His head lowered, his lips shocked hers, parted them, and made room for his tongue to slip past.

Holding on to him now was all that mattered. Her fingers gripped his head, her lips moved beneath his, her heart raced in her chest.

What was it about him? What made her crave him to the point that nothing mattered but his kiss, his touch? She had missed him, she’d ached for him. She hadn’t realized how much she needed the comfort of his touch until he was there, holding her, his hands on her ass, lifting her against his chest as her arms wrapped around his neck.

“Zeke,” she whispered his name, desperation clawing at her as his lips moved from hers to her neck. They caressed as his evening beard scraped against the flesh just under her jaw.

His teeth nipped at her, his tongue licked.

“I need you.” She let her tongue flicker over his ear as her legs bent to grip his thighs, her skirt lifting, her sex cushioning the heavy impression of his cock beneath his jeans.

“Damn you.” His fingers threaded in her hair, tugged, and sent heated fingers of sensation to curl over her scalp as he pulled her head back.

His lips met hers again. His kiss was hungry, devouring. It worked over her lips as his tongue stroked past them, thrusting against hers before retreating, only to return again.

It was a hungry, desperate kiss. It was a kiss that fed the hope inside her, a hope that had been so fragile she had refused to even acknowledge it. A hope this need he had for her was more than physical. That emotion fueled him just as much as lust. That he might care for her. That he might need her in the ways she needed him.

Admitting she was falling in love with him wasn’t easy. Letting herself acknowledge that she no longer had control over those emotions was frightening.

Almost as frightening as realizing she had no control over her response to him. She was losing herself in his touch, in his kiss, in his hunger for her. Losing herself to the point that he could take her right there, under the lights that blazed overhead, against the warm metal of his pickup truck, and she wouldn’t offer the first protest. She would revel in the pleasure and the heat he filled her with instead.

“You’re stealing my mind,” he groaned as his lips lifted. She tried to follow, tried to retain the hunger and need she could feel pouring out of him.

“I haven’t given you permission to stop,” she whimpered. “Come back here.”

She received a rough chuckle in reply, but still he steadied her back on her feet before shifting away from her.

Damn him. She wanted more than one of his little tease-fests.

“Come on, get in.” He opened the passenger side door and lifted her into the seat before she could attempt to navigate the running board that ran down the side of the cab.

“Where am I going?” Her lips quirked as she stared back at him, amazed once again that somehow, there was something developing between them. She wasn’t certain what it was, but it was something. Something more than sex, but perhaps something less than emotion.

“For a ride.” He reached out, touched her cheek with his fingertips, and caressed the line of her jaw with his thumb. “We need to talk.”

He backed away before she could reply, shifted her legs into the truck, then closed the door, all without saying another word.

Rogue blew out a hard breath as she watched him move around the front of the truck.

Hard-bodied, graceful in that predatory kind of way, dressed in jeans, a dark cotton shirt, and boots. Damn, he made her mouth water. He made her heart ache.

He made her realize all the dreams she had never known she had. Dreams of being more to him perhaps than just his current little pillow mate.

Which was amazingly funny actually. It wasn’t as though he had so much as taken her out to a burger joint, let alone anything resembling something as public as a date. God forbid he would do anything so juvenile at his age.

“That look on your face is scary,” he told her as he opened his door and lifted himself into the driver’s seat before turning his head to stare at her as he pushed the key into the ignition and started the motor.

“Scary?” she asked with a smile. “How do you define scary, Sheriff Mayes?”

He grunted at that. “Equal parts feminine charm and sheer calculation. I saw that same look on your face before you broke Bobby Joe Wingate’s nose last year at the local fair.”

Shehad broken Bobby Joe’s nose. “There was no proof I broke his nose,” she still reminded him. “He buried his face in the cement; I didn’t put it there.”

“No, it was your cute little fist that plowed into it though,” he chuckled as he pulled out of the parking lot. “I was there, remember? I heard the crunch.”

“And here you didn’t arrest me?”

Bobby Joe Wingate liked to tease and torment those much younger than himself. The twenty-three-year-old college dropout had been picking on a thirteen-year-old child whose father had been arrested on suspicion of terrorism.

The child had been unaware of the reason for her father’s arrest until Bobby Joe had begun spouting accusations at her and her uncle. Rogue had hit before she had thought.

And as Zeke said, he had been there. He had come up as Bobby Joe had hit the cement, jerked him up, and rushed him away from the crowd before someone had ended up dead. Likely Bobby Joe, because if he had tried to strike back at Rogue, the six bikers with her would have ripped his head off and used his guts to strangle him.

“The girl’s uncle found me and told me what was going on,” he said. “If you hadn’t hit him, I would have. I hit harder.”

Rogue let a smile curl her lips at that. Yeah, Zeke could hit harder. She’d had the supreme pleasure of seeing him do just that a time or two when he had been called to the bar when things became a little too rough during a conflict or two between customers and bouncers.

“So, you took me out tonight to discuss Bobby Joe Wingate?”

He was driving through town, his eyes on the traffic as he headed toward the heavily forested city limits. Out of town. She watched as the city lights disappeared and the headlights of the truck picked up the black ribbon of the road winding through the mountain.

“Bobby Joe wasn’t high on my list of discussion topics,” he finally admitted as he signaled and turned from the main road onto a county road that led deeper into the mountains.

“Then what is high on your list of priorities?” she asked, smoothing her hand over the short length of her skirt as they drove deeper into the mountains.

“You.”

That effectively shut her up, for the moment.

Zeke pulled the pickup into a clearing next to the lake several minutes later. The rays of a full moon glistened across the water as it lapped at the large rocks that had been set along the bank.

He stared out the windshield, too aware of Rogue sitting in the seat beside him, too aware of all the things he wanted from her.

“So I’m topping your list of priorities tonight, huh?” she finally asked. “I have to admit, Zeke, I’m a little surprised. I haven’t been your priority before now.”

Her voice just did things to him. It was smooth, melodic; it was a breath of summer heat and a reminder of the sweet sound of her cries as she came around him. It made him fucking hard. It made him want to fuck her, right there, right then.

“You’ve been my priority longer than you can imagine.” He continued to stare out at the water, scowling at the truth of that statement.

“Really?” Suspicion filled her voice. “Damn, you sure had me fooled, Zeke. I guess all those rejections were just your way of making a pass?”

He glanced over at her. “Smart-ass.”

Flashing that wicked smile of hers, she brushed back the long red gold curls that fell over her shoulder and turned more fully to him as she released her seat belt.

She crossed one leg over the other, those damned erotic boots making him crazy with the thought of them wrapped around his back. The leather cupped her knees, skimmed down her legs, and enfolded her feet until the four-inch heels drew his gaze.

Four-inch heels. Thin, stiletto heels.

The toe of her boot tapped against the floor of the truck and she stared back at him, obviously expectantly. The part that worried him was that she wasn’t responding to the teasing little name he had called her.

She was watching him with those odd eyes of hers, a pure violet, not quite blue, not quite purple. Eyes that threatened to mesmerize him. Threatened to strip his control and make him forget exactly why he had brought her here.

It wasn’t to enjoy how the moonlight made her eyes appear more violet, or how her skin glistened in the shimmering rays. Hell. He was turning fucking poetic. Son of a bitch, he wanted to fuck her until his balls felt on fire from the need. There, that wasn’t the least bit poetic.

Shit.

He was reaching for her. He wasn’t even aware he was reaching for her until his hand was curving around her neck.

Control. He’d always known control, he’d always known his own sense of self and how to rein in the needs, the hungers that tempted him.

Until Rogue.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” His hand flexed against her nape, his fingertips stroking the soft flesh he found there.

“Hurt me?” Her head tilted, her neck curving into his grip as that smile tempted him.

“Are you afraid of breaking my heart, Zeke?” There was a hint of amusement in her voice now. “Or your own?”

His hand tightened on her nape.

“I want you to leave Somerset.” His voice was harder than he had intended, a strange, burning anger rising inside him as she stared back at him, composed, her lips tilted into that mocking grin as her eyes gleamed with anger.

“You want me to leave Somerset.” Her neck flexed beneath his hold as a light, scoffing little laugh left her lips. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me? What’s wrong, Zeke, can’t the big, bad sheriff handle the hard-on he’s packing in his jeans for the town whore?”

She leaned closer. “Or is that the problem? It’s just for the town whore?”

Fury flashed through him. “Call yourself that again, Rogue, and I might show you exactly why I keep trying to protect you. You don’t want to push that limit.”

Her smile was as old as time itself, as knowing as pure erotic sin.

He sat still as she moved. As she slid over him like satin silk, those leather legs straddling his thighs, the damp heat of her pussy settling over the denim-covered length of his tortured cock.

“I’d saybwok-bwok , but I think you need a more direct approach.” She breathed against his lips. “I have no fear, Sheriff, because you know what I know?”

His hands slid to her hips; his fingers pressed into the leather-covered flesh.

“What do you think you know?”

“I know,” she crooned, “the big, bad sheriff is all talk and no action. Sheriff Mayes, you’re chicken. One big hard-on-packing coward when it comes to something more than a quick little fuck in the dark. You don’t have the guts to give more of yourself than that, and we both know it.”

FOURTEEN

A hard-on-packing coward!

His hand slid to her neck, then into her hair. His fingers fisted into the curls and the dominance inside him broke loose. He lost control, and for the first time in his life he didn’t even attempt to pull it back or attempt to soften it.

A hard smile pulled at his lips instead.

“Remember, Rogue, you made the dare.”

“It wasn’t a dare. It’s the truth,” she charged relentlessly. “What’s wrong, Zeke, afraid I don’t tame as easily as your other women?”

He hoped to hell she didn’t, because he was damned if tame was what he wanted.

Her head tipped back as he pulled at her hair, a firm tug that tilted her chin and placed her lips in the perfect position for his kiss.

Fighting his needs had never been so hard.