“Not me.” His smile was hard, cold then. “I like living too much. But I’m sure there’s a nice, safe accountant, manager, or, hell, landscaper who could be. Give one of them a chance.”
Pulling the door open with a jerk, Elijah left the kitchen, the door closing just a little too loudly behind him.
Graham cursed.
The bastard.
Elijah had worked undercover in all three areas before coming to Somerset. Accountant, manager, or landscaper his ass. Graham would shoot him first.
But he had a point. Maybe the deadline wasn’t a deadline for her brother, but one for him.
Lyrica Mackay wasn’t nearly as maneuverable as she let her brother and cousins believe she was, he thought with a heavy sigh. Nor was she willing to give him time to find the self-control he needed to make sure her heart wasn’t shattered when this was over.
She was nothing like Betts.
The thought caught him so completely off guard that for a moment he was back there. The sun beating down on his desert helmet, attacking the dark sunglasses he wore as the military convoy dropped into base.
The four-man unit he was scheduled to take into the mountains above Kabul was in that convoy, he knew. His men were assembled, their gear ready for a week-long trek into territory sure to test the luck they’d held on to for months when it came to serious wounds or fatalities.
Then his third man turned and reached into the vehicle, and a second later Graham had kissed that lucky streak good-bye as the soldier helped a lone female from the truck.
Betts Laren. Delicate and black haired, though the shining cap was cut to frame her pixieish face rather than falling down her back. Her lashes weren’t as thick and lush as Lyrica’s, her slender body more compact than fragile, her eyes a softer green. But she’d relieved the lust he couldn’t seem to get a handle on where thoughts of the third Mackay sister were concerned.
The army intelligence officer was fearless and charming, and she’d fooled him in ways he’d never believed a woman could fool him.
Shaking his head, he stalked to the door and opened it, stepping out to the shaded porch to draw in the scent of Kentucky warmth as the memory of the smell of death began to fill his head.
He’d kept from touching Lyrica for two fucking days. Hellish days. He was so damned hard, so ready to fuck, it was all he could do to keep from throwing her over the table when Elijah flirted with her outrageously.
He’d known he wasn’t going to last much longer when he’d forced himself from the bed that morning. But he’d managed to get a handle on it, to push back the extremity of his lust. If he could detach himself from his need just a little more, then he could take her again and trust his ability to still think straight.
He would be able to still the hunger just a little while; keeping her heart from becoming more involved, perhaps. He didn’t want to hurt Lyrica.
There was no doubt he already trusted her. Lyrica didn’t balk at telling him exactly what was on her mind at any given time. And when she did, he always sensed it.
But he wasn’t a safe bet for her. He wasn’t a safe bet for any woman. His secrets were dangerous, and the chances of their resurrection far too probable. The only question was when.
He frowned, wondering . . .
Not possible; he shook the thought away. That particular secret still lay in a coma in a French hospital. He knew. He checked daily. And he lived with the knowledge that he’d jeopardized his own future when he hadn’t killed the man when he had the chance.
—
Breathing out a sigh of relief that Graham had left the kitchen, Lyrica stepped back inside to refresh her coffee and snag one of the prepared sandwiches Graham and Kye usually kept in the fridge for lunch.
Neither of them was big on cooking, Kye had laughed as she’d looked over the selection of sandwiches. So twice a week, one of them would put together the sandwiches, wrap them, and place them in the crisper.
They were always damned good, too.
Not too big, no condiments or additions. Just thick hoagie rolls and a variety of thinly sliced meats. Who needed tomato and lettuce, she thought as she bit into one of the meaty selections.
Finishing the sandwich and her coffee, she wandered into the sunroom, the memory of lying on that nearest chaise lounge with Graham between her thighs sending a flush racing over her body.
Damn him. Threaten to lock her in the basement, would he? Oh, just let him try. She’d make damned sure he regretted it.
And of course, threatening to lock her away was far better than touching her, wasn’t it?
God, had she really wasted the past six years of her life? Because if he thought for one damned minute that he’d made up for six years of tortured arousal, then he’d best think again.
Yeah, she had wasted those years.
She was wasting her time now, she thought as she heard the back door open. She would have let him know she was there if she’d had a chance—she was turning to head back into the kitchen when Elijah’s comment stopped her in her tracks.
“She’s not Betts, Graham.” Elijah’s voice was heavy, filled with regret.
“I didn’t say she was,” Graham answered and Lyrica heard the sound of the fridge opening and closing.
“You should have stayed the hell away from her,” Elijah growled then, his voice harder, colder than she could have imagined possible. “Let her love—”
“An accountant, manager, or landscaper?” Graham gave a short, mocking bark of laughter. “Fuck you, Elijah. I told you this subject was finished. Now let it go.”
“Let Lyrica go, then,” the other man snapped back at him. “Stop hanging around her like some dark, tortured warrior. You’ve done just enough to keep that girl hanging on without giving her any part of yourself. Where’s the fairness in that?”
“Drop it, Elijah.” Graham’s voice was dangerously soft now.
“She’s . . . no more than a stand-in for her . . .” Elijah’s accusation sent a wave of agony ripping through Lyrica’s heart as she heard something heavy thump into the wall.
Probably Elijah.
Stepping to the doorway silently, she saw Elijah shoved into the wall, Graham’s forearm braced against his throat, his back tense, every muscle defined as he held the younger man firmly in place.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Grating, rasping with fury, Graham’s voice carried clearly to her.
“Don’t I?” Elijah bit out fiercely, doing nothing to fight back. “I might not know what happened or how it happened, but what I do know is that she and Lyrica resemble each other enough that it’d be damned easy for you to pretend—”
“Don’t make me kill you, Elijah. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and repeating that crap will only hurt Lyrica.”
“Why do you care?” Elijah’s lips drew back furiously, though still he did nothing to fight back. “You don’t intend to keep her. You just intend to fuck a little pain out of your system before you send her back home to her brother. Tell me, Graham, did you call her name when you were—”
“No!” Lyrica jumped forward as Graham’s fist drew back, the power bunching in his shoulder and arm a clear indication that Elijah was about to be on the receiving end of something Graham would never be able to take back.
“Let him go,” she whispered as the two men froze.
Elijah’s gaze was filled with regret, but purpose. Jerking his head around, Graham’s gaze was so razor sharp it sliced into her soul as it locked onto hers.
Endless, bitter fury seemed to reflect in his eyes now. For the first time she was seeing the soul of the man, and the bleak misery there had her flinching at the pain of it.
His pain.
And now hers. Because now she knew she truly was no more than his latest “flavor,” and she couldn’t even hate him for it, because she’d known. She’d known all along that she would never be more than that.
Slowly, Graham moved back, his fingers flex
ing as the muscles at his jaw clenched violently.
“Get out!” He snarled, turning on Elijah with the promise of certain violence. “Now!”
Elijah gave a hard, disgusted twist of his lips before turning, gripping the door, and slamming out of the kitchen and onto the back porch.
Graham swung back around, the gold in his eyes brilliant now as he watched her for several long, tense moments.
“Eavesdropping doesn’t become you, Lyrica,” he stated furiously.
“Yeah, and it’s true what they say, eavesdroppers hear nothing good of themselves, right?”
“Fuck!” A hard grimace tightened his face as he raked his fingers furiously through his hair. “I would have never let you hear that bullshit.” He glared back at her as his arms dropped to his sides once again. “And that’s what it was, fucking bullshit.”
It was more. She could see it in his eyes, in the furious pain burning in the golden depths.
“I didn’t mean to overhear.” She swallowed tightly. “It all happened so fast.”
Lifting her hand, she dropped it to her side again helplessly.
If it was bullshit, he would explain, right?
She waited, watching him, knowing with every shuddering beat of her heart that he wasn’t going to explain a damned thing. Because to explain it would mean admitting it wasn’t bullshit, she thought painfully. Admitting that she was no more than a stand-in for another woman.
What was she supposed to do now? What was she supposed to say?
She looked away for a long moment, the shadows that filled the room from the tightly closed windows and the curtains pulled over them sinking into her heart.
When she turned back to him, she couldn’t help the trembling of her lips or the pain that lashed at her heart.
“Did you think of her when you were with me?” she whispered, unable to stop the words before they escaped. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I asked that.” She tried to laugh, but the sound was bitter and filled with self-disgust as she held up a hand in a staying motion as he started to speak. “I don’t even want to know. I don’t even think I can bear to know either fucking way.”
He shook his head, breathing out roughly, but he refused to say anything, refused to explain a damned thing.
“Does Kye know?” she asked painfully, her heart racing so hard, pounding in agony at her chest.
“There’s nothing to fucking know, Lyrica,” he bit out, his voice rough. “For god’s sake, what you heard was Elijah’s perception of one fucking comment made long before this summer. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about and he has no idea how close he is to getting his fucking ass kicked for hurting you like this.”
Hurt? This wasn’t hurt. It was agony. Because what he was saying felt true, but she could also feel the lie.
“Who is Betts?”
He flinched as though she’d struck him.
That was all the truth she needed to see.
She rushed past him, unable to stand there any longer, unable to face him or the tears she could feel burning in her chest.
Even as she ran, she expected him to stop her. She expected to feel his arms coming around her and pulling her back into the heat of his hard body. She didn’t. As she rushed out the door, she paused long enough to glance back at him. He stood where he had been before she moved, appearing to stare at the spot where she’d stood. Still, silent, and just as alone as he wanted to be.
SIXTEEN
“This is Natches. Leave me a message if you have to.”
Natches’s voice message usually managed to make her smile, but this time, she couldn’t seem to make the effort.
“It’s Lyrica.” She swallowed tightly. “Hell, you have my number . . .” Her voice broke as she fought back a sob. “Can you call me back, Natches? I really need to talk to you.”
She disconnected the call.
She couldn’t call Dawg. If she did, she would start crying the second he heard the pain in her voice and softly asked, “Hey there, baby sister, tell me what hurts.”
Dropping the phone into her bag, she stared around the bedroom. She had to pack her clothes. She’d just recently unpacked them when Graham had suggested there was plenty of room in his closet and dresser. Her hands had actually trembled as she’d put her things away, thinking of his claim that no other woman had shared this space with him.
Gathering her strength when all she wanted to do was rage, to run from the house and escape Graham and the pain building inside her, she bent and dragged her suitcase from beneath the bed where he’d stored it.
A shadow of something attached to the bed frame had her frowning and lifting the white dust ruffle to investigate further. The handgun attached to the metal rail surprised her. There was another on the other side of the bed.
Pulling back slowly, she straightened, then lifted the leather bag to the mattress and opened it quickly. She was turning for the closet when Graham stepped into the room.
His gaze went instantly to the luggage, the anger in his gaze darkening as he snapped the door closed behind him.
“You promised me twenty-four hours,” he reminded her, the low rasp of his voice sending a surge of awareness, of sensual trepidation up her spine.
Not fear. He’d never hurt her. But this was a part of Graham she had no experience with. A side of him she had never seen before. The dark, wicked eroticism on his face, the sexual knowledge that gleamed in his eyes and her own awareness that he wouldn’t hesitate to use it to hold her there.
And when everything was over, when she was no longer his preferred flavor, what then?
“A promise based on the assumption that staying here would hurt less than walking out,” she informed him as that thought slashed through her heart.
“Staying here would hurt less than being dead?” A sharp bark of laughter escaped his lips. “Excuse me for disagreeing, sweetheart, but I think the process of getting dead might hurt worse.”
Would it really? Graham could destroy the part of her that loved, that believed in love. Would death hurt more than losing what she sensed could have been between them? Or would have been between them if he had been willing to share his own heart.
“Natches or Dawg will be more than happy to pick me up. Once I’m with them, I’ll be safe. They’ll make certain of it,” she informed him, stalking to the dresser to remove the items there despite the prickling of her skin as he watched her.
“Take a single item out of that dresser, Lyrica, and the considerate lover I’m really trying to be will evaporate. Is that what you really want?”
Considerate lover? Well, by god, wouldn’t he have to be a lover first? Evidently, they’d just had sex, nothing more. That wasn’t her definition of a lover.
“What I want isn’t an option,” she snapped, turning and bracing her hands on her hips as she faced him again. “And staying here is no longer an option, either.”
His lips tightened further, the muscles at his jaw clenching as he folded his arms in a move that only increased the appearance of width in his already broad chest.
“Because you learned I had a past lover?” he said mockingly. “I’ve had many.”
No kidding. So many in the past year that she had nearly lost count herself. But it wasn’t the quantity that hurt as damned much as the knowledge of the one she hadn’t known about.
“A lover that mattered,” she cried out furiously, painfully. “One that you regret so desperately that you’re taking me to your bed because I look like her?”
It was killing her. The thought of it was so demoralizing, so painful she could barely breathe for it.
“Go to hell, Graham. The least you could have done was told me. You could have let me know you’d lost the woman you loved . . .”
He was on her before she could attempt to evade him. Pulling her to him, lifting her from the floor, and tossing her to the bed with the utmost gentleness and the utmost dominance.
Rolling to her back, she sat up quickly, one hand braced on the m
attress, the other brushing her hair back from her face as she stared back at him.
“You think I’m taking you to my bed because you look like Betts?” he snarled, already jerking his boots off. “Oh, hell no, baby. I took her to my bed because she looked like you. Because I couldn’t think for the need to fuck you, couldn’t sleep for dreaming about it or get through the day without fantasizing about it. Because the hunger tearing me apart blinded me to such an extent that I didn’t even know when I was being betrayed.”
Fury whipped over his expression and in his eyes, filled his voice, and left Lyrica staring back at him in shock.
Whipping the T-shirt over his head, his hands went instantly to his belt and the metal button securing the band of his jeans. In only a few seconds he was shedding the denim, the heavy, engorged length of his cock standing out from his body fiercely. The fingers of one hand wrapped around the shaft, stroking it slowly as his eyes narrowed on her.
“Spread your legs,” he ordered, his voice a deep, lust-filled rasp that sent weakening need flooding her further.
She shook her head, though not in denial of the order, more in denial of the revelation that she’d torn from him.
“We need to talk . . .”
“Oh, baby, we’ve talked enough. Now spread your legs.”
She shook her head again.
“Want to test me, pretty girl?” he whispered, stepping closer to the bed. “Spread your legs. I’m going to eat my fill of that sweet pussy and see just how crazy I can make both of us while I’m doing it. And you’re going to just lay that pretty little body right back there and enjoy every minute of it. And maybe, just maybe, by the time I’m finished fucking us both into oblivion I’ll have a handle on whatever the hell it is that you do to me.”
What she did to him? What did she do to him that made him so angry?
“This won’t solve anything,” she argued desperately, though even she was aware of the fact that she wasn’t trying to escape him. “You know it won’t.”