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.
Five feet, seven inches of energy, Mercedes could outwork all four of her daughters most days and still have the energy to go out dancing that night.
Since coming to Somerset, her mother had bloomed. She was a social butterfly who loved meeting new people, learning where they’d come from and where they were going, and even laughing at their bad jokes.
“Dawg Mackay, you are in the way,” Mercedes informed him brusquely as she continued walking quickly to the large pantry across from the refrigerator.
Dawg pushed his fingers through his hair in frustration.
“I’ll be in the living room,” he growled. “Maybe I can keep a door from smacking me there.”
“Only if you don’t stand in front of it,” Mercedes informed him as she strode from the pantry, her arms full of white china plates and silverware. “Grab those tea lights from the counter and come help me,” she ordered him.
Eve almost laughed at his expression of male disgruntlement, but he did as he was told. Not before he glanced back at her, though, his expression warning her that whatever he wanted to talk to her about, he wasn’t about to forget.
Breakfast for the inn’s guests was usually something Eve enjoyed. She took pleasure in the preparation and in sharing the meal, and though cleaning up wasn’t a joy, it could be fun.
Sitting down to breakfast a little after eight, at one of the busier tables after the guests had been served, she honestly thought she’d be safer. Instead, she found herself facing Brogan across the circular table as her brother placed himself to the side.
Each table seated six. There were four tables in the room, and her mother often took reservations for breakfast as well as dinner if she knew the customers well. Normally the extras here were her daughters. This morning it was Dawg and a couple leaving after vacation who hadn’t been able to get a room at the inn but had managed to convince Mercedes to allow them to join the meals instead.
Eve found it highly uncomfortable, though, sharing a meal with both Brogan and Dawg. Only hours before she had been in Brogan’s arms, dying for more than the kisses and light touches he had been giving her.
It was almost impossible to keep her eyes off him now.
She kept glancing across the table, catching him watching her, then, as she looked away, catching Dawg glowering at both of them.
Her brother ate silently, though, and when he finished he drank his coffee, speaking only when necessary but keeping his eyes on her and Brogan.
Of course, Brogan acted as though her brother weren’t even there. He still watched her, though Eve tried to keep her gaze elsewhere.
She tried, but it was impossible.
No one was happier to see the end of the meal than Eve when the guests finally began drifting away. Jumping to her feet, she began to clear tables and carry the dishes to the kitchen as Piper loaded the dishwasher.
Her mother joined her and Piper in cleaning up: first the dining area, then the kitchen. Sharing gossip and plans, they cleaned the two rooms down to the floors. The hardwood in the dining room and the ceramic tile in the kitchen gleamed with cleanliness when they finished and stepped into the foyer, a sense of satisfaction filling them.
Glancing at the clock, Eve sighed wearily, the lack of sleep finally catching up with her as she yawned slowly.
“Lyrica’s going to have to give up on this Graham thing,” Piper remarked as she caught Eve’s yawn. “She has breakfast duty the rest of this week, and you’re not going to cover for her every morning.”
“Where’s Zoey, anyway?” She looked around, realizing she hadn’t seen her baby sister all morning.
“She’s painting,” her mother answered as she took a dust cloth to the aged wood of the sideboard that held the house phone, phone book, and tourist pamphlets just inside the door. “She’ll be here to help with dinner.”
“So will Lyrica,” Piper decided. “If she can make Eve cover for her morning shift, then she can cover my evening shift and let me go out for a change. I’ve worked a week straight now.”
Eve frowned and turned back to her mother. “Zoey hasn’t been helping?”
Mercedes turned away again, running the dust cloth over another antique table sitting next to the stairs.
“No, Zoey has not been helping,” Piper answered for her mother. “She’s been acting like a brokenhearted diva. And I could understand it if she were seeing anyone.”
“Piper, come on now.” Mercedes turned back to her disapprovingly. “I know plenty of times Zoey has worked two or three weeks straight so you and your sister could do whatever you were doing at the time. You and Lyrica can cover things for a while.”
“I don’t mind covering at all, Momma.” Piper sighed. “And if Zoey were actually doing anything then I could understand it. But it’s like she’s just hiding in her room or disappearing all day and half the night.”
“She’s painting,” her mother repeated. “You know how she gets when she’s wrapped up in her paints. You get the same way when you’re designing, just as Lyrica does when she’s writing. Zoey’s covered for both of you when you were wrapped up in that, too. Give her a break now.”
“I would if I actually saw a single canvas with some color on it,” Piper protested. “But I’ve yet to see anything.”
“Hasn’t she been working a lot out of that empty warehouse on the other side of town?” Eve asked. “I thought I saw her taking some canvases in there last week.”
“The owner let her use it since it was just sitting there empty,” Mercedes agreed. “You know how she is; she’ll show up.”
And she would, Eve thought.
“I’d help, but I promised Sierra I’d work at Walker’s this week and next,” she told them. “They’ve had two waitresses quit on them in the last month and they’ve not replaced them yet.”
Piper groaned and turned to her mother. “I can handle breakfast alone, Momma, but not dinner. You’re going to have to talk to Lyrica.”
Eve grinned at the familiar refrain. In one form or another, from one sister or another, it was the same argument and had been since they were children.
“You’ll have help, Piper,” Mercedes promised her with a laugh. “Now let Eve go to bed.”
“I need to talk to Eve first.” Dawg stepped from the television and game room, leaning against the doorframe as he tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans and watched them quietly.
There was the barest hint of gray in his hair, Eve realized. Right there at the side, when he turned his head just a certain way, she could see the few st
rands gleaming in the devil’s black.
How old was he now? Forty-four? Forty-five, she believed.
He didn’t look it.
His shoulders were still broad, his arms powerful, his abs lean. He was still in his prime, and Eve knew his wife very much appreciated that fact.
He’d waited to talk to her, and his impatience was apparent.
“Is there a problem?” She frowned back at him, surprised he was still there.
It was rare that Dawg became this stubborn over anything, despite his name and the rumor that he’d acquired it because of his steely determination.
“There could be,” he growled.
“In what way?” Mercedes moved to them, her maternal instincts instantly rousing.
Dawg looked up to the ceiling as though searching for patience.
When his gaze returned to them there was an edge of amusement in his light green eyes. “Mercedes, it’s nothing for you to get worked up over,” he promised her. “I just need to talk to Eve about something, that’s all.”
“Let’s get it over with,” Eve suggested. “I really need to go to bed.”
She entered the television/game room and, turning, watched as Dawg closed the door before turning back to her.
Her brows lifted at the move to keep the conversation private.
“Are you sure everything’s okay?” she asked.
“You tell me.” His gaze was intent as he crossed his arms over his chest and braced his feet apart as though steeling himself for a fight.
“Dawg, I’m not in the mood for games,” she told him, confused by the question. “I haven’t slept since yesterday morning sometime, and I have to be at the bar by six this evening.” She glanced at the clock. “If I hurry, I might get five hours in before rushing back over there.”
His jaw clenched. “Then I’ll get straight to the point.”
“That’s the thing to do,” she agreed with a sharp nod as she propped herself on the heavily padded arm of the chair beside her.
“Brogan Campbell,” he stated.
Eve stilled. Dawg rarely had much to say about the men she and her sisters dated or seemed interested in. He watched, waited, and was always there if they needed to talk. But he never played the heavy-handed brother. This was the first time he’d ever approached her about anyone she was interested in.