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“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.

-44-

NAUTI BUOY

“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.

-45-

Lora Leigh

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?”

-46-

NAUTI BUOY

“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.

-47-

Lora Leigh

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.

-48-

NAUTI BUOY

The Nauti Boys. They were together again. Rowdy pulled the Harley to a stop at the end of the hunting road, pulling in with the other two cycles parked there, and stared back at the men watching him.

Dawg, Natches and Rowdy Mackay. 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 their women were concerned.

“Damn, Rowdy, I’m glad you finally made it home.” Dawg pushed his dark sunglasses to the top of his head, securing them in his raven-black hair. The trademark shoulder-length hair gave him a wild, untamed look.

It was longer than Rowdy’s own black hair, which was still almost military short. But Dawg had always been wilder than him and Natches, in many ways.

Natches was leaning against the backrest of his bike, one boot propped on the gas tank, his sunglasses resting low on his nose, his pale green eyes focused and intent as he watched Rowdy.

They knew why they were there.

Rowdy turned back to Dawg.

“You didn’t tell me when you picked me up.” He stared back at his cousin, his lips flat, anger tightening his skull.

Dawg shook his shaggy head, lowering it briefly as he sighed heavily.

-49-

Lora Leigh

“Some things you just don’t know how to tell a man.” He lifted his head, staring back as he gave it a brief jerk and grimaced. “I figured you’d get a hint soon enough. It’s not like she’s the same girl she was even last year. Let alone the one we all pretty much raised.”

Rowdy bit back the angry response he could have shot back, 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.

“We’ve pulled all the info we could find, Rowdy.” Natches straightened on the seat of his motorcycle, throwing his leg over the gas tank and crossing his arms over his chest. “We’ve been working on this since it happened, taking turns watching the house when we could, and trying to figure out who the bastard is.”

“And?” If anyone could figure it out, it was Dawg and Natches.

“Nada.” Natches grimaced. “What we have are four other rapes in surrounding counties over the last two years. All anal rapes, beatings, cuts, much more severe than Kelly’s. She got lucky. Her neighbor’s boyfriend heard the single scream she was able to get out. He was a tough guy, broke in and tried to apprehend him, but once he caught sight of Kelly he let the guy go to help her.”

“And none of you thought to let me know?” He stared back at the two men.

He had talked to both of them over the past year and never realized that the distance he had felt had been something they were hiding rather than his own imagination and the physical distance between them.

“What could you have done, man?” Dawg tilted his head to the side and stared back at him questioningly. “We didn’t want the trouble of hiding an AWOL Marine for the rest of our natural lives, and didn’t figure

-50-

NAUTI BUOY

Kelly needed that on top of everything else. We took care of her until you could get home.”

“He’s still calling her.”

Natches nodded. “Ray has been keeping us up to date. Kelly doesn’t know about the majority of the phone calls—he and her mother have been protecting her from them.”

He hadn’t been able to protect her, though.

“Are you two free?” He looked at them and knew they would be, whatever it took.

“We’re free. We made sure of it.” Natches nodded firmly. “How do you want to play it?”

“I need one of you backing me at all times we’re away from the house.” He turned to Dawg. “I’ll have her on the
Nauti Buoy
this evening.

I’ll have to talk to her, let her know what we’re looking at here.”

“I’ll be there.” Dawg gave a brief, slow nod. “We’re all living on the boats this summer, Natches and I will make sure we’re near, see if we can see any movement, anyone watching. We haven’t so far, but with crazies like this, you never know what they’ll do when their victim changes pattern.”

Rowdy stared back at them. They knew each other, sometimes too well.

“I’ve been thinking,” Dawg said, his voice graveled, suspicious.

“Whoever he is, he had to have known her. Kelly’s not a creature of habit.

She’s impulsive, unpredictable, and never where you expect her to be. He knew she would be home. He knew she liked to crack her window at night. You can’t tell it’s cracked from the street. He had to have known.”

“He studies his women,” Natches said. “Gets to know them somehow.

We’ve been talking about this.” He nodded to the others. “Playing it out. I think he’s local.”

-51-

Lora Leigh

“Why?”

“The rapes are in a four-county radius around Somerset. Until Kelly, Somerset hadn’t been hit. She fits the profile of the other girls though.

The others he doesn’t bother other than to call every now and then and ask if they’re being ‘good girls’, but he’s stalking Kelly. Calling your dad’s house at all hours of the day and night. My gut says he’s local.” Natches’

gut was rarely ever wrong.

“The guy lost it when he was interrupted. The others…” Dawg cleared his throat, fury flashing in his eyes. “He made them beg. First to live, and then for him. Kelly wouldn’t beg…”

“And he was interrupted— Shit!” Rowdy ran his hands over his head.

“But she’s still a ‘good girl’,” Natches pointed out. “When she stops being a good girl, what will he do?”

Rowdy felt his stomach pitch at the thought of what Ray had told him during their drunken night out. How the bastard called, asking if Kelly was still his “good girl”. It was one of the reasons he’d become so furious when he learned Rowdy had come home, not just because it was home, but because Kelly was there. Because Ray had known his son had come home to claim Kelly.

“The redneck code, cowboys,” Natches drawled. “You don’t fuck the good girls unless you mean it. He doesn’t rape them normally, he takes them anally. He’s not serious ‘bout them. And he’s not going to ‘dirty’ a

‘good girl’.”

It was sickening, and the truly horrifying part was it all made sense.

There were unwritten rules sometimes, a code, a way of dealing with women. Good girls versus “bad” girls and the rules of engagement. This rapist was twisting those rules. Perverting them in ways guaranteed to give a sane man nightmares. He was targeting good girls, or his perception of a good girl.

-52-

NAUTI BUOY

And Kelly gave the impression of the perfect good girl. But she was
his
naughty girl. He had seen it in her eyes eight years ago; he saw it there now. She wasn’t a fool, and she might very well be a virgin but Rowdy knew that his naughty girl was in there, waiting for
him
. And he was going to claim her, love her, protect her.