by Lora Leigh
Keiley cleared her throat. "Dinner should be ready in about half an hour if you want to shower or anything. Just come downstairs and take the doorway to your right."
He tucked his hands in the back of his jeans, causing his dark blue t-shirt to stress across his broad shoulders.
He looked dangerous, too similar to Mac when she first met him. In the past three years the suspicion in Mac's eyes had begun to ease, the paranoia she associated with being an agent not as present as it had been before they left Virginia. Mac was more relaxed now, more prone to smile, while Jethro still carried the look of a man ready to kill if need be.
"I'll be done in plenty of time to eat," he assured her. "It's been a long time since I had a decent meal."
Keiley breathed in deeply, her gaze flickering around the room.
"Well, I'll talk to you later—"
"There he is." Mac's voice surprised her. She hadn't been aware he had entered the bedroom and had no idea he was behind her until his arms surrounded her, pulling her back against his chest. "Is he behaving himself, Keiley?"
Keiley tensed. It wasn't normal jovial good cheer in Mac's voice. She heard the dark undercurrent of desire and felt the proof of it pressing imperatively into the small of her back.
His voice clued her into much more than his arousal, though. It was different, unlike any tone she had heard in his voice before.
She knew it.
Jethro wasn't just there to visit. She stared back at the other man, watching his gaze flicker to Mac's before he stared back at her, his eyes darkening, a subtle cast of sensuality sharply defining his features.
Her lips flattened, and before she considered her actions or even thought, her elbow rammed into her husbands undefended abdomen, bringing a surprised grunt from him as he released her quickly.
"What the hell was that for?" He was rubbing his hand over his stomach as she turned and glared at him, a frown brewing on his face.
"For being an ass." She smiled tightly. "Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes. That is, if you're brave enough to come down and eat it."
She pushed past him. The blood was thundering through her veins, her emotions were rioting, and God help her, but she was aroused. She hated that. She hated being manipulated, hated being lied to, and she had never believed Mac would resort to such games with her.
He had. He had brought Jethro here with every intention of inviting him into their bed and she knew it. She knew it, and she hated the contradictory emotions that knowledge fed through her body.
Her flesh was sensitive, her breasts swollen, and she could feel the heat building between her thighs. Suddenly her beliefs in herself, her relationship with Mac and what she felt they shared, began to waver.
A fantasy was just that. She was aware he had fantasies, and over the past months she had guessed at the source of them. But fantasies were supposed to stay in the mind. They weren't meant to ever meet reality.
She had fantasized herself for years. Ever since the first rumor she had heard of Mac and Jethro sharing their women. Both men were darkly handsome, both were dangerous and broody. But it was a fantasy.
As she rushed into the kitchen she could feel her hands shaking, her stomach rioting with something that she refused to accept as excitement. It was repulsion, she assured herself. It had to be. No way, no how was she actually going to let this happen. She wouldn't.
She jerked a cabinet door open and pulled three plates free before slamming it closed with a surge of strength that had the panel cracking into the frame with such force that it sounded like a gunshot. Tears flooded her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. They weren't tears of pain, they were tears of confusion, of anger. Anger not just at Mac, but at herself.
He had brought another man into their home to touch her.
She slapped the plates to the table.
He meant to allow another man into their bed.
Her palms flattened against the table as she glared at the doorway.
He meant to seduce her into it. She knew it. She had seen it in Jethro's eyes, felt it in Mac's aroused body. He had no intention of confronting her with it.
Damn him.
Damn her.
Because rather than puking in disgust, she was nearly panting in excitement. And that was even scarier than the knowledge of what Mac and Jethro intended.
By the time the two men entered the large country kitchen with its tall wide windows and view of the pastures, Keiley had herself under control and the table set.
The meal progressed with more ease than she had anticipated, considering her own fractured emotions. Jethro and Mac together were a potent combination. Mac alone could sear her senses no matter what the situation, but when these two men set out to charm, even she, knowing exactly what they were up to, wasn't immune.
With Jethro's presence, a part of Mac that she rarely saw showed itself. She could see the dominance glimmering heavily in his stormy gaze now. He watched her like a cat watched a bowl of cream. And Jethro. Jethro watched her like a man observing a favorite treat.
He seemed to draw from her and Mac somehow. To absorb the emotion between them, to make her more aware of it than she normally would be.
As the meal finished and Keiley and Mac stacked the dishes, she wasn't surprised to realize that the intensity of the atmosphere had heightened her awareness of Mac's body, and of his hunger.
The hunger was boiling in his gaze. Like thunderclouds, pitching and rolling, glittering with quicksilver bolts of wicked lust each time he glanced at her.
"I'll leave you two men to catch up," she announced as she loaded the last dish and turned to face them. "I have some laundry
to take care of and a few things to catch up on the computer before I turn in."
Let Mac wait on her for a change. He was lucky she wasn't heading out of the house.
Turning, she headed along the back hall to the laundry room where the week's laundry waited. She had a meeting tomorrow with the charity committee that ran the annual summer festival and the outfit she had decided to wear needed cleaning first.
The Egyptian cotton dress was one of her favorites, but she had worn it to the monthly office meeting in D.C. the week before.
She was lucky that the programming firm she worked for and her specialties allowed her to work virtually independently, with only occasional trips into the office.
"Don't you think it's a little impolite to leave our company so soon?" Mac asked as she moved to the narrow rack where she had hung the dress after removing it.
It wasn't there. She flipped through the hangers quickly, then looked on the floor beneath the rack.
"Did you hear me?"
Keiley turned back to him slowly. It wasn't so much what he said as how he said it. It was the way his eyes narrowed with a just of hint of sensual determination, the way his shoulders seemed broader, his chest wider. The way the bulge in his jeans seemed more intimidating than ever before.
Keiley could feel her heart rate picking up as he advanced on her slowly.
"I can't find my dress." Her voice was weak, breathless, as she turned from him quickly. "I hung it in here last week to clean. You moved it."
"Fuck the dress, Kei."
His hands caught her shoulders. He turned her to him relentlessly, holding her still as she tried to move away from him.
She tried to swallow. Tried to catch her breath at the strength of the desire she saw in his face.
"You're scaring me," she whispered.His brows lowered further. "Do you think I'd hurt you?"
She could see the conflict in his expression. His desire warring with his love for her. If there was one thing she knew about Mac, she knew he loved her.
"Where would this leave us, Mac?" Keiley tried to still the trembling of her lips, the sensual fear weaving through her mind.
She felt more confused now than she had felt the first time Mac kissed her. The first time he had touched her.
&n
bsp; A sibilant whimper left her lips as his hand framed her face.
"Do you think I'd force you?" He leaned forward, touched his lips to hers, electrifying her with the velvet rasp of his lips over her own.
"We need to talk about this."
"What's there to talk about?" His arm moved around her hips, pulling her to him, lifting her to the cradle of his thighs as he nipped at her lips. "You've known it was there, just beneath the surface. You wouldn't have questioned me otherwise, Kei."
"No." She shook her head, shuddering as she felt his erection wedge between her thighs, the heat of it barely contained by the denim between them.
"You saw it, didn't you?" he asked her then, one hand threading through the hair at the side of her temple while his lips drifted to her jaw. "You saw the restlessness, and you had to start pushing. Such a curious little cat." He raked his teeth down the side of her neck.
Keiley tightened her hold on his shoulders as her head fell back and the familiar weakness Mac caused inside her body began to build. She could just drift here, in this pleasure. Let him take control. Let him—
"Enough." She was out of his arms before he could stop her.
Pushing her hands through her hair, she stared back at him in shock, seeing the glittering purpose in his eyes, the amused, indulgent certainty in his expression.
"You weren't honest with me, Mac." Surprise glittered in his eyes as she made the accusation.
"Did I have to put it in words, Keiley?" He leaned against the wall as he crossed his arms over his chest and watched her with that half quirk to his lips that always made her crazy with lust.
"It would have been nice," she pointed out a shade sarcastically. "Excuse me here, Mac, but I don't think it's exactly common practice for most friends to show up on the doorstep expecting to share a couple's bed. I believe that is highly unusual. Not in the least standard matrimonial fare there."
His eyes gleamed with laughter, and she didn't appreciate it in the least. But they were also filled with banked hunger. Moving over her face, her breasts, her thighs, with carnal intent.
"Go entertain your company," she snapped. "I have work to do."
She turned to look for the dress, only to screech in surprise when she found herself sitting atop the washing machine instead and her husband wedged firmly between her thighs.
He didn't give her a chance to protest. His lips were on hers, his hands were beneath the shirt, palms cupping her breasts, fingers rasping over her nipples as she cried out in pleasure.
It was depraved. Jethro was most likely still in the kitchen. One hard moan and he would know what the hell was going on. And Keiley wasn't exactly a quiet lover. She never had been. Keeping quiet while in Mac's arms was impossible.
"You knew what was coming," he growled as his lips left hers to follow a broken path down her neck. "You've sensed it since the beginning, Keiley. Admit it."
She shook her head rashly. "No—"
"Don't lie to me." Then he did something she couldn't have expected to enjoy.
Something he had never done before. His teeth caught her nipple, nipped the tender peak, sending pleasure exploding in her womb with enough force to steal her breath.
It was a sharp little nip. Bordering on painful. An agonizing pleasure that had her yelping in surprise.
"I've tried to hold back." He licked the tender peak. "I've tried to be the husband I thought you wanted." His head lifted, his eyes nearly black with hunger. "I've tried, Keiley. And it hasn't worked. Now you have the man I am. It's up to you to decide if you can live with him."
"Do you think you can frighten me into giving you what you want?" She pushed against his shoulders. Not that he moved, but his eyes narrowed and his gaze became sharper. "Not likely, Mac. Don't try threatening me—"
"You think that's what I'm doing?" he growled in return. "I don't have to threaten, Keiley. I'm giving you fair warning. Because I know you. I know you. And by God, I know the needs I have aren't too damned far off the mark from yours. Deny it. Deny the fact that if Jethro were in here watching right now you wouldn't be hotter than hell. Go ahead. Lie to me."
Lie to him. She had never lied to him.
"Some things should remain fantasy," she whispered desperately. "I don't want to lose you, Mac. I don't want to lose what we have."
He pulled her t-shirt down slowly.
"You'll never lose me. But think about this, Keiley. You've never had all of me, either."
"Because I haven't let another man fuck me?" she exclaimed, confusion and wariness blooming into fear. "Let me jump right out and take care of that. Why should I wait for you to pick someone for me? I'm highly capable of doing it for myself."
Confidence. Dominance. Self-awareness. They glittered in his eyes and tightened his expression.
"This has nothing to do with fucking another man. It has to do with accepting the pleasure I have to give you. I'm not hiding it anymore. Accept or reject it, however you want to. But don't start lying to yourself because you're scared. That I won't accept. And don't think you're going to spend the night on that damned computer working. You wanted to be fucked in the bed. Tonight that bed is going to see some action, sweetheart."
Her eyes widened. "Excuse me? You think I'm going to let him—"
"Me," he snapped. "Me. You. All night, Keiley. Every night. You know the truth now; there's nothing left to hide. Now you get to see the man you married. Not the man I've been giving you. And I sure as hell don't need any help with that."
And he didn't need any help silencing the protest forming on her lips. Before she could stop him, his lips covered hers. Not roughly, but firmly. His tongue parted them, licked, stroked, forged into her
mouth and warred with her own as she felt the hunger surge through her brain.
This kiss. It was a demand. It wasn't a request.
She met it. Her tongue pressed against his, licked at his lips as he drew back; her teeth nipped, and a cry of pure pleasure left her throat as he took control once more.
He devoured her lips. This was no regular kiss. He was feeding from her hunger, his own growing, whipping around her, burning through her, until he reclaimed it from her lips, her tongue, and allowed it to burn into her once again.
She was in flames. She couldn't touch him enough. She had to get closer.
The sound of fabric tearing barely penetrated the haze of lust that seemed to enfold her. Mac's muttered groan only increased her need.
But she could touch his chest now. Her nails scoured down the muscular contours, sifting through the light sprinkling of hair before encountering the band of his jeans and the wide leather belt he wore.
"There you go, sweetheart," he muttered, tearing his lips from hers as she tugged desperately at his belt. "Take what you want."
What she needed. As though the dark hungers that were a part of Mac were suddenly filtering through her own head.
She couldn't touch him enough. She tore at his belt, releasing it, only to tug open the metal snaps of his jeans to reach inside and draw the thick, hard length of his cock from beneath the snug briefs he wore.
"Damn." His fractured groan only spurred her on.
He filled her hands. The hard length with its thick veins and silky flesh over iron hardness had her stomach clenching, her womb spasming with the need for release.
"Come here." Before she could protest, he lifted her from die washing machine only to set her to her feet before pressing her to her knees.
There was no request. He was always considerate when he asked her to go down on him. But this time, consideration had gone to hell. One hand was buried in her hair, the other gripped his cock, and within seconds Keiley found her mouth filled with the wide, damp head of his erection.
He tasted earthy, like a storm coming over the mountains. Wild and irresistible, strong and determined.
"Suck it, Kei," he ordered hoarsely. "Let me watch you take me, sugar."
Her eyes drifted
open, widening fractionally at the hard, savage cast of his expression.
In the back of her mind she knew that Jethro could hear it all. There wasn't a sound coming from the kitchen. The only sounds in the house were those of her cries, muffled only by the slow, heavy thrust of Mac's cock into her mouth.
And she didn't care. She knew he could hear. Knew he was listening. Lusting. She was driven by the knowledge glittering in Mac's eyes and the hunger burning through her body.
The hand at the back of her head tightened, causing a slight, stinging burn to fill her scalp.
She loved it.
His hard flesh stretched her lips, filling her with a power and a hunger she couldn't control.
She exhilarated in it.
"Your mouth is so damned hot. So sweet and tight," he groaned, staring down at her as the gray shades of his eyes shifted and clashed together.
Her tongue flickered over the throbbing crest as he drew back, grimacing as she tightened her mouth on him.
Her hands slid over his tight abdomen as she began to suckle the broad head, moaning, fighting the dazed lust welling inside her as she tasted the pre-cum mat greeted her efforts.
"That's it, baby. Suck my dick. Show me how much you need me, Kei."
Needed him? She was dying for him. Aching. She could feel her swollen clit pounding for attention, the juices gushing from her vagina in such exquisite need that it was agony.
She needed to be touched. Just one touch.
"I can't touch you like this, can I, sugar?" He stared down at her with savage frustration. "How good would it be to have those pretty nipples caressed? Lips at your neck, your back? Hands between those pretty thighs?"
His hand tightened in her hair to hold her in place as she tried to draw back, tried to escape the promise in his voice.
But she couldn't stop the moan that fell from her lips. She could almost feel it. A phantom's touch over her breasts, between her thighs, the sharp aching need for those fingers between her thighs.
"I could give you that." His gaze darkened further. His fingers tightened in her hair, tugging further.