He hated seeing the fear in her eyes, in her expression. And that took care of it nicely.

“Has anyone ever told you what a bastard you are, Dawg?” Hostility radiated from her now.

Dawg let his lips curl into a mocking grin. Oh yeah, he knew what a bastard he was. His father had made certain he had known at a very early age.

“You’re telling me now.” He pulled into his parking slot close to the docks, his gaze moving carefully around the area as he shut the pickup off before turning to face her. “You ready to make nice and go to the boat yet? Or do we need to sit here and have a screaming match instead?”

“I don’t have screaming matches.” Her expression lit with offended anger.

“You’d be the first woman then,” he grunted, moving from the vehicle. “Let’s go. I need a cold beer.”

Summer had just started, but it was already warming up with a ferocity that sent waves of heat curling up from the asphalt.

He pulled her suitcase from the backseat as well as the box and tucked it under his arm as she rounded the front of the truck.

“I’ll get the flowers.” Her expression was anxious, as though she couldn’t trust him to take care of two damned pots of flowers.

But hell, why should she? She couldn’t even trust him to help her when Alex advised her to.

Son of a bitch. Missing items from her home, a feeling of being watched and followed. She had all the signs of a stalker at the very least, and she hadn’t contacted anyone. If she had contacted the sheriff, Zeke Mayes, he would have let Dawg know.

Dawg let her gather the two oversized pots in her arms. The red miniature rosebush with its pot was nearly as tall as she was. The flowering cactus was smaller but no less bulky.

“I can have Natches come back for those,” he told her doubtfully.

The glare she gave him had his lips tightening in annoyance.

“Fine.” He slammed the doors closed as he turned back to her. “Let me carry one of them before you topple over.”

“I have them.” She peeked between the branches of the rosebush. “Just lead the way.”

“If you fall in the lake because you can’t see over those damned pots, then I’m going to let you drown,” he warned her.

He knew better. He was so damned stupid where she was concerned, he’d save her and the fucking plants.

“I know what I’m doing.” Dark brown eyes narrowed on him. “Just go on. I’ll be right behind you.”

“After you.” He smiled tightly. “And watch where you’re going, if you can. Don’t walk off the side of a dock. Please.”

As she moved ahead of him, Dawg stayed close to her, just in case. She was so damned stubborn she would probably kill herself rather than see a single rose damaged.

He frowned at the small roses topping their green branches. He had given her a rosebush once.

He wondered what had happened to it. On her seventeenth birthday, an attempt to sweeten her toward him. He had arrived at her home, endured Alex’s glare, and given her the plastic-wrapped little bush for the tiny rose garden she had behind the house. He had noticed that. How much she liked roses.

She’d probably tossed it out just like she had tossed out the memory of them together.

Memories that were still foggy to him. At twenty-four, he had drunk too much, partied too damned hard, and had no sense where women were concerned. But he had been smart enough to think Crista was different. Special.

Hell, she was special, and so different from any other woman he had ever known that it was like night and day. The leading difference being the fact that Crista had never been bowled over by the famous Mackay charm.

At least, not until he was too drunk to remember what had convinced her to sleep with him in the first place.

Now, he had to deal with a hard-on that made common sense iffy at best and the knowledge that someone had been drawing Crista into this game between the agents looking for missiles and those involved in the buying and selling of those missiles.

Damn. He knew the only missing component to this case was the woman who had escaped with a million dollars in unmarked bills. He prayed she was running far and fast and was the only person aware of Crista. Not that he could get that damned lucky, but he could hope.

Unlocking the glass door that led into the houseboat, Dawg checked the security monitor as he entered the living room before setting the suitcase and box on the couch and watching as Crista stood hesitantly in the room, looking around.

“Can I put the flowers upstairs?” she asked. “There’s more sunlight there.”

“Set them down. I’ll take them up later.” He strode across the room to the refrigerator and the cold beer inside.

Twisting the cap off the bottle, he took a healthy drink as he stared at Crista through the dark glasses he wore. Better to hide his eyes, to hide the emotions he knew he wasn’t holding back very well.

Even Natches had watched him in concern during the meeting with the joint ATF and Homeland Security task force that had been working the investigation.

Something about Crista made him dangerously hungry. Knowing he had had her and being unable to remember anything but the dimmest events made him crazy.

“You have a choice.” He set the beer on the counter with enough force to cause her to jump.

“Do I?” She was watching him nervously.

At least it wasn’t in fear.

He pulled the sunglasses from his nose and tossed them to the counter before turning his gaze back to her. Immediate. Her response came as fast as her gaze took in his.

He watched her breasts begin to rise and lower with her quicker breathing, watched the little points of her nipples tighten beneath her shirt and a softening in the defiant stance she had adopted.

His hand went to his belt, loosening it slowly as her eyes began to widen.

“Dawg.” She swallowed tightly. “I’m not ready for this yet.”

At least she hadn’t said no outright.

The belt came loose. Moving toward her, he tore the metal button open, then rasped the zipper down. Her eyes became wider, darker, and sharp little teeth bit at her lip.

“I dreamed.” The rough sound of his own voice surprised him. “I dreamed of your mouth taking me. Sucking me into a pleasure so hot I nearly died from it.”

Her eyes seemed to glaze; her face flushed heatedly as he pulled her to the couch. Dragging his jeans down his thighs, he sat down, removed his boots, then kicked the material free as she watched in shock.

He was desperate. So fucking hard he was dying from the hunger crawling through his system.

“Say no, and it stops,” he bit out. “Just say no.”

“And go to jail?”

He clamped his lips shut. He had one advantage over her, and that was it. She very well might not be ready for the rest of it yet, but he had to have this, or he was going to die.

“Your choice.”

SIX

Her choice.

Crista stared down at him, feeling every cell in her body reacting to the sight of Dawg, leaning back on the couch, his devil’s black hair mussed around his face, his light green eyes darkening, and she felt her vagina flood with the response.

She was dampening her panties. Growing so sensitive that even the air from the air conditioner was a caress against flesh still covered by her clothing.

“Dawg—” She could hear the plea in her voice.

“You’re so pretty, Crista,” he whispered. “I dreamed of it last night. Your sweet mouth moving over my cock, driving me insane. Give me that. Just that. We can wait for the rest of it.”

Wait for the rest of it?

Was this his idea of seduction? If it was, then she was weaker than she could have ever imagined, because it was working.

“Come here, baby.” He gripped her wrist, drawing her to her knees as he leaned forward.

As she settled before him, his hands gripped the hem of her shirt and drew it upward, drawing it over her head, then her arms, until he tossed it away.

“Sweet God have mercy,” he groaned, his eyes like brilliant pinpoints of color in his dark face as he stared at the white lace covering her breasts.

“Dawg, this is too soon.” She had to force the words past her lips. “You have to let me—”

One hand cupped around her neck, tilting her head back as the other touched her lips.

“You have the memories of this,” he said, his voice rough. “Give me one now. Just one memory, Crista, instead of a dream that tears my guts to ribbons with hunger.”

One hand gripped her wrist as he settled against the back of the couch once again and folded her fingers partially around the width of his cock. They wouldn’t surround it.

The hard flesh throbbed beneath her hand, silky and ridged with heavy veins, the bloated head darkened as a drop of pre-cum beaded at the tiny slit.

She knew what he tasted like. Like a storm coming in from the mountains. She knew what was going to happen the minute she took him into her mouth. She was going to lose herself in the sensuality he wrapped around her.

He terrified her. The knowledge of what he could do to her had her shaking before him.

“There, Crista.” His hand tangled in her hair, cupping the side of her head as he drew her forward.

“Just a little bit, fancy-face. Suck me just a little bit.”

Just a little bit?

Crista whimpered as the thick crest touched her lips, parted them, slid inside.

She couldn’t help herself. Because she did remember that night, and she knew exactly what he had taught her. She knew what he liked then, but would he like it now?

Tentatively, she swirled her tongue over the engorged head, feeling his thighs clench, hearing the ragged groan that rumbled in his chest. His hand tightened in her hair, pulling at the strands and sending a tingling heat through her scalp.

His chest was moving fiercely, rising and falling quickly as her own breathing became labored, and she let her mouth fill with the head of his cock and the few inches beyond that she could manage.

“Sweet God. Crista. Sweetheart. Ah God yes, suck my dick, fancy-face. Hard and deep…”

Dawg felt his head fall back against the cushion behind him and fought to breathe. Her mouth was hot, tight, drawing over his cock head, her tongue rasping the ultrasensitive flesh beneath it. His balls drew up painfully tight as her fingers were tucked beneath them, cupping them, massaging the taut sac with such wicked caresses that he had to clench his teeth to hold back the brutal pleasure tearing through him.

He struggled to open his eyes, to stare down at her. God help him, she was gorgeous. Long hair flowed around her flushed face, her lips stretched wide around his dick, her dark eyes almost black.

Delicate fingers gripped the shaft, working it slow and easy as she drew on the pleasure-tortured crest. She sucked it, tongued it. Her cheeks hollowed and her eyes glowed, and he swore he saw the same needs in her eyes that he felt ripping through his guts.

Hunger like nothing he had ever known before.

“Ah yes.” He hissed out on a hard breath of pleasure as she worked the head of his cock with strong sucks and fast, flickering lashes of her tongue. “That’s good, baby. So good.”

He pulled at her hair, drawing her head back, feeling her fight the tug at the strands and watching the pleasure that consumed her expression.

He pulled at her hair again, his teeth gritting as her lashes fluttered and she took his cock deeper into her mouth.

“Like that?” He was almost shaking with the pleasure.

“Hmm.” She lifted her lips from his aching flesh and raised her eyes.

“Do you?” she asked him a second before her tongue took a lingering taste of the underside of his cock.

“Oh hell yes,” he groaned, sending a surge of pleasure racing through her. “It’s so damned good I’

m about to burn alive with it.”

His abdomen flexed and rippled with tension. His scrotum was tight as she cupped and caressed it in the palm of her hand, and heat radiated from him.