She was going to have to make a decision about the bar though. She knew Natches was looking to sell his share in the Mackay restaurant if she decided she wanted to buy him out. It was something to think about. Hell, it was something she had been thinking about for months.

“How does your face feel?” Zeke straightened from the fireplace, turned, and moved toward her.

He didn’t walk, he stalked. Dark, heavy muscle flexed in his arms, chest, and powerful abdomen. His jeans lay low on his hips and beneath them, she could tell he was still heavily aroused.

“My face is fine.” She let the ice pack drop to the coffee table in front of her before leaning back against the couch cushions as he sat down beside her.

His fingers curled along her jaw to turn her face to where he could get a better look.

“You should have gone to the hospital,” he said, his voice dark, rough.

“I’ve had worse.” She shrugged. “The absolute worst hit I ever had was given by a woman. She was with a small biker club a couple of years ago. She gave me a concussion with her fist. That wasn’t fun.” She smiled back at him and gave him a wicked little wink. “Come on, Zeke, stop glaring at me, I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you’re fine. For now.” He shook his head as he released her jaw. “What about the next time, Rogue?”

“Well, I’ll deal with the next time when it comes around,” she told him quietly, then asked hesitantly, “Are you worried because of what happened to your wife?”

Rogue watched as all emotion cleared from his face with her question.

“What did you hear about my wife?” he finally asked.

It was a good thing she wasn’t frightened of big men like her sister was, or cared who she pissed off.

“I heard your wife died during an investigation you were conducting in L.A. You were posing as a SWAT member interested in the BDSM lifestyle to expose another member that was involved in drugs. It’s amazing the information you can get if you dig enough.” And evidently, she had dug just enough.

Zeke felt his jaw clench. Hell, his entire body tightened with furious tension. He’d been able to cover up most of the talk his father had instigated when he first arrived home.

The rumors his father had started had only one purpose in mind. To protect the League, because he had known damned good and well who had killed Zeke’s wife. And it wasn’t anything Zeke had done.

“My wife died because of an investigation,” he agreed. “But it wasn’t the investigation I was involved with in L.A. It had to do with something more personal.”

He let her see his eyes and what was reflected in them. Shame welled inside him, and that same fury that had followed him for so many years.

“Meaning?” She watched him intently for long seconds.

“Meaning, what happened to Elaina had more to do with the reason my mother left with me for L.A.” Staring into the fire he fought to hold the full truth back from her. She deserved to know everything; unfortunately, Zeke couldn’t tell her everything.

“That was a long time ago,” she whispered.

Zeke nodded. “Long ago and far away, I’d hoped. It followed us though when Mom decided to threaten Dad with something she knew. She was killed first. When I began investigating things myself, Elaina was killed and I was warned off the investigation.”

His jaw tightened with the memories. “I had Shane to think of. I backed off then. When I returned here, I started checking into it again. I’ve been tracking the same man ever since. A man that killed for the Freedom League. The same group Dayle and Nadine were a part of.”

He heard her hard, indrawn breath and glanced back at her.

“Dad was a part of the League,” he told her then. “And I think it goes without saying that this stays between the two of us.”

Her violet eyes flashed with anger. “You can be an asshole, Zeke,” she accused him. “Of course it stays between us.”

He almost grinned at her vehemence. “I figured it would.” He had known it would.

“So you blame yourself for your mother and wife’s death?”

Violet eyes darkened. Zeke could see the conflicting emotions that raged in her eyes and felt his heart clench. There was no recrimination in her gaze, only acceptance and trust.

He shook his head at the sight of it.

“Damn, you’re too trusting,” he said mockingly. “I was the reason for it, Rogue. I fucked up, it’s that simple. Somehow, I managed to ask the wrong question of the wrong person. They found out what I was doing and they struck back. The head of the League is behind bars now, but that killer is still out there. I don’t have proof yet, but I know in my gut that he killed Joe and Jaime, and I suspect he killed Callie Walker.

There are too many similarities to their murders and the murders that man has committed over the years.”

“Then this has something to do with what happened last year as well? When the Mackays and Cranston arrested the homeland terrorists?” she said. “I’d wondered. I knew Joe and Jaime were close with the Mackays, but I wasn’t certain if they were supplying them with information or not. Jonesy and I wondered about it, but they never said anything and I didn’t ask. But I knew they had connections to some of the suspects.

They worked for Dayle for a while, and they were friends with several of the men arrested.”

“And Jonesy isn’t to know anything else,” he warned her. “Not until I know for certain who is who and talks where.”

“Don’t piss me off, Zeke. I know how to keep my mouth shut,” she warned him.

“And I know how to protect you now,” he promised her. “I won’t let you get hurt by this, Rogue.”

“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 against 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.

Well, figuratively wide open. At the moment they were closed. Her hips churned against him, broken cries falling from her lips as she pressed against the hard ridge of his cock with desperate strokes of her silk- covered pussy. Her clit was swollen, throbbing in need. Her vagina was spilling its slick dampness, and she had no will to fight it.

“Sweet Rogue.” His hands slid over her ass, along her sides, then cupped the swollen mounds of her breasts. Calloused thumbs flicked over her engorged nipples and sent a flurry of sensation to strike at her clit.

She wanted it to last forever. She wanted the flames racing over her flesh to hold her spellbound for life. She didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want to chance ever losing this pleasure or this man.

“Hold on to me, Rogue.”

He was lifting her, rising to his feet as she wrapped her legs around his hips and cried out at the feel of the hard ridge of his cock pressing tighter against her humid flesh.