God, for a minute she wished Rowdy were less intense, less determined. She wished she didn’t know him as well as she did.

“Come on, Aunt Maria,” Dawg grunted as she continued to glare at Rowdy. “You know lookin’ at him like that don’t work. He’s just going to get in a bad mood and pout on us all night long if you do.”

Maria flashed her nephew by marriage a dark look. Dawg grinned back, flashing strong white teeth through his gaze remained hard.

“You boys are going to get her killed,” she snapped. “This isn’t a game you’re playing here. It’s Kelly’s life.”

“Which makes it my life,” Rowdy assured her. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let this bastard hurt her more. Now stand the hell down and we can talk about this reasonably, or by God we won’t talk about it at all.”

Ray breathed out wearily.

“He’s right, Maria. You know he’s right. She can’t run all her life,” he said, the regret heavy in his voice as Maria gasped in surprise.

“Ray, you don’t mean that. She would be safe—”

“She’ll never be safe as long as that bastard is on the loose, Maria.” He grimaced, shaking his head. “We both know it. She has to make her stand here.”

“I won’t have it—”

“I said I’ve heard enough!” Kelly scraped her chair across the floor, coming to her feet and pushing her fingers through her hair with an edge of frustration.

“Kelly…I’m scared for you,” Maria whispered. “If Rowdy is so determined to stay with you, then the two of you can go away for a while.”

“This isn’t something I can run away from.” Kelly swallowed tightly as she stared back at her mother.

“You mean he won’t let you run away,” Maria accused. “Don’t let him risk your life like this, Kelly.”

“I’m letting him save it,” she whispered. “Because without him, I’m dead. It won’t matter where I go, or how long I stay, he’ll find me. Just as he found the other girl. He won’t let it go.”

“He would have,” Maria bit out. “He left that girl alone until she found someone, and he would have left you alone if Rowdy hadn’t drawn you into…this…” Her arm swung out to encompass Rowdy, Dawg, and Natches.

Heat flamed in her cheeks as she breathed in roughly, staring back at her mother, hating what her mother suspected, hating that the danger she was in now was tearing at them all. No explanation would make a difference; her mother would no more believe that she wasn’t sleeping with all three men than the stalker would.

“This is my business,” she said softly. “Remember that, Mom. And don’t forget it. My relationship with Rowdy is my business, and it will stay that way. Period. I love you, but I can’t deal with fighting with you right now. I want you to go home.”

“No—”

“Mom, go home.” She strengthened her voice, fought back her tears, and stared back at her mother firmly. “I’ll call. I promise. But this isn’t going to help anything, and it’s sure as hell not going to make this easier. For my sake, just go.”

“Kelly…” Rowdy’s protest as she moved quickly from the room was ignored, as was Ray’s curse and her mother’s cry.

She couldn’t handle the combined pressure, or her mother’s fears. Her own were choking her, strangling her with tightening bands of remembered horror as she escaped the tension building in the kitchen.

She had tried to tell herself that the man who attacked her would go away. That it would stop. That it couldn’t be worse than what she had already endured. But now the nightmare was growing worse. Her stalker had become a murderer.

She rushed into the bedroom, carefully closing the door behind her as she capped her hand over her mouth in an effort to hold back her screams of horror. She wasn’t the only one at risk now. She had known when the shots were fired into the boat that the stalker was going to try to hurt Rowdy. It hadn’t sunk in though, not all the way to the bone, until Ray and her mother dropped their bombshell.

“Kelly, open the door.” Rowdy wiggled the doorknob as he spoke on the other side of the panel. His voice was soft, gentle, nearly breaking her resolve to hold back her tears.

Pressing her lips together she turned the lock before moving away, unaware she had locked it in the first place. She moved to the center of the room, wiping her fingers over her cheeks in an attempt to dry the tears from her face.

The door opened then closed as silence engulfed the room for long seconds.

“I don’t want him to hurt you,” she finally whispered, keeping her back to him as she wrapped her arms over her breasts. “What will I do if he hurts you, Rowdy?”

She heard the male snort behind her, mocking, filled with stubborn pride. She turned to him slowly, wishing, praying, that none of this had happened. That she could have had her dream of holding Rowdy without the danger that surrounded them.

He was staring back at her tenderly, but there was no missing the spark of rage behind the tenderness, or the pure confidence that poured from him.

“What happens if you run, Kelly?” he asked her, moving toward her, a slow, predatory movement that had her heart racing in anticipation even as fear overwhelmed her. “Can you stay one step ahead of him? Can you live your life knowing he can strike at any minute? Knowing that eventually he’ll get tired of just watching you, and find a reason to kill you instead? Just as he found a reason to kill that girl last night?”

“I’m not stupid.” Her breath caught as his hands cupped her shoulders, his thumbs smoothing over the flesh the straps of her shirt left bare. “I’m scared, Rowdy,” her voice lowered. “I’m so scared.”

“That’s natural,” he whispered. “Do you know I’m scared too, Kelly?”

She stared back at him in surprise.

“Scared you won’t trust us to protect you. Scared you’ll leave, that he’ll hurt you in ways you won’t be able to come back from. That I’ll lose you forever. That’s what scares me, Kelly. Hell, it terrifies me.”

“Don’t…” She shook her head, shaking at the throb of emotion in his voice, the pain that threaded through it.

“I’d rather die than see that, Kelly,” he whispered painfully, his eyes tormented, dark with emotion. “Don’t you understand, sweetheart? I love you until I can’t breathe without feeling it move through me, feeling your presence around me. You’re my heart. My soul. I won’t let that bastard take that from me. If it means I have to lock you up for your own protection and listen to you rage for a lifetime, I’d do it. Anything, Kelly, to keep you safe.”

The tears were streaming down her face now, shudders whipping through her body at the sound of his voice. Her big, tough Rowdy, his tone soft, thick with emotion, his eyes brilliant with it.

“I love you so much, Rowdy.” Her hands moved from his chest, no longer pressing to hold him back, but moving to his shoulders as he drew her to his chest, holding her close, secure against him.

“It’s going to be okay, Kelly.” She felt his head lower, felt his lips move over her forehead. “Everything’s going to be fine, babe. I’m not stupid, or careless. And Dawg and Natches sure as hell aren’t. We’re going get through this. All of us, baby.”

She lifted her head for his kiss, needing it, desperate to fill the dark places moving through her soul with the fire of his hunger, his need. She could feel his cock straining beneath his jeans, pressing against her stomach as she drew his head down to her.

“Kiss me, Rowdy,” she whispered. “Kiss me like I dream—”

His lips stole her words as a hungry groan filled the air. His groan, her whimpering cry of need as she felt the heat and lust moving from him, into her.

Her lips opened as her arms curled around his neck, pulling him closer to her as he tilted her head back, sipping from her lips, licking at them, nipping until they opened as she was crying out for more. Needing more. His tongue was a stroke of fire, his hands were everywhere. Hunger heated the air, filled her body and whipped around her like forked fingers of lightning tingling over her body.

In those moments there was no stalker, no danger, no death or pain. There was only passion. There was only Rowdy.

Amazement flared through Rowdy, not for the first time, at the pleasure he received from just kissing Kelly. Holding her head between his hands, feeling her silky hair fall over his hands, feeling her lips like hot satin beneath his.

And her taste. She intoxicated him. Nothing but Dawg’s white lightning had ever had the power to affect him so quickly, until Kelly’s kiss. Her touch. Her passion.

He groaned against her lips as he let his tongue dip past them, feeling hers waiting, tangling against him like damp silk and sending his senses spinning.

A man shouldn’t be so weak in the face of a kiss, he thought with a sliver of amusement. But damn if she didn’t sap his will to resist her, to keep from taking her again and again.

And he was going to have her again. Now. He was going to lay her back on that big bed and sink inside her until she screamed his name.

He backed her toward the bed, keeping his lips on hers as his hands moved from her head to wrap around her back before gripping the hem of her shirt and pushing beneath it. She had the softest skin he had ever touched. Everything about Kelly was different, better, hotter, and sweeter, and with each touch he only wanted more.

“Let’s get you out of these damned clothes,” he muttered as he tore his lips from hers, his eyes lifting to stare down at her.

Her lips were swollen, cheeks flushed with arousal, and her pretty gray eyes were dark, stormy with hunger. Damn, he liked her hungry. She was like a little tigress, scratching and mewling and uncaring of anything but the pleasure she was attaining. The pleasure he was giving her.

Getting undressed was a matter of a few ripped seams, some buttons popping, and strangled curses as they both struggled with stubborn jeans. But within seconds he was tumbling her back to the bed, his lips zeroing in on her hard, peaked nipples as the taste of her filled his mouth.

God, she was sweet. Arching to him, hoarse cries leaving her lips as he suckled at the tight little points. Her head was thrown back, her hands gripping his head, holding him to her as he went from one swollen mound to the other.

All the while her hot little body twisted and writhed beneath him as her thigh caressed the tight length of his cock. He could feel his balls tightening with the need to fuck and to do it now. It was always like this with Kelly. He couldn’t wait to get inside her, to feel her silken heat clasping him, rippling around him as he thrust into the liquid fire of her tight little pussy.

And that heat was so close. He could feel it whispering over the head of his erection, drawing him to her. He wasn’t going to be able to wait long, he knew. Long enough maybe, maybe, to ease down her straining body. He did just that, laying quick little kisses down her abdomen, licking at her skin, tasting her with every cell of his body. Just long enough to spread her thighs and settle between them before dipping his head for one quick little taste of her sweet, juicy cunt.

His taste buds exploded as he slid his tongue through the syrupy slit before circling the tight, swollen bud of her clit. Sweet, tart, silken ambrosia that entangled his senses and kept him coming back for more.

Her cries echoed around him as he enjoyed the taste and feel of the slick folds of her flesh. Silken and bare, her pussy flowered open for him. Peaches and cream and soft syrup, and he was a man with a taste for this particular fruit. Especially when those gorgeous legs lifted and her feet propped on his shoulders to allow him maximum access.

He could happily drown in her. He licked at the sweet cream, tasted the hunger and passion that rained from her. His fingers caressed the tender opening to her vagina, teased and tempted her before working inside her. His senses exploded with the heat that surrounded them, with the moist, rich juices that flowed from her.