FIVE
Maria opened Kelly’s door the next morning, not really expecting what she saw. Ray had warned her the night before, but he had been drunk, amorous, so she hadn’t really taken him seriously. Perhaps she should have, the shock wouldn’t have been so great.
She was used to coming in to find Kelly napping in the large wingback chair on the other side of the room, the television droning in the background. The room was silent now, and Rowdy was staring at her through slitted eyes from the bed.
He was wrapped around her sleeping daughter like a living vine. Kelly lay on her side, her back pressed against Rowdy’s front, her head sheltered beneath his chin. One hard leg lay over her daughter’s fragile ones, his arms surrounded her as her hair tangled over them. He was bent over her,
wrapped around her, and Kelly was sleeping peacefully.
Kelly was still dressed in the large T-shirt and sweats she had worn last night, and Rowdy had changed into a pair of his own sweats. Rowdy was lying atop the blankets and all modesty was intact as he held her covered body, but it was still a shock. Kelly was her baby, seeing her sleeping in a man’s arms, especially Rowdy’s, was disconcerting. She had expected the closeness they had before her marriage to Ray to develop, but not in this way. As siblings, very close friends, but never this. This terrified her.
The sensuality that seemed to wrap about the two whenever they were together had always worried her, deeply. She had been terrified for years that Rowdy would break her daughter’s heart. What she saw now filled her with conflicting emotions. Rowdy would protect her and, ultimately, that
was Maria’s greatest wish. Her daughter’s protection. But what he could do to her baby’s heart was almost more than she could bear.
She breathed in deeply, realizing she had pressed one hand against her chest at the surprise that had gone through her. She just hadn’t expected it. Kelly was so skittish, so wary since the attack that Marie hadn’t truly expected her to trust Rowdy, not after the amount of time he had spent away in the last
eight years and the changes the Marines had wrought. He was tougher, harder. More determined. The steel in his eyes had come in the first year,
and had only grown stronger. And Kelly knew what Rowdy was. She knew the man he was and the men his cousins were.
As she stared at the two, Rowdy’s frown darkened, his gaze narrowing at her. “What?” he mouthed.
Ray had warned her, she had known herself what was coming.
“We’re going to the marina.” She mouthed the words back at him, hoping her daughter would continue to sleep.
He nodded with a subtle shift of his head, never really moving.
Content. That was how he appeared. Content where he was, holding Kelly close.
She backed slowly from the room, her hand lingering on the door panel for a moment as she fought the worry building within her. Maybe Ray was right. Maybe Rowdy was all Kelly truly needed to get past the rape and the explicit phone calls they tried to shelter her from.
They were worse than Kelly knew. To the point that Maria and Ray turned off the phones and the answering machines whenever they knew Kelly
would be home alone. She didn’t need to know the filth that bastard was
spouting. Or the threats. It was bad enough that Maria knew the calls were still coming.
Rowdy was home now though, they could protect Kelly more effectively. And if Ray was right, Rowdy would eliminate the threat altogether. She prayed Ray was right. Just as she prayed that her daughter could handle what Rowdy was sure to ask from her.
Kelly came awake slowly, her senses alive, her skin tingling beneath her
clothes at the warmth that surrounded her. There was no momentary fear, no surprise. Rowdy was holding her. She could feel him wrapped around her,
spooned against her as though she had been made for the position.
Languorous pleasure suffused her, a drowsy, dreamy sensation of erotic promise. It wrapped around her, veiled her within it, and heated her from the inside out. It sent fingers of warmth to race over her breasts, hardening them, peaking her nipples as hunger raced through them. She wanted to feel him against her there, his hard chest rasping over them, the light mat of hair creating erotic friction. She wanted his mouth there, his lips, teeth and tongue. She wanted everything, wanted all of him.
She was aware of something else as well as she lay there, her body tucked into his. He was hard. His erection pressed against the crevice of her buttocks, a thick intruder, waiting. It was hot, thick, pressing against her in erotic promise, or an implied threat. The barrier of the blanket between her and Rowdy did nothing to stem the feel of him, or the heat.
She bit her lip, stiffening in his arms, her muscles tightening. Pleasure and fear combined inside her. And the pleasure was stronger.
The culmination of what felt like a lifetime of fantasies and needs rose inside her, blocking the fear, pushing it back until nothing mattered except Rowdy.
“Easy, baby.” His voice was drowsy, calm. “It’s just a hard-on.”
He snuggled against her, tucking her closer to his chest as her hands gripped the bedspread and she fought to level her breathing. His voice held an edge of teasing indolence and carnal delight. As though it were an everyday occurrence for her to wake up with a man’s hard-on pressing into her ass.
“I hate to say this,” she wheezed. “That’s not a hard-on, Rowdy. That’s a baseball bat.”
His snorted chuckle vibrated against her back, and only pressed his erection closer against her rear. She stiffened further.
“Want me to move? I’m pretty comfortable right now.”
Oh, she just bet he was. She forced herself to breathe deeply, to push back the panic threatening, building in her mind. This was Rowdy. From the time she was thirteen years old she had been teasing him, brushing against him, doing anything, everything to get a reaction from him. He had never hurt her. Hell, he had ignored her for years. Until four years ago she hadn’t even had a clue that he was aware of her as more than just a pesky little
stepsister.
He hadn’t taken her, hadn’t touched her, he had always treated her with a warmth and a caring and kept her at arms’ length.
He wouldn’t hurt her now.
“You’re thinking it to death,” he murmured as he rubbed his chin against her hair. “Scared?”
“Of your baseball bat?” She fought for humor rather than hysteria. “I don’t know, Rowdy, I hear you’re pretty fond of it. Lots of practice and all.”
She felt his hand move, his fingers running over hers, sending tingling spirals of heat to build beneath them.
“You’re a little minx,” he growled at her ear, a velvet-soft sound that rippled through her senses. “That wasn’t very nice.”
A grin tugged at her lips at his chastising tone. She relaxed against him, feeling her body conform to his, settling against hard muscle and aroused heat.
“I’m not nice, remember?” Her eyes closed as he chuckled at her back. The vibration was at once comforting and arousing.
It was an old argument going back years before. It usually occurred
whenever she told him what lousy taste he had in women, and pointed out their faults in vivid detail.
“I do remember.” His lips smoothed over the top of her head, the caress
sending trailing fingers of pleasure to wash through her body. The slightest caress, no matter how subtle, had the power to make her tremble. “You have a mean wit sometimes, Kelly.”
She gave an amused snort at that. “I just didn’t care to tell you the truth, Rowdy.”
His girlfriends weren’t exactly the kind of woman he brought home to dinner. As a matter of fact, he had never brought a woman home to dinner. Kelly would never have been able to tolerate that. She wondered if he had known that.
“Do you remember when you were seventeen, and you bought that scrap of material you called a bathing suit?” he mused softly.
She remembered the bathing suit, bought specifically in the hope of teasing him past the control she always hated so much.
“I didn’t think you noticed.” She turned her head, staring up at him, close.
His eyes were darker, tiny pinpoints of emerald glittered in the sea-green iris, mesmerizing her, filling her vision. And his lips. Her eyes darted to his lips, so close. And she knew how they felt rubbing against her own, firm
and warm, stoking fires inside her she hadn’t imagined existed.
“I noticed,” he whispered, his voice rougher now. “All summer. I think my cock still has the imprint of my zipper in it.”
His hand stroked up her arm, his palm creating a heated friction that had her nerves prickling with awareness. She could still feel his erection like heated iron resting against the crevice of her rear, but his lips drew her.
“Are you going to kiss me again, Rowdy? Anytime soon?”
“Maybe.” The seductive croon had a shiver racing through her. “When?” Now would be a good time.
“When do you want me to?” His hand slid from her arm to her stomach and rested there.
She felt his fingers, long, broad, resting against her, with only the fabric of the shirt between them. And it was moving, slowly easing above her hips, passing her abdomen until his hand rested on the bare flesh of her midriff.
“Now.” God, if he didn’t kiss her she was going to die from the need of it. “It’s been four years since you kissed me, Rowdy. Let me taste you again.”
“My little Lolita.” His lips lowered, brushed against hers. “How long have you been teasing me now?”
“Since I was nine?” She breathed a laugh against his lips.
The first day she had seen him. He had been as handsome as sin and a god in her eyes when he saved her from a bully in that park.
“Hmm. I was fifteen. You were the sweetest little girl. Staring up at me with those big gray eyes so full of tears because that bully had taken your hair bow.”
“And you got my hair bow back.” She was panting for breath, her lips brushing his with each word.
“I got your hair bow back.”
He took her breath. His lips captured hers in an all too brief, fiery kiss. No tongue, no more than a taste of him on her lips before he drew back.
“Rowdy…” She reached for him, needing more, aching for more. “That’s not fair.”
His fingers played against her midriff, rubbing in slow sensual circles,
creating little starbursts of sensation that exploded in her sex, swelled her clit. Her nipples were fiery aches, begging to be touched, caressed. His hands were so close, the heat of them warming the tight, aching mounds.
She stilled against him as his hips shifted against her rear once again.
“I’m not scared of you,” she whispered, staring into his eyes, fighting to keep her own open. “I’ve never been scared of you, Rowdy.”
“Yeah, you are,” he whispered, his eyes darkening. “I can see it in your
eyes, in your face.” A somber smile touched his lips. “But that’s okay, baby, you won’t be scared for long.”
She opened her lips to speak, then stared at him in astonishment as he rolled from the bed and flashed her a wicked smile. A teasing smile.
Kelly rolled to her back, propping herself on her elbows and staring at him as he moved to the bottom of the bed. He was so obviously aroused it made her mouth water. His cock pressed against the sweatpants with implicit demand, a thick length of steel-hard flesh that she ached for.
“I don’t like being teased like that,” she pouted. “Come back here and kiss me properly.”
“You don’t deserve it yet.” His voice was a dark croon, his expression arrogant, certain. Smug.
“I don’t deserve it?” Disbelief warred with amusement. “I’ve been of age for at least six years now, Rowdy. Ready, willing and able. And…” she
stretched her legs out slowly, looking at him from beneath lowered lids, “I think I’ve waited too long.”
His eyes narrowed, a seductive droop of the eyelids, the exceptional green eyes glittering from between heavy black lashes.
“Oh, I agree.” His voice lowered, his hands gripping the railed footboard of the bed, his fingers curling around it, clenching. “We’ve waited too long,
Kelly. Now, let’s see how bad you want it.” He winked slowly. “Better
shower, baby, I think you’re due at the marina this afternoon. I’ll take you in on the Harley.”
And just as easily as that he turned and sauntered to the bedroom door. He didn’t look back, didn’t pause. He opened the door and left the bedroom, his broad, bare shoulders straight and strong. Too damned sexy for his own good.
Dammit.