Her hands fell to the hem of her shirt, lifting it as she leaned back to stare into his eyes, wanting to see the lust and need flaming in the green depths.
As the shirt cleared her belly and began edging over her bra, a shockingly familiar voice drawled from the doorway. “The door’s open; does that mean I can join you?”
Laced with amusement, heavy with interest, Natches’s voice had Kelly jerking the shirt down and staring back in shock at the deepened lust in Rowdy’s eyes.
There was no anger that Natches had invaded the moment, there was added arousal, a deepening flush of lust on his hard face.
“Ever been watched?” he whispered, his expression heavy with dark desire.
Breathing heavily, Kelly stared back at him. She wasn’t shocked, she realized. She had heard too much about the Nauti Boys. Too many tales of their sexual excesses, their uninhibited immersion into their sensual games.
She swallowed tightly, staring back at him as the flames between her thighs began to burn with insistent demand.
“Rowdy…” She shook with indecision. She had guessed over the years that the day would come when she would face this choice. That she would run headlong into the hungers the three men shared; she just hadn’t expected it nearly this soon.
“As much as I would love this,” Natches sighed, “and I surely would love it, I just came to let you know Uncle Ray is headed this way. And he has that bulldog look on his face for sure.”
Was it relief or regret that raced through her mind? Whichever it was, there was no doubt her body was howling in protest.
“Well hell.” Rowdy dropped a quick, hard kiss to her lips as he stepped back, his hands gripping her waist as he sat her gently on the floor. “Guess the cavalry is going to rescue you, baby.”
She didn’t need rescuing.
“I’ll talk to him,” she whispered.
“No talking needed, baby.” He shook his head as he sighed wearily and tucked her hair behind her ear, then ran his fingers gently down her cheek. “Go on to the marina. I’ll check in later. Okay?”
“He doesn’t understand.”
“Go, baby.” He shook his head. “Me and Dad don’t have a problem here. He’s just being who he is, that’s all. And who he is means he’s going to worry about the little lamb staying too long with the big bad wolf.” And that was her fault. She had been so hysterical over Rowdy knowing about the attack that she knew Ray was now worrying about her being alone with Rowdy at all.
She had sworn his cousins to secrecy, begging them to hold their silence on the attack, pleading with them not to tell him. Reluctantly, they had agreed. And now Kelly knew why the reluctance had been so thick. They knew Rowdy, and they knew he’d be angry with all of them. And he was. He was hiding it well, but she saw the flash of it in his eyes, mixed with the hurt. Being kept in the dark never had sat well with him. He was the type of man who faced the monsters and fought them back however much it took. He wasn’t a man that appreciated being protected or deliberately left out.
“I better go,” she sighed, glancing at the door. “Will you be at the house tonight for dinner?”
“Tomorrow,” he promised easily, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Wear something pretty for me.”
Something pretty. She hadn’t done that for a year.
“I can do that.” She moved away from him slowly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Count on it, baby.” He leaned against the counter, his gaze heavy lidded, his body hard, aroused as she slid past the doorway.
Her heart was racing in excitement, drumming with latent fear, but for the first time in a year, she felt alive again. Rowdy was home now. A smile edged at her lips. He was home, everything would be fine now.
FOUR
The Nauti Boys were together again. Rowdy finished off his beer as he stared at the other two men who had followed him topside later that evening.
Natches, the youngest of them at twenty-nine, tossed the pizza box on the table and moved into one of the chairs that set beneath the awning. Dawg, the oldest at thirty-one, flipped on the CD player he had carried up and set it on the spare chair. The better to drown conversation. They had learned young to watch their discussions here at the marina and on the lake. Sound carried on the water, and they had learned more than one secret eavesdropping themselves.
“You’re pissed.” Dawg sprawled back in his chair as he stared at Rowdy through narrowed, green eyes.
Rowdy took his own chair and stared back at the two men. They had run wild through town and the Marines together, though Dawg and Natches had gone reserves after their first tour rather than staying in longer. Dawg managed the lumberyard his father left him, while Natches had opted to permanently distance himself from his parents’ thriving restaurants and owned a garage of all things. His dad stayed elbows deep in flour and Natches was a grease monkey. The family fights over that one had been interesting.
“I’m pissed.” Rowdy shrugged, knowing there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
Uncapping another beer from the cooler beside him, he stared at his cousins soberly, wondering if he would have made the same choices.
They were the bad boys of the county. The three of them had been the terror of Somerset, Kentucky, when they were young. Fathers locked their daughters up at night in fear of the three of them. They hadn’t exactly gained a good reputation where women were concerned.
“Damn, Rowdy, I’m glad you’re back.” Dawg shook his shaggy head, his raven black hair reflecting the lights of the marina. “Even pissed, it’s a hell of a sight better than dealing with this without you.”
Natches sipped at his beer, his own black hair not nearly as shaggy as Dawg’s but longer. It was pulled back in a ponytail at his nape, giving his features a harder, more savage appearance.
They knew why they were there.
Rowdy turned back to Dawg.
“You could have told me when you picked me up,” he informed his cousin, his lips flat, anger tightening his skull.
Dawg shook his head, lowering it briefly before sighing.
“Some things you just don’t know how to tell a man.” Dawg grimaced. “I figured you’d get a hint soon enough. It’s not like she’s the same girl she was last year.”
Rowdy bit back the angry response burning on his lips, but hell, this was Dawg. When Rowdy hadn’t been around to watch out for Kelly’s skinned knees and the bullies who liked to pick on her, then Dawg had been there.