Brogan released the nipple he’d held in his mouth, his arm wrapped around her back as the fingers of the other hand thrust in an increased rhythm into the tender rear entrance and his hips began moving, driving his cock harder inside her, faster.

The heat of the morning gathered around them; the heat burning in their bodies began to flare and flame with sensation, burning their senses. Eve felt the conflagration as it happened as though in slow motion: The rake of her clitoris against his flesh as he drove inside her. The brutal pleasure that seared delicate nerve endings revealed by the thick width of his cock stretching her with burning pleasure. His fingers stroking inside her anus, stimulating nerve endings that responded with a strident clamoring for more.

Each sensation tightened, flamed, then erupted into an orgasm that shook her to her core.

It imploded inside her before exploding outward, sending her juices gushing against the rapidly thrusting movement of his cock and the sudden, heavy spurts of his release spilling inside her.

Her eyes opened wide in shock, met his, and that feeling of being a part of him was there again. As though time stopped and stilled for precious moments. As though nothing existed but the sensation of hurtling through space, locked in an ecstasy that neither of them could escape, and both of them shared—merging, melding, ecstasy that sealed them together for an impossible moment in time before hurtling them from an edge of such rapture that nothing else mattered.

Eve collapsed against him, only barely aware of the moment he fell backward on the bench, cushioned by the pad beneath them as Eve’s body was cushioned by his.

One arm locked around her, ensuring that she stayed in place, as they both fought to catch their breath.

Their hearts raced; their breathing was ragged, frantic.

Nothing existed outside the place they’d found for this one fragile moment. There was no danger; there was no anger or pain, confusion or impending heartache. There was nothing but the two of them, the pleasure that had bound them, and the certainty that, like an addiction, the need to touch, to taste, to hold each other again would be one for which denial would not be an option.

* * *

Finding the strength to pull themselves from the bench and dress took a while. As Eve pulled the thin silken camisole shell over her head and adjusted the thin straps over her shoulders, she looked up at Brogan.

Securing the dark leather of the belt at his hips, he hadn’t yet straightened his hair. The coarse, red-gold strands had fallen over his forehead and now lay disheveled around his head.

Scratching at his chest, he leaned down, snagged his shirt from the rug that lay over the stones, and pulled it over his arms. As he began securing the buttons, his gaze lifted as though drawn by the thought that suddenly seared her mind.

“What?” he asked absently, snagging his sneakers and untying them before propping himself against the heavy support column and pulling them over his feet.

“You didn’t use a condom,” she stated, watching him closely.

He paused for a moment before resuming with his shoes. Pulling the other one on, he tied them quickly before straightening and staring back at her.

“No, I didn’t,” he admitted—a little too calmly to suit her.

“You didn’t pull out either.”

His fingers raked through his hair, pushing it back, if not neatly, then at least into some kind of order.

“I know,” he admitted again.

She stared back at him, feeling a sudden disquiet begin to settle around her. “Why?”

He sighed heavily. “Because whatever’s going to happen began last night. The condom split, and before I could think to pull free, I was already spilling inside you. This morning isn’t going to make a difference.”

“You didn’t tell me this morning,” she stated, wondering why.

His jaw clenched brutally, a sudden feeling that he was pushing back something angry and bitter filling her senses.

“I was waiting to make certain it would be too late to use the morning-after pill,” he finally snapped, his eyes turning a dark gray as he glared back at her. “I don’t believe in it, Eve.”

She looked away, frowning heavily.

She couldn’t believe he had just said that. She couldn’t believe he would even suspect she would do something so horrible. That she would abort her baby, just get rid of it as though it were trash. Damn, he sure did have a hell of an opinion of her, didn’t he?

What hurt more, though, was the fact that he seemed to think it was okay to make that decision for her. That he thought she would be so easy to control and to maneuver.

He may not have lied to her, but what he had done was by far much worse: He had tried to take her free will, her right to a choice away from her.

“What?” he growled.

She rose from the bench, smoothed her skirt, then stared back at him painfully. “At what point, Brogan, did you begin to believe that you were entitled to make any decisions for me? Let alone one so important?”

Didn’t he know her any better than that?

There had been a few moments over the years when she had sworn she had known what he was going to do or say, or what his opinion would be even before he voiced it. Yet after all this time, he believed he needed to hide something so important from her rather than trusting her?

“When the decision involves me or mine, then I have some say in it,” he growled.

She laughed, a mirthless, angry sound that she didn’t bother to hide.

“No, Brogan, you only have the right to discuss it, and you just made damned certain you no longer have even that right.”

She moved from the grotto, aware of him following behind her, silent, a dark shadow keeping pace with her as she moved quickly back to the house.

Stepping inside the glass doors and hurrying through the living room, she suddenly came to a hard, surprised stop. Behind her, she heard Brogan curse, and she would have seconded the explicit word if it weren’t for the fact that she knew it was a word her brother was attempting to erase from his vocabulary.

And there he stood, along with Rowdy and Natches, all three men staring at Brogan with an animosity that would be impossible to miss.

“I’m fairly certain you were told that I was fine, Dawg.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and glared back at the three men.

“I was told,” he growled.

“You didn’t believe it?”

“Physically,” he offered, “I believed you were fine.”

“Then can I ask why you’re here? Tell me, have you decided to take it upon yourself to make some decisions for me that have absolutely nothing to do with you, as well?” she asked sarcastically.

“Told you so,” Rowdy muttered aside to Dawg as he lifted his hand and covered his mouth.

“Shut up, Rowdy,” Dawg ordered, his gaze still locked with hers.

“I told you so, too,” Natches offered.

Dawg didn’t bother to give the same order to his younger cousin.

“I’ll tell the four of you what.” She included Brogan in the offer. “You can stay here and beat one another to a bruised pulp, scream, yell, curse, or whatever, and I’ll just get my things and roll.” She looked over at Natches. “You were smart enough to drive yourself, right?”

“Yeah,” he answered warily as he hooked his thumbs in the belt cinching his lean hips. “Why?”

“You owe me,” she reminded him. “I want your ride.”

“Ah, hell, now, come on, Eve.” He frowned, protesting the order as he glanced at the other three. “I don’t like their company.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Dawg and Rowdy.

“You’re not leaving, Eve,” Brogan stated behind her.

She turned slowly, drew in a hard, deep breath, and met the anger burning in his gaze. “You don’t want to do this,” she told him softly. “I won’t be manipulated, ordered, or deceived, Brogan. If you learned anything about me in the past two and a half years, then you know that.”

Fury burned in his eyes, but his lips thinned as he only continued to glare at her.

Turning to her brother once again, she stared at him until his gaze flickered. No one, but no one could make Dawg flinch when he believed he was completely in the right.

“This is none of your business,” she told him. “I’m not six; nor am I sixteen. I’m a grown woman and I can make a grown woman’s decisions.”

“Can you?” His arms went across his chest as his brows lowered broodingly. “Even if he’s a damned criminal?”

“Even if I’m wrong about the fact that everything inside me tells me he’s not a criminal,” she amended, “I can’t live my life by your instincts and your rules, Dawg. I have to live by my own.”

“You made me a promise, Eve,” he reminded her. “I thought you understood the stakes.”

“Are you going to disown me, Dawg?” she asked curiously. “You once said we’d get along fine as long as I didn’t betray family, country, or myself. I haven’t betrayed any of the three. But you skirted the line when you manipulated a promise from me that you knew I’d never be able to keep.”

Rowdy and Natches both turned a look of disgust on their cousin.

“Man, you know Christa’s gonna find out,” Natches warned him.

“Not if you keep your fat mouth shut,” he growled.

Natches frowned and turned to Eve. “Is my mouth fat?” He was suddenly fingering his lips as though worried before turning on Dawg. “I’m going to give you a fat lip in a minute.”

Dawg snorted. “Yeah, and go home all bruised to Chaya? I don’t think so.”

Natches grinned. “I won’t get in near as much trouble as you will.”

Eve shook her head. “You three just work that out on your own.” She turned her attention to Natches. “Give me your keys.”

“That’s the last time I play cards with you,” he threatened her, clearly annoyed that the promise he owed her from the poker game months before had resulted in losing his ride for the day.

“You said anytime, anywhere,” she reminded him with a shrug as he tossed her the keys.

“Eve.” Brogan moved in front of her. “We need to discuss this.”

She shook her head, steely determination and offended pride clawing at her emotions. “No, Brogan, we don’t,” she told him softly, distancing herself from the frustration and the edge of desperation she felt emanating from him. “Not now. Not until you decide that controlling me may not be as important as you seem to think it is.” She turned to Dawg then. “You knew he wasn’t a traitor. Hell, your instincts are better than mine. You all but lied to me, Dawg. And I would have sworn that was something you would have never done to me. You knew all along he was an agent, didn’t you?”

Facing him, seeing the brooding guilt in his gaze, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had been aware of what he was doing when he did it.

Her eyes filled with tears.

She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t stop the sudden, brutal sense of betrayal as it exploded inside her any more than she could have stopped the sun from rising that morning.

“Why did you do it?” Her voice cracked with the tears suddenly filling her eyes. “I wouldn’t have done that to you, Dawg. I wouldn’t have lied to you about Christa to keep you away from her.”

“Ah, hell.” It was Natches who emitted the low exclamation as he and Rowdy both turned on Dawg.

“He’s going to hurt you,” Dawg stated, so certain of it, so determined he was right that pure arrogant stubbornness filled his face.

“So what if he does.” A tear slipped free as she suddenly realized just how much she and her sisters, even her mother, had allowed Dawg to shelter them. “Can’t I live, Dawg? Do I have to have your permission?”