Nauti Dreams (18 page)

wouldn’t bring back Clayton Winston’s pride in his son, and it wouldn’t ease the pain of

a widowed mother or a family damaged by betrayal.

This beautiful town. These people that she had somehow let into her heart right along

with Natches were tearing her apart.

“He deserved better,” she whispered, holding on to Natches, desperate to find some way

now to control the emotions she didn’t know how to handle. “This is why I hate you,” she

cried out. “I get around you, and I start feeling. I start laughing over two nitwits who

broke into your apartment because they thought I was going to somehow hurt you. I cry

over old men who deserved better but are a whole lot better off knowing the truth. And I

start aching for things I never needed before. I hate you for this.”

She was shaking in his arms, felt them tighten around her as she dug her nails into his

back and held on for dear life.

“You love me, Chay,” he whispered against her hair, his voice quiet and deep. Secure.

Damn him, he was always so secure, always so confident, and at this moment she felt as

though she was struggling just to hold on to reality.

“You make me feel too much,” she whispered. “Make it stop, Natches.”

Make the pain go away.

She shook her head against his chest and jerked away from him.

“I didn’t mean that.” She had done that to him once before, asked him to take away the

pain. She had never forgotten the way he had looked at her. The regret in his eyes, the

sorrow. Because it wasn’t him she was asking for; it was solace.

“Chay, come back here.” He pulled her back to him, one hand holding her head to his

chest as his arm wrapped around her. “Do you think I mind being your shield against the

world, or the pain?” He tipped her head back, forced her to look at him, and her vision

blurred with tears. “Sweetheart, my shoulders are broad enough for your tears, your fists,

or those sharp little teeth. However you need to hold on to me. I’m here.”

“What about you?” Her voice shook now, almost as badly as Clayton Winston’s had

trembled earlier. “Always a shield and never shielded, Natches?”

He chuckled at that, his gaze gentle. “Is that what you think?” He touched her cheek, ran

his thumb over her lips. “That I have no shield? Don’t you know, Chay? You’ve been my

shield since the day I met you, whether you were here or not. The memory of your

laughter, your tears, the memory of your touch and your kiss. You changed me, Chay,

and I think it’s only fair that I’m changing you as well.”

Changing her, and that change was destroying her. Before he could say anything more,

before the tears welling inside her could fall, she reached up, grabbed his head, and

fought for his kiss.

She needed this. She needed to feel him burning inside her, just one more time, because

she could feel parts of herself unraveling that she didn’t know how to handle.

She was being attacked by emotions she had promised herself since she was a girl she

would never feel. All her life, she had maintained distance, but distance wasn’t possible

with Natches.

He lifted her off her feet as his lips controlled the kiss despite her battle to lead it. He

chuckled at her attempts to nip his lips, and nipped hers in turn. He slanted his lips over

hers, pushed his tongue inside, and lit a fire in her that she knew would burn her to ashes.

She was tearing at his clothes as he laid her on the bed and stripped her of her robe. She

couldn’t get him undressed fast enough.

She fought him as he wrestled her to the bed, his lips and tongue burning over one nipple,

then the other. He sucked one into his mouth, lashed at it with heated licks of his tongue,

and filled her with passion.

She had never known passion until Natches. She had never known this heat, this fire that

became a void of loneliness and loss when she walked away from him.

How had she ever walked away?

She twisted beneath him, gasping, crying his name.

“I need . . .” She arched as his teeth raked the hardened peak, and he growled against it.

“I need you, Natches.”

“I’m right here, Chay.” His voice was deep, rough. It grated across her senses and made

the pleasure deeper, hotter. Because she knew he felt it. Knew he was as lost in it as she

was.

“Now.” Her head tossed against the mattress as he held her in place, his lips sipping at

her flesh, his tongue licking it. “Don’t make me wait.”

His hand cupped between her thighs, heated, calloused flesh meeting swollen, wet folds.

She arched and cried out as two fingers thrust inside her, throwing her higher, deeper into

the maelstrom overtaking her.

And she let it have her. She let him have her. She arched, pulling at his shoulders, feeling

him come to her. Thick and hard, his erection worked inside her, stretching her, easing

her, building sensation and emotion into a kaleidoscope of color and pleasure.

When he was buried to the hilt, his breath rasping, his expressiontwisted in lines of

hunger, she felt his desperation to meld with her inside her very pores.

“Hold on to me, sweetheart.” He shifted and knelt in front of her, gripping her hips and

pulling her to him until her rear rested on his thighs, his cock buried full length inside

her.

Her hands grabbed his wrists as his smile, strained with need, seared into her brain.

“You hold on tight now,” he crooned. “I’m going to make you scream.”

He braced his hands beside her on the bed as her legs curled around his hips. And he

began to move. Hard, driving thrusts that buried his flesh inside of her. Again. Again.

Sending lightning crashing across her nerve endings, fire building in her womb.

She held on and, as he promised, she screamed. She exploded around him, her back

bending, her hands gripping his wrists, and heard his cry echoing around her. Heated

warmth filled her as he began to ejaculate, deep, fierce throbs of his release sending her

arching into more pleasure.

He destroyed her. And he remade her. And when the final tremors eased, he pulled her

into his arms as a tear fell from her eye. Just one tear, she told herself. She could afford to shed just one.

And that one tear seemed to last forever.

NINE

Rebuilding her defenses against Natches wasn’t going to work. He bullied her into

returning to the houseboat for dinner with him, then he made certain she was too

exhausted to return to her hotel that night.

She fell asleep in his arms, drained emotionally and physically, and knowing that if she

wasn’t very careful, Natches Mackay could destroy her.

The next morning, as she had the morning before, she slipped out of his bed and off the

boat. Her cab was waiting at the marina office, and as she opened the back door and

glanced behind her, she saw him. Standing on the top deck of the Nauti Dreams, fog

whispering around him, his chest bare. She wondered for a second why she bothered to

try to run. And why it was so damned hard to face him after the wild loving he gave her.

It was a problem that followed her through the day, just as Natches followed her from

one interview to another.

The first two interviews didn’t matter. They were surface tests, no more. Former friends

of Johnny Grace who had already been cleared in the investigation. But she had to make

it look good. Timothy had an idea of who was of major concern, and as the day

progressed, Chaya became more nervous over that particular interview.

Because Natches was following them in his black jeep, watching her, always there.

As they pulled into the driveway of Nadine Grace’s home at about three o’clock that

afternoon, Chaya felt like drying her sweating palms on her jeans before getting out of

the car.

“You sure about this?” Sheriff Mayes stared at the house, his expression concerned,

before glancing at her. “Johnny was her son. The only person in this town she really

liked. She’s not going to be polite.”

Oh, there was someone else in town Nadine had liked, and the thought of it sickened

Chaya.

“I’m not here to win a popularity contest, Sheriff,” she told him as she gripped her

briefcase and opened the car door. “I’m just here to get answers.”

“And rile the Mackay cousins up?” he asked as he exited the vehicle. “I ain’t seen those

two as pissed off at each other as they were yesterday morning in years. I’ll end up

having to lock them up tonight if they get into a public brawl.”

She flicked him a disagreeable look. “They’re not going to fight.”

“And how do you know this? They nearly tore up that diner about two years ago or so. I

had them in a cell for a weekend, and trust me, that’s not pleasant.”

She rolled her eyes. “To start with, Dawg’s not going to risk making his wife that angry.

And Natches wasn’t nearly mad enough to fight yet. Dawg won’t push him that far

either.”

Mayes shot her a disbelieving look but didn’t say anything more as the front door jerked

open.

“Zeke. That’s a Mackay whore, and I don’t want her on my property.” Nadine Grace’s

pretty face was twisted in fury, her green eyes blazing with rage. “Get her out of here.”

Slender, still attractive at fifty, and filled with anger, the other woman glared daggers at

Chaya.

“I wish I could, Mrs. Grace.” Zeke sighed, glancing at Chaya as she stared back at the

other woman coolly.

“Mrs. Grace, I’m Agent Greta Dane, Department of Homeland Security.” She pulled her

badge folder from her jacket and flashed the ID at the other woman. “Mackay whore isn’t

my title today. Catch me tonight though, and you might hit it right.”

Nadine’s nostrils flared as though picking up a disgusting scent. “Get off my property.”

“Sheriff,” Chaya said to Mayes. “Please have Mrs. Grace detained and brought to your

office. We’ll change this from an interview to an interrogation. I’ll call the main office

and apprise them of the situation.” She didn’t take her eyes off Nadine Grace.

“Now, Agent Dane, we don’t want to do that.” He sighed.

“Of course we do.” She smiled tightly. “If she doesn’t want to cooperate, then I don’t

have to be nice. Do I?”

The other woman was nearly shaking with rage now. Her gaze was spitting fury, her face

pale with it.

“Nadine, just a few minutes of your time, and then we can leave,” Sheriff Mayes assured

her. “Agent Dane has a few questions. That’s all.”

The woman was going to crack her jaw, she was clenching it so hard.

“You have ten minutes.” She turned away from the door, her dark blue dress swishing

about her legs as she stalked into the house.

Chaya stepped inside, instantly shivering at the stark white walls and furniture. The place

looked like an ice cave, there was so much white.

“Take your damned shoes off,” Nadine snapped, glaring at them from the living room as

she took a seat on the white sofa.

Chaya glanced at the sheriff before putting her briefcase down and tugging off her boots.

Mayes followed suit, but clearly didn’t like it.

She padded into the living room and took the chair facing Nadine as she pulled a recorder

from her case and laid it on her knee. Nadine spared a look at the small device, her lips

curling into a sneer.

Chaya turned it on, stated the date and time.

“For the record, you’re Nadine Mackay Grace, mother to Johnny Grace,” she stated, then

stared back at Nadine.

“I am,” she snapped.

“Mrs. Grace, were you aware, at the time, that your son, Johnathon Ralph Grace, was

involved in terrorist activities?”

Nadine’s eyes narrowed. “He was not. Johnny wasn’t involved in anything of the sort.”

“There’s clear evidence that he not only masterminded the theft of several government

missiles and guidance chips, but he also murdered the driver transporting those missiles.

He contracted and brokered the sale of those missiles. He shot and killed Jim Bedsford,

his lover and partner, and attempted to kill Crista Jansen. Were you aware of those

activities before or during the time they were taking place?”

Nadine was breathing roughly, her fists clenched on her knees, her face splotching with a

furious flush. She wasn’t nearly as pretty now as she had been when they had entered the

house.

“I don’t have to answer these ridiculous questions,” she snarled.

“We can answer them here, or we can answer them under more formal settings,” Chaya

told the other woman. “If you would like to contact your lawyer, we can Mirandize you

and take you into the sheriff’s office for interrogation. Why waste time, Mrs. Grace?”

“My son did none of that,” Nadine retorted, her voice harsh. “Those cousins of his, they

did it all and they framed him. Those bastards made it look like he did it so they could

kill him.”

And Nadine knew better. She was lying through her teeth. Chaya stared back at her

silently, her eyes holding the other woman’s for long seconds before Nadine looked away

and pretended to blink back tears.

What was she lying about though?

“Mrs. Grace, were you aware of the theft of those missiles at any time before your son

was killed?”

“No.” She shook with fury as she answered the question, but once again, she couldn’t

hold Chaya’s gaze. She turned to the sheriff. “Isn’t this enough yet?”

Chaya ignored Mayes and continued to stare at Nadine until the other woman glanced