declaring them FBI Special Agents Clarke. Hell, they were married.
“We know where she’s at,” Sandi said in a coolly authoritative tone.
Brogan glared at Donny. “What the fuck is going on here?” “Sorry, Brogan,” Donny sighed. “We had to hold our cover even with you. Though it was damned hard to hold the part the night you visited.”
“Where is she?” he rasped again, his fists clenching furiously.
“Kiser’s not involved with this,” Sandi said quickly. “His foreman is another story. He was one of Chandler Mackay’s partners. He believes Brogan has the coordinates of the stolen gold. He’s holding Eve for the gold.”
“Where is she?” he rasped again, his fists clenching furiously.
“You’re not going in alone,” Donny stated firmly, coolly. Before Brogan could stop himself he had a handful of the agent’s shirt as he hauled him nearly off his feet, dragging him nose-to-nose with him.
“I will kill you,” he stated with an icy calm. “Where is she?”
“They stole the Nauti Buoy.” Donny grimaced. “It’s currently anchored in the middle of the left fork of Lake Cumberland. Kiser’s foreman, Kai Maynard, is a former Special Forces and one of his cohorts is a formerly dishonorably discharged Ranger named Joel Keller.”
Brogan turned to a fuming Rowdy, the owner of the Nauti Buoy. “How do I get to that boat and how do I get on it?”
“Getting on it is easy,” Rowdy answered. “Getting to her is another thing, according to where they’re holding her.”
“According to our information she is on the first level, tied to one of the bunk beds on the right, in the hall,” Donny stated.
“Where are you getting your information?” Brogan snarled.
“Poppa Bear’s with them,” Donny admitted. “He’s been part of Kai’s group for several years. Before that he was with Chandler Mackay. But he’s always been a federal agent and informant.” He gave Dawg and Brogan a hard look. “We don’t have much time. Now do we get onto that fucking houseboat?”
Brogan’s gaze sharpened on the other man. “Kai has more than just Eve,” he guessed in a dangerous voice. “What does he have that the FBI is after?”
Donny’s lips tightened as Sandi whispered something to him. His gaze shifted to Brogan furiously as he gave a tight nod. Sandi stepped back. “One of the files Kai Maynard stole had a list of agent code names assigned to several subversive Homeland Security groups. If he gets away with that file, a lot of agents are going to die.”
“He’s definitely a dead man,” Brogan declared as he turned to Dawg. “You ready to go?”
Dawg nodded, his smile savage. “Let’s go.”
