“Hey, you were the one waiting.” She rolled to her back and stared up at him, her heart racing as he propped his head on his hand and remained on his side, watching her.

“You could have driven me home if you had shown any interest in doing so.”

A dark brown brow arched. “I’ve been showing decided interest of late,” he pointed out. “Even my son managed to notice my interest.”

Heat built in her face at the reminder of exactly how interested Shane knew his father was now. She rolled back to her stomach and buried her face in her pillow at the reminder.

“Go to work,” she mumbled.

He chuckled, his hand settling on her back beneath the sheet, his fingers rubbing at her hip.

“Shower with me.” She felt his lips at her ear, a tender kiss that reminded her of the aches she could feel in the tender parts of her body.

The thought of showering with him definitely aroused her interest though. As well as other things. She felt herself growing damp, felt her clit awakening and tingling at the thought.

“Shower only.” He nipped at her ear before she could turn to face him. “Other activities can wait until tonight.”

She stared back at him, seeing the amused curl of his lips, the warmth in his eyes. He was sexy like this, playful and seductive. His short hair wasn’t long enough to really get mussed, but it wasn’t as perfectly in place as it was when he’d arrived at her office the night before.

“Maybe I don’t want to wait until tonight.” She let her hand settle on his chest before allowing it to slide down, caressing along his abdomen and moving lower.

“Minx.” He caught her hand. “We’ll play later. This morning, we have to talk.”

“About what?” She was more interested in exploring his manly body now that she had it in her bed.

“Your bartender.”

Rogue stilled. The steely quality of his voice assured her that play-time wasn’t going to happen right now. Evidently Zeke was no more pleased with Jonesy this morning than he had been the night before.

“I’ll handle Jonesy.” She shrugged. “I’ve been dealing with him for several years now, Zeke. I don’t need your help.”

“I didn’t ask you if you needed my help.” His voice hardened.

“I said we’re going to discuss this. The discussion will involve how quickly you’ll be firing him.”

Rogue flipped the sheet off her and rolled to the edge of the bed before standing, fully nude, and stalking to the chair across the room that held her robe.

“Get your shower; I’ll fix your coffee,” she told him, ignoring the anger that wanted to flash hot and wild inside her.

“Coffee won’t settle this, Rogue,” he warned her. “Your bartender wasn’t just disrespectful last night, he was threatening.”

“And you know nothing about him.” She turned as she belted her robe snugly. “I’m not firing Jonesy, and I’ll warn you right up front, Zeke, I don’t take orders worth shit, so you may as well stop right now.”

He was sprawled in her bed as though he had slept there for years rather than hours.

She had always wondered what it would be like to awaken beside Zeke; she hadn’t expected this.

“The next time he threatens you, he may not live to regret it,” he warned her as he rose from the bed, naked and aroused, his cock standing out proudly from his body.

The sight of it had her mouth watering, her pussy dampening. No man as arrogant as Zeke should look so damned good while he was pissing a woman off.

“I’ll make sure you’re not around the next time then.” She smiled back at him with brittle mockery. “I know how to get along with Jonesy, Zeke. This isn’t something I need you to take care of for me.”

A scowl creased his face, and even that made him look damned hot. Hell, she shouldn’t have to deal with an irate Zeke while she was still remembering the touch of his hands and his possession from the night before.

“Do you need me to take care of anything for you?” he growled.

Her gaze dropped and she let a teasing smile shape her lips. She could think of several things he could take of. His scowl only deepened, his lips set in a firm line, and he turned and stalked to the bathroom as she stared at him in surprise.

Damn, Zeke might be pissed off, she thought in amazement. She had never seen Zeke pissed off. It tempted her to stalk right into that bathroom behind him and join him in the shower.

Unfortunately, having never seen Zeke pissed off, she fought herself, wary of pushing him further. There was a glimmer of warning in his eyes before he turned away. A look that had her tummy jumping in excitement even as she decided to tread very carefully for a while.

He was right about one thing though. She was going to have to deal with Jonesy. What had happened last night hadn’t really frightened her, but it had concerned her. Jonesy had been uncharacteristically angry with her. It wasn’t like him to lose his temper to that degree over so little.

Shaking her head, she left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. She put on a pot of coffee, put some packaged Danishes she had bought at the store the day before on the small kitchen table.

Zeke had to force himself away from her. The farthest he could get was the shower. It was that or push her against the wall and plow into her with all the frustrated lust building inside him. Except that was the only thing she seemed to think he was capable of doing for her. Fucking her. Son of a bitch, he could feel karma biting his ass now.

For years, he had wanted nothing from his lovers but sex. Now, it was all he could do to keep from demanding more than that from Rogue. It was a situation he was going to have to fix.

Would that give her a whole new insight into the man she wanted as a lover? The one and only time he had let his emotions and his control free and had taken Elaina as he had taken Rogue last night, she had cried for hours. He’d felt like the lowest form of a man to walk the face of the earth for months afterward.

It hadn’t mattered that her body had responded. It hadn’t mattered that she had found her release in the act. At least to her it hadn’t mattered. She had raged that he had treated her like a whore he had bought for the night, and that he had broken her heart with the act.

Shame had been like a burning demon inside him. It had sliced into his soul and left him fighting to bury the hungers that tormented him.

He had never allowed himself to give in to that impulse with her again. Hell, he hadn’t even been aware of the hang-ups he’d had regarding sex and relationships until Rogue.

But, after Elaina’s death, he had promised himself he would never get involved again. It had been his fault that she had died. His investigation that had been compromised and had backlashed onto his wife. He had sworn he would never let it happen again. And now, it was doing just that. It was happening again. He was letting another woman get under his skin and in his heart.

Bracing his hands on the wall, he let the warm water cascade over his head and fought the need to stalk back into that damned bedroom and just take her. To draw those heated cries from her lips, to feel the fragile muscles of her pussy clenching around his dick as he drove into her. To possess her. God, he wanted all of her. Not just her body, but all those fierce emotions burning in her eyes. He ached for it, but he knew the price of taking it. It was a price he didn’t think he could pay again.

The need had never been this hard to control. And he knew what it would lead to. Once he released his control to give in to one impulse, another would slam into him. Taking her against the wall, wild and uncontrolled, was nothing compared to the things he wanted to do to her. The ways he wanted to take her. Ways that only the most experienced and jaded of lovers had ever accepted.

Hell, he’d never stressed over having sex with a woman before. He just fucked all night long when the need burned inside him and pushed back the desires he had restrained for so long.

He’d never given a lover all of himself, so those desires had never tormented him for long.

How much of himself was he giving Rogue though? Because for the first time since he had moved back to Kentucky, those needs were slicing into him like the sharpest blade.

And for Zeke, that was damned unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. He wasn’t certain if he wanted to give a woman that much of himself. He’d been self-contained for too long. He’d restrained too much of himself for too many years; realizing how much was slipping free was enough to send a spark of sensation racing up his spine.

It also had the power to leave his cock fully erect and throbbing as well. He was harder than he had been the night before, so damned eager to fuck her again that he could barely force himself to remain in the shower.

God, he wanted her. Right here, right now. However he could have her. He wanted her in his arms, he wanted her warmth and he wanted the taste of her, her heat and softness surrounding him so damned bad he could almost feel her against his flesh.

He ached for her.

She was so damned young though, and so innocent. The innocence was killing him.

That dark lust inside him was pushing him, urging him to replace the innocence in her eyes with all the feminine knowledge of the pleasure he could give her. The extremities of passion. The dark lines between pleasure and pain that could fill her with sensations she couldn’t imagine.

It wasn’t quite BDSM. What he needed didn’t cross those lines. It was a driven lust. A dark infusion of extreme pleasure and control-shattering hunger. It was hearing her scream his name because she needed to come so badly she was shaking apart from the tension. It was watching her eyes as he took her as she pleasured herself, or as he fucked that sweet little ass and filled her with a pleasure/pain that left her screaming.

It was leaving control behind and taking her against the wall, on a table, or better yet, his back deck while nature looked on. It was doing all the things with her that he had never allowed himself to do with a woman when he was involved in a relationship with them. It was being who and what he was when he had never allowed himself to do that with any other woman. And now, pulling back from Rogue was next to impossible.

Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the washcloth he had hung on the inside rack, soaped it, and put himself to showering rather than driving himself insane over a problem he couldn’t fix at the moment.

He had enough to keep him busy; he didn’t need to add to his problems. He had a meeting with the coroner and with Alex later in the afternoon, and his own reports to file. He didn’t need the additional headache of wondering if his lover was too innocent for the dominant sex his tastes ran to.

He wanted to own her. That was his problem. Own her emotions, her heated response, and the fiery depths of her heart. And owning those parts of Rogue would never be easy. She would steal his soul. And the thought of that was enough to leave him stumbling amid his own emotions. It was enough to assure him he was getting in deep, perhaps too deep, and that walking away later may be next to impossible.

Rogue was pouring her first cup of coffee when Zeke strode from the bedroom, fully dressed in clean clothes. The sight of that official uniform conforming to his body sent a shiver up her spine. It wasn’t just the effect of the clothes on his hard body, but the effect his masculine expression had on her insides. It made her heart pound, made her flesh feel too sensitive.

Her brow arched at the uniform he was wearing. “You came prepared.”

“I keep an extra uniform in the Tahoe. I went down earlier and got it.” He shrugged as he moved for the coffee cup. “I have to be on duty in an hour. Are you working at the restaurant this evening?”

She shook her head. “I have two more days off from the restaurant. I have some things to clear away here.”

“Things like Jonesy?” he pressed.

Jonesy worried her, but she wouldn’t tell Zeke that. There was something in the other man’s attitude last night that warned her that her bartender was close to stepping over the line. He wanted Rogue away from Zeke, and she couldn’t figure out why.