by Leigh, Lora
He had lost control. She sensed it, she felt it. His dominant, possessive touch, the muted groan of her name, the violent tension that radiated through his body as he spilled his release. It hadn’t been like that the first time. It hadn’t been wild and untamed, it had been focused and controlled.
Rogue decided she was going to have to see about breaking his control a little more often.
Zeke pulled the truck into the parking lot at the back of the bar and cut the ignition silently. He was aware of Rogue watching him, the frown at her brow and the tension that had been steadily rising between them since he had fixed their clothes earlier and left the lake.
He’d taken her there to talk, not to fuck. But she was like a drug; once he touched her, he had to have more. The more he had, the more he wanted. It was a vicious cycle that threatened to destroy his mind.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re acting like a jackass, Zeke?” she finally asked curiously. “Or do I have to start guessing?”
He almost smiled. Damn her, she wasn’t supposed to make him laugh.
“What would you guess?” He looked over at her, realizing he was genuinely curious as to what her answer would be.
Fiery, mussed ringlets of hair fell over her shoulder as her violet eyes went over him slowly. She was silent, thoughtful for long moments.
“A lousy marriage would be too easy.” She finally sighed. “You’re mysterious, secretive. I’m betting even your wife didn’t know the real you.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised by her insight.
“She didn’t want to know the real me,” he finally said wryly. “Women want the fantasy, Rogue. It’s what my wife wanted, it’s what my lovers have wanted.”
“If you say it’s what I want, then I might have to hit you, Zeke.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “I didn’t wait five years to lose my virginity to you so you could give me some kind of song and dance about how you can’t be whatever the hell it is you think I want. So save it.”
“Why did you wait five years to lose your virginity to me?” He’d kept that question silent, but now, Zeke found, he needed the answer to it. “You could have any lover you wanted, Rogue. Why wait?”
“Because I’m a fool?” She stared back at him, her eyes flashing with a glimmer of anger. “Why did you wait five years to take my virginity, Zeke?”
“Hell, there’s a question.” He gave his head a quick jerk. “Because I knew you were trouble the first second I set eyes on you. All prim and proper in your schoolteacher clothes, your pretty lips unsmiling, but those eyes.” He chuckled. “You snuck a peek at my crotch right there in the middle of that damned town hall meeting.”
She didn’t deny it. “You have some fine-looking goods, Sheriff.” She laughed. “But it doesn’t answer my question.”
“Just as you didn’t answer mine,” he pointed out.
She shrugged at that as she turned her head away for long moments. “Call it instinct,” she finally said, turning back to look at him. “I knew you could satisfy me. Your turn.”
Oh, there was more. She thought she was in love with him. Zeke could see it in her eyes. He wondered how long it would take her to realize that love was no more than a carefully contrived deception.
But she wanted answers, and they were answers he knew would hurt her.
“You’re temptation,” he finally answered her. “Young, wild, sweet. Every dirty old man’s fantasy.”
She seemed to flinch. “Oh, so I’m your midlife crisis? I wonder what that makes Janey to Alex. You are so full of crap, Zeke.”
He snorted at that. “Alex doesn’t come with the same baggage I come with, Rogue,” he told her, shaking his head. “You’re young, and you’re innocent.”
“And you want to tie me down and fuck my ass until I’m screaming for mercy,” she drawled. “You want me blindfolded, spanked, and insane from wanting you. You want to get nasty with me, Sheriff, and you’re terrified of losing all that perfect control of yours.”
He snapped his teeth together, his hands clenched the steering wheel, and he fought to keep the vision of those acts out of his head. If he didn’t think about them, they wouldn’t torment him nearly as much.
She leaned closer. “You want to get rough and wild with me, Zeke. So bad it’s like a hunger.”
“Are you finished yet?” He kept his expression hard, unemotional. He’d managed to keep his control for years now, he wasn’t going to let go now.
She stared back at him for long moments before something resembling resignation flashed in her eyes. “Yes, I’m finished now,” she finally said. “Don’t bother seeing me upstairs. I know the way.” She reached for the door handle.
“Rogue. I didn’t take you out to fuck you tonight. I need to talk to you.”
“We’ve been talking.” Her eyes were filled with shadows now, with pain. “What more is there to say?”
“This investigation into the twins’ deaths, and their grandmother’s,” he stated. “I called Lisa this evening and convinced her to go stay with her aunt in Louisville. I want you to leave town for a while as well. Until I figure out what the hell is going on. Until it’s safe.”
She was still, silent. Zeke stared back at her, watching as what he said sank into that quick little mind of hers.
“You think someone is killing Walkers?” she asked.
“I think Joe and Jaime were messing with the wrong girl,” he told her. “I believe their grandmother was killed because she might have known who that girl was. Joe and Jaime kept her a secret for the most part, but Grandmother Walker thought she might have known who the girl was. She told Lisa she was trying to contact me to tell me who it was, but she died before she could get ahold of me. You and Lisa were close to the twins. Someone could be afraid you might remember who the girl was as well.”
Someone could kill her. Zeke hadn’t forgotten what it felt like six months ago, staring down at her unconscious form in a hospital bed after she had been attacked over something someone was afraid she knew. He couldn’t imagine it happening again, or worse, finding her dead.
“So you want me to leave town for my own good?” she questioned him carefully.
“Go home to Boston,” he told her. “You weren’t meant to put up with the bullshit you’ve put up with here. See what it feels like to be Caitlyn Walker again rather than the rebel Rogue. I have a feeling you might like it more than you think you will.”
“So, you think I should just walk away? Just forget about my home, my bar, and my friends?”
“You’re home is a trashy little apartment over a bar full of thieves and drunks,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Your friends consist of Janey Mackay and her family, and it took you years to let down your guard enough to accept them as friends.”
“What about you?” she whispered. “We were friends once.”
“We were never friends, Rogue,” he snapped. “I was the one man that didn’t stand up and beg for a treat whenever you were near. I was a challenge. Now we’ve both had our fun, it’s time to face reality. You’re in danger here. Fucking go home before it’s too late to realize where you belong and you’re dead.”
Rogue stared back at him for long, silent moments. No tears filled her eyes, no pain creased her face. Bitterness flashed in her violet gaze though as she seemed to straighten her shoulders and stared back at him relentlessly.
“Wow, quite a little speech,” she said softly. “And here I thought all that ‘you’re mine’ crap you were spouting the other night actually meant something.” Her smile was filled with mocking bitterness. “Oh well, my bad for believing in it, huh?” She gripped the door handle and opened the door slowly. “Go to hell, Sheriff Mayes.”
She jumped out of the truck before he could reach out and grab her. The door slammed closed, and she crossed the short distance to the back door, unlocked it, and disappeared. Zeke sat staring at it as he rubbed at his chest, wondering at the deep, painful ache he could feel there.
He inhale
d, clenched his teeth, then started the truck and backed out.
He’d taken her without a condom. He’d claimed her, despite his own best intentions. He’d so fucked this up he didn’t know which way to turn at the moment. He knew he had to get her out of town. He had to get her away from the danger that could be stalking her, even now. He couldn’t risk a repeat of the past. His soul couldn’t handle it again.
Shaking his head, he drew his cell phone from his hip, flipped it open, and punched in the speed dial he had set earlier that day.
He waited and when a deep male voice answered the call he said, “Cal, it’s time to do something. You need to get your daughter home.”
Calvin Walker was silent for long moments. “Why?” he finally asked.
“Because, if you don’t, she could end up dead.”
FIFTEEN
The ringing of the telephone brought Rogue out of a restless sleep. Her eyes cracked open as she glared at the shades on the window. It had to be too early for her to be awake. There was barely any light between the cracks of the shades.
She reached for the phone, fumbled, dropped it on the floor, and cursed before scrambling for it and rolling back in the bed as she flipped it open.
“You could die for waking me up this early.”
She knew who it was. Only one person dared to call her so early and to have the temerity to laugh in her ear about it.
“Now, baby sister, getting grumpy with me wouldn’t be nice when I just finished doing you a favor of major proportions.”
Amusement filled John Calvin Walker Jr.’s voice.
She almost grinned at the sound of it. But she knew better. If he was calling, then she was in trouble.
“What is Daddy mad over this time?” She yawned. “Tell him he can’t cut off my allowance simply because I never use it anyway.”
John laughed again. “I believe he may have canceled a delivery Mother had arranged for you. Something about silk, lace, and feel-good girly stuff?”
She sat up in the bed. “The French collection? Mom was supposed to have sent that a week ago.”
“Well, it appears she may have been a bit late sending it.” She could almost see John’s violet eyes gleaming with amusement as a smile curled at the corners of his lips.
“Why would Daddy cancel my delivery?” she asked, frowning. “He sent the stuff he bought in Saudi last month.”
John chuckled. “Well, sweet sister, it could be due to a very important phone call he received last night from the son of an enemy he used to have in Somerset. Seems this certain gentleman called Father and confirmed his suspicions that Walkers are being killed.” John’s voice hardened. “The family jet is prepping to leave this morning. ETA at Louisville is for noon. Have your ass there and be waiting for it.”
Rogue breathed in slowly. Patience, she reminded herself. Without it, her father and John would win before the battle began. They were overprotective, forceful, and though her father loved her and tried to allow her to live her life as she pleased, he was still her father.
There was nothing Rogue hated more than being tattled on. When she was a little girl her older brother and sister had always tattled on her. Her teachers tattled, her babysitter had tattled. Rogue had always found a way to get into trouble. And her father had always given the pretense to her mother that he was disciplining her.
Calvin Walker had been born to be a father. He had taken the time to get to know his children from infancy. He knew the best way to deal with their weaknesses and how to draw out their strengths.
But he was, at the very soul of the man, a protective father.
“Tell Daddy he can ignore the sheriff. Whatever Joe and Jaime were involved in, I’m not a part of it.”
“And you know how well Father is going to listen,” John pointed out with chilling logic. “Get your butt on that plane, Rogue. It’s time to come home.”
“But I am home, John.” She sighed. “I’m not leaving Somerset. If Daddy wants to come visit, then he’s more than welcome to do so. Hell, the whole family can come visit, but I’ll warn you right up front, contrary to what Zeke Mayes believes, I am more than capable of watching out for my own butt here.”
“So we’re to just sit here and wait until we get that phone call that lets us know you’re dead?” John was becoming angry. His voice was cold, quiet. He was a lot like Calvin Walker in that regard. The angrier he got, the icier he became.
“No, you’re to accept that I’m a big girl now and I don’t need to run to the bosom of my family every time some paranoid sheriff gets a wild hair up his ass.”
“You know, Rogue, six months ago we stood over your hospital bed after some bastard tried to bash your head in. I’d prefer not to do that again, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind in the least,” she said in exasperation. “This is ridiculous, John. Don’t make me hang up on you. I’m not returning to Boston. This is my home and I’m old enough to decide for myself whether I stay or go.”
“I should bash you over the head myself and drag your ass home,” he snapped. “From what Father says, Zeke Mayes isn’t some paranoid fool, Rogue. He was worried enough to call Father; that means there’s something to worry about.”
“Yeah, he’s real damned worried someone might touch that frozen heart of his.” She swung her legs out of the bed, fury erupting inside her. “Let me tell you what Zeke’s problem is, John. He can’t stand to keep his hands off me, so he had to make certain Daddy hauls me home for his own piece of mind. Now I really don’t give a damn if either of them are resting easy at night. I’m an adult; I’ll decide for myself when to tuck my tail and run, if you don’t mind.”
Her voice was rising. She was so furious she could barely stand it. How dare Zeke call her father and upset him this way? How dare her father sic her brother on her rather than calling himself?
That was just like Daddy. He knew if he called himself that Rogue would go ballistic. Rather than facing her anger, he called John. Because John would rather fight with her as to breathe some days.
Yes, sibling rivalry was still alive and well.
“Rogue, don’t make me get on that jet and come after you,” John warned her.
“John, don’t make me call Daddy and fight with him over this. You know it will only end up coming back to slap you on the ass. I’m his favorite, remember?”
“You’re his favorite because you’re as crazy as he is,” John accused. “You can fight it out with him here. I’d suggest you pack.”
“I’d suggest you take a flying leap,” she raged back at him. “Good-bye, John.”
“Rogue, don’t you hang up on me.”
She hung up the phone, then turned it off. Rogue inhaled slowly, deeply. If she didn’t get a handle on the hurt and the anger churning through her, then she was going to explode. Exploding wasn’t a good thing. She never failed to hurt herself more than she did anyone else whenever she lost control of her temper.
Damn Zeke, she thought as she stalked to the shower. Damned tattletale. He should have never called her father and gotten him involved like this. She knew her family. She could expect every damned one of them to descend on her like a plague of locusts now. She’d be lucky if her grandparents didn’t fly in with the rest of the brood.
She shuddered at the thought. She loved her grandparents, she really did. But they were dangerous. Forget the upper-crust Bostonian reserve they used like a shield. Her grandparents were wicked. And they didn’t take prisoners or show mercy.
She was going to kill Zeke. She was going to string him up and make him scream for mercy. Oh, he had seriously underestimated her.
An hour later, showered, dressed, and ready to rumble, she pushed into the main section of the bar and behind the long teak counter where Jonesy was checking liquor. He straightened from his stooped position and glared back at her.
They hadn’t talked much since the night Zeke had caught him trying to throw her across the room, and Rogue was saddened by the fact that t
he friendship she had once believed they had was disintegrating.
“You working that damned restaurant today?” Jonesy barked. “It’s a sad day when a Walker is more concerned with other folks’ businesses than they are with their own.”
Rogue ignored the comment as she moved around him to the register and collected the receipts from the past night’s sales.
“We gotta put orders in today,” he snapped. “Or do you care?”
“Then put the orders in,” she told him. “You know how to do it.”
“It’s your business,” he sneered. “You do it.”
“I could always fire you. Again. And hire someone who will do it.” She shrugged.
She hated to admit that she preferred working with Janey over working at the Bar. The Bar had saved her at one time; it had helped to remake her at a time when she had been smarting from the loss of her teaching job and the humiliation of the pictures that had hit the Internet.
Over the years the bikers that had helped her survive had slowly drifted away. A few had died, others had found lives, until there was just her and Jonesy. And now, Jonesy was drifting away as well.
Maybe it was time to admit what she had sensed all along. The bar wasn’t a permanent part of her life. It was a way to piss folks off and a means of survival. It wasn’t what she enjoyed doing though.
“There were comments made about you sneaking off with that sheriff last night,” he spat back at her. “Folks are gossiping over it. It’s going to hurt business.”
She rolled her eyes as she shoved the receipts into a large envelope to go over later.
“My private life is just that, Jonesy,” she informed him. “If folks don’t like it, then they can find another bar to go to.”
She was wary around him now. She kept him in her peripheral vision and made certain she had room to run if she needed it. She should have ordered him out of the bar the night he had thrown her across her office. Where would he go though? Rogue knew him; she knew he had nothing but the bar and the little house he owned a few miles away.
