He wanted to kill the bastard who had hurt her. He wanted to wipe away the memory of her pain and fill it with pleasure. And until he got a handle on himself, he didn’t have a hope of doing either.

THREE

An hour later, Kelly pulled her car into the parking lot of the marina and stared out at the boats lined at the end of the docks. The Nauti Boys were all there. The Nauti Buoy, Nauti Dawg, and Nauti Dreams. She could see Rowdy on the upper deck, dressed in cutoffs, bare chested and looking like a sun god as he straightened and stared out at the parking lot.

She had to talk to him.

She laid her head on the steering wheel and closed her eyes as she felt her heart thumping erratically in her chest. Fear or excitement? Both, she admitted to herself.

The knowledge that he was back sent heat rushing through her even as fear shadowed the arousal. She was a virgin, but she wasn’t ignorant. She knew what the tension between her thighs was, and it was stronger than it had ever been. She grabbed her purse before opening the door and stepping out onto the parking lot. She looked around, feeling the snaking fear that always followed her when she left the house. Squaring her shoulders, Kelly turned and headed toward the docks. Her head lifted as her gaze locked on Rowdy. He was watching her, standing beneath the rays of a sun that lovingly painted his hard, muscular body. He made her breathing hard, made her mouth water and her hands shake with nerves.

Pulling her gaze away, she moved onto the floating walkway, heading for the back edge of the docks. There were half a dozen rows of docking slots on this quarter of the marina. They were the least expensive slots, and the farthest away from the marina’s office.

Rowdy’s, Dawg’s, and Natches’s boats were in the last three slots, and incidentally where the majority of the ducks tended to congregate. Dawg was notorious for feeding them throughout the day.

As she neared the Nauti Buoy, the sliding deck door opened and Rowdy stepped out. Dark gold flesh gleamed with sweat as he leaned against the doorway, his thumbs tucked into the pockets of his ragged cutoffs as he watched her.

“Permission to come aboard?” A nervous smile trembled on her lips.

“Always.” His deep voice raced across her nerve endings, sending frissons of heat to lick at her flesh.

He moved back into the interior of the houseboat, his lashes lowering over his brilliant eyes as he watched her.

Kelly stepped onto the small deck, trying to ignore the shaking in her knees as she crossed it and entered the main section of the craft.

She had known for four years that when he came home for good, he would claim her once and for all. She had waited for him like an immature child, weaving dreams and fantasies of what would happen when he came home at last. Somehow she had known that would be his last tour, despite his threats to reenlist. A year ago, she had felt it. Something had changed in him, the way he watched her, the tension that emanated from him whenever they were together.

As it was now. She could feel it tightening in and around her body, reminding her of all the desires and explicit fantasies that had tormented her through the years.

“Thirsty?” He moved to the low fridge, opening it to pull out a beer and lift it to her in invitation.

“No.” She shook her head as she pushed her hair from her shoulder and faced him awkwardly.

God, she had no idea what to say to him.

He continued to stare back at her intently.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed; she didn’t know what else to say. “It was my fault Ray didn’t tell you what happened.”

His lips quirked as he lowered his head, hiding the hurt she knew he must have been feeling.

He finally shrugged as he lifted his gaze. “Why didn’t you let him?”

She blinked furiously at the tears that threatened to fill her eyes.

“You couldn’t do anything.” She shrugged heavily. “You were a world away, Rowdy. You weren’t free. I didn’t want you to worry.”

He snorted at that. “I would have come home, Kelly. I could have come home without repercussion.”

And that was what had scared here.

She breathed in roughly. “I’m doing okay. I’ve been seeing a therapist and she’s really helped. It’s just, sometimes, I still get scared.” She shrugged helplessly. “I feel like such a wimp.”

And she felt watched. Stalked. Not that she had told Ray or her mother how she felt. Her therapist assured her it was normal, under the circumstances. But it eroded her confidence, kept her awake long into the night. His eyes darkened as he moved slowly toward her.

She stepped back instinctively.

“You’re scared to death of me,” he said softly.

She could hear the dark torment in his voice, see it in his eyes.

“I’m not scared of you.” She fought the trembling of her lips as she stared up at him, fought to stand in place rather than running as she wanted to.

“Then what are you scared of?” He reached out, his fingers running down a long curl that fell over her shoulder. “Why are you trembling, Kelly?”

“You’ve always made me tremble.” She bit her lip at the admission. “Now…” She stared back at him miserably. “I’m not scared of you, Rowdy, but forgetting…sometimes, I can’t forget.”

His thumb smoothed down her cheek, nearly taking her breath with the latent sensuality of his touch.

“Are you going to keep running, Kelly?” he asked then. “You knew if you told me what happened I’d come home. You knew I would have never stayed away. What couldn’t you handle about that?”

“You couldn’t come home—”

“Bullshit,” he growled. “I would have found a way back to you, you knew it. But you swore my dad to secrecy and, it seems, my cousins as well. You were scared of me.”

“No…” She shook her head again, desperate to make him believe her now.

“You knew what I wanted from you, Kelly.” He turned away, stalking across the room before turning back to her. “You knew I wanted you in my bed. You knew what was going to happen when I came home. Didn’t you?”

“I knew.” She couldn’t deny it.

“Did you think I’d try to take you while you were raw from an attempted rape?” Disgust filled his voice.

“That’s not true.” She couldn’t let him believe that.

Moving across the room, she gripped his arm, holding him in place when he would have moved from her.

“I knew you wouldn’t, Rowdy,” she cried fiercely. “I know you would never, ever hurt me. I can’t help it. You don’t know how long I waited for you to come home, how much I needed you to touch me, and now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make sense of any of it.”

She stared back at him, desperate for him to understand, on the edge of crying and knowing the tears would do her no good.

“What you made me feel has always scared me,” she finally admitted, her voice trembling. “How much I needed your touch always terrified me. And now, it’s like all the fears are swirling together until I can’t make any sense of any of it.”

His expression twisted into a grimace of raw pain as his arms came around her. Slowly. Powerful, naked, sun-heated, he pulled her against him as her hands clutched at his waist as the scent of him infused her senses.

“Kelly. God, baby, do you have any idea of what it did to me to realize I wasn’t here to protect you?” he whispered against her hair, one big hand holding her head against his chest as the opposite arm wrapped around her back. “If I had been here, I would have been in your bed that night. No one would have touched you.”

“This isn’t your fault,” she snapped, her head lifting, a frown tightening her brow as she glared back at him. “I knew you were going to think that.”

“I don’t think it, I know it,” he growled, holding her tighter, pressing his hips against her lower belly as she felt the breath slam out of her chest.

His erection, impossibly large, hot even through the denim, pressed against her as he stared down at her with heavy-lidded arousal.

“I know, Kelly.” His hands moved to her hips as she felt the familiar weakness sweeping through her body. “There’s not a damned thing that could have kept me away from you. Why the hell do you think I spent so much time in the Marines? I stayed away because I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”

His hands were on her now, clasped at her hips as hers flattened against his bare chest and she stared back at him in shock.

“I want you until I can’t breathe for it,” he whispered then. “But I would never hurt you. And I would never take what you can’t give me, Kelly. Ever.”

“I know that, Rowdy,” she cried, the aching need and shadowed fears that rose inside her clenching in her chest. “I never thought you would.”

“I wanted to hold you this morning.” His hands smoothed over her back, her hips. “I wanted to pull you in my arms and put myself between you and the world to keep anything, everything, from threatening you ever again.”

She shook her head. God, what was she going to do? He wasn’t even concerned with what his father had said, the fact that he had been thrown out of his home. He wasn’t angry with her or with Ray. He was angry with himself for not being there.

Kelly stared back at him, dazed, uncertain. Rowdy’s expression was fierce, arrogant, equal parts frustration and determination mixed with pure, hot lust.

“Rowdy—”

“I want to take all the fear out of your eyes, Kelly,” he whispered, his head lowering, his eyes holding hers. “I want it gone. I want to see all that fire and arousal and need that’s always been there. That I see now.”

She breathed in roughly, fighting to find reality, to make sense of the influx of sensations racing through her body.

“I want to kiss you, Kelly.” Her lips parted.

Beneath her hands, his heart raced, just like hers. A hard, rushing throb that transferred to her veins, her nerve endings, and washed through every cell of her body.

“Did you miss me, Kelly?” he whispered.

“Yes.” Her vision was filled with his lips. Sensually full, a treat she had dreamed of for too many years, had ached for with everything in her woman’s body.

“No. Keep your eyes open.” He stopped as her lashes drifted closed. “Watch me, baby. See me. It’s just Rowdy. Just my kiss, remember how much you liked my kiss?”

She loved his kiss. Her lips parted in anticipation, but perhaps she hadn’t fully remembered what being kissed by Rowdy meant. Somehow, she must not have remembered just right, exactly how it felt that night on the lake.

Because this was nothing like that brief, hungry kiss four years before. This was seduction. It was coercion on its most basic level. The whisper of his lips against hers as his heavy-lidded eyes stared back into hers, darkening, flaming with need as his mouth possessed hers with devastating sensuality. Rough silk caressed her lips, stroking over them as he denied her the deeper, darker possession she was craving. This wasn’t a hungry consummation, it was a dream washing over her, easing her from the shadows haunting her and pulling her inexorably into a steadily building whirlwind of sensation.

“So beautiful,” he whispered against her lips, sipping at them, making her ache for more. “There you go, just watch me, Kelly. Watch me and feel.”

A whimpering moan tore from her throat as she felt his hands lift the hem of her shirt, felt his hands, calloused and hot against the bare flesh of her back. Curling her fingers against his chest she allowed herself to settle into his body, her head falling back as one hand cupped the nape of her neck and his kiss became deeper.

“Keep your eyes open.”

Her eyes flew open as he pulled back, her breathing becoming jerky at the hunger in his face.