“I tried to be what I thought a good husband should be,” he snarled as he drew back from her, one hand covering her neck before moving to the buttons at the bodice of her dress. “I tried to give you what I thought you deserved.”

Buttons were falling away beneath his fingers as a storm raged in his eyes.

“What do I deserve?” She arched against him, one leg rising to hook at his hip, to draw closer to the steel-hard bulge beneath his jeans.

“Everything.” The material fell back to reveal the black lace pushup bra she wore beneath the dress. “You deserve everything I can give you. Every touch. Every cry of pleasure, every whisper of sensuality that I can give you.”

“And you know how to give it all?” she panted, her head falling back against the wall as his lips trailed down her neck.

His head lifted slowly. “I know how to make certain you get it all,” he amended.

Keiley licked at her lips, feeling the blood pounding through her body, pleasure ripping over her nerve endings. She was so aroused, so wet now, so desperate for everything his eyes promised that it terrified her.

“No matter how it destroys us?”

He shook his head slowly. “I would never let anything destroy you, Keiley. Ever. I’ll always shelter you.”

His love sheltered her. She had known that from the beginning, from the first night when he had looked into her eyes and told her he was hers forever.

“You’re my forever,” she reminded him then.

“Always,” he promised, his lips touching hers once more.

“I need to think.” She closed her eyes against the promise in his eyes. “I can’t just—do this.”

“There’s nothing to do, sweetheart.” He caught her bottom lip, licked at it, nipped it before slowly releasing her and stepping back.

“Nothing to do?”

He shook his head slowly the overly long black strands caressing his neck as she wanted to caress it with her lips.

“Just be you, Kei,” he said gently. “All you. It’s about your pleasure, honey. It’s about what makes you burn, makes you scream for more. It’s about your fantasies and desires. I’m just your guide.”

“My guide,” she breathed out roughly as she clutched the edges of her dress together and stepped toward the stairs. “You’re not guiding me, Mac. I feel more like a very small boat riding a tidal wave.”

“Become the wave, baby.” He grinned. “It’s real easy.”

“So is drowning, I’m told.” Shaking her head, she started up the stairs, praying her legs would hold her. “I’m taking a shower. I’ll see you later.”

“Keiley.” His voice stopped her as she started up the stairs.

Turning, she stared back at him, almost shivering at the power in his expression, the sensuality and pure unadulterated lust.

“Don’t think this to death. Thinking about it will only make it seem frightening, and more than what it is. And no matter what gossip Delia Staten wants to start, no one will know but the three of us. No one, Kei.”

She nodded slowly. “As I said, I’ll think about it.”

“You do that,” he murmured. “And I’ll keep seducing.”

She waved her hand back at him as she moved up the stairs. “Go harass Jethro. I’m too tired and aggravated to deal with you.”

Mac watched her go with a smile. The short little skirt of her dress skimmed over her perky little butt and swished above her knees. It wasn’t the cutest little summer dress she had, but it did wonders for her lightly tanned legs and bare feet.

She was the most honestly sensual woman he had ever met in his life. Nothing like Delia Madden Staten. Even at twenty, Delia had been a calculating witch. She had been determined to possess him, and Mac had been just as determined to foil her plans.

Hell, that had been more than fifteen years ago. He hadn’t returned to Scotland Neck until he came back with his wife. And it seemed Delia was still holding a grudge.

“I remember telling you that small-town life would make you nuts, Mac,” Jethro drawled from the end of the hallway.

Mac ran his hand over his jaw. “I’ll deal with Delia if I have to. If that doesn’t work I’ll talk to her mother-in-law. Victoria used to be reasonable.”

“You’re going to talk to mommy-in-law?” Jethro snickered.

“Mommy-in-law could chew you up and spit you out for breakfast,” Mac informed him as he restrained a shudder. “But she can be reasonable.”

“And if she’s not?”

Mac’s smile became feral then. “Then I pull out the badge and put the fear of the Bureau in their asses. If that doesn’t work, then you can bring the Bureau down on them. With Delia, subtlety doesn’t work so well.”

He should know. He had tried subtle from the age of sixteen to eighteen with the manipulating little witch. What Delia couldn’t possess, she tried to destroy. He had learned that lesson well during their youths.

Mac had recognized the trait in her easily enough. She reminded him much too much of his father. The rabid determination to win at all costs and to possess rather than to love.

“Maybe I should slip into town tonight and see what I can see. Hear what I can hear.” Jethro moved through the foyer toward the stairs. “Loan me the Harley. Dollars to donuts I come back with info.”

“But will you come back with the Harley?” Mac grimaced.

“We’ll both return unharmed,” Jethro promised with that damned smug smile of his.

“It’s not you I’m worried about, bro,” Mac growled as he pulled the key from the key ring he dug out of his pocket. “That Harley is second only to Keiley. Take care of her or you die.”

Jethro flipped him the finger as Mac flipped him the key.

“Keep the bird in hand, Jeth, and the Harley on her wheels.”

“She’ll fly like a bird and land like a cloud,” Jethro promised on his way out the door. “Like a cloud.”

Mac winced. Jethro and motorcycles, they were chancy things. He just prayed his friend took better care of his Harley than he did of his own.

9

Keiley stood beneath the shower’s spray, allowing the warm water to wash over her as she leaned her head back, allowing the water to soak her hair.

Her body was incredibly sensitive, her rear still tender from the night before, her flesh tingling with the memory of the dominance he had displayed. He knew his own hungers, and it seemed he had guessed hers far better than she could have imagined.

Because she had fantasized. From the day she had heard the first rumors about his supposed membership in the very exclusive men’s club in Virginia, and had met his friend Jethro, she had fantasized.

She had imagined Mac’s lips and hands caressing her. Holding her. Restraining her as Jethro moved between her thighs. Or the other way around. The two men controlling her passion and her responses until she was screaming, begging for release.

She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth as she felt the ache in her clit and her vagina build. Mac had fueled the latent arousal simmering inside her all day. The strength of his body and his lust as he trapped her against the wall downstairs had her creaming furiously. And yet it had her pulling back.

She had seen the deliberate restraint in Mac’s face then, and realized he had been employing that restraint for more than three years. She had sensed it, and for a long time she had refused to tempt it. But for the past year she had been dealing with her own restlessness. With the need to push that careful control she knew Mac was employing.

Had she known what it would come to?

Shaking her head, Keiley quickly washed her hair before soaping a sponge and washing her body. She felt too restless, her flesh too sensitive.

Her marriage was changing, and she could feel it. The implications of it kept her on edge. She wished she could say Mac was changing, but she had a feeling that all he was really doing was removing the kid gloves he had touched her with all these years. It was up to her to decide now if she could love and still live with the man he really was, rather than the man he had let her see.

If she could handle his hungers.

The ménage wasn’t an either/or. She had no doubts that if she said no, he would respect it. He wouldn’t force her. He would try to seduce her. But if he sensed for even a second that she didn’t truly want it, then he would draw back. The sex would still be harder. Mac would still let the darker part of himself free.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t convince herself that she didn’t want this. And her fantasies over the years assured her that she did want it. With Mac. She wanted every sensual, forbidden promise she had seen in his eyes in the past three days.

Rinsing quickly, she shut the water off before wrapping a large towel around her body and stepping from the shower. A quick blow-dry of her hair before she brushed it in place quickly and dried off with swift, economical movements.

Opening the medicine cabinet door, she reached inside for the small bottle of scent she used, only to come up empty-handed. Bending, she looked inside on the shelf before pulling out the drawer beneath it.

There it was, along with her missing comb.

Shaking her head, she pulled the perfume free, spritzed it over her body, then placed it back on the shelf before pulling the comb free and placing it back on the small silver shelf on the sink. She knew she had searched that drawer the other day for the comb.

Which reminded her, after dinner she was going to have to find her dress. It had to be in the washroom somewhere. How she had managed to misplace it she couldn’t figure out.

After pulling on a white lacy thong and a matching bra, Keiley dressed in a pair of light cotton summer pants that went over her hip bones and a loose-knit top with a dozen small wooden buttons holding the edges together. It was sleeveless but loose and comfortable.

She didn’t have the nerve to wear the low-riding snug cutoffs and short t-shirts she normally wore around the house in the summer. She had learned the day Mac took her against the tractor exactly what those clothes could do to his libido. Not that she hadn’t wanted to tease him, torture him a little for missing the surprise dinner she had planned. But she had a feeling that tonight wasn’t the night to push his hunger. Or Jethro’s.

With her feet encased in light socks, and a bit more relaxed than she had been earlier, Keiley moved from the bedroom and headed back downstairs. No doubt Mac was back outside working somewhere, which would give her a few hours of peace to get dinner on and finish a few things around the house.

Maybe it would even give her time to repair the break in her own defenses that Delia Staten had caused. She couldn’t excuse the rumors to coincidence. Delia had been too gloating, too certain.

But she wasn’t a child anymore, she told herself. And she wasn’t breaking the law or bringing humiliation down on an innocent family. This was her marriage, and it was her business.

As she straightened the house and ran the sweeper she let the pros and cons of this changing relationship whip through her mind. At the end of the day it came to one thing, though: Mac had made her curious. His and Jethro’s touches had made her more aroused than she had ever thought possible. When it was all said and done, she knew that in the end, it was going to happen. And what happened from there she had no idea.

One thing she was starting to believe to the bottom of her soul was that Mac was definitely going to make it an adventure.

“Wes,” Mac called out to the trainer as he entered the shadowed interior of the stables and looked around with narrowed eyes. He knew he had seen the other man step in here moments ago.

Wes Bridges, the trainer, he had hired for the Thoroughbreds he raised on the farm, was a solitary person, but he was a damned good horse trainer.

“Wes!” The snicker of the horses was his only greeting for long moments.

“Mr. McCoy?” The stout little man stepped from the tack room, a frown creasing his face as he wiped his hands on a damp rag and stepped into the wide center aisle of the stables. “Can I help you, sir?”