A small bead of pearly pre-cum dampened the tiny slit, drew her attention and her hunger.

“I came,” she teased him. “I came and I moaned, and it wasn’t enough. Because it wasn’t you.”

And she had needed him. Needed him until parts of her had felt barren and lost.

He came closer, the head of his cock almost within reach.

“You’re going to take me to your throat, Chay,” he warned her, his voice so rough, so deep it caused her knees to weaken, her heart to pound in her chest.

“Make me, Natches.” She smiled, then her breath caught as she raked her finger over her clit, and knew he was aware of the pleasure she was bringing herself.

One hand snaked out, catching her hair, tangling in it as he held her still. Her tongue swiped over the broad head and she moaned at the rich earthly taste of the liquid bead on her tongue. Passion infused with lust. A storm, heat and lightning. It filled her senses and drenched her fingers with her response.

Then his cock was filling her mouth. Thick and iron hard, the head throbbing violently as he pushed inside her. Chaya moaned and heard his answering growl as she did what she promised. She took him to her throat, her tongue rippling beneath the underside as she relished the taste of him.

One hand gripped his shaft, stroking it fiercely, determined to rip his control from him the same as he had managed to rip hers. Damn her, she had never given anyone, man or woman, the finger. That was what he did to her. He made her crazy. He made her insane to have him, made her want to fight and love him.

And God help her, how she loved him.

“Damn you,” he snarled as she lifted her lashes and stared up at him, taking him as deep as she could as she touched herself, stroked herself. “Your mouth is illegal, Chay.”

She would have smiled, but she whimpered instead. Because she needed him, hungered for him. Because she wanted to taste his release, glory in it.

She sucked him harder, flicked her tongue over the head as he fucked into her mouth, and swallowed him deep.

“Hellion.” He pushed the fingers of both hands into her hair, tightened and pulled, and she moaned again, knowing the sound was vibrating against his cock head and glorying in his response.

“Sweet Chay.” Sweat drenched his face, his shoulders. It ran down his neck in tiny rivulets and dampened the hair that fell over his face.

He looked like a pirate. He felt like a pirate, because he had stolen her heart and her soul and she didn’t want them back. She just wanted his in return.

“Sweet.” He groaned, his lashes lowering, a dark flush on his cheeks as his lips appeared heavier, fuller, more sensual. “Sweet Chay. Suck it, baby. Suck it deep.”

She drew him deep, moaned, licked, and felt the warning throb of his impending release. His abdomen tightened, sweat rolled down it, and a second later his head tilted back, his jaw clenched, and her name tore from his throat as he exploded.

Hot, rich, a taste of salt and man and the storm rising and he was filling her mouth with it, making her drunk on him. She took each furious blast and whimpered in loss as he pulled free of her.

“Enough.” He pulled her hand free of the pulsing flesh of her pussy a second before her own loss.

Her eyes snapped open. “I was ready to come,” she almost howled as he flipped her to her back.

“Yeah. I know.” His grin was pure wicked male. “If you want to come, baby, all you have to do is ask nicely.”

“Asshole!” She grabbed his hair as he moved between her thighs and pulled. Pulled until his lips were buried in the tormented flesh and her legs were wrapped around his shoulders.

“Oh God. Yes. Damn you, Natches.” She arched, her shoulders grinding into the mattress as his tongue dove deep inside the clenching depths of her core.

And he licked. “Oh yes. I love it. Love it when you do that.” Her head thrashed; her fingers dug into his hair.

He licked and lapped inside her like he was eating candy and loving every minute of it. She was dying. Right there in his arms, she was dying and she didn’t know how to stop it. She didn’t know how to handle the burn or the violence of her response to his touch.

She was twisting against him, mewling in need as his hand landed on her rear. The rough little caress only made her burn brighter.

“More.” She twisted. She arched. “Oh God, Natches. More.”

He gave her more. More of the rough caresses, the heated little smacks over her butt, and more of those delicious licks inside her. Then outside her. Then around her clit. He sucked the little bud into his mouth, and she exploded into fragments.

She screamed his name, pulsed and shattered, and before she could catch her breath, he pushed her legs apart, rose above her, and buried his cock inside her.

Full length. One hard thrust. He pushed inside her with hungry demand, her name on his lips as he began to thrust hard and fast. Stroking and fucking inside her and sending her crashing into wave after wave of fiery release.

And he didn’t stop. She was burning, drenched in both their perspiration when he pulled free of her, flipped her on her stomach, and lifted her rear.

And he was pushing inside her again.

“Take all of me.” He groaned, coming over her, his fingers lacing with hers as he held her beneath him. “Feel me, Chay. Feel all of me and I know I belong to you.”

Her head tipped back as his teeth scraped her neck and he surged inside her again. Again. He pounded inside her until she shattered, flew, until she swore her soul left her body and merged with his as she felt the violent, harsh pulses of his semen shooting inside her.

If she wasn’t pregnant yet, she knew she was now. She could feel it, that bonding, a connection she had never believed she could feel with another human being. And yet, with Natches, he had given her no choice. He had stolen her heart. Made her a part of him, and now, the fight was over for it. That didn’t mean he was getting his way though.

“I love you,” she whispered as he collapsed over her, his head lying against her shoulder, his eyes opening to meet hers as she turned her head to stare back at him. “With my soul, Natches Mackay, I love you.”

Natches sighed heavily as he forced himself to pull from her, grimacing in pleasure at the heated friction along his cock.

Lowering himself beside her, he pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips against the top of her head.

“I love you until, sometimes, I wonder if I can breathe without you now,” he told her then, staring into the sunlit expanse of the bedroom as he caressed her back with one hand.

She was still and silent against his chest, though he knew that indomitable will of hers was still firmly in place. She was the strongest person he had ever known in his life, and he wanted nothing more than to allow her to be weak.

And that was the redneck in him, he knew it was. The man who wanted to protect his woman against any and all threats. To be a partner until danger rolled around. But he had chosen a woman who refused to hide from danger.

That courage she possessed terrified him.

“Dayle Mackay is dangerous,” he said softly, staring at the ceiling now, his brow creasing into a frown as he let the memories of his childhood wash over him.

He didn’t do that often. The past was just that, it was the past. When he had met Chaya, seeing her courage and her will to laugh had somehow helped him to dull those memories, but nothing could eradicate them.

“Dayle wanted a carbon copy of himself in a son,” he stated. “A bully without a conscience, and one he could control. He didn’t have much luck with me. I was a smart-mouthed little bastard eaten up with rage. I defied him every chance I had, and I gloried in it, even when he was taking his fists to me.”

That had been his relationship with the man he refused to call father.

“You’re not facing him alone.” Her voice was soft, sweet, it was tinged with emotion and struck a bolt of feeling inside him that had him closing his eyes against the strength of it.

“There’s no other way to face him, but alone.” He sighed. “That’s what it’s come down to here, Chay. Just me and Dayle. I’ve avoided him, I’ve put it off. Hell, I should have just killed the son of a bitch before I met you, like I wanted to. But Uncle Ray would have felt as though he failed to raise me right, and Rowdy and Dawg, well, they would have had something to say about it.”

Not much. But they would have said something, Natches thought.

He should have felt an edge of sorrow, hell, he should have felt guilt over the fact that it would be that easy to kill a man. But Dayle Mackay wasn’t a man—he was a monster.

Yet, he still hadn’t killed him, and Natches was never certain what stopped him from doing it. Maybe because until now, Dayle had never really done anything evil, even though Natches had known he was evil.

And he wasn’t going to kill him now. Not unless Dayle gave him no other choice.

“You can give me the silent treatment until hell freezes over.” She lifted her head and stared him in the eye. “But you’re not doing this alone.”

He, Dawg, Rowdy, and Ray had come up with the plan while Chaya slept. Their voices quiet to keep from disturbing her, their minds made up.

Natches knew the one thing Dayle had always wanted from him. Loyalty. It came down to something that simple. From the time Natches had been small, Dayle had been enraged at his affection for Ray and the two cousins he hadn’t even known until they started school together. They had been instantly drawn to each other. And Natches had begun slipping away from his own home and sneaking to Ray’s.

He and Dawg had been fascinated by Ray Mackay’s gentle if sometimes gruff demeanor.

“If you’re with me, he’ll never talk,” he told her, keeping his voice firm, keeping himself strong. “You’re not a part of this, Chaya. There’s no way to make you a part of this.”

He watched her as she laid her head on his chest, her eyes glittering with tears. And Chaya didn’t cry easily. She didn’t use tears to get her way; she didn’t pull any of the female tricks to force a man’s agreement he had seen over the years from other women.

Kelly, love her heart, she shamelessly used tears whenever she felt Rowdy was being too stubborn. Shamelessly because she and Rowdy both knew what she was doing. It wasn’t a game to her so much as a way to get past Rowdy’s sometimes stubborn mind-set. She was sweet and innocent, and sometimes she didn’t understand the evil that existed in the world. Though he knew she would argue that sentiment.

Crista was stronger, but still, she was so completely female that Natches could only grin at the battles Dawg fought with his wife. She led the big, tough Dawg around with a crook of her finger and managed to get past even his most stubborn decisions. Like running the lumber store himself. Taking responsibility for it. Dawg was turning into a real businessman, courtesy of one little stubborn female.

Chaya, Natches knew, would never be like Kelly and Crista. Not that there was anything wrong with either woman. It was just both of them saw the world as it existed around them; they didn’t know the darkness that existed beneath it. And Dawg and Rowdy would kill anyone that tried to show it to them.

Chaya was different. She knew the evil. She had lived with it. She knew the darkness, because she had spent years navigating it. And she knew him. And because of that, she was going to be hell on his nerves and he knew it.

“You better find a way to make me a part of it,” she stated. “Because you’re not doing it alone.”

He wanted to grin at the tone of her voice.

Turning her onto her back, he stared into her eyes and laid his palm on her lower stomach.

“Do you know I swore all my life I’d never allow a woman to have my child?” His fingers caressed her belly where he knew their child lay.

“Don’t use that against me, Natches. That’s dirty.”

He shook his head. “I’m not doing that, Chay; I’m trying to make a point here.”