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“But we’re responsible for ourselves, Zeke. ” She sighed. “If I was frightened by someone who showed up at my door, then I’d take the necessary steps to protect myself. That would be common sense, wouldn’t you think?”
He wondered if any other woman would have thought of that. He wished he had thought of it then, perhaps so many things would have been different. But it wasn’t different, and Rogue shouldn’t have to protect herself.
“No,” he said gently as he let the backs of his fingers caress over her bruised cheek. “It would be my place to protect you. ”
And that was how Elaina had felt. It was his place to make certain she was protected so she could enjoy her life as she pleased.
“Look, stud, I don’t need you to protect li’l ole me,” she informed him testily. “I’ve been doing just fine for the past five years, and I’m quite certain I’ll continue doing so on my own. It’s not your place to pave my way with bubble wrap, okay?”
No, it wasn’t okay, because Zeke knew she had no idea what they could be facing.
Death could come around any corner, and she wouldn’t be prepared for it. And if the killer’s trend continued, then eventually, Rogue would be targeted, if she wasn’t already. She was close to Joe, Jaime, and their grandmother. She was also close to him.
“It’s my place to take care of you. ” He cupped the back of her neck, holding her head in place as he relished the feel of her silken flesh against his fingertips and the way she seemed to push closer to his touch.
Her violet gaze was dark with emotion as he held her in place.
“You just keep thinking that, Zeke,” she said mockingly. “And I’ll even let you believe it, when it suits me. ”
He almost laughed. Damn her, she shouldn’t have the ability to make him laugh when he was facing more emotional upheaval than he had ever known in his life.
“Brat. ” His head lowered, his lips whispered over hers.
“Stud,” she drawled as her lips parted and she pressed closer.
Zeke started with small, sipping kisses. His lips tugged at her lower one, his tongue stroked over it as he felt her hands against his bare chest. Her fingers stretched out, touched tentatively, then curled a
gainst the hair-roughened flesh of his chest. Delicate nails rasped over his flesh, and a small, feminine moan left her lips as his settled more firmly over them.
She was sweet and hot and as addictive as hell. Damn, he’d missed her in the bed last night, ached for her. She was like a ray of sunshine, and she hadn’t spilled into his life all day. That was uncalled for, he decided. He had to have a taste of her, morning, noon, and night.
What the hell made him think he could do without her? he wondered as he pulled her closer and groaned at the taste of her kiss. There was no way in hell he could bear for her to leave his life, not when he was just beginning to learn what having her meant.
Not when he was learning, with each new touch, her effect on his own sexuality.
He wanted to cherish this kiss, he wanted to make it last for an eternity, but she went to his head faster than moonshine. She made him drunk on his own lust, made him crazy to have her in so many ways. In every way possible.
Rogue trembled from the sheer power of Zeke’s kiss. She leaned in closer to him, let her fingertips rake over the hard, muscular line of his chest and let herself drown in the pleasure building inside her.
There was a different element to his touch this time. His hands were just as firm, his kiss just as hot, but each touch, each fractured breath of sound seemed more intense now, sharper, darker.
Her hands smoothed from his chest to his shoulders, her fingers gripping the hard muscles there as she felt the clamoring sensations bombarding her now. His kiss was hungrier, rougher. Sensation rioted through her as his tongue plunged past her lips and found her own. She tasted him, reveled in him. His taste was completely male, rife with lust, with passion. It seared her lips, it seared her mind, and left her reaching, pressing tighter against him, desperate for more.
Her arms twined around his neck, her fingers gripping the back of his head as she fought to get closer, always closer.
“There you go, baby,” he growled against her lips as she came to her knees and straddled his powerful thighs. “So sweet. ”
A cry tore from her lips as her head tipped back on her shoulders; the feel of his hands sliding beneath the long shirt to cup her ass held her enthralled. It felt so damned good.
The way his calloused hands cupped the curve of her butt and flexed into the muscle there. His fingertips rotated, caressed, pulled against the twin globes and sent a spike of heated pleasure burning into the hidden entrance there.
Writhing against him she could feel her breath panting from her lips, the tips of her breasts pressing into the material of the shirt as she rubbed against his chest like a cat.
“Damn, there you go, darlin’,” he crooned. “Go wild for me, Rogue. Let me feel you lose yourself, baby. ”
She had lost herself with his first kiss. She lost herself in the sensations pouring over her and the heart- melting emotions she couldn’t escape, no matter how hard she tried.
Loving Zeke Mayes could be a dead-end street. It could be the most painful lesson of her entire life. She knew it, and she was walking into it with her eyes wide open.
