Chapter 5

Some days, it just didn’t pay to wake up. Waking up in Dawg’s bed had been bad enough, but thankfully he had been gone. She’d been able to steal a shirt and someone’s smaller-sized sweatpants, call a cab, rush back to her brother’s house to shower and change, and arrive to work on time.

Only to be fired.

Fired from a crappy waitress job in a diner that obviously didn’t have enough help to begin with. And it had been more than clear that the owner was reluctant to fire her, which led Crista to only one conclusion. Dawg had influenced the owner.

He had her fired.

He wasn’t even decent enough to stop at just blackmailing her when she knew he had to know she was innocent. But now she was out of a job so he could have his little plaything close by.

She stood by the register as the manager wrote out her final paycheck and sighed wearily.

“Thanks, Madge,” she said quietly when the other woman, concerned and clearly upset with the orders to fire her, handed over the check.

“I’m sure sorry ’bout this, Crista.” Madge sighed, her hazel eyes compassionate. “Owner just called and said do it. Nothing I could do.”

Crista shrugged. The owner was friends with Dawg, she knew that, she knew how it happened.

Turning from the register, she tucked the check in her purse and made her way across the floor. There were few customers at this time of the morning. Some coffee drinkers, an early rising tourist, and Johnny Grace, her next-door neighbor and Dawg’s cousin. Though Dawg admitted to the relationship only when he was forced.

He sat at the back table, a heavy frown on his brow as she moved toward him.

“Crista.” He stopped her before she could make it to the door. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine.” She gave him a stiff smile. “Cutbacks, I guess.”

She liked Johnny. He ran a bakery from his house beside hers and often brought her over fresh bread and sweets on baking days, free of charge, just because, he said, they were neighbors.

His gaze flicked to the manager, the frown still darkening his amazingly clear, soft brow. Dark blond curls framed his face, giving him an almost feminine appearance.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Anything he could do? She had a feeling there wasn’t a damned thing anyone could do. She shook her head, forcing a stiff smile to her face.

“I’ll be fine, Johnny. I have to go now, though. I’ll catch you later.”

Johnny was a good neighbor, but not a confidant. Right now, she couldn’t handle discussing this with anyone.

Her hand tightened on her purse as she stepped from the diner, her gaze swinging unerringly to the big black pickup across the street.

How the hell had she known he would be there? What instinct possessed her that she could feel him watching her, wanting her?

He was a dark shadow behind the tinted windows, until the passenger side window rolled smoothly down, revealing his unsmiling countenance and the dark glasses shielding his eyes.

His overlong black hair was tied back at the nape of his neck, revealing the strong line of his jaw and the arrogance that permeated his expression.

His hand lifted from where his long arm was stretched along the backseat, and his fingers beckoned her to him with regal confidence that she would come. Like a damned pet.

Her eyes narrowed on him as she turned and stalked down the sidewalk to the side of the diner where her Rodeo was parked. She had packed a suitcase that morning before heading to the job she didn’t have anymore. She had actually given Dawg the benefit of the doubt that he would at least trust her to work while he was playing the high-and-mighty blackmailer from hell.

But could he do that? Hell no. He had to have it all.

She jerked her keys from her purse as she heard the powerful motor moving behind her. She threw a glare over her shoulder before striding furiously across the parking lot.

She had bills to pay, a college loan to honor, not that she was using the damned degree at present, but there was always the potential of getting a decent job. Now she was going to go job hunting again and pray there was someone willing to laugh in his face when he ordered her fired.

God, he hadn’t changed. In eight years, most people managed to mature a little bit, but Dawg was still Dawg. Just a little darker, a little more dangerous, but still determined to have everything his own way.

“I don’t think so.” His big hand shackled her wrist as she moved to shove the key into the lock of the Rodeo.

Crista stood still, freezing as anger threatened to overwhelm her.

“I can’t believe you.” She tried to jerk her arm back, then stared at his fingers as he refused to release her.

They were shackled on her wrist like irons, snug enough to hold her in place, to remind her that he was bigger, stronger, harder than she was.

“What can’t you believe about me?” he asked, drawing her along with him to the truck where it sat, driver’s side door still standing open, a few feet behind him.

“Let me go, Dawg! I have to go job hunting,” she sneered with false sweetness. “Someone cost me this job.”

Mocking disbelief filled his face. “No! Someone got you fired? Shame on them.”

Wicked amusement filled his eyes, almost playful, inviting her to share in the fun when he had just taken her only means of support.

When she jerked her wrist back this time, he let her go.

“Tell me, Dawg, how do you expect me to support myself? To pay my bills? To keep my car? I don’t have a job now because of you.”

“You have a job.” The playful amusement left his expression.

“I have a job?” she jeered bitterly. “Let me guess, you’re going to pay me to play your whore?”

His expression stilled then. “Get in the truck.”

She should have been nervous. She had seen that expression on her brother’s face before, and it was one that was best avoided. One she would have avoided if she weren’t so damned mad.

She knew what he expected, and it enraged her.

“Not on your egotistical little life!” Her hand slapped against his chest as she felt anger engulf her. “I have a job to—”

The breath rushed from her chest as he jerked her to him, her breasts flush against his broad chest, the fingers of one broad hand tangled in her hair as he pulled her head back, his gaze imprisoning hers as she stared back at him in shock.

“We made a deal.” His voice rasped with something akin to anger, and yet it went deeper than anger.

Crista trembled as she stared into the light green eyes and the determination that glowed inside them.

“That deal didn’t include stealing my job and my life. You had no right to do this.”

“My bed, or jail. My terms. And my terms say that while you’re sharing my bed, then by God you’ll share when I want you there, not when you have time for me.”

Shock filled her, and not for the first time. This wasn’t the Dawg she had known eight years before, but he was the man who had taken her that night so long ago.

The veneer of teasing charm had been stripped away, and in its place was a man she wasn’t certain she could handle.

“You won’t arrest me.” Her voice trembled. “You know I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“We have a deal,” he repeated. “Now get your ass in that truck. We’ll discuss the terms of it back at the houseboat, but we will not discuss them here, in the middle of a goddamned parking lot.”

He didn’t give her time to argue. He picked her up by her waist, turned, and pushed her into the vehicle.

“My clothes…” She tried to scramble back out, only to come face-to-face with eyes that began to become turbulent in their color. Light greens, sparks of darker color, a swirl of chaotic shades that had her suddenly stilling.

His jaw bunched with tension, the muscle in his cheek twitching twice before he managed to control it.

The keys were plucked from her fingers.

“Don’t move. So help me God, you come out of that truck, Crista, and you’ll regret it. Because I’ll turn you over my knee and paddle your ass here and now. Do you understand me?”

She stared back at him warily.

He stomped, literally stomped the short distance to her Rodeo, unlocked it, and dragged her suitcase from the front seat.

“My flowers.” Her voice gained strength. If all she was risking was a spanking, then he could damned well get everything she had packed. “And the box in the back.”

The suitcase thumped on the ground as he turned and stared back at her broodingly.

“Surely I can at least have the few things I need.” She smiled back at him tightly. “Even condemned prisoners get a few personal articles, Dawg.”

His eyes narrowed before he locked the driver’s side door and slammed it closed. He paced to the back of the vehicle, unlocked the hatchback, and jerked it open. The box of extra clothes, makeup, and personal items was set out, then the miniature rosebush and flowering cactus that sat in the corner.

Slamming the hatchback closed again, he locked it and packed her items in the backseat of his truck.

“Move over.” His voice was harsh as he stepped to the opened door once again.

“I need my car.”

“I said move over.”

“You can’t just leave my car sitting here, Dawg, I need it.” She forced herself not to scream in complete frustration. “This is going too damned far…”

He gripped her waist, and before Crista could fight him he had lifted her over the console and dropped her into the passenger side seat before climbing in.

Damn him. She gripped the door latch with every intention of throwing herself from the truck and reclaiming her precious Rodeo.

“Open that door, and so help me, you’ll regret it.”

She stilled at the sound of his voice, turning to glare at him furiously as he put the truck in gear and turned the monster vehicle around.

“I need my car.”

“Natches can collect it later.” One hand tightened on the steering wheel, the other on the gearshift that rose from the floor as he drove from the parking lot and turned back onto Main Street before heading for the interstate.

“That’s not fair. None of this is fair, Dawg,” she yelled. “You stole my job. That’s the same as stealing everything I own.”

And that wasn’t much, admittedly. Mainly the Rodeo, but it was the thought that counted.

“I’ll take care of your bills,” he bit out.

“Why not just stamp whore on my head,” she sneered.

The truck was jerked to the side of the road, rocking to a hard stop as he turned to her, the effort to control whatever rose inside him visibly apparent on his face.

“Call yourself a whore again, and I’ll make sure that spanking you have yet to receive is nothing pleasant,” he snarled between clenched teeth.

“What do you call it then?”

“I call it a deal you made and agreed to.” He spoke with hard deliberation as his eyes speared into hers. “And I make the rules. You don’t. Now sit back, fasten your seat belt, and stop arguing the point with me before I do something guaranteed to show everyone who passes by this truck just how little I care about propriety or their fucking opinions of either of us.”

Which amounted to nothing, and Crista knew it. Gritting her teeth against the furious words rising to her lips, she slammed the seat belt latch in, crossed her arms over her breasts, and stared straight ahead.

She admitted to being slightly nervous. Not exactly frightened of Dawg, but warier than she would have been even two days before. There was a glow of lust, of hunger in his gaze that had the feminine core of her shaking in trepidation. And it had her mind spinning.

Dawg had always been so fiercely controlled. He never showed anger, at least that was the rumor. He was a get-even rather than a get-mad kind of man.

It wasn’t anger she saw in him now but the dark, primal core of a man who was no longer hiding who or what he was. And the savage hunger that glowed in his eyes aroused her more than the false charm ever had.

This was the Dawg she had always sensed lurking beneath the surface. The one who had held her back when she was younger, who frightened the immature sexuality she had possessed then.

It was that inner man he had let loose on her the night she had spent with him. The drunken charm had evaporated once he had her in his bed, and though he hadn’t been rough, he had been determined, hungry.

“What happened that night?”

His voice had her stilling, her heart beating faster in her chest. She didn’t want to talk about that night. She didn’t want to relive it any more than she already had.

“We had sex. Period.”

“We had sex, so you ran out of town with another man, stayed away seven years, and now you’re fighting something between us that threatens to burn down the county once we get back into bed. Sorry, fancy-face, that one doesn’t go over so well with me. You’re lying.”

She remembered, this was how he got his name. She’d heard Ray relate the tale, how even as a child he would get something in his mind and wouldn’t let it go. Like a dog with a bone. Dawg. He hadn’t changed much.

“What happened eight years ago doesn’t matter, Dawg.” She shook her head tiredly. “What’s happening now does. I can’t afford not to work for three months, and I won’t accept money to sleep with you. I have to have a job.”

“We’re not talking about that right now.” His voice rumbled with displeasure.

“And we’re not talking about what happened eight years ago, either,” she retorted. “Actually, that night is really pretty fuzzy in my head. I’ve all but forgotten it.”

And that had to be the biggest lie she had ever told in her life.

Crista glanced over at him, satisfied and yet more nervous than ever once she saw the dark, brooding intensity of his expression.

“It just pisses me off when you lie to me, Crista Ann,” he growled, glancing at her over the top edge of his dark glasses as he came to a stoplight.

The vehicle rolled to a stop as Crista stared out at the town that stretched on each side of the highway running through it. It had grown in the years she had been away from it, but it was still filled with the same qualities she had missed.

There were no high-rises here, no frantic rush of people walking down the sidewalks, fighting to get from office to office and ignoring everyone around them. She could walk into any store and see someone she knew or had known from her childhood.

She had friends here, distant relatives, and history.

She was aware of him glancing back at her as he put the truck into gear and accelerated through the green light, gathering speed and heading to the marina outside town.

“How long have you been working undercover against the drug dealers around here?” she asked him then. “I know Alex said the problem had grown, but I didn’t know it was bad enough to warrant late-night raids.”

“They’re rare.” His voice was clipped, the message clear. He didn’t want to talk about it.

“It must be getting pretty bad. The guy who caught me in the warehouse looked like one of the monsters television portrays. If the Latin factions have moved into Somerset, won’t it be hard to weed them out?”

His fingers tapped against the steering wheel as he glanced at her.

“Doubtful.” He was determined not to discuss it with her, that was more than obvious.

“Do you know who the woman was who was supposed to be there?”

At that question, he froze. “Not yet.”

Crista bit at her lower lip nervously. “You’ve questioned the other men though, right?”

“This morning.”

“Did you find the money they were missing?”

His head swung around briefly, his gaze hidden behind the dark glasses now.

“Not yet.” Clipped, dark, his voice sent a shiver down her spine. “Why?”

“He seemed to think I had it. That was what he said to me: ‘Where’s my money, puta?’ Evidently, he’s not the only one that considers me a—”

She swore he growled. Crista compressed her lips at the silent snarl that pulled at his lips.

“What else did he say?” he snapped out.

“He didn’t have time to say anything else. You splattered his blood all over me less than a second later.”

“It beat seeing your fucking blood staining that damned warehouse.” Violence filled his voice before Crista watched him forcibly rein it in with a tight grimace. “Did you hear anything else? See anything else?”

She shook her head slowly, feeling the terror that had risen inside her the night before beating at her head again. Dawg had relieved the horror of the event the night before, strangely enough, with his obnoxious blackmail demand. But now it was beginning to set in. The fact that she had nearly died. That if she had just gone to Dawg before, this might not have happened.

She licked her lips nervously. “Look, this is probably totally unrelated, but before this, weird things were happening anyway. So weird that when I told Alex about them, he just about ordered me to call you.”

“What things?”

She went through them briefly: missing clothes, the feeling that someone was following her, watching her.

“Do you think it had something to do with last night?” she asked as she finished.

Dawg didn’t think; he knew. He could feel it burning in his gut and itching along the back of his neck. Primitive possession roiled through his mind as he glanced at Crista and realized that somehow, for some reason, someone among the crew they had rounded up last night had known to use her.

It was far-fetched; he would do better to suspect her of being involved to begin with, but his unruly dick refused to let him consider it.

But, if someone had been trying to throw her into the mix, then it was because they knew of his obsession for her. And there were very, very few people who knew that Dawg couldn’t forget one Crista Ann Jansen.

He wiped his hand down his face and considered his options. They hadn’t caught the one female of the group who they knew had been involved. The mediator between the buyers and sellers had been a woman; the vague description the team had of her resembled Crista. And if she was telling the truth about the buyer, Aaron Grael, then the woman had made off with half down on a two million dollar deal.

He blew out a rough breath as he glanced over at her. She was watching him worriedly, her chocolate eyes filled with indecision and a hint of fear. But there was no guilt. Over the years, hell, even before he joined the Marines, he had been able to spot most lies a mile away. He couldn’t see anything in Crista’s gaze but her worry and her discomfort.

“You haven’t answered me.” There was a snap to her voice that assured him that she wasn’t frightened enough to have forgotten her earlier anger with him.

“Let me check into a few things and talk to Natches about this,” he finally said, his voice rough. There was too damned much money missing to discount any of it. “But my best guess is that it’s all connected. Somehow. I just have to figure out how.”

“If you’re undercover, as I assume you are, because I haven’t heard anything about you working with the DEA, then someone would have to know the truth to know to use me,” she said hesitantly.

He had to give her credit for being smart. No one had ever accused Crista of being without her own sense of intuition.

Too bad he wasn’t really working with the DEA; his problems might be easier at the moment.

“Natches and I both are undercover,” he finally said. “The deal we broke up last night had been in the works for over six months. We pulled in everyone except the buyer I killed and one more player. We’re looking for the other person now.”

She didn’t say anything for long moments.

“The other player is a woman,” she finally guessed, her voice trembling. “And she resembles me, doesn’t she?”

Dawg made the turn into the Mackay Marina in silence before he glanced over at her again.

“The description we have of her resembles you,” he admitted softly, seeing her flinch from the corner of his eye. “She’s the only one missing; she has the money. There’s no reason for any focus to linger on you.”

“Unless one of the men you captured saw me? Or recognized me from town? Or someone associated with them sees me now?”

“Let’s not borrow trouble, Crista.” But they were thoughts brewing in his own mind. “You concentrate on the here and now; I’ll concentrate on the rest of it.”

“Just concentrate on your little blackmail scheme?” she retorted acidly.

“Make happy with my dick, and I’ll be a happy little camper.” He said the words for shock effect. He hated seeing the fear in her eyes, in her expression. And that took care of it nicely.

“Has anyone ever told you what a bastard you are, Dawg?” Hostility radiated from her now.

Dawg let his lips curl into a mocking grin. Oh yeah, he knew what a bastard he was. His father had made certain he had known at a very early age.

“You’re telling me now.” He pulled into his parking slot close to the docks, his gaze moving carefully around the area as he shut the pickup off before turning to face her. “You ready to make nice and go to the boat yet? Or do we need to sit here and have a screaming match instead?”

“I don’t have screaming matches.” Her expression lit with offended anger.

“You’d be the first woman then,” he grunted, moving from the vehicle. “Let’s go. I need a cold beer.”

Summer had just started, but it was already warming up with a ferocity that sent waves of heat curling up from the asphalt.

He pulled her suitcase from the backseat as well as the box and tucked it under his arm as she rounded the front of the truck.

“I’ll get the flowers.” Her expression was anxious, as though she couldn’t trust him to take care of two damned pots of flowers.

But hell, why should she? She couldn’t even trust him to help her when Alex advised her to.

Son of a bitch. Missing items from her home, a feeling of being watched and followed. She had all the signs of a stalker at the very least, and she hadn’t contacted anyone. If she had contacted the sheriff, Zeke Mayes, he would have let Dawg know.

Dawg let her gather the two oversized pots in her arms. The red miniature rosebush with its pot was nearly as tall as she was. The flowering cactus was smaller but no less bulky.

“I can have Natches come back for those,” he told her doubtfully.

The glare she gave him had his lips tightening in annoyance.

“Fine.” He slammed the doors closed as he turned back to her. “Let me carry one of them before you topple over.”

“I have them.” She peeked between the branches of the rosebush. “Just lead the way.”

“If you fall in the lake because you can’t see over those damned pots, then I’m going to let you drown,” he warned her.

He knew better. He was so damned stupid where she was concerned, he’d save her and the fucking plants.

“I know what I’m doing.” Dark brown eyes narrowed on him. “Just go on. I’ll be right behind you.”

“After you.” He smiled tightly. “And watch where you’re going, if you can. Don’t walk off the side of a dock. Please.”

As she moved ahead of him, Dawg stayed close to her, just in case. She was so damned stubborn she would probably kill herself rather than see a single rose damaged.

He frowned at the small roses topping their green branches. He had given her a rosebush once. He wondered what had happened to it. On her seventeenth birthday, an attempt to sweeten her toward him. He had arrived at her home, endured Alex’s glare, and given her the plastic-wrapped little bush for the tiny rose garden she had behind the house. He had noticed that. How much she liked roses.

She’d probably tossed it out just like she had tossed out the memory of them together.

Memories that were still foggy to him. At twenty-four, he had drunk too much, partied too damned hard, and had no sense where women were concerned. But he had been smart enough to think Crista was different. Special.

Hell, she was special, and so different from any other woman he had ever known that it was like night and day. The leading difference being the fact that Crista had never been bowled over by the famous Mackay charm.

At least, not until he was too drunk to remember what had convinced her to sleep with him in the first place.

Now, he had to deal with a hard-on that made common sense iffy at best and the knowledge that someone had been drawing Crista into this game between the agents looking for missiles and those involved in the buying and selling of those missiles.

Damn. He knew the only missing component to this case was the woman who had escaped with a million dollars in unmarked bills. He prayed she was running far and fast and was the only person aware of Crista. Not that he could get that damned lucky, but he could hope.

Unlocking the glass door that led into the houseboat, Dawg checked the security monitor as he entered the living room before setting the suitcase and box on the couch and watching as Crista stood hesitantly in the room, looking around.

“Can I put the flowers upstairs?” she asked. “There’s more sunlight there.”

“Set them down. I’ll take them up later.” He strode across the room to the refrigerator and the cold beer inside.

Twisting the cap off the bottle, he took a healthy drink as he stared at Crista through the dark glasses he wore. Better to hide his eyes, to hide the emotions he knew he wasn’t holding back very well. Even Natches had watched him in concern during the meeting with the joint ATF and Homeland Security task force that had been working the investigation.

Something about Crista made him dangerously hungry. Knowing he had had her and being unable to remember anything but the dimmest events made him crazy.

“You have a choice.” He set the beer on the counter with enough force to cause her to jump.

“Do I?” She was watching him nervously.

At least it wasn’t in fear.

He pulled the sunglasses from his nose and tossed them to the counter before turning his gaze back to her. Immediate. Her response came as fast as her gaze took in his.

He watched her breasts begin to rise and lower with her quicker breathing, watched the little points of her nipples tighten beneath her shirt and a softening in the defiant stance she had adopted.

His hand went to his belt, loosening it slowly as her eyes began to widen.

“Dawg.” She swallowed tightly. “I’m not ready for this yet.”

At least she hadn’t said no outright.

The belt came loose. Moving toward her, he tore the metal button open, then rasped the zipper down. Her eyes became wider, darker, and sharp little teeth bit at her lip.

“I dreamed.” The rough sound of his own voice surprised him. “I dreamed of your mouth taking me. Sucking me into a pleasure so hot I nearly died from it.”

Her eyes seemed to glaze; her face flushed heatedly as he pulled her to the couch. Dragging his jeans down his thighs, he sat down, removed his boots, then kicked the material free as she watched in shock.

He was desperate. So fucking hard he was dying from the hunger crawling through his system.

“Say no, and it stops,” he bit out. “Just say no.”

“And go to jail?”

He clamped his lips shut. He had one advantage over her, and that was it. She very well might not be ready for the rest of it yet, but he had to have this, or he was going to die.

“Your choice.”