Nauti Temptress (5 page)

He had let her get away this time.

He had let her get away each time he’d been close in the past two and a half years.

The next time . . .

She wouldn’t be nearly so lucky—the next time.

TWO

It was so hot in the room, she was dying.

Or was she so hot she was dying?

Eve tried turning the AC down, hoping the additional cold air would help cool her body, but she wasn’t quite lucky enough for that to help.

This was killing her.

What the hell had she done to deserve this? To want a man, to ache for him until it felt like her body was on fire, and to know—know to the tips of her toenails—that allowing herself to have him would only end badly.

There were some men a woman just knew weren’t good for her. Brogan Campbell had the potential to be just such a man.

It was there in that cynicism that wasn’t quite hidden. The mockery that lingered at the edge of every smile she’d ever seen on his lips.

He watched the world as though he knew all its cruel, bitter secrets and merciless games. He knew them, practiced them, used them.

Not that he was a deliberately cruel person, she didn’t think.

Oh, hell, no, she was taking that damned thought back. Only a cruel, merciless, coldhearted, soulless man could have done to a woman what he had done to her outside.

Fists clenched in the blankets, she fought the need to relieve a little of the tension. Just marginally. Just enough that she could survive the aching burn in the depths of her pussy.

She’d never wanted a man like this. What the hell was up with it?

All he had to do was be in the room to make her crazy to have him touch her, and now it was just going to be a hundred times worse. As far as she was concerned, she simply didn’t deserve the torture.

She was aware of her fingers loosening, releasing the blankets beneath her and moving to her lower stomach. Aware of it, but helpless to stop it.

She had to get up in less than an hour, dress, and fix breakfast for a dozen guests who took the “breakfast” part of “bed-and-breakfast” very damned seriously. And that didn’t count the occasional friend of her mother’s who stopped by. When she entered the kitchen there could be more orders waiting than the ones Piper and her mother collected from the guests’ doors each morning.

Mercedes Mackay didn’t run the typical bed-and-breakfast. Along with the regular breakfast fare, guests could choose how their eggs were prepared or if they wanted no eggs at all. They could request toast over biscuits, grits over gravy. Each plate was prepared individually and brought out rather than all the food laid out on the table or a buffet set up.

Breathing out roughly, she let her fingers push beneath the thin camisole top she wore. Her other hand pushed beneath her shorts.

Her nipples were swollen tight, so sensitive she had to bite her lip to hold back a moan as she gripped one between her thumb and the side of her forefinger. Rolling it slowly, exerting enough pressure to make the little tip burn with sensation, she fought to breathe through the pleasure.

The fingers of her other hand pushed beneath the elastic of her panties, sliding over the small area of curls that covered just the top of her mound before pushing further between her thighs to find the saturated folds of her pussy.

She was so wet, so sensitive and swollen that her own touch sent a rush of tingling sensation sizzling through her womb. Capturing her swollen, throbbing clit between her thumb and forefinger, careful to keep the hood covering her clitoris between it and her fingers, she began to work the swollen bud slowly, gently.

A whimper slipped past her lips as her hips lifted involuntarily, jerking beneath her own touch as she imagined Brogan’s fingers there.

His touch would be firmer.

Tightening her grip on the tender bundle of nerves, feeling her pussy clench and weep in need, she caressed it slowly.

She wanted to push her fingers lower.

Simply stimulating her clit didn’t satisfy her anymore. Once she found her release, her inner flesh still pulsed and ached, demanding penetration. Demanding something she’d never allowed herself. Because the clitoral stimulation had been enough—

Until Brogan.

Arching her head back, she rolled her hips beneath her touch, sparks of heated pleasure rushing through the swollen knot of nerves as the stimulation worked her clit closer to release.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered.

She closed her eyes, keeping in her mind the image of Brogan bending over her, his hand between her thighs, his fingers working her clit, stroking her ever closer as his lips surrounded her nipple. He would suck it firmly, she decided. Hungrily. He would draw it in with a demand that refused to allow a protest.

Not that she would want to protest. She wouldn’t.

She would hold him to her, feel his tongue lashing at her nipple as his fingers worked her ever closer to release. He’d have no mercy. He’d push her hard, then hold her back, make her beg for ecstasy.

A moan slipped past her lips before she could catch it. She was rife with desperation and ever-increasing need, and the sound reminded her that the burning demand was only growing.

“Yes,” she whimpered again. “Oh, yes.”

She was close. So close she could feel the burning flames beginning to pulse and rage, the whipping sensations surging through her clit, building.

She was only seconds away.

A heartbeat—

The harsh blasting ring of her cell phone had her jerking, shock pulling her fingers from between her thighs before she could stop herself, cutting her release off as it had just begun to build.

Gritting her teeth, a strangled cry of frustration escaping her lips, she jerked the phone from the table next to her bed without checking the caller and connected it with a frustrated flick of her finger.

“Do you know what time it is?” she snapped at the intruder. It was too damned early for anyone important.

“If I hear one more of those little moans”—Brogan’s low growl shocked her into disbelief—“then I swear I’m going to pick the lock on your door, come in, and fuck you until you can’t move. Until it’s all either of us can do to breathe, let alone mowing the grass as I’m supposed to later, or to help your sister cook breakfast for a houseful of guests. Are we clear here?”

“You can’t hear—”

“I know,” he snarled. “I fucking know what you’re doing, dammit; I can feel it. Just like I always know what you’re doing over there. Every fucking time you masturbate, I swear I can hear those breathy little moans you make, and if I hear it one more time, Eve—”

She disconnected the call.

Jumping from the bed, she grabbed her clothes and rushed into the bathroom, dressed, and hastily applied the necessary makeup before pulling her hair into a ponytail. Moving quickly back to her bedroom, she pulled on her sneakers, tied them jerkily, then rushed to the door.

She peeked out the door to the hall, saw no one, then hurried from the room before closing her door carefully behind her.

She was certain she had managed to escape.

She knew she had.

As she moved to pass Brogan’s door, it opened with a snap and his arm jerked out, gripping hers with fingers of iron and pulling her into his arms as he turned and lifted her, pressing her against the wall inside his room as he pushed the door closed, trapping her there with his more powerful body.

Before she had time to do more than gasp, his lips covered hers, bold, heated, hungry, and demanding. He took the kiss she’d been dreaming of and instilled an urgency she’d never imagined in the erotic daydreams she’d had.

She couldn’t help but wrap her arms around his neck, her fingers pushing into the strands of hair that grew long over his nape and clenching to hold him to her.

Her lips parted, feeling his tongue lick over them before he took a quick, hungry taste. Tilting his head, he slanted his lips over hers as the kiss became deeper, harder. Dazed desperation filled her, the need for more of him growing in her, clawing at her senses until she was shaking with the surging force of it.

“Fuck!” His head jerked back.

The gray-blue color of his eyes was more blue now, gleaming with hunger, with lust as he glared down at her, his expression accusing as they both fought to just breathe.

“What the fuck are you doing to me?” His head lowered, his lips brushing against hers again, then immediately returning to the deep, hungry kisses of moments before.

That was fine with her, because she couldn’t get enough of them.

The simple act of lips meeting should never explode through the senses and render self-control a thing of the past, she thought hazily. There should be some measure of control, right?

A hard knock at her bedroom door beside his had them jerking apart again.

The world was conspiring against her.

First his cell phone, now some moron at her bedroom door.

“Eve, are you there?”

Her eyes widened. Swallowing tightly, she jerked her gaze to Brogan’s, certain disaster whipping through her senses at the sound of her brother Dawg’s deep voice.

Brogan laid his finger against his lips, then, catching her hand, pulled her to his patio doors.

Opening one side, he stuck out his head, looked around, then pulled back.

“Go,” he ordered, the softly voiced command harsh as he stared down at her with naked lust. “Get the hell out of here before it’s too late.”

She could hear Dawg knock again. His calling out her name a second time, his voice impatient, spurred her to do just as Brogan ordered.

Glancing back at him one last time, she rushed to the porch before turning away from her room and heading quickly to the front entrance. If Dawg was there, then her mother had opened the front doors.

Turning the corner to the main porch area, she saw she was right. The front doors were thrown open, the glass storm door revealing the hardwood entryway and the wide, curving staircase that led upstairs.

Stepping inside, she glanced to the entrance to the back rooms on the side of the foyer and watched as Dawg strode from the entryway.

“There you are,” he growled as he turned and moved quickly toward her. “I need to talk to you a minute.”

“Anyone dying, dead, or in need of emergency care? For God’s sake, Dawg, it’s five o’clock in the morning. What could you possibly need?” she asked.

He stopped, his light green eyes narrowing on her between thick, lush lashes.

“No, no one needs emergency care. Not yet.” There was a warning in his voice that she didn’t have time to decipher.

“Then I have to run,” she told him. “I’m covering for Lyrica with Piper in the kitchen and I’m running late.”

She was actually running early, but she was so not about to tell him that.

“I’m staying for breakfast,” he informed her as he followed her through the large dining room, the small tables already dressed with spotlessly white cloths and the colorful top cloths her mother used.

“Did you put your order in yet?” she asked as she pushed through the swinging doors that led to the large chef’s-style kitchen.

Dawg followed. She had really hoped he wouldn’t.

“Mercedes has already taken care of it,” he told her, pausing just inside the door, obviously finally remembering Mercedes’s protests that only the cooks needed to be in the kitchen.

Grabbing the small stack of orders the guests had put in the night before, chosen from the small, select list of choices they were given, Eve quickly clipped them to the magnetic order clips along the wide hood of the combination gas stove and grill.

“I went to your room to talk to you,” he told her as she moved to the walk-in fridge on the other side of the room. “Where were you?”

“I came in the front entrance,” she told him, stepping inside the cool confines of the shelved refrigerator and pulling together the items they would need to prepare breakfast.

Returning to the kitchen, she was really hoping Dawg would be gone.

He wasn’t.

He was standing where she had left him, a frown on his face, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Where’s Christa?” she asked as she emptied the large tray she’d used to carry everything on.

“Home,” he answered shortly. “She and Janey are going shopping or something today. The girls are swearing they need shoes.” Bafflement crossed his face. “You’d think a closetful is enough.”

The girls were only six, but already Erin and Laken were shoe connoisseurs and purse divas. Eve loved it. She especially loved how her brother and cousins just couldn’t seem to understand it.

“So what did you need?” she finally dared to ask as she began preparing the homemade biscuits Mackay’s Bed-and-breakfast Inn was well-known for.

Dawg shook his head. “I’ll try to catch you after breakfast. I just need to discuss something with you for a minute, and I know what breakfast is like here.”

As he spoke, the door was pushed forward firmly, slapping him against his powerful biceps as Mercedes rushed into the kitchen.

At thirty-eight, with four daughters and no gray hair or wrinkles, her mother looked ten years younger. Her long, dark brown hair was pulled back into a thick rope of a braid, revealing the high cheekbones and delicate features her daughters had inherited.