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“Shush, Lyrica,” Graham commanded her, his voice firm. “I knew better. We both know I did. This should have never happened.”
Her gaze swung back to him, anger filling her eyes as outrage flashed across her face.
“Damn you, Graham,” she spat out furiously. “Damn all of you.”
Before he could guess her intent, her fingers were clenched in his hair, her lips on his, the heat, hunger, and fury in the press of her lips doing nothing to hide her innocence, or her pain.
It did nothing to aid his self-control.
The taste of cherry heat . . .
A hint of beer . . .
A fiery arousal burning out of control, desperate, filled with fantasies, with uncontrolled need and a woman’s fury.
And he wanted more.
He wanted all of her.
His tongue parted his lips as he tasted her, felt hers meeting it, dueling with it as he wrapped both arms around her, no longer caring who the hell watched.
“Lyrica, Dawg will be here in about two minutes flat,” Natches snapped. “Do you really want him to have to see this?”
The cry that tore from her lips shattered Graham.
“When Dawg shows up, I won’t let her run, Graham. She can watch the two of you argue over her presence at a fucking orgy with a man he calls a friend.”
Graham jerked his head back, broke the possession of her lips, and quickly released her as he forced himself to step back.
He almost reached for her again as she swayed before him, her gaze filled with betrayal gleaming in those emerald eyes.
The first tear fell as she stiffened, pushed past him, and all but ran from the room. Moving past her cousin, she disappeared from sight, her fury the last sight he had of her.
Natches stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Rowdy’s waiting in the hall for her,” he told Graham, amusement edging his voice.
Graham watched as Natches advanced into the shadows of the room until he was standing no more than five feet from him. Tense, prepared for a possible fight ahead, Graham watched the other man carefully.
“I don’t want the warning or the fight,” Graham growled. “But I won’t back down from it, either.”
Natches grinned as his deep green eyes, so like Lyrica’s, gleamed with mockery.
“There are easier ways to die, Graham,” Natches informed him. “You’re too hard for her. Too damaged. She deserves a man without the baggage you carry.”
But what if Lyrica eased that hardness? What if she stilled the nightmares when nothing or no one had been able to?
That thought had disgust filling him. Easing the horror o
f his life, of his past, wasn’t her responsibility. It was his nightmare to carry, not hers to ease.
Natches pushed his fingers wearily through his hair as Graham continued to glare back at him.
“What if that were your sister, Graham, with me?”
“I’d kill you,” Graham assured him. “You’re married and old enough to be her father.”
“Graham . . .” The mocking chastisement was obvious as Natches crossed his arms over his chest in an obvious effort to contain his fists.
