She reached out to grip the door handle. Just as fast Rowdy caught her arm, causing her to turn back to him. His hand moved, his fingers threading through her hair as he drew her head back and captured her lips quickly with his.
Summer heat, lightning, and the sweet taste of a woman’s passion met his hunger, tightening his gut with lust. He couldn’t wait to get her beneath him. At that moment, nothing mattered except getting through the rest of the day until he could get her to the houseboat and the large bed awaiting them there.
He forced himself to release her seconds later, staring into her dazed features with a satisfaction so intense it caused his balls to tighten.
“That wasn’t fair.” She smiled despite the chastisement, her cheeks flushed with warmth and her breathing ragged.
“Sure it was,” he whispered, pulling back from her, despite the need to wrap her in his arms and run away with her. He wanted to hide her. To make certain no one could ever touch her again. “I need to touch you, babe. That’s always fair considering how long I’ve waited to do it.”
She snorted at that before pushing her fingers through her hair and flashing him a disgruntled look. “No one made you wait.”
She was out of the truck before he could stop her, tossing him a cheery smile before crossing the sidewalk and entering the spa.
Rowdy breathed out roughly. She was going to be the death of him, there was just no other way around it. With her shining innocence, tempting eyes, and sweetly rounded body, he knew she was capable of making him curse as often as he sighed in need.
He gave his head a quick jerk before reversing from the parking spot and driving farther down the street to the café he had told Dawg and Natches to meet him in.
Reginald’s Café was newly remodeled, the inside cool and welcoming as he entered. Dawg and Natches were waiting at one of the back tables, steaming cups of coffee sitting in front of them.
“’Bout time you got here, cuz,” Dawg grunted as he slid into the chair across from him. “I thought we were gonna have to come down there and rescue Kelly from your clutches ourselves.”
Natches chuckled as Rowdy leaned back in his chair and watched his cousin curiously. Dawg had changed over the years, more than any of them, Rowdy sometimes thought. He was darker, despite the joviality, quieter than he used to be.
Rowdy didn’t know what had happened during the years he spent in the Marines, but it had affected his cousin. Natches was just as lazy as always, his smile quiet, his eyes watchful. Of course, none of them were as relaxed, as carefree as they used to be.
There was a darkness in them that had always lurked just beneath the surface. A difference that separated them from other men, made them appear wilder, more dangerous. And in ways they were more dangerous. They had proved that overseas.
“What’s up?” Rowdy could tell there was more going on than a general bad mood.
Dawg leaned forward, his eyes narrowed.
“You had company outside the house last night.” Dawg’s voice was low. “On that little knob above the house that looks into Kelly’s room. I was checking it out this morning before heading here. He must have been there all night. The grass was indented where he sat, with claw marks at the side where the bastard dug his fingers into the ground. He’s getting pissed.”
Hell. Rowdy had known Kelly’s attacker was watching, waiting. He just hadn’t been certain where, or how.
“Where do we go from here, Rowdy?” Natches watched him with a spark of excitement in his eyes that Rowdy knew was as much to the thought of a good fight as to the chance of touching Kelly.
“I’m taking her back to the boat this evening,” he answered. “We’ll head out to the cove. We should be staying the night. We’ll see how brave he wants to get. We’ll have dinner on the boat. Let the bastard think we’re all having a fine time. After dark the two of you can slip on shore and I’ll pull farther out into the water. We’ll see what happens.”
Dawg and Natches nodded somberly. They were waiting, watchful, their bodies now on high alert. Not that anyone else would have noticed the change.
They paused as the waitress moved toward them, her steps slow, her head down, waves of burnished chestnut curls pulled into a low ponytail, her classically pretty features stiff and tense.
Rowdy cocked his head at the woman. Crista Jensen kept her head carefully lowered as she refilled the coffee cups before turning to leave.
“You didn’t ask me if I wanted anything to eat, Crista.” Dawg surprised them all with his mocking drawl. “Didn’t Jenny warn you to look after us good?”
“Shut up, Dawg,” Natches muttered, his voice low but easy to hear.
Rowdy watched as Crista pulled the ordering pad from the back pocket of her jeans, a pencil from behind her ear and watched Dawg with a spark of anger. Dawg stared back at her expectantly.
“What would you like to order, Dawg?” Her words were gritted, her voice raspy.
“Eh. Nothing right now, but be sure to check back in a few minutes.” Dawg’s smile was all teeth, a predatory snarl if Rowdy had ever seen one.
“I’ll be sure to do that.” Crista’s smile was no less antagonistic as she returned the order pad to the back pocket of her jeans, picked up the coffeepot, and stalked away.
The minute her back turned, Dawg’s eyes narrowed and a flash of anger seared the depths as he rose to his feet, dug into his pocket, and slapped a few dollars to the table.
“I’ll see you at the marina,” he snapped before stalking from the café.
Rowdy watched, perplexed, before turning to Natches.
“What the hell was that?”
“Dawg in heat,” Natches snickered. “She won’t give him the time of day.”
Rowdy glanced to the woman in question and restrained his smile as he noticed her gaze, centered squarely on Dawg as he stormed from the café. Sad, weary, her expression marked with indecision. Yeah, she was giving him the time of day, perhaps more than the big lug deserved.
Now this was an interesting development.
“So, how are we playing tonight? One on one or is she ready for all of us?”
“Kelly will let us know what she wants.” Rowdy shifted his shoulders, a primitive surge of something akin to possessiveness rising inside him as Natches watched him curiously.
That was strange. He was one second from baring his teeth and daring Natches to touch Kelly. He knew the pleasure the three of them could bring her, versus the pleasure he alone could bestow. So what the fuck was his problem all of a sudden?
Shit. He could feel the back of his neck prickling as irritation began to surge inside him.
“Waiting on her has been a bitch,” Natches grimaced, his light green eyes gleaming with lustful determination. “She’s going to go up in flames—”
“Shut up, Natches.” Rowdy lifted his coffee cup to his lips, glaring at his cousin across the table as Crista moved to a table close to them.
Natches watched the woman, his expression considering.
“Something’s up with that one,” he sighed. “Dawg has been like a bear with a sore tail ever since she arrived back in town. She didn’t even let the family know she was coming.”
“What about her husband? Didn’t she marry some guy from Virginia?”
Natches shook his head. “She was engaged for awhile. Guess it fell through.”
Rowdy almost breathed a sigh of relief that the conversation had moved from Kelly. He was going to have to figure this out. Now wasn’t a time to be hedging between desires, dammit. But he was hedging, and he knew it.
He glanced at Crista Jansen again, narrowing his eyes. Dawg had had a thing for the other woman for years. She had always managed to resist his charms, his attempts to talk to her, to seduce here.
Rowdy and Natches had watched him attempt to bargain for a single date from her for nearly a year before they joined the Marines, and Natches had related that the first thing Dawg had gone looking for when he came home from the service was Crista. Only to learn she had left Somerset.
Could he fuck her? Rowdy turned his gaze back to the Formica-topped table and sipped from his coffee again. A year ago, he could have, easily. The thought of having her between himself and his two cousins would have had his dick perking in interest.
His dick wasn’t interested. He frowned. Hell, there was no excitement, period. He stared back at her.
She was pretty enough. Nicely rounded. She moved a little self-consciously, as though not quite comfortable with what she was doing.
Her face was a rounded oval, her skin clear and silky-looking. Nice hair. But he wasn’t interested. He wasn’t aroused. As a matter of fact, the urge to get up and leave the café was so damned strong it was all he could do to stay in place.
He should have been practically drooling at the thought of helping Dawg and Natches fuck her to oblivion. They were sure as hell hot enough at the thought of fucking Kelly.
“Can I get you two anything else?” Crista refilled the coffee cup, her expression resigned for some reason as she glanced at Dawg’s chair.
“An explanation would be nice.” Rowdy lifted his head, watching her closely as she seemed to pale.
“Excuse me?”
“Dawg’s been chasing you for years, Crista. What’s up?”
Crista’s eyes burned with anger as she slowly tucked the ordering pad into her back pocket and glared at him furiously.
“I’m not a plaything for the three of you,” she snarled then, surprising him and Natches. “If you cared for anything past yourselves then you damned well wouldn’t expect it. You’d grow the hell up and get over it.”
Her voice was hoarse as tears sheened her eyes before she blinked them back furiously.
“Forget it,” she snapped. “The three of you might as well be clones of each other. You can’t even breathe alone.”
Turning, she stalked back to the register where two customers waited, her fingers stabbing at the input keys as she flicked a scornful glance back at them.
“Have I been gone too long?” Rowdy turned back to Natches, gratified to see the same surprise reflecting in his face.
“Damn, and she used to be such a nice, quiet little girl,” Natches grumped as he scratched at his chin.
Rowdy snorted at the description. Crista had been anything but nice and quiet and they all knew it.
“I don’t have a problem breathing without your help.” Rowdy grinned as he finished his coffee.
“Damned good thing.” Natches shook his head as he peeked another look back at the little waitress, a frown pulling at his brow. “Hell, you’ve been gone eight years, Rowdy, and other than a few times you were home, me and Dawg’s been pretty damned tame. What the hell has her by the ear anyway?”
Rowdy shook his head as he glanced at his empty coffee cup.
“Do you think she’s going to bring us more coffee?” he asked ruefully.
Both men looked back at the woman, estimating their chances for caffeine.
“If she knows what’s good for her.” Natches’s grin was wicked. “Or else, I might have to call Dawg back to sweet-talk her for us.”
Rowdy chuckled, though when he glanced back at Crista he could feel the frown tugging at his brow again. The fact that Dawg wanted her should have been all it took to produce a raging hard-on and more than a surfeit of interest. Instead, all he felt was an edge of sadness. Their lifestyle, the very truth of their sexuality stood between Dawg and a woman Rowdy knew had to be more than interested in the other man.
Women didn’t get that upset if they weren’t interested. If they didn’t care. Crista Jansen cared—it had been there in her eyes, in her anger. But he had to agree with one thing. She wasn’t the type of woman who would willingly share her man, anymore than Kelly was. And that was the clincher. She was a woman worth keeping, a one-man woman. And she needed a one-woman man.
