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“We’ll lose you first,” she snorted. “You’ll worry yourself to death.”
He chuckled at that. “Gotta hang around a while longer, girl,” he promised her. “Who else is going to keep those little pricks you girls keep marrying in line? Now my sweet little Laken done promised her daddy he could pick out her husband all he wanted to.”
Satisfaction filled his voice, but Zoey stared at him in horror.
“She was five when she made that promise, Dawg,” she burst out, horrified. “Oh my God, you can’t hold her to that. Besides, you made her promise.”
He shot her a mild glare. “Promise is a promise,” he told her gruffly. “Laken knows that.”
“No, Dawg . . .” He moved quickly up the stairs at her protest. “No, listen to me. That doesn’t count . . .”
Poor Laken.
—
It was almost dark when everyone left.
Checking the clock on the wall, she frowned, realizing Doogan was still in the gym. He’d gone down just after she and Dawg had entered the living room, and he’d no doubt realized she must have been downstairs somewhere.
He hadn’t looked at her, hadn’t spoken to her, just disappeared down the front stairs, the most direct route to the gym. And he was still down there, no doubt furious with her for eavesdropping on him and Dawg.
But if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have known. She would have never known how he’d lost his daughter, or the wife she thought he loved had betrayed him. Of course, the fact that she hadn’t known was telling. If he’d intended to stay, if he meant for her to be a part of his future, he would have told her, wouldn’t he?
She’d known when she let him into her bed that he wouldn’t stay, that her time with him would be limited. She’d warned herself of it more than once. And it hadn’t helped. She hadn’t been able to keep him out of her heart, no matter how she tried. And she had tried. She had fought it, she had told herself it wouldn’t happen, refusing to admit it already had. It had happened six years ago, at a time when having him was impossible.
Stepping into the gym, she stood in the doorway watching him at the punching bag. The way his fists slammed into the heavy weight, the sound of power smacking into canvas. Sweat gleamed on his naked chest and shoulders, beaded on his face, and ran in rivulets down his powerful back to the band of his sweatpants. His expression appeared to be one filled with concentration until she glimpsed his eyes, glimpsed the pain and rage that filled them, darkened them.
Leaning against the door frame, she watched somberly. He knew she was there. Was he hoping she’d just leave? That she wouldn’t be here, hoping to make that bleak pain she’d heard in his voice go away?
Straightening, she kicked off her sandals. He saw the action, his gaze flicking to her shoes before he turned his back, his fists still striking the bag. Moving into his line of sight once again, she unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied out of them, before leaving them discarded at the edge of the mat.
He paused this time, his gaze going over the brief tank top and white panties she wore.
“Panties or shirt next?” she asked, the throaty tone of her voice filled with hunger.
“You don’t want this right now, Zoey.” Pure steel filled his voice, but pain raged in his eyes. Just as lust was beginning to rage through him. His erection was clearly visible behind the cotton material of his pants.
“You think?” She gripped the hem of the top and pulled it up her body, over her head.
Before it fell from her hands a sharp, pleasure-filled cry tore from her lips.
Heat, rasping, hungry damp heat surrounded her nipple; the force of the pleasure, the rough, desperate need in his sucking lips, the hard hands that lifted her to him, and the male groan that surrounded her instantly pushed her into blinding, chaotic wantonness.
Sexual heat rose like wildfire, overtaking her senses, surging through her bloodstream and filling her with a voracious need.
She needed him. She needed the fiery hedonism she’d only ever experienced at his touch. At the ravenous, ravishing hunger he touched her with.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he groaned, his lips lifting from one nipple, moving to the next. “You should have left it alone.”
His lips surrounded it, sucking it into his mouth, exerting a firm, heated suction that sent electric pulses of frenzied abandon to sweep through her. Her womb clenched; heated moisture spilled from her vagina, coating the outer lips with a slick lubrication that only made her hotter, her clit more sensitive. And it made her wilder. The silky slide of it along sensitive tissue was like a teasing caress, a hint, a shadow of what she needed.
“I would have stayed away from you,” he breathed out, his voice so rough and filled with carnal intensity that it stole her breath.
“Why?” Her nails rasped down his side until they reached the elastic band of the pants circling his waist. “Take them off, Doogan. Pleasure me.”
So she could pleasure him. So she could steal the sorrow and the loneliness she’d glimpsed in him for just a few moments. For the space of time that he was a part of her, that he was as lost in the pleasure they created as she was.
“God, yes,” he muttered, his lips moving to her neck, his tongue licking, tasting her, his teeth rasping and nipping. “Let me pleasure you, Zoey. Let me give to you. Give to you . . .”
