Rowdy nodded.

“Word got around. Natches managed to hook up with an Army Intelligence agent. Female. Beaten, tortured. He pulled her out and the extraction team picked them both up. After that, no one’s talkin’. Something happened after that, Rowdy. Something that made Natches darker than ever.”

“Female agent, beaten and tortured.” Rowdy frowned. “She didn’t have time to break his heart, Dawg. A lot of shit happened to all of us in the Marines. That wasn’t a pleasant place to be.”

Dawg shook his head. “No. Something bad happened out there that Natches doesn’t talk about, and I think she was there. Natches knew her the minute we met the team Cranston brought in last year. That night he went on a drunk like I ain’t seen since he busted up his daddy’s restaurant for him.”

Rowdy leaned back in his chair and grimaced at that information. He hadn’t been a part of that mission. His damned cousins seemed to think he needed a vacation after dealing with the serial killer who had tried to kill his wife.

But Dawg was right, something had changed in Natches last year, something that had bothered both of them for a year now.

“Is he in love with her?” Rowdy mused.

It was damned hard to imagine Natches in love with any one woman. He seemed to like them all equally. But there had been something different about how he acted last year outside the spa in town.

Dawg and Rowdy had met with Natches there, while Kelly and Crista went in for their woman stuff. They hadn’t felt secure enough to leave the women unguarded. And Greta Dane—no, Chaya, Natches had told them her name was really Chaya—had been there following Dawg and Crista.

Natches hadn’t been able to stay away from her and neither of them acted just normal around each other.

“She’s on an op,” Dawg muttered. “I can feel it. Something’s getting ready to go down and she’s going to pull him into it.”

“Hell.” They didn’t need that. Rowdy knew Natches. His cousin could be as impulsive as hell, and he rarely thought to cover his own damned ass until it was too late.

Rowdy pushed himself to his feet and paced the interior of the office. He knew the operation that had played out the year before and it still kept him awake at night.

“What was left untied?” He turned to Dawg. “The operation last year, the money Johnny got as a down payment on the missiles, was it found?”

“Not hardly,” Dawg grunted. “Cranston was pulling his hair out by the roots when it didn’t show up.”

Timothy Cranston, that rabid little bastard of an agent in charge. He should be shot with his own gun. Rowdy had had the extreme displeasure of meeting him several times. He still didn’t like him.

“Who else would have helped Johnny, Dawg?” Rowdy asked then, his voice heavy, his chest still tightening, even after all this time.

Johnny had been their cousin, and he had used them all. He would have killed them all if he could have. He had definitely planned to kill Dawg’s wife, Crista. Him and his lover, Jim Bedsford.

“They picked up the team Johnny used to steal the missiles,” Dawg said. “Johnny and Bedsford are dead, and only they knew where the million in down payment was hidden. Hell, what’s left to find?”

“We’ve missed something,” Rowdy suggested then.

“What the hell could we have missed?” Dawg cursed. “His agent is back and Natches gets an anonymous call informing him of that fact? Doesn’t make sense, Rowdy. If the girl came back to get hot and sweaty with Natches, why the call?”

Rowdy frowned at that. If it hadn’t been for the phone call, he’d have assumed that getting hot and sweaty was exactly what was on Miss Dane’s mind. But why would someone call and warn him?

Rowdy felt the hairs at the back of his neck lift in warning, and he rubbed at them in irritation.

“Yeah, that’s my answer, too,” Dawg admitted. “My neck is tingling like hell. Something’s getting ready to go down.”

“And Agent Dane is putting Natches right square in the middle of it,” Rowdy realized. “So we cover him?”

“And cause him to shoot us?” Dawg snarled in disbelieving amazement. “You know how much he likes shadows, Rowdy. We try to cover him and he’ll try to kick our asses.”

That left one last option. “I have some contacts I can call on.” Rowdy was pulling the names up in his head as he spoke. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

Dawg nodded. “I’ll do the same on my end. Call some of the old agents from last year’s op and see what they have to say.”

“Someone has to watch out for Natches,” Rowdy insisted. “At least check up on him.”

Dawg stared at him askance. “Fine, you do it. You’ve had Kelly longer than I’ve been with Crista. I kind of like my body in working order right now.”

“You and me both.”

Dawg breathed out roughly. “Flip for it or take turns?”

Rowdy dropped back in the chair. “I guess take turns.” He was imagining the pain once Natches caught them. He was hell in a fight, and he would definitely fight.

Dawg slunk down farther in his chair. “I should kill Cranston.”

Rowdy grunted. “Give Natches time; he’ll do it for you.”

And that was what they were both afraid of.

TWO

The next morning Chaya met with the team that had been pulled in to work the investigation Cranston had managed to get operational status for.

The six men were older, late thirties to early forties, and would blend in well. Their various covers worked for the area and would provide rationale for their seeming nosiness.

That would work in her favor, Chaya thought as she headed back to her room after the first, early morning meeting. They would gather bits and pieces of the gossip drifting around about the events of last year, and then Cranston could begin a list of persons of interest and the questions Chaya would ask.

They were working in the blind though, and she knew it. The problem was they had been working in the blind for five years. It had to end here. She just couldn’t do this much longer. The reason she was back this time was Cranston’s bribes. Her resignation was still awaiting the stamp of approval.

Gritting her teeth at the thought of Cranston dragging his feet on her resignation, she swiped her key card through the security pad and waited for the light to flicker to green before pushing the door open and stepping through.

She allowed the door to close slowly behind her. She shrugged her jacket from her shoulders, unclipped the holstered weapon she carried just behind her hip and smoothed her free hand down the side of her skirt. She wished she had worn jeans.

She dropped the jacket and weapon on the table, just inside the small suite, then turned and moved for the bedroom. The door was open, and when she stepped inside, she felt her heart catch in her throat.

Natches.

She swallowed tightly as she caught sight of him, sprawled out in the easy chair by the window, long jean-clad legs stretched out before him as his hand lifted.

She felt the flush that suffused her features as she saw the heavy, latex vibrator in his hand. The molded penis was her toy of choice, especially when visions of this man drove her crazy with need.

She hadn’t managed to get over him, no matter how hard she tried.

Swallowing tightly she watched as he tilted the erotic toy toward his face and inhaled slowly.

She swore her knees nearly went out from beneath her, and arousal, sharp and hot, shot through her core.

“You amaze me,” he said then, reaching out to lay the toy on her pillow. That wasn’t where he had gotten it from. “You bring a toy to do a man’s job, knowing the man is more than willing to provide the service. Where does that make sense, Chay?”

She braced one hand on her hip, the other on the doorframe and stared back at him, forcing her features to bland interest even though she knew she was eating him with her eyes.

“Considering the fact that the man offering comes with strings, I decided it was the safer option.”

He would always demand more from a woman than was comfortable. More than Chaya had been able to consider in the past years.

He chuckled at that, his forest green eyes roving over her, taking in the skirt, the silk shell she had worn beneath her blazer, and the pumps on her feet.

Maybe she should have worn stockings rather than panty hose? She had a feeling he knew exactly what she had on beneath her skirt.

“Everything in life comes with strings, darlin’.” He shrugged and looked entirely too comfortable in that chair.

Shaking her head, Chaya stalked across the room, not thinking—she never thought when it came to Natches—to jerk the incriminating dildo from her pillow.

“Oh, you didn’t do that.” He laughed. It was the only warning she had before he was behind her, one arm going around her waist, the other catching her wrist and the toy as he rolled her to her back.

Her little screech didn’t even slow him down. His legs trapped hers as he came over her, and he ignored her hands as she pushed at his hard stomach.

She could have made him let her go. She knew how. But God, she couldn’t consider it. Besides the fact he would find a way to block her, she had no doubt in her mind that he would come up with a way to make certain she regretted it.

“These games are beneath you, Natches,” she snapped, wishing she didn’t sound so breathless.

“No, the games aren’t, but you are.” His brows arched, a smile curved his lips and humor flashed with suspicion in his gaze. A gaze turning hot with arousal as she glimpsed the thick wedge at the front of his jeans.

“Let me go, Natches.”

He lifted the dildo and stared down at her. “How do you use it?”

Her flush became hotter. “Duh. Figure it out.”

He leaned closer, his lips turning into a wicked smile now. “Do you suck it first? Do you taste yourself on it and remember how much I loved going down on you and tasting all that hot cream?”

That hot cream as he called it was flooding her vagina, saturating her panties. Was there anything more wicked than this man? Anything that tempted her past her pain more than he did?

“You’re insane,” she whispered, weak now. She could feel the weakness flooding her, the need. The need that had forced her to use that toy just that morning.

“When you suck it, do you think of me?”

She fought to breathe as he brushed the head of the toy over her cheek.

“Let me watch you use it.”

Shock rounded her eyes, had her fighting to swallow.

“Are you crazy?”

“Oh yeah. Because the minute it sinks past those pretty pink lips I’m going to remember the feel of your mouth on my dick. I might come in my jeans. I don’t think I’ve ever done that.”

Her heart was going to beat out of her chest. Her breasts were swollen and sensitive now, the nipples pressing hard into her bra and the thin material of the top.

“Come on; let me see.” He smiled, so wicked, so erotic, as he brushed it against her lips. “Let me see and remember, Chay. Just for a minute.”

She knew better. She had known better than to return to Somerset. The minute she did, she knew exactly what Natches was going to do: He would destroy her with her own desires.

Her lips parted.

A tight, erotic grimace contorted his lips as he stared down at her, at the toy within touching distance of her lips, and sparks of anger filled his gaze.

The next second it was his tongue filling her mouth. His lips covering hers. She didn’t know what he did with the toy; she didn’t care. He was kissing her again. He was possessing her lips, eating at them, and she was eating back.

He always tasted so good, so dark and male. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers spearing into his hair as she felt him jerking her skirt over her thighs, his fingers pressing her legs apart.