He didn’t reply; he just watched her, knowing better. She hadn’t wanted to kill either of them. She’d been hurting too bad at the time and trying too hard to figure out why it hurt.
“You should have known it was coming.” He watched her face, saw the knowledge in it, and knew she’d been aware she was living on borrowed time, so to speak. She’d known it was only a matter of time before she’d have to face Chaya and all the baggage that came with it.
“I was always careful.” She stared up at the crossbeams over her head for a long moment. “We stayed out of Kentucky and away from the Mackays. We made sure our paths never crossed with Natches and Chaya.”
He nodded at that. “And that was damned suspicious. Suspicious enough that when Rowdy first heard how diligent Tracker was in his efforts, he became very curious and asked Natches about it. That was all it took. When he caught you in town that same summer, Natches got real curious.”
That was literally all it took. When Natches became real curious, he tended to stick his nose in real deep.
Or Duke’s nose, whichever the case may be.
“You couldn’t keep hiding, Angel,” he reminded her softly as she put out the cigarro in the small ashtray on the table beside her. “It was catching up with you, if only emotionally.”
He’d become just as ensnared by her, though.
She rose slowly to her feet. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” she warned him, eyes narrowing on him as he dropped his arms and straightened from his relaxed stance. “You want to believe you do, but you don’t.”
But he did. He knew her even better than she knew herself.
The challenge in her gaze and in her tone wasn’t to be discounted, though. It was a dare, a dark need to pour all that pain and anger, hunger and need into something more than the bottle, the night, and her own wounded heart.
“Don’t I?” He grinned, letting her know he’d take that challenge any day. “Baby,” he crooned, “I know you so well it terrifies you.”
He knew her so well he could feel her pain, and yet she was still just as much a mystery to him as ever. Hell, it terrified him.
Her eyes narrowed. Her nipples hardened beneath the thin cotton of the shirt.
“Nothing and no one terrifies me, Duke,” she drawled, the brittle amusement infuriating him as he sensed the need behind it. “Even you know better than that.”
Her emotions terrified her. That hungry need that existed in the very depths of her heart and refused to lie still terrified her and he understood why. He knew, because he often faced that demon himself.
“I terrify you,” he informed her, feeling her needs, his own tugging at the less-than-secure hold he had on his restraint. “Because I make you want. Because you can’t hide that fact from yourself or from me. You want me so bad your body aches with it. Because you’re wet and ready to fuck even though you know each time we touch it will make it harder to walk away from me.”
And he’d be damned if he’d let her do that.
“No . . .” Fists clenched, teeth grinding together, she fought the truth just as he’d fought it for five long, hungry years.
“Oh yes.” And he’d be damned if he’d let her deny it.
One step and he reached her, his fingers gripping her upper arm, pulling her to him as the fingers of his other hand buried in her hair to hold her against him, refusing to let her hide from this at least.
The first time he’d taken her he’d barely had enough control to take her gently. Enough restraint to give her the best of the man he was, rather than the full force of his lust. But now it was the lust that raged through him, hungry and desperate for the taste and feel of her.
He was lost when he wasn’t a part of her, wasn’t with her. When she hid her emotions and her needs, he realized the void that was left within him.
He’d been like a wounded animal for the eight months he’d been without her. Wounded and hungry . . .
He consumed her kiss now, consumed the heat and hunger, and found she consumed his in turn. Lips and tongues ate at each other, meshed and tangled as their moans escaped and mingled. Her hands burrowed in his hair, clenched at the strands, and held him to her as he lifted her, his lips slanting over hers, taking the kiss deeper, filling his senses with her.
Turning, barely able to remember to be gentle, not to jar her thigh, he fought to restrain himself. He couldn’t let go of her, even to lay her back on the bed, to take time to undress, to love her as she deserved. He pushed her against the wall, lifted her until those pretty legs wrapped around his hips, gripping him as mewling little cries escaped her lips.
Groaning into the kiss, his tongue thrusting against hers, he released the tortured length of his erection from his jeans. He was so damned hungry for her he couldn’t wait. Grasping the shaft, he tucked the bloated crest between the bare, juice-laden folds of her pussy and swore he felt sweat pop out on his forehead as the silken inner lips caressed his flesh.
Slick heat surrounded the throbbing crest and sent forks of incredible, blinding pleasure whipping through the ultra-sensitive head, along the engorged shaft, and straight to the taut sac of his balls.
“Ah, fuck!” he snarled, jerking his head back from their kiss as electric waves of sensation began building through his senses.
Thighs tight, a ragged groan left his throat as he began penetrating the lushly slick channel awaiting him. A sensual vise locked around his testicles, tightening erotically as he pushed deeper, withdrew, and thrust again. Each lunge dragged a groan from his chest and a cry from Angel’s lips.