Table of Contents

Legal Page

Title Page

Book Description

Dedication

Trademarks Acknowledgement

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

New Excerpt

About the Author

Publisher Page

A Totally Bound Publication

The Protective Dominant

ISBN # 978-0-85715-666-2

©Copyright Jan Irving 2014

Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright March 2014

Edited by Stacey Birkel

Totally Bound Publishing

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

Warning:

This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Burning and a Sexometer of 2.

Men of Station 57

THE PROTECTIVE DOMINANT

Jan Irving

Book three in the Men of Station 57 Series

Firefighter Taz watches over wounded innocent Jenny Green, but as he helps her to heal, she comes to need her guardian angel’s touch.

Night after night, wounded innocent Jenny Ann Green sleepwalks, reliving a nightmare. Her nearest neighbor, firefighter Taz—short for Tasmanian Devil—is a legendary sexy bastard of a dominant, but he’s breaking his heart over this girl. He needs to find a way to heal her. Her silent pain awakens his own past.

Soon Taz forces Jenny to leave the safety of her house, taking her shoe shopping at the mall—even though he hates women’s shoes—to a barn raising for the local coffee house and to the SPCA to adopt a forlorn golden retriever. It’s not the way he’d ever thought he’d use his natural gift for dominance, protective and gentle, but the fear in Jenny’s eyes is melting. Now she needs him to do more than watch over her—she needs him to touch her. But small town girls like Jenny always fall for bad boys like Taz…

Dedication

To Lyric Kinard for her book Art + Quilt, which is not just about art quilting, but about being creative in this world.

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Beauty and the Beast: Walt Disney Pictures

Gatorade: Pepsi-Co, Inc.

Laura Ashley: Malayan United Industries Berhad

Ford: Ford Motor Company

Disneyland: The Walt Disney Company

Victoria’s Secret: L Brands, Inc.

Home Depot: The Home Depot, Inc.

Superman: Marvel Comics

Cool Water: Coty, Inc.

Another One Bites the Dust: John Deacon

Bowflex: Nautilus, Inc.

No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

—Taoist proverb.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than

the risk it took to blossom.

—Anais Nin.

Chapter One

Jenny Ann Green was digging in her garden again.

Taz watched her from the open door of his kitchen, rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

Dirt shot like it was geysered out of the ground, hitting her face, hitting the ratty-looking things in her gardening basket. She dropped her trowel and began tunneling into the earth with her bare hands, more dirt whipping out, shooting onto the neatly kept grass.

“Fuck this,” Taz growled.

He reached her in seconds. Stood there, trembling. Closed his eyes. Don’t touch her, asshole. You can’t touch her.

But it was hard, so freaking hard not to yank her off the ground and into his arms.

“Jenny?” His voice was rough. He cleared his throat, balling his fists. Don’t scare her.

She kept on digging. She probably hadn’t heard him.

“Jenny, look at me, sweetheart.” A memory of a female voice mocking him for using the word ‘sweetheart’ came to him. Dharma, his friend Fred’s smoking new girlfriend. Yeah, she’d pointed out that using that word hadn’t suited him at all since he was such a bastard with women.

She’d been right.

He was.

He didn’t like women. He didn’t trust them.

They had their use and he kept what he wanted from them tightly compartmentalized.

With his head thrown back, he dragged in deep breaths, trying to center himself. As an experienced dominant, he knew the first rule was to master yourself before you tried it with anyone else.

But it was so hard because Jenny got past all that. She was the crack in his armor that kept getting wider and wider, and it scared him because what the fuck would spill out if he kept letting her in? Nothing good. Absolutely nothing good, he knew.

When he had control, he knelt beside her, ignoring the dirt that she shoveled in his direction. Hell, the girl couldn’t even see him out of those spacey eyes so the dirt coming toward him was nothing personal.

Jenny was too polite, too sweet to ever throw dirt his way, much as he deserved it for the way he’d treated her.

He remembered the evening he’d come home and found that she’d planted flowers along his drive. “If I want fuckin’ flowers, I’ll plant them myself. Now get your ass off my property.”

Yeah, he’d been a real prince.

“Jenny Ann.” His voice was calm. “Jenny, wake up, sweetheart.”

No response. She was putting the weedy-looking things into the hole she’d dug. Damn, it was as deep as one Bo, his friend Mike’s golden retriever, routinely dug in Mike’s backyard.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m…” She frowned and looked down at the bulb in her fist. “Saffron bulbs. Come up in the fall,” she said in her honeyed Southern lady drawl.

“That’s good, Jenny,” Taz said. “But do you have to do this now?”

“Now…” She blinked. He could see her mind slowly coming back online. Suddenly she shuddered violently, looking around her.

It was killing him. He had to put his arms around her. “Jenny.”

She was ice cold. Ice cold. Shivering in her little threadbare nightie. No slinky red gown and red shoes for Jenny Ann. No, she went to bed alone in soft cotton, worn from too many washings.

He tried not to look at her nipples through the gown. She had larger breasts than he’d thought. She had a way of hunching her back or wearing too-large clothing so he hadn’t been able to see them clearly. He wanted to take them in his hands. Bastard, to be thinking that now.

“Let me go, let me go!” She was tearing at him, clawing, smacking—all of it so ineffectual because he was a big muscular guy and she was a tiny little thing.

Aching, he let her go. Watched her fall on her butt in the earth, watched her glance around frantically, getting her bearings. Her chest rose and fell. Finally she curled up in a little ball, a thready sound coming from her.

Panting, he stared.

“Oh, Jenny.”

When she didn’t move, he couldn’t take it anymore. He reached down and picked her up, tucking her ball shape under one arm.

And she growled at him.

Taz blinked. Frowned. That was new.

Women as nice as Jenny Ann didn’t growl.

“Stop that.” He tapped her butt then froze. What the hell was he doing? She wasn’t one of the women he used. But his palm wanted to stay on the warm, lush fullness, wanted to squeeze. She was not a stick woman. If a man made love to her, he’d sink in, be surrounded by feminine warmth.

Probably why she was so self-conscious about her looks, he thought with annoyance. Women shaped like women weren’t found on magazine stands or in movie theaters. They were made to feel ashamed of their curves.

He paused, realizing belatedly that he’d automatically carried sweet little Jenny Ann to the door of his kitchen. What was he doing?

He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. Just hadn’t been getting enough sleep…

“Put me down.” Her voice was timid, uncertain. It would have broken his heart—if he had one.

Screw it. He shoved open the door and plunked Jenny on one of his kitchen chairs. She immediately pulled her legs up to her chest, shielding her body from him.

“Aw, hell.” He backed away from her, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just thought”—he blew out a breath and she jumped—“I’d make you an omelet.”

“Omelet?” She looked up at him, her dark eyes serious.

“Yeah. You know, it’s not just for breakfast anymore?” he cracked. She didn’t smile, but she also didn’t run, so he took it as a good sign.

She rubbed her forehead. Her long brunette hair was free of its habitual no-nonsense bun and he saw that it must be long enough to reach her plump ass. Jesus, what would it be like to lie down with her and have all that dark, silken stuff on his body?

He looked away.

“Anything you don’t like in your omelet?”

“Ah…” She blinked. “No. I’m not picky.”

“Good thing if you’re going to eat my cooking, sweet cheeks.”

He had a pan out before she said, again so softly he could barely hear her, “I don’t like being called ‘sweet cheeks’, thank you very much.”

He grinned, unaccountably happy to get a rise out of her. It sure beat coming home to her sitting on her porch swing, staring out at the horizon with haunted eyes. Or, worse, hiding in her house like she had for weeks after she’d been attacked.

Taz squeezed his eyes shut and blocked that thought. He couldn’t… He couldn’t think about that. Whenever he did, it made him crazy.

She was so delicate. A man his size could knock her over without a second thought and she’d been attacked by three men…

Don’t think about it. The pan rattled against the burner in his shaky grasp. He released it, then ignited the flame. A flashback of what she’d looked like in her hospital bed hit him. Her face covered in bruises, as if a man had beaten it with his fists, one eye swollen shut, the stitches on the side of her neck—

“I have some Jack cheese.”

“Okay.”

He glanced at her and saw she was sitting up at his table now, her head in her hands. “What time is it?” she asked, her voice sounding too tired for someone in their early twenties.

“Just after three a.m.”

Her lips stretched into a smile with no warmth. “Oh, that late, huh?”

“Because last night it was one thirty when you did your midnight gardening routine? Yeah, things are looking up, sweetheart. You’re getting closer to daylight hours.”

She swept him a look out of eyes the color of moss agate. “You don’t have to get up every night and rescue me when I go bonkers.”

“Yeah, I do.” His voice was flat, uncompromising.

“Because you’re a professional fireman. I get it.”

He shrugged because no, she didn’t. Rescuing someone had always been secondary to him. It was the thrill of the dare, the risks he took that had made him who he was. He knew he lacked Battalion Chief Fred James’ commitment to serve and his best friend Luke Cade’s passion for helping people. He knew it but could experience only emptiness.

For him, it was the rush of doing something that might, just might, get him killed.

When he pictured what it meant to care about someone, he heard the snap of a lighter, the sound of his mother’s voice.

Hiding in a closet when he was very young. Making breakfast for her to sweeten her temper. He knew to run if any of her johns looked at him with interest but sometimes…he couldn’t get away…

“I have, what do you call them, fresh yellow peppers?”

A faint warmth in her eyes, like a spark in the darkness. “You raided my vegetable garden again.”

His lips quirked. “Guilty. But they are great with fresh steak.”

“I wouldn’t know. Vegetarian here.”

“Of course.” She was too nice to even eat meat. He had to stay away from her. He’d been trying for months but somehow she’d snuck under his armor, so he watched her and wondered. Made it impossible for him to sleep through the night.

And made it impossible for him to leave her alone in her grief.

She hurt and he could feel it. It haunted him like wrenching music.

The contents in the pan sizzled, the only sound in his kitchen until the birds woke up and began to chatter outside as he made her omelet. When it was done, he cut it in half and placed it on two plates.

He sat down at the table next to her but not too close.

The strung wire tension of her shoulders seemed to ease. He wished he could reach out and push her hair behind one of her ears.

“It’s good.” She looked so surprised that he cocked an eyebrow.

“Glad you like it. It’s the first time I’ve ever made breakfast for a lady.”

She blinked. “You have, ah, ladies here all the time.”

He gave his attention back to his early breakfast. “They don’t sleep over.”

It was quiet again except for the sounds of their eating. When he glanced over to measure how much she was putting away, he relaxed when he saw she had plowed through most of her omelet. She was a little thing, which oddly only made those lush breasts look larger.

“You’re right,” she said. “I never realized it, but your visitors’ cars are always gone in the morning. I, uh, just thought they were early risers.”

He had to grin at that idea, but then it sank in, how she’d had that insight into his private life. She was his neighbor, she knew things about him—when he forgot to put out the trash, what time he came home on a Friday night—and possibly insight into his unconventional love life.

The thought sent a burn of heat to the base of his neck. He didn’t know if it was embarrassment or arousal.

Jenny never made things easy on him. She was not an easy woman.

“Have you…talked to anyone?” He’d been dying to ask her the question for weeks, but she’d been so fragile when he’d first caught her in her sleepwalking act that he’d been afraid to push.

She swallowed hard and he got up, grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee fresh from his timed maker.

“Yes,” she said again in that very soft voice.

More questions rose to his lips. He strangled them down. She’s not ready to talk to me about this.

Although why Jenny would ever be ready to confide in him was an audacious thought. Just why did he imagine she’d want to do that? She was a shy little mouse and he…was not.

He fought off the urge to reach out and pull her onto his lap. Make her confide in him.

Patience.

She sipped the coffee. Her hands shook so that the liquid sloshed. Belated shock?

“Jenny.” He steadied her hands with his own until she settled. Her face tightened but she didn’t scream the way she had the first couple of times he’d woken her out in her garden. “Will you try something with me?”

Worried eyes studied him.

“A breathing exercise. You know I, uh, teach yoga?”

Her eyes widened. What had been running through that agile and secretive mind of hers? “Yoga, really?”

Color burned his cheeks. “Yeah. I took some classes a while back and… Well, now I teach it, okay?” His tone sounded annoyed to his own ears.

She smiled. “Okay.”

“Breath work can be very calming to the body,” he continued, unable to meet the innocent curiosity in her gaze. He knew she was curious about him. She must sense that he had secrets. “Do you want to try?”

“Would I have to sit in the lotus position or something?”

“Nope. Just put down your mug and close your eyes. You can follow the directions of my voice.”

“I won’t, like, suddenly want to do handstands with one arm or something?”

He laughed, delighting in her sense of the ridiculous. “No, that’s hypnotizing someone. I won’t do that.”

He reached out, took the mug from her and put it on the table. He saw with satisfaction that she’d eaten every scrap off her plate. Feeding her gave him a primitive kind of satisfaction, as if she was his woman to care for.

“Close your eyes.”

She chewed her bottom lip, which was pink and slightly less full than the top one owing to an overbite. He thought it was sexy as fuck.

“Close them.” Without thinking, he had used his commanding tone with her but oddly it didn’t seem to freak her out. Instead, she instantly obeyed.

“Now I want you to take some deep breaths. In and out, that’s it. Let your shoulders fall as if you’re sliding into a hot tub of water.”

“Like your hot tub out back?” When she smiled, she had dimples.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah.” Had she seen him out there in the nude?

“I’ve always wanted one of those, but I’d probably pretty mine up with landscaping, give it a fake waterfall.”

“That’s good. Picture renovating mine.” He let his voice drop, become roughened velvet to wrap around her. “You can hear the soft tinkle of falling water and above your head, a breeze is playing with the palm leaves, making them rub against each other.”

“They sound like paper crackling when they do that,” Jenny mused.

“Yes, that’s right, Jenny. As you float on your back you can pick out the stars, the planets hanging above you like points of light. You have nothing to do, nowhere you need to be.”

“Sounds so nice.” Her voice was wistful.

“Now I want you to close your lips and inhale slowly. That’s it, slow, yeah… And now, when you exhale, pretend you’re blowing toward a candle right in front of you. See it, Jenny, a pink candle with a slender flame. You want to blow just hard enough to make that flame flicker but not blow it out.”

A frown line briefly appeared between her eyes as she took her first two scripted breaths, but in only a moment she had it. Again he felt warmth move through him. He was helping her. It felt completely right that she was here, under his roof, fed by his hand, protected from the night terrors by his body and his voice.

“You’re doing so well, my good girl.”

When she slumped back in her chair, her face impassive with deep relaxation, he risked stroking her hair. “Mmmm.” She turned her face toward his touch.

His heart jolted.

Mine.

He yanked his hand back. What was he doing? He knew she’d only responded that way because he’d put her in a light trance.

“Jenny.” His voice was hoarse.

She didn’t respond this time. She was dead asleep, sitting upright in his kitchen.

He got up and quietly put away the dishes and cleaned up. He lived alone, but he was meticulous about cleanliness and not living the careless bachelor life.

Then he couldn’t put it off anymore. He knelt beside Jenny and carefully pulled her into his arms. She was very slight, her head resting against his collarbone.

His heart pounded as he just gazed down at her, seeing the purplish shadows under her eyes. How much sleep was she managing? He knew she worked at home as a computer programmer, which was probably the only reason she’d managed to hold her job while dealing with the fallout of her attack.

Did she catch a catnap only to wake in terror?

He was fucking tired of worrying about her.

He headed deeper into his house, past the door that led to the basement—which he’d have to remember to lock—and up to the second floor where he kept a home office, a master bedroom and the tiny guest room that consisted of a twin bed made up militarily neat. A couple of boxes sat in one corner. The room was barren of any life, but it wasn’t atypical of the rest of his house.

He laid her on the bed and covered her with an old quilt. She looked so small and pale, and again he flashed back to seeing her in the hospital. He remembered hearing her crying one night when he’d come to visit her. He’d frozen outside her room, unable to enter but also unable to leave, as if somehow it was important that someone heard Jenny Ann sob her heart out alone in the dark.

“Sleep, honey,” he whispered and then, because she wasn’t awake and he couldn’t make her afraid, he kissed her forehead.

Chapter Two

Jenny woke in a strange place.

One minute she was curled into a warm ball, feeling oddly floaty and safe, like when she’d slept in as a child. Then her eyes snapped open and the sights, the smells did not belong to her house.

The first thing she spotted were a couple of closed moving boxes in one corner. She jerked upright, looking around wildly, only to catch the view of her garden from a second-story window.

The bright zinnias, the dahlias and roses and the copper bowl that had gone green and served as a bird bath immediately soothed her. And told her where she was.

Taz. Intimidating, six and a half feet of gorgeous black-haired, green-eyed man. Her neighbor. And the man she’d had an embarrassing crush on before—

She cut off that thought like switching off a light. Off, on, off, on. She’d gotten good at doing that. She’d had to, in order to survive. Only at night when her mind opened up in dreams did things come out that she didn’t want to face. Not ever again.

So Taz must have…carried her up to this bedroom after he’d fed her that omelet? Usually he just left her on the double porch swing beside her front door, covering her with an afghan.

He’d been doing it for a month and a half now.

Heat burned her cheeks as she imagined him finding her out in her garden again, acting like a crazy person. Which was what she was. Nothing she did seemed to help with the sleepwalking. She’d tried relaxation tapes, over-eating, sleep deprivation and yes, yoga before bed. But as soon as she fell asleep it was like she was swallowed by a black hole, dragged down.

She threw off the blanket and climbed off the bed. She realized she wasn’t dizzy for a change then remembered how Taz had insisted on feeding her a very early breakfast. Weird. She usually had trouble keeping anything down and had no appetite. His food hadn’t been particularly good, but she’d eaten it all without thinking about it.

It was just that way he had of acting as though of course you’d do exactly what he wanted. It used to make her toes curl, imagining him behaving that way with her instead of coldly rebuffing her shy offers of friendship.

Taz had told her once that he wasn’t friends with women, that they were good for one thing.

Oooh boy. She rolled her eyes. Why did she still like the guy, caveman that he was? That attitude was what had most annoyed her about some of the Southern boys she’d dated in high school, except they had been a lot smoother about hiding it. She’d vowed never to let herself be dumb or pathetic enough to belong to a caveman.

Why else had she moved to the West Coast, far away from her busybody family?

At the thought of her family, she rubbed her forehead, knowing she’d have to call home today. She’d downplayed her attack as much as possible. She’d been grateful that her mom had come out and stayed with her for a month right after it happened, but it had been hard to keep up the façade that she was fine. She’d begun to feel like a bright, smiling robot, parroting whatever she thought her mother most wanted to hear while burying those overwhelming feelings into that deep hole.

Which had worked out brilliantly.

Her mom had finally returned to Georgia, and Jenny Ann had started sleepwalking.

Putting aside thoughts of the upcoming phone call she was duty bound to make, Jenny decided it was a good opportunity to take a look around Taz’s house—as long as he didn’t catch her snooping, of course.

Maybe it came from growing up in a small town, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, but she had wanted to see the inside of this house for months. She’d even gone so far as to bake Taz a pecan pie and bring it over so she could get a peek into his kitchen.

He’d informed her that pecan pie was not on his diet, but he’d been known to eat pretty little brunettes.

She remembered the shock she’d felt at his bold double entendre. At first she hadn’t believed he’d meant…that. But then, as if reading her mind, he’d added, “Yeah, I mean putting you on my kitchen table, shoving up your skirt and eating you, sweetheart.”

His green eyes had burned her, taking in the way she’d started trembling, then he’d made a sound of disgust and shut the door.

In her face.

Leaving her with her embarrassment and a whole pie she had no idea what to do with.

Horrible man.

She’d finally wised up and begun ignoring him, though it went against her friendly Southern grain. Until the night she’d woken up in a hospital bed, hurting and so blackly depressed she’d wanted to die. And somehow Taz had been there, slumped in a chair by her bed, smelling of smoke.

He’d reached out and gripped her hand while she’d cried.

Don’t think about it. On, off, on, off.

Sucking in a deep breath, she opened one of the boxes as quietly as she could and found…an old laptop and some printing paper and a half-full bottle of turpentine. So he’d been doing something like painting the trim in his house? Boring. Why did she think Taz had some kind of secret, if only she could find it?

Knotting her long hair behind her head, she glanced in dismay at her ancient nightgown. Why on earth had she put it on the night before? She knew she was sleepwalking. She couldn’t look more…dowdy. And it was also a little thin in some spots.

Crossing her arms over her breasts, she peeked out of the room where he’d put her, looking down a long hallway with three closed doors.

“Hello?”

When no one answered, she decided she was justified in looking for Taz, but really she wanted to open all those doors and discover what was inside. The first was a bathroom, small, but full of all kinds of soaps and creams and ointments. And an aloe plant on the tiny windowsill. Hmmm. For healing scrapes?

The next room was a home office, completely devoid of any soul. No photographs, nothing but neatly stacked bills under a rock used as a paperweight. A rock. As in, picked up in his yard? Who did that? Hadn’t one of his girlfriends given in to the urge to pretty up the space and gift him a proper paperweight? There was no artwork on the walls, not even curtains on the two tall windows. But it looked out on the lush Eden of her garden, which filled the space with a kind of secondary grace.

The last room was the master. She put her head around the door but didn’t spot Taz, didn’t feel him in the space. He possessed a kind of angry buzzing force field that was immediately apparent.

She stood just inside, hands on her hips. No artwork where he slept? One bedside table with an alarm clock. She glanced over her shoulder and went for it, opening the single drawer and… Nothing. Not even a comb. And no condoms.

Come on, she’d seen him with dazzlingly beautiful women and men. He didn’t…sleep with them?

It didn’t make sense.

But this was just a room where he slept. He didn’t live here.

She didn’t feel him here.

She noticed that his window was open so that the floral breath of her garden drifted in. One of the vines of morning glory had crept from her property to his and had snaked up his siding as if all the beauty next door wanted to swallow his house and somehow possess it like the castle in Beauty and the Beast, held captive in roses.

It was a fanciful idea to think of him as the haunted and grumpy beast, yearning for someone to love him.

Taz was no prince.

From somewhere in the house, she caught a creaking sound.

She hurried out of Taz’s bedroom and into the hallway, standing there, heart thumping. If she were a good person, she’d skedaddle and leave Taz his privacy.

But what did she have to look forward to if she went home now?

The tick of her grandfather clock, the settling sounds of a house built in the forties. And a microwave dinner made for one. Yay!

She crept down the stairs, straining to catch another giveaway to Taz’s whereabouts.

Clink, clank, clink, clank.

Repetitive metallic sounds and a masculine grunt.

Immediately heat warmed her cheeks. There was just something so…animalistic about the sounds.

She headed for the half-open door at the bottom of the stairs. If it was a mirror of her own home, it would take her to the basement.

She debated a moment on going down there. She wasn’t dressed properly. He couldn’t want her here.

She chewed her lip, but temptation lured her to push the door open wider, revealing the single bulb shining over unfinished wooden stairs leading into a concrete space below. The sounds were louder. What was making them?

Hand on the guard rail, she gripped her nightgown in one fist and carefully inched down in her bare feet.

Cool air breathed under her clothes, chilling her instantly. She reached the base of the stairs and saw him. Sweaty as a god working at a forge, his hair clinging to his face and neck, his lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl as he stared fixedly at the ceiling and lifted what looked like a ton of weights over his head. Up, down, up, down.

She watched the flex of his legs, steadying him, the muscles bulging and relaxing as he lifted.

“What are you doing?”

The question was so matter-of-fact that there was no reason why it should have jolted her heart.

“I…wanted to thank you?” She wanted to cringe at the way her words ended with a question mark. Classic female wussiness. She was better than this usually. She cleared her throat. “I’m going to do something about the sleepwalking.”

In an unhurried movement, he put the heavy weights down then sat up. He was bare-chested, and moisture ran freely over the hills and valleys of a supreme body. He was massive, so large he could easily crush someone as small as she was.

She dropped her gaze.

“How do you plan to do that?” He sounded politely curious. Her belly tightened.

“I don’t know.”

“What was that?” His voice was harsher—he was on his feet, hands on his hips. “Say it louder, Mouse.”

Her gaze snapped to his, sizzled. “I said I…don’t know how to stop the sleepwalking.”

He nodded once briskly. “All right then.” He picked up a towel and ran it lovingly over his upper body. Or maybe she just imagined it was lovingly since that was what she’d do if she ever had the courage. He was a work of art. Too bad he was so snarly and scary most of the time. “So what are you going to do about it?”

She blinked. He had thrown her in the deep end and was now watching to see if she could swim. And damn if she didn’t kind of like it, that he assumed that she could deal with this, that she could get better. “Um. I have done some research into the sleepwalking. Apparently until I deal with whatever I’m suppressing, it will continue.”

“Makes sense. You said you talked to someone.” He picked up a bottle of Gatorade and gulped deeply before wiping the bottle against his forehead.

Emotion balled in her throat so it felt too tight. “I only get so far and then I…freeze up. I don’t remember what happened, not exactly. I hit my head. Everyone says it’s a blessing.”

His gaze, green as a cat’s, shot to hers. “My ass it’s a blessing.”

“No,” she agreed softly. “It’s not. I get pieces and I don’t know where they fit and I’m afraid of finding out. But until I do, those pieces… They’re like broken glass, slicing me.”

Suddenly he was closer. He cupped a hand around the back of her neck. She felt possessed by him to her bones. “I can help you bring it back, deal with it. If you trust me.”

Chapter Three

Jenny stiffened as soon as he had said the word ‘trust’. That splinter opening his heart cracked open a little wider. She’d been so trusting before, so full of innocent enthusiasm. Now her eyes were permanently shadowed, as if she’d swallowed darkness.

He’d always told himself she was too young and carefree to appeal to a man like him, full of his own shadows. Now he hated that they had this in common.

She licked her lips and immediately his gaze followed the movement. She blushed and looked down at her toes. “Before… I wanted to get close to you. I guess it was so obvious.”

His lips quirked. “As glass.”

“Oh.”

He frowned, trying to follow her female train of thought. Oh. She was embarrassed. He sighed, not knowing how to handle that. He was used to bringing women to orgasm, not dealing with their tender feelings.

And Jenny was still tender. Very much so.

“I didn’t like it when you stopped trying to bring me flowers,” he said abruptly.

She lifted her gaze, giving him a quizzical glance despite the faint pink still warming her cheeks.

“You know—all those bulbs and shit.”

Humor warmed her eyes. “I see.”

To prove something to both of them, he deliberately moved closer to her so that he loomed over her. She arched her head back to look up at him, a small woman to his towering size. He waited, breath held, but she didn’t look frightened. After a moment he reached out and grazed a gentle hand down her cheek. Her skin felt like warmed flower petals. No wonder she had such an affinity with her garden.

“You’re not frightened when I touch you. Not anymore.” When had his voice gotten so low and throaty? He sounded like a sexed up ad.

She was chewing her lip again. “No. I think because you’ve been there with me every night. You’ve, ah, put your hands on me a lot.”

His body hardened at the idea of just how much he’d like to put his hands on her, but he shoved down those feelings. He could never truly express how she made him feel. It would be too scary for her and too dangerous for him.

“But I’m scared of any other male who comes around my house.” She sounded ashamed. “I almost fell apart when the mailman delivered a parcel yesterday.”

He growled, feeling an absurd wish that he’d been with her in her house so he could have banished the man, kept her safe.

“I can see how that’s tough.”

“Since… Since it happened I’ve had all my groceries delivered by a female clerk. I’ve started running only on my treadmill. I’ve quit my water color classes, my regular yoga and I don’t even go to the mall anymore.”

He grimaced. “I don’t think the local mall is much of a loss.”

“I wouldn’t know. Not lately.” She sounded so discouraged that he rubbed his chest, rubbed at the unfamiliar ache.

“I could always go there with you.” He made the offer impulsively, then winced.

She laughed, the first he’d heard from her in a very long time. It started off as ragged and cut off too soon, as if she was a little freaked at the sound herself. “Come on, you’re a man. You have to hate malls.”

“They offer some of the conveniences of life.”

“Like what?”

“ATMs, ah, a place to buy a new pair of shoes or cargo shorts.”

“Shoes…” Her face softened.

Oh, hell. She was one of those kinds of women, the type with too many shoes. “I think shopping in the mall would be an excellent start in your recovery process.”

One dark eyebrow lifted, giving her the look of an arch little kitten. “Oh, you do?”

He nodded firmly. “We’ll go to the mall. Tonight.”

“Are they open late tonight?”

How the hell did he know? Did he look like he lived to keep track of mall hours? “It’s Friday night.”

“Oh, Friday. Yeah, they should be open until nine.” Her breathing had picked up. Fear. She was afraid to go to the mall.

His instincts as a dominant kicked in. He might never have figured they’d come into play over something as inconsequential as visiting a mall, but getting a submissive into new territory was the same whatever the field. For her own good, she needed to get back out into the world and he was suddenly determined to get her there, one way or another.

He put out a hand, waited. After a long pause, she placed her delicate fingers in his grasp. He closed his hand, letting her get used to holding onto him. “You’re going to the mall tonight, Jenny, and I’m taking you.”

Her face tightened, but she nodded. Brave kitten. “All right. I’ll…um, drive.”

He knew she hadn’t driven since her attack, and he didn’t think it was a good idea tonight, on her very first outing. “No. I’ll take you. Come back here at, uh…” What time did one make a mall date? “Say, seven o’clock. Plenty of time for looking at shoes.”

“Shoes. Right.” She sounded like she was revving up for combat.

“Jenny.” He squeezed her hand. “I will be there with you the entire time.”

She focused on him, seemed to take strength from their touch.

And he loved it, absorbed it like one of her plants absorbing water.

As a dominant, one of the things he lived for was that moment when a sub turned to him, even if he had been causing the discomfort. Turned to him. Chose him. Became completely naked with him, not only in body, but in soul.

“Are you going to wear that to the mall?” He nodded to her nightie and she instantly dropped her hand and crossed her arms over her lush breasts. He was sorry she had cut off the view of her shadowy nipples through the cloth, though he could have told her the arm crossing deal didn’t hide anything, just plumped the beauties up.

“No, I’m… I have to go home, shower, change… Work.”

He nodded. “Then go do that,” he said softly.

As if she’d been waiting for his permission, she ducked her head and headed up the stairs. He watched her the entire time, watched the gown bunch tight to her round little ass then fall around it like a cloud.

His little mouse was so scared.

He would keep things under control, help her out because she got to him and he was gut sick with finding her out digging in the earth every night.

But he wouldn’t show her who he was.

Because then she’d run from him.

He didn’t think he could bear that.

But he needed something now. He went to his playroom and opened the cabinet, taking out the supplies he needed.

When he had everything, he closed his eyes, pictured Jenny.

Then he lost himself in her.

* * * *

Jenny Ann couldn’t decide what to wear. She stood in her closet, which she’d had renovated to the walk-in variety. One thing Jenny loved almost as much as her garden was clothes. Silk, lace, satin—the real kind that fell heavy and cool over a woman’s body. And vibrant jewel colors, emeralds, midnight blues, rubies and citrines and amethyst.

The only thing was, she never wore them, not outside her house. She was always going to wear them, but she inevitably chickened out and wore some baggy Laura Ashley style dress instead. Something sweet, pretty, fresh.

The siren she wished to be she kept locked in her closet.

She reached down now and picked up a satin shoe dyed a periwinkle blue. It had high heels and thin straps, studded with sparkly stones. Sexy.

She sighed, wishing she had the courage to wear those for her weird mall date with Taz. She knew he was just doing this out of charity, trying to take care of her.

How would he react if she came over to his place wearing a mauve silk tank top and matching shorts and these adorable little shoes?

She could picture those remarkable green eyes widening in shock and maybe…interest? She wasn’t sure. Sometimes her belly warmed and she got all flustered around Taz and she thought maybe he liked her too. But on all those occasions he always said something nasty.

Could he be…afraid?

The thought made her freeze, stare into her own unremarkable mossy hazel eyes in the mirrored doors. Taz—afraid of her? No way.

Yet she knew what it was like to be afraid now, the need to crawl away, hide, anything to avoid facing what terrified her. Sometimes she thought she saw that same shine of darkness in his eyes, as if he was afraid of being touched.

She snorted. Ridiculous. Taz was the top firefighter at their local fire hall, Station 57. She knew because she’d asked about him at the local coffee shop where most of the firefighters hung out.

Holding her gaze in the mirror, she muttered, “He is afraid. I’m not wrong.”

Somehow the words and the assurance behind them made her feel more grounded. More herself.

A fist pounding against her front door made her jump.

Taz.

Oh, crap. She was way late and her grumpy prince had come to get her.

She snatched up some clothes, dressed in a hurry and ran down the stairs before she could think about what she was about to do, go out to the mall for the first time since…

She opened the door and he was standing there with his hands on his hips, wearing mirrored sunglasses she immediately hated because they made it impossible to read his eyes.

“I was knocking for a long time. What were you doing?”

“Looking at my shoes.”

“Oh, Christ.”

She couldn’t stop a small grin. “Yes, I will probably spend far too long looking at shoes at the mall. You’ve been warned.”

“I’ll man up.” He placed a hand on her lower back. She tensed then immediately relaxed. Taz had earned that trust.

He gave her a boost up to the passenger side of his massive Ford truck. “You’re such a little thing.”

“But mighty.” She did up her seatbelt then clung to the handle of the door. Her heart was hammering. She wanted to jump out and run back to her house.

He tugged his glasses down and looked at her.

She smiled ruefully and let her death grip go, but as they drove from their neighborhood, she couldn’t help the way her fingers kept twisting together.

The mall was, as Taz had pointed out, supremely unimpressive. Since the fire that had raged through their town the same day of her attack, a lot of the smaller boutique shops had been lost and were currently being rebuilt, so that left only this place.

Taz helped her down from the cab. “If you’re hungry we can probably pick up a hotdog or something.” He looked at her. “Or maybe a tofu dog.”

She had to smile again at the way he was trying to be accommodating. The smile still felt alien on her face. Had it been so long since it had come naturally?

“Uh-uh. No dark thoughts. We’re at the mall.”

“You make it sound like Disneyland.”

He narrowed one eye. “When was the last time you went there?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Nuh-uh. I couldn’t handle the crowds.”

He continued to study her so she knew he was only tabling their going there. He was really taking this rehab project with her seriously.

She ducked her head, feeling ashamed. Why couldn’t she just get over her past?

“Hey, we’re about twenty feet from more shoes than I want to see in a lifetime.”

Just that easy, he made her smile again.

It was hard watching Jenny take one step forward and two steps back. He could always tell when she grew afraid. Her body would stiffen and that darkness would cloud her eyes. Usually he was a sarcastic bastard, but for her he tried to make her laugh, loved to make her smile.

It made him feel, for the first time in his life, like a real hero.

Corny, Taz, he told himself.

Jenny spent an hour looking at shoes, trying them on, running her hands over them so it made him sweat. He couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to be lying in bed, fully naked and aroused, and have her run those delicate little claws over him, fondle and stroke and measure and consider before she brushed open lips against his nipples or ran the backs of her fingers down his hot, pulsing cock.

“Is something wrong?”

He tossed his leather jacket over his lap. “Nope. Did you decide on a color?”

She grinned. “Sky blue.”

The shoes were hot, seriously hot. Ice pick heels the color of a summer sky and yet what would she wear them with? He couldn’t figure it. They would so not work with her innocent farm girl clothing.

But he loved looking at her trying them on, sashaying back and forth in front of the mirror with that deep look of concentration on her face. He decided right then that the next time he had a woman in his playroom, he’d get her to walk back and forth wearing only heels.

Except… He didn’t want that. He hadn’t been with anyone, not anyone since she’d been hurt. He’d been too busy taking care of Jenny.

And taking care of her was proving to be addictive.

He groaned, rubbing his forehead.

“Hey, is shopping for shoes really that painful?” she teased.

“Uh, yeah. I am a guy.”

“Good thing I’m done then.”

He gave her a shocked look for effect. “You are?”

“Your girlfriends must love you—a man willing to spend a Friday evening in a shoe shop.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

Handing the pair she’d chosen along with the box to the sales clerk, Jenny raised her brows at him.

“I haven’t had any. Girlfriends, I mean.”

“Oh, but…” Her eyes widened and he saw her do the math. Nope, he’d never had the same lady at his house more than once. No barbecues, no hot French kissing in his hot tub, no romantic strolls through their neighborhood.

“I’ll get those.” He pulled out his wallet at the counter.

“Hey!” Jenny tried to push him out of the way, but she might as well have tried to move a boulder.

“I dragged you out here. You deserve a reward, baby.”

She growled again and, God, he loved that sound coming from her.

“Like I’m your good little girl or something?”

“Exactly.”

Chapter Four

He bought her ice cream.

She was still annoyed with him over the shoes—what was that about? Why had he seemed to get as much satisfaction out of buying her shoes as he had by feeding her that morning?

“Okay, where else do you want to go while we’re here?” he asked, leaning down and licking some of the vanilla from her cone.

It froze her, such an intimate thing. “Um. I don’t know. I forgot to bring my list.”

“So we’ll wing it. What about Victoria’s Secret?” He patted the shoes he insisted on carrying for her. “I wouldn’t mind spending an hour in there.”

She swallowed a lump of ice cream. “Ah, yeah.” Like that would ever happen. At home she had a chest full of beautiful lingerie. She was wearing some now under her unassuming clothes. But no male had ever seen her in them and, after what had happened, she didn’t think she could bear it. Could she?

“Want to look at the puppies and kittens?” He took her hand and dragged her toward an SPCA adoption promotion that was set up inside the food fair.

“Oh, no, I avoid those,” she said. When he looked at her in surprise, she continued. “I donate monthly, but I would want to take them all home.”

His face softened. “Yeah, you would. But something tells me it would be a good idea for you to spend a little time with something smaller and more helpless than you are. To take care of something you have to be the strong one, right?”

Since she couldn’t tug free of his grasp, she surrendered. He walked her by cages, and pretty soon her heart was aching. All those little eyes, those faces. Some full of hope, some dull and lifeless, as if the hope had already died in those small lives.

One puppy caught her attention. His cage was marked ‘Jet, four-month-old golden retriever’. He wasn’t looking at her or anything. He had his head in his paws, and her heart ached as she studied him. When kids tapped on his cage he politely backed away. She could see other animals getting adopted but despite the popularity of his breed, she knew no one would take him because he was so sad.

“That one,” she said.

Taz’s eyebrows rose. “You want to do this? Really?”

One of the volunteers caught Jenny’s interest and began to fill her in on Jet’s past. “His owner kept him outside on a deck. He barked for hours until someone reported it and we took Jet. He’s got some real issues with separation anxiety. He’s bonded with one of our vets, but when he’s not around him, he gets like this—really shut down.”

Jet’s issues sounded a lot like Jenny’s—she shut down unless she was with Taz. She stared into those empty eyes then at the intimidating, huge paws. This was not going to be a small dog when he reached full growth.

Jenny looked at Taz. He had his arms folded, watching her neutrally. And it hit her—he was trusting her to know her own mind, just as if she wasn’t broken. She swallowed and nodded to the volunteer, a smiling older woman. “I’d like to adopt him, but I have no idea what I’d be letting myself in for. I’ve never had a dog. I do have a big yard that’s partially fenced.”

“You’d want to fully fence it if you could,” the woman advised. “I know, since I’ve got a few dogs. You can’t be a volunteer and not want to take them all home.”

Jenny blinked, thinking of her beautiful, perfect garden beds. “He wouldn’t, uh, dig or anything?”

Humor sparkled in the woman’s eyes. “You’d have to teach him not to, but no guarantees.”

Again Jenny looked at Taz. He sighed and cupped the back of her neck. “I’ll build you a fence for the rest of your yard.”

“Really? I’ll pay for the lumber and your time.”

He muttered something under his breath she decided she was better off not hearing.

“What do I do now?”

It turned out not to be a case of just taking the pup home. Jenny decided to visit a pet shop and get supplies because she had a good feeling about the dog despite the suggestion she visit Jet a couple of times at the local shelter to see if she could bond with him.

But she paid the adoption fees then knelt down in front of Jet’s cage. “I know you’re sad, but maybe together we can help each other,” she whispered. “Because I’m sad too.”

When they left the mall, Jenny was dazed, but it occurred to her that she hadn’t gotten lost once in her darker moments. “Wow, now I need a list. Lumber store—”

“We’ll go to the home supply store together. You’ve got cedar posts in your yard now. I can match them and, besides, I have a truck for carrying lumber. We’ll go now.”

“What? Now?” But he only shut the passenger door on her words before silently hopping in on his side. She relaxed against the seat, too exhausted from her first trip out in a long time to argue with him.

At Home Depot, he found the right pre-made fencing in no time and would have paid for it, but she put a stop to it, threatening to walk out and get a cab home if he didn’t let her. It put him in a lousy mood, which he took out on shoving the supplies in the back of his truck.

All right, so he was moody again. She decided she had other things to think about, like whether she’d lost her mind over a puppy. “He’s going to dig up my flowers. I just know it.”

Taz grunted.

“What have I done?”

He finally looked at her as they turned into their neighborhood.

“I can’t undo it. I have a dog.”

“You have time to grow into it.”

“I’ve never had a pet. But how hard can it be?”

“I don’t know, but if you haven’t had one, probably pretty hard.”

He parked and she sat back with a sigh then looked at him. “Thank you. I haven’t… I didn’t feel bad all evening.”

He nodded and handed her the bag with her shoes inside.

Feeling suddenly awkward, she got out of his truck. “Well, uh, thanks.”

“I’ll start work on the fence tomorrow morning. You can cook me breakfast.”

She blinked. “Yeah, I can do that.”

He nodded again and headed toward his house. Then he paused and looked over his shoulder at her. “We’ll go somewhere else next time. Somewhere you’re afraid to go.”

Her throat tightened. “All right.” She thought maybe she could do it.

As long as he was with her.

* * * *

“Didn’t see you running on the beach this morning,” Luke said as Taz got out of his truck on the driveway leading up to Luke and his new wife Sian’s beautiful house on the water. Taz took a deep breath, appreciating the fresh sea air.

Maybe he should consider moving closer to the water…

Except then he wouldn’t be living next to Jenny. Unacceptable. He had to be around to keep an eye on her.

“Thanks for loaning me that jigsaw,” Taz said, ignoring his friend’s implied question about his whereabouts.

“Sure. So are you coming out to give a hand at the rebuilding party for Coffee Dreams?”

The coffee shop had been severely damaged in a firestorm. Taz missed it, even though Sian and Dharma, the two women who worked there, seemed to enjoy giving him grief over his attitudes about women. “It’s tomorrow, right?”

“Yep, after work.”

Taz thought about it. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Can I bring someone?”

“You? Bringing someone?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

Luke shut his mouth. “Nothing. Do I know this woman?”

“Maybe.”

“Taz, man, you gotta tell me more than that.”

A proprietary grin tugged at Taz’s mouth.

“Shit, you’re gone over this girl.”

“Am not. See you later.”

“Taz!”

He shut the truck door in Luke’s face.

* * * *

The lightning woke Taz hours later. He sat up in bed and a fine mist hit his chest. He’d left the window open so that he could hear Jenny, so he could see her if he needed to. Another blade of blue white speared the ground and some instinct made him lunge to the window.

He stood there, peering out, trying to see in the obsidian darkness. Rain fell like a waterfall. Thunder rumbled overhead like stampeding horses. When light flashed again, he spotted her, a little heap on the earth.

Jesus, was she moving?

He yanked on shorts and ran barefoot out of his house, slipped on mud, swore.

Jenny. Have to get to her.

He trampled her flower bed getting to her.

She was huddled in the cold, her shoulders hunched up, her body hugging in on itself to try to keep warm. Her eyes were wide and spacey. A garden trowel lay limp in one hand.

“Jenny!” Taz shook her. He’d never done that before. She rattled in his arms like loose change. “Jenny!”

Her dark eyes widened, saw him. She lifted a trembling hand.

He crushed her to him, covered her mouth with his.

There in the streaming rain and the dirt, he kissed her, taking her breath, feeling her heart pound against his chest. Her hand curled in his hair, tugging him closer.

He sipped from her as if he hadn’t ever had a taste of a woman. She felt like his first, the lightning, the thunder, inside his body, the storm all his, brewing for weeks, exploding now. “My woman.”

She made a soft sound. Agreement? Despair? He felt her nails digging into his lower arms.

He kissed her, dying for her lips. She’d gotten inside him. Crept in like a mouse and made her pain his.

He was lying on top of her. Her long hair was spread out, lodged with windfall, slick with mud. He kissed every part of her chilly skin he could touch then reached down and tore her nightie at her neckline Her breasts were pale, luscious and he buried his face between them, sucking desperately while he held her down.

She howled, banging small fists against him, scoring his face to get to his eyes. “Jenny!” Hoarse, animal sounds. She scuttled from him. “Jenny, it’s me.” I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t know why that happened. It was the storm. It was how sad you are. You tear me up.

I want you.

She crawled for her house. Then before he could catch her, she was running, her gown half falling off as she changed direction toward the street.

Taz ran after her and every terrified sound she made was a spike to his heart. He was scaring her. He knew it. But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t just leave her.

He barreled into her and swept her off her feet.

She fought. Teeth and slaps until she seemed to run out of strength.

Chest aching, he carried her to her front door. He put her on the swing.

She erupted from it and ran to her door, tearing at it, her hair whipping around her.

He shoved it open.

Her eyes burned him and then she disappeared inside, slamming it behind her.

Taz sagged to the porch on his knees, scratched, bleeding and horrified with himself. He hadn’t meant to scare her. She hadn’t pushed him away, not at first. He’d been sure he’d felt the brush of her tongue, her fingers pulling him closer.

He couldn’t go back to his house.

He didn’t know what to do.

Shivering, he went to her porch swing, huddling on it, watching as more lightning stabbed down from the sky like angry knives.

He hung his head, not knowing if the warmth on his face was blood or tears.

* * * *

Jenny woke on her living room sofa.

She grimaced as she sat up and saw the pretty floral upholstery smeared with mud…

Whoa.

She rubbed her forehead, trying to put together the pieces of last night. She had no memory of going outside, but that was typical.

Taz?

Kissing her, inhaling her, licking her mouth while she clutched him closer…

She sprang to her feet and raced for her front door, opened it, looked outside.

It was still raining, but not storming as it had been. Now the curtain of water made a soft world.

And Taz was asleep on her porch swing, his huge body curled in on itself.

Cool air against her chest made her look down. Holy! She stepped back inside and pulled her old robe from the closet, belting it on and feeling immediately more in control of herself.

Pushing back her rat’s tail hair, she went to Taz, knelt beside him.

There was dried blood smearing an angry scratch on his right cheekbone. He looked exhausted, pale and shivering in his sleep. When was the last time he’d slept through the night?

She reached out and brushed his hair off his forehead.

His green eyes snapped open and she sat back with a gasp.

He studied her. “Are you okay?”

Throat too tight to speak, she nodded.

He touched her arm, she cupped his cheek and she was pressed against him, breathing in wet man and earth. He held her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe, but she needed it.

“I was so worried about you.”

She lifted a shoulder. “I thought after we went out to the mall, after you helped me with the fence, I wouldn’t come out here anymore, but last night…” She squeezed her eyes tight. “It was worse than ever.”

“Hey, it’s part of healing, right? You don’t—bam!—get over stuff. Sometimes you even get worse for a little while.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s what the therapist said to expect.”

“Well, you know, she’s right.”

Jenny dropped her head and Taz rubbed her neck, easing the tension. “Jenny, how much, ah, do you remember about last night?”

“You mean about you kissing me?”

A muscle ticked in Taz’s jaw. He nodded.

“I remember everything.”

He dropped his head. A second later she lifted it, cupping his face so he was forced to look into her eyes. “It wasn’t you. I got scared because… Something about you on top of me… I got scared.”

“I brought back your attack.”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

Taz balled his fists. “I want to kill those men.”

She sighed. Yeah, she’d been there, but she’d only be killing shadows, since that’s all she remembered. “Taz, will you come inside so I can make you breakfast?”

He blinked. “You want to let me inside your house?”

“It seems only fair since you made me breakfast recently. And, to be honest, I’m a way better cook than you are.”

“But I scared you.”

She took his hand. “Not you.”

“Jenny.” His voice was hoarse.

“Look, I freaked out and nearly flashed the neighborhood. You stopped me.”

“I… Yeah.”

“So thanks.”

He got up very slowly, as if he was as stiff and sore as she was from their wild night. “I think you need a shower,” she said.

“So do you. Your hair looks like witchella.”

She laughed and squeezed his hand. “Come inside. It’ll be okay… Just come inside now.”

Chapter Five

Taz showered in Jenny’s little guest bathroom. He felt too large and masculine in the pretty floral space, which about summed up the way he felt in her entire house. Delicate wallpaper and pretty chairs with gilt legs that looked like they’d crumble under his weight.

But at least the water was hot, taking away some of the aches in his shoulders. What the hell had he been doing, sleeping on a porch swing all night?

Except he hadn’t been able to leave her. No way. What if she’d run out into the street again? He’d had to be there to keep her safe.

His shorts were thick with mud. He decided he was better off wearing one of her mauve towels around his waist and taking them home to his washing machine.

When he went downstairs, Jenny was already in her kitchen and she was singing.

She had an off-key voice, but it had a sultry quality as she sang along with a female country singer. And the fact that she was singing when last night she’d been terrified, when he’d terrified her, made some of the strung tension in his shoulders loosen.

“We’re having crêpes,” she told him. “Do you want to pour yourself some coffee?”

He wasted no time in doing it. “Are you having some?”

She shook her head. “I have coconut oolong in the morning.”

He grimaced. “Sounds like one of those brands they used to sell at Coffee Dreams.”

“Female type tea, you mean?” she asked so sweetly but he knew better than to step into her baited trap by agreeing with her. Though he had thought it, of course. “I miss that place.”

“Me too. They had great espresso.”

“Very manly.” Her moss agate eyes laughed at him and just then a ray of sunlight shot through her window through the clouds, illuminating her profile. She looked pure. Like a dancer before she goes out on stage, like an artist before she paints at her easel.

He memorized how she looked so he could call it up later, feeling himself sinking even further.

“That’s as good a segue as any I could come up with,” he said. “They’re having a kind of barn raising at Coffee Dreams tonight. I want you to come with me.”

She froze, but then her jaw tightened stubbornly. “All right.”

He knew it was the last thing she wanted to do, that her instincts were screaming at her to stay safe, especially after the fallout last night, but she wasn’t going to let herself give in.

“You’re a hell of a woman.”

Her eyes widened. “You must really want your crêpes.”

“What kind?”

She talked about herbs and berries picked fresh from her garden, but he barely heard her. His attention was not focused on the food but on the competent way she moved around her kitchen, with the wet shine of her clean braid and her small shapely body shown off in shorts and a T-shirt.

Remembering those hot kisses in her garden, he had to drop his gaze. He wanted to do it again. Even knowing that he’d terrified her, he wanted to press his lips to hers, share her breath, feel her urgency.

More, he found himself wondering how she’d react if he took her to bed. Would that wonderful laughter be in her eyes, that softness only for him?

His throat tight, he gulped more scalding coffee. It couldn’t happen, no matter what his body yearned for. He couldn’t hide who he was from her. He’d been right the first time he’d set eyes on her, to know he had to stay away from her.

“I have a half shift this afternoon,” he said.

“I’m sorry.” She meant it, he could tell.

He shrugged. “I want to work on the fence before I head to the station.”

“What made you decide to be a firefighter?” The crêpes were sizzling in the pan and the gorgeous bouquet of ricotta cheese and fresh fruit rose in the air like incense. His stomach growled.

“I liked the danger.”

“That’s it?”

His lips quirked wryly. “It’s why I’ll probably never go far in rank. My buddy Luke has a true calling for helping people. He’s not a risk taker by nature. His heart just outweighs his common sense sometimes.”

She studied him over her shoulder, her braid sliding on her back like silk. He tried not to imagine what it would be like to fist that braid in one hand while he held her still for his kisses. “Why do I have the feeling that when Luke takes risks, you’re always there to watch over him?”

“He’s married. Soon to be a daddy.”

“Ummm.” She didn’t sound like she’d bought in to his reasoning. Then she frowned before turning back to the food she was preparing. “I’ve met him, haven’t I? He’s the gorgeous blond with the sweet smile. Younger than you are.”

“Gorgeous?” Taz growled.

She gave him a mischievous look. “Not as gorgeous as you are, not that it does you any good to hear things like that with your ego.”

His ego was actually far more tender than he thought because he was still feeling the burn of jealousy over her description of Luke. If Luke had been her neighbor, would they have gotten involved? He could see Luke liking her, wanting to take care of her, and hell yeah, what man wouldn’t want her?

And she would have wanted Luke. They would have dated. Luke was far better at concealing his dark desires than Taz. Luke probably could put them aside for a woman he truly loved. He’d tried with Sian, hadn’t he?

Bitterness rose like a black cloud from his gut. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t be the kind of man that Jenny would love, would submit to.

“He’s married,” he repeated starkly.

Jenny blinked, then frowned again. “Well…yeah. Somehow I’ll resist seducing him despite being the wild poacher that I am.”

When Taz’s face didn’t soften, she put her hands on her hips. “You have got to be kidding. You think I’m going to make a play for a married man?”

“Women will do anything.”

His words were a slap.

She swallowed and looked like she was going to cry.

But women just used tears, he knew.

She put down the spatula with quiet dignity. “I think you better go.”

“Wait.” This was moving too fast, making him uneasy. He didn’t understand her. “You forgave me for kissing you last night.” His voice got husky as he said the word ‘kissing’. “But you kick me out for warning you off a friend?”

Her eyes narrowed into slits and he had a sinking feeling that he was all over the place with this situation, that he had screwed up again, but he didn’t know how.

“The kiss was mutual. I might have got scared, but you let me go as soon as I was. I’m hurt at your assumption that just because I’m a woman, I’d try to poach a married man.” Her eyes burned him. Her voice got very quiet, so quiet he could barely hear her. “I was a virgin before I was raped.”

His stomach rolled. His head fuzzed as if flies were circling it. Next thing he knew Jenny had shoved him back in the chair and was supporting him as he swayed.

“…you okay?” Her voice cut into the static crackling his ears. He swung his head up to look at her then had to swallow, swallow again, kicking off his gag reflex. So small, so delicate and her first time had been—

Sharply, “Put your head between your knees!”

He breathed in and out, in and out. Heat burned his face as he realized he’d nearly puked…then fainted.

He covered his eyes and sat slumped at her table, unable to look at her. She was running a hand over the side of his arm, stroking him, calming him.

He cleared his throat and hoped she wouldn’t notice his damp eyes when he finally faced her, but one look and he knew he wasn’t fooling her.

He dropped his gaze.

“Taz…”

He shook his head when she tried to touch him. How could she bear it after what he’d—

“Sorry,” he rasped.

“So you should be.” Her voice was cold, strong, like a fast moving stream.

She got up and turned off the burner. Just as well as his appetite had died. He wasn’t sure he could face food again for a very, very long time.

After a moment, she sat down next to him. “Why do you distrust women so much?” Her voice was neutral.

He’d give anything, anything not to talk about this, but after what he’d said, he couldn’t… He had to try to make it up to her.

The truth seemed suddenly a small thing.

“My mother sold me from the time I was ten until I ran away at fifteen.”

He heard her inhale sharply. Couldn’t look at her.

“I know what it’s like to be raped, Jenny.”

“Oh, my God.” She reached out and crushed his hand with hers. “Taz.”

Only someone who had lived what he had could understand, so he let her hold onto him.

“Is that why you’re helping me?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know, all right!”

The only sound was his harsh breathing.

Then she released his hand and got up. He heard her go back to their breakfast, heard the sounds of plates and cutlery and then she placed two steaming crêpes in front of him. “It’s slightly burned, but you need to eat if you’re going to go to work,” she said.

Because she was right and because, thank Christ, she didn’t ask him anything more, he forced himself to eat. He knew it was wonderful, but it tasted like sand. He had trouble swallowing the ball of misery in his throat.

He’d wanted to help her with her ghosts and now he’d been ambushed by his.

“Taz, if I try to get out more, do things I used to, will you begin to examine your ideas about women?”

His gaze made it to her throat. After a moment he gave a jerky nod.

“Okay then.” She reached out and brushed his hair out of his eyes. Instinctively he pushed his face into her touch, yearning.

They didn’t speak. He thought he’d break or maybe she would if they did.

“I’ll help you with the fence. Tomorrow I’m going to visit the pup… Maybe even bring him home.”

“Holy shit,” he croaked, then cleared his throat again. “That’s fast.”

“The shelter left a message—they need to make room for another puppy so the sooner I can take him the better.”

“I can swing by the pet store, get some stuff before I start my shift,” Taz offered. He felt as if he were trying to walk normally over slippery ice. Somehow he had to make it to firmer ground.

“Oh, would you do that?” Jenny got up and went to her purse on the kitchen counter.

“Do not try to give me cash,” he said in his voice of doom.

Jenny sighed, looking at him. “All right, just this once.”

“Damn straight, woman. I practically dragged you over to that SPCA display. You could say this is partly my doing.”

“So he’s partly your dog?”

His mouth opened. Closed.

And Jenny laughed.

It was like that moment when sunlight had warmed her at the window. It seared away the hard words, cauterized the pain.

He quirked his lips. “Just until he tries to eat one of my shoes.”

* * * *

Jenny sat on her porch swing and watched Taz finish hammering in the last of the fence posts. He’d done an amazing job, making it hard to tell where the older fence and newer one were joined. All that remained was the little swing gate and latch, which he told her he’d install tomorrow.

Rubbing the back of his sweaty neck, he sauntered toward her, his long legs in jeans, his wife beater giving him a sexy insolence that had stopped her heart from the first time she’d seen him.

And just like that she wanted him again. Wanted to run her hands over his bare, smooth oh-my-God muscled chest, wanted to suck on the nipples she could see poking through the cotton.

Her breathing picked up, part needing, part apprehension.

He cocked his head, studying her as he came and sat next to her on the swing.

A car passed. Taz used his bare feet to launch the swing into gentle rocking.

When he took her hand and squeezed, she knew he’d read her as effortlessly as he always had. He knew she wanted him. He knew she was scared.

And his touch told her he was sorry for what he’d said, how he’d reacted earlier.

“Get over here.”

She put her head on his shoulder. Tucked her feet under her legs. “Do you think your friends will like me?”

His lips quirked. “Of course. They’re not sexy bastards like me.”

When she didn’t contradict him, he gave her an amused glance.

“Hey, you said it,” she said, lifting a hand.

“Yeah. And their women will love you, Dharma and Sian. They live to give me hell,” he grumped.

“Go them.” She pursed her lips. “I think I know Sian a little. She’s pregnant, right? She was usually working when I went by. Plus she sold me that smoking calendar.”

His ears heated. He was…blushing? Holy shit!

“Jenny Ann Green, you do not have a nudie calendar.”

She gave him a ‘get real’ look. “Hello, it’s not the nineteenth century.”

“The way you dress, it might be.”

She flushed and she saw a flash of something like ‘I’m sorry’ in his eyes.

And suddenly she was sick of wearing her dowdy dresses when she went out. Maybe, just maybe, Jenny Ann Green would wear something from her siren stash tonight. Just to show Taz he didn’t know everything.

“There are three nudes of you in the charity calendar. I keep it in my bedside drawer.”

There could be only one reason to do that.

She saw awareness in his eyes and more color burn his cheeks. Oh, so tough Taz could get embarrassed? She loved it.

He looked straight into her eyes. “Let me know if you ever want to see the full monty in person.”

And now she was blushing. And imagining.

Damn Taz anyway.

Chapter Six

Taz couldn’t believe his eyes.

Jenny Ann Green had transformed herself sometime during his shift from Laura Ashley good girl into slinky goddess.

The first thing he noticed was her legs. Her long, long legs wearing those sky-high blue heels he’d bought her on the trip to the mall. The next thing that staggered him was her little blue halter top. It was tied behind her neck and looked about as large as a handkerchief over her bountiful assets. And the little skirt with some kind of rippling hemline.

Her hair was down, moving on her back like a fall of satin.

Whoa, baby.

“Uh, I hate to tell you this.” Makeup. She was actually wearing more than lip gloss and a bit of mascara. She’d outlined her eyes so she looked like a sexy ancient Egyptian queen, all ready to order her male slave—which would be Taz—to go down on her. Her mouth was the same color as the plums that would ripen soon in her backyard.

“What?” Even her voice sounded different. Breathy. Like they’d already done something to speed up her heart rate.

He hated to crush her. “You’re not dressed appropriately for helping out with this kind of building project.”

Jenny hefted a gym bag triumphantly. “Yoga clothes!”

Okay. He guessed they would do. “So why did you dress up like this if you were just going to change?”

“Excuse me, but are you from the planet Krypton?”

“Huh?” He was getting more lost. “You mean like Superman?”

“Because asking a woman why she’d bother to dress up makes me think you must consider yourself invulnerable.”

He laughed.

“You look…great.”

She nodded regally. “Thank you. It’s a special occasion.”

“Yeah?” Had he lost track of her birthday or something?

“I’m going back to my favorite coffee shop and I really don’t want to go. Because I’m afraid of being noticed.”

“So that’s why the ‘notice me’ clothes. Aw.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Maybe only a tiny amount.” But mostly she was melting him. Again.

He paused beside his truck, feeling like he’d been swimming in the ocean and suddenly someone had grabbed his ankle, yanking him under. He was…going places he wasn’t used to.

He wasn’t going to be the same man after helping Jenny.

They had managed to salvage as much of the old wooden façade of Coffee Dreams as possible so the outside resembled the silvered planks of an old pier. Compared to the other shops in the strip mall, it was miles ahead in construction, a testament to the commitment of the men and women at Station 57, who had been putting in a lot of extra hours helping out. The smell of freshly cut cedar stung Taz’s nose as he guided Jenny through the doorway with a palm over the small of her back.

He felt tension ripple through her, felt the deep breath she took.

From his place on a ladder, Zane Newmark the Third pushed his white blond hair out of his eyes, giving Jenny a shy smile. The rookie firefighter had a little crush on Taz’s Jenny and a couple of times had tried to help her when she’d sleepwalked.

But Taz hadn’t liked it. Even though he’d been grateful that the rook, another neighbor of his and Jenny’s, had rescued her, Taz wanted to be the only one to see her at her worst. It was a protective instinct he couldn’t fight.

Zane was an enigma. He was almost delicately built with cat-like grace, but he possessed a scary blind bravery and he was stronger than he looked. He was relentless as a firefighter. But he came from one of the wealthiest families in the San Diego area, a family he never spoke about. He lived in a modest house and Taz hadn’t seen him date. Ever.

The guy lived like a monk.

But he did like Jenny and… Maybe sometime that would come in handy. Taz filed away the thought before giving Fred a nod where he stood nursing a beer while his young fiancée Dharma filled the shop’s coffee roaster. Soon the scent of beans joined the cedar in an acidic bouquet.

Fred nodded to him, looking completely relaxed, his legs crossed at the ankles, slouching back at the counter. He no longer looked like a man who questioned his appeal to his much younger lady.

Sian was resting in one of the new leather club chairs they’d bought to replace the old ones. It was fire engine red, in honor of the firefighters who had fought the flames that had nearly swallowed Coffee Dreams. She was rubbing her huge pregnant belly as if to encourage the kid to come out already.

Taz’s best friend Luke took off his goggles, shutting off the spinning saw. He nodded at Taz. Sawdust sprinkled his T-shirt and shorts, highlighting the pallor of his face like freckles. Looked like Luke had been missing his run lately too.

Probably still not sleeping when Sian didn’t sleep.

And then it hit Taz.

He hadn’t been sleeping either.

Because he was too busy watching over a woman.

“I’m glad you brought her, man,” Luke said under his breath. “Even though she looks terrified.”

Taz looked at Jenny, but he only saw courage shining in her eyes. She gave him a tense smile as she sat next to Sian.

“She’ll be all right,” he said.

Luke studied him, not Jenny. “Yeah, I think she will be. So you gonna help me put up some of the built-ins behind the counter?”

“Is that what you’re messing around with, Cade? Jesus, it’s a wonder no one’s lost an eye.”

“Har.”

Soon Fred, Zane and Taz were holding up heavy shelving while Luke marked the wall, watching the little bubble in his level. Fred had lost his shirt along with the other two men and Taz noticed he had a deep pink mark on his lower back. Bite mark, on the shy battalion chief?

“You got a woman now, Taz?” Fred muttered.

“I’m not the one wearing his woman’s bite mark.”

“Jealous?”

Yeah. Yeah, he was, God damn it.

“Where are your girls?”

“With their mom in Arizona. Probably shopping.”

“How do you manage it, three women and shopping?”

Fred only smiled, looking so satisfied that Taz could tell he didn’t feel put upon by his new life. Well, why would he? Dharma had moved into his house recently and his daughters seemed to be adjusting. He’d finally managed to wean his girlfriend from her beloved shabby apartment.

“She’s pregnant.”

Taz didn’t know what to say.

Fred cracked a laugh. “You look terrified, man.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not looking to suddenly become a family man like you and Luke.”

Fred shook his head. “It’s only catching if it’s something you want.”

Taz relaxed only after Fred had dropped the subject, but he was aware of the speculative glances that his friends and their women were giving Jenny. It made him bristle inwardly. Couldn’t they see how she needed everything to be normal?

When they’d erected most of the built-ins, Dharma and Sian handed them bottled water. Taz wanted to dunk his head in the ocean. With the AC not working, it was hot as a furnace in the little coffee shop.

Suddenly his beloved Gatorade appeared in front of his face, offered by Jenny.

“Thanks.”

She’d somehow managed to change into her yoga get-up while he’d been working with the other men. Her hair was looped back in a ponytail, her tank top and yoga pants fitting comfortably. She was about as sexily dressed now as if she was wearing PJs but she might as well have been dressed for love. He found her hotter than any of the overdone women he’d brought over to his place.

“Want to use my hot tub later?”

She blinked. “I’ve only ever seen you use it.”

“Oh, have you?” he purred, taking another gulp of his sports drink. He couldn’t stop himself from looping an arm around her neck. She felt good against him. “I don’t wear clothes when I use it.”

Her lips quirked. “Why do you think I bought a pair of opera glasses? From my second floor, I have a very nice view.”

Taz choked. “You…watched me? You little voyeur!”

She laughed, sounding pleased with herself. “Hey, I’m a red-blooded woman. And I wouldn’t have such a wonderful garden if I didn’t appreciate scenery.”

He had to snicker. “You’re always surprising me.”

“I hope so.”

He saw her give the others a self-conscious look, as if aware of the way their eyes were drawn to her and Taz.

“It’s all right. They just haven’t seen me with a lady before.”

She shook her head. “You really need to work on that.”

“I am.”

She frowned at him, but Luke signaled that it was time to finish up so he went back to work. While he was helping to store packaged coffee, Jenny and Dharma sorted through the new plates and cups—neither of them let Sian do anything—then they disappeared into the stock room with the crockery.

Luke hefted the last shelf and Fred and Zane screwed it into the wall. Taz was shaky and sweaty. Automatically he looked around for Jenny.

He frowned when he didn’t see her.

“Uh-oh. Your lady spending time with Dharma is never a good thing,” Luke said.

“Sitting right here, Luke Cade,” Sian growled. “You better watch what you say about my best friend since I try not to judge yours.” She gave Taz a pointed look.

Taz shoved through the swinging door into the store room.

Dharma and Jenny were slouched against stacks of boxes. Both women had their arms crossed. As one, they looked up and frowned at Taz.

Taz wasted no time in reclaiming Jenny. “You ready to go?”

Jenny raised her brows. “Now? But—”

“I’m all done out there.”

“But—”

He took her arm.

“Don’t you tug on me,” she warned him.

He stroked her arm.

“Hmmm. Seems you’re on your best behavior.” She looked at Dharma. “See you.”

“Yep.”

Jenny insisted on saying goodnight to everyone in such a long, drawn out fashion that Taz knew he was on thin ice. But watching her squeeze Sian’s hand, it suddenly occurred to him that something was different about her from earlier in the evening.

She didn’t look afraid.

In his truck she was silent, sitting with her arms crossed, her gaze on the passing scenery.

He would not be the first one to start talking. He knew this was just a woman’s ploy to make him feel guilty—

He sucked in a breath.

“What?” she asked him.

“I just had a misogynistic thought.”

She lifted one brow.

“That’s all.”

“Well, at least you’re aware of them now,” she said peaceably.

“You don’t want to know what it is so you can give me hell?”

Her lips quirked. “Probably it would make you a better person if I did, but I’ll cut you some slack tonight.”

“Really, you’re cutting me some slack? I figured…”

“You figured after I found out that you and Dharma shared a hot sexual encounter once, I’d pitch a hissy fit?” she asked sweetly.

He swallowed. “Uh, yeah.”

“Surprise.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Are you planning on being with her again?”

“Fred would kill me.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“No.”

“Probably she wouldn’t have you anyway. She’s a sensible woman.”

Taz ran his tongue over his teeth. Oh, yeah, Jenny was out for his scalp, but he wasn’t sure why. Instead of jumping to conclusions this time, he tried to figure it. It wasn’t that he’d been with another woman. She’d seen him bring legions home. It wasn’t even that it had been Dharma, a mutual acquaintance. It was…

“I should have told you I was involved with Dharma.”

She looked at him now.

“I mean, that’s what you think.”

“I don’t know what I think,” she said. Then she shrugged. “No, I do feel that way even though it’s not fair. I mean, we’re not involved. Not officially.”

“Hey, we’re going to share a dog. That’s official.” He wanted to make her laugh.

“Your friends looked at me like I was an oddity. Have you had hundreds of dates?”

He blinked. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve been with a lot of people. And suddenly I realized it wasn’t academic for me anymore. That it will hurt when I meet someone that you…”

“Did Dharma say something to upset you?” He was ready to spin the wheel around and… What? Go confront Dharma?

Yeah. Hell, yeah, he was.

“Because we were not involved. Not in any meaningful way.” He didn’t want to spell out what they had shared. It had been hot, sure, but he preferred not to talk about his past.

“That’s what she said.”

“She did?” He reached back to rub the tension in his neck when they came to a stop sign, but Jenny pushed his hand aside and massaged his sore tendons.

“You need to pay attention to the road,” she said.

They drove in silence, but she was touching him voluntarily, so that had to be good, right? If Dharma had managed to poison her against him, he figured Jenny wouldn’t want to touch him.

When he parked in his driveway, he turned to face her.

She was smiling at him.

What the fuck? Was she trying to torture him?

“So, will you come and pick up the puppy with me tomorrow?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I am so confused right now.”

“Yeah, well, you’re male. Allowances can be made.”

“Can they?” He studied her intently. “Does that mean you’ll share a hot tub with me tonight, Jenny?”

She chewed her lip. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for a hot tub.”

Disappointment bottomed him out. “Okay.”

“But I thought I could go for it anyway.”

His throat was too tight to speak for a moment. He reached out and pushed some wisps of hair behind one of her delicate ears. “No one ever mattered.”

“I know,” she said softly. “It’s why you keep screwing up so much.”

Chapter Seven

Jenny was depressed.

As she approached the hot tub and saw Taz slouched in it with his hair slicked back, looking like a model for Cool Water cologne, her depression didn’t lift.

She’d tried to cure it by snacking on a chocolate bar before donning her swimsuit. When that hadn’t worked, she’d had soda. Then had simply told herself to cheer up.

Taz’s eyes snapped open. He sat up, watching her so intently she halted.

She tugged at her ponytail. “I think I made a mistake.”

His hands balled into fists, but all he said was, “All right.”

She paced, thinking she would add a pot of nasturtiums to his mini patio now that he’d invited her to this sacred space, this temple of his solitude. The flowers would go wild and cover the flagstones with vines and bright mustard flowers.

Rock and flowers.

Yin and yang.

Her and Taz. Could it be that simple, just that simple? Could she be woman to his man, or was she still too broken?

“Jenny, talk to me.”

She jolted out of her whimsy. Rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

“So…” He looked around as if for inspiration. “Make a list of things that are bothering you and just tell me so I know. I can’t understand you if you don’t talk to me.”

She sat down on a recliner. “Whoa, that’s Relationship 101.”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were watchful on her. “No, it’s me not being able to sleep sometimes and having to make a list so I know what the fuck I’m feeling. I, uh, got good at disassociating from my emotions a long time ago.”

Jenny held his gaze, saw pain under his machismo. “I guess I’m a little down.”

Taz nodded. “Go on.”

“I feel awkward here, like you’ll have expectations and there’s no way I can meet them. Because I’m not sexy. Because I can’t just walk up to you and kiss you without being nervous about how you would react.”

When Taz didn’t say anything, when his expression remained impassive, it weirdly reassured Jenny to keep going. “Dharma’s beautiful and experienced and…gorgeous. And I’m not.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How do you feel?”

“Um, queasy. I ate a chocolate bar. I thought it would make me feel better. Happier or something.”

“I’m coming out,” Taz warned her. “You might not be ready for this.”

Nude. He was warning her he was nude. Jenny swallowed tightly. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been waiting forever to see you. I’m just not sure I’m ready for more, okay?”

Tenderness burned in his eyes. “Okay.”

He lifted himself out on his arms, his biceps bulging with the effort, water spilling with him in a sloshing waterfall.

Taz was a big man.

She’d known that, had peeked at him quite happily often enough to have seen everything he had to offer.

But it was different when he was only a few feet from her, when he was watching her watching him. When he was naked and comfortable and she was blushing and self-conscious.

He towered over her, intimidating, his chest so broad her hands would look tiny pressed against it. On his right upper arm was a Celtic knot that looked like the armband on an ancient warrior.

Hair threaded from his navel to where it flared generously around his sex, which was… Oh. He was really… Oh.

“Come on, you had to have seen it before.”

“I think this falls under ‘objects are larger than they appear from a distance’.”

“You make it sound like a UFO.”

“For me, it kind of is.”

He snickered. She gave him a faint smile.

Then his voice roughened. “I’m hard. You make me hard.”

Jenny swallowed tightly.

Taz reached impatiently for a towel to cover himself, but she grabbed his hand, gripping it while he held her gaze, checking out her expression. “All right,” he said, and dropped the towel. Then his forehead crinkled. “It sounds as if you’re depressed, baby.”

She nodded, feeling her misery rising like a genie from a bottle. Talking to Taz about it seemed to be releasing it.

“Why do you think you feel that way?”

“Because I’m scared.”

He nodded, reached out and cupped the side of her face, soothing long fingers. Gentleness. He was big, yes, but he was so surprisingly gentle with her. She thought it was a first for him, just like his invitation to come here.

“Why are you scared?”

“Because I’m a virgin,” the words just popped out, flowed with his touch. Then she immediately said, “No, I’m not—”

He was shaking his head slowly. “You are. In every way that counts, you are, Jenny.”

Tears pricked her eyes. “You think?”

“Yep. Not that I, uh, have any experience with, ah, virgins.”

She quirked a brow. “Really?”

“I think that innocence can’t be taken. It can be crushed. It can be wounded.”

She sucked in a breath. “I wanted it to be you.”

Taz brushed his lips against hers. “Don’t you see that’s what I’m trying to say, Jenny? It can be me. I mean, if you still want me.”

“Oh, Taz.” She buried her face against his shoulder. He cupped the back of her neck. Safe, he made her feel safe, as if anyone who tried to hurt her would have to get through him to do it.

“Come here.” He offered her his hand and she took it, shifting to sit with him in the weathered recliner. He settled behind her. She could feel his bare body pressed against her, feel his cock against her backside. His hands tightened on her hips then gentled. “I don’t want this to be about me. Does that help?”

She nodded.

“Good. Because it seems to me that every virgin deserves to be wooed. Deserves to be pleasured and to laugh and to feel wonder.”

He made it sound so good.

She looked at him over her shoulder and saw the black hair that had fallen over his forehead, his brilliant green eyes set off like jewels by his tanned, healthy skin. He was so effortlessly sexy. He knew all the secrets to making her cry out and lose herself and surrender to him.

Just the thought of it made her pulse throb in her throat and wrists and between her legs.

“Probably we should let you get used to me and then I’ll get used to you. All right?”

It sounded so down home practical. So entirely sane.

Throat tight, she nodded.

As if he couldn’t resist, he pressed his lips ardently against her neck, the side of her face. “Brave. You are so fucking brave.”

She was trembling, a scared little girl, and he thought she was brave?

But then he kissed her again, just the edges of his lips brushing hers. It lured her, promising heat. His tongue warm velvet as he licked her upper lip then her bottom one.

She shuddered, never having felt such pleasure, and he laughed, triumphant, husky male laughter. “I can make you want me.”

“Well, duh,” she grumbled. “I’ve only been watching you for months.”

“Me too.”

Her eyes widened. “But you were so mean to me!”

He dropped his gaze. “You scared me.”

“Me? I scared—”

“Let’s not dwell on the past.” He licked her bottom lip again and she gasped. How did he do that, light her up with a touch? “Oh, Christ, touching you.”

She felt the same melting into him. His hands cupped her face as he kissed her, taking over. And they were both hungry, so hungry. To merge, to be a part of the other, as if something had fallen away a very long time ago and only now was it found again.

His tongue was deep in her mouth. The throbbing had become an ache. She squirmed to get closer, but he held her still, forcing her to comply with his slow, tortured pace.

She clung to his shoulders and didn’t understand for a moment that he had pulled back, why he had pulled back.

He watched her, careful, considering, and she knew that, for him, control still existed. It was a thin, fragile thread, but he kept it.

For her. Because this was her first time.

Emotion was huge, overpowering her like a roller smashing her on the beach. She reached out and touched his body, sleek and made for swimming, made for running, scarred some places—from his work? She longed to ask him, but now it would have to wait because she was lost, drugged by his body.

Her hands ran down his chest, the thick pad of muscle, the rippling abs, until she clung to his hips. His erection flexed, as if demanding that she touch him, know him.

“Does it frighten you?”

His voice sounded foggy. Had she done that to him, despite all his one-night stands?

“Not exactly.”

He blinked, surfaced. “Do you want to touch me?”

She sucked in a breath and lost it somewhere in the center of her chest. “Yes,” she admitted brokenly. Yes, let this be another first for her. Let him be the first man she’d ever touched voluntarily.

He took her hands in his so her palms made little cups, then he pressed them against his cock.

He spilled out of one hand so she needed two to hold him.

He purred as she stroked him.

She couldn’t meet his gaze, heat blasting out of her cheeks, but she also couldn’t let go of him.

“It’s… You’re beautiful,” she whispered. “I always thought so.”

His breath caught. “Jenny…”

The mounds below his cock felt cannon ball sized in her palms.

He was breathing unsteadily now. “You keep pettin’ me and I’m going to come.” His steady gaze asked her, was she ready for that?

She hesitated, feeling abruptly stupid. Should she keep caressing him? Is that how it was done? She didn’t know.

“Jenny, you kill me,” he groaned. Gently he took her hands, making the decision for her, guiding them back to his stomach.

This she wanted, this she felt comfortable doing, tracing every part of his body with her hands. His shoulders, his hair, which he seemed to prefer shaggy to regulation short. “I always picture you when you come back from one of your ocean swims as a merman with long, enticing hair.”

He blinked at her in exaggeration, as if he had the long eyelashes of a siren. “And would you be enticed?”

“I already am. God!” Her hands weren’t enough. Untutored but now not caring so much, she brushed her cheek against one of his pecs, felt the wire tension of muscle under silken skin. Heard him gasp. Oh, that was nice.

She had the same power to move him as he did her?

She rubbed her face, her lips against his belly. He sucked in a breath, his hands tangling in her hair as if to restrain her, as if to encourage her? She didn’t care. Now she was learning him.

She nudged him to lift his arm then put her lips against the curls she found there.

“Oh, God. Oh, fuck.”

He seemed to like what she was doing so much that she licked him, tasting salt and Taz, that mix of sand and fresh lime and sea air.

He balled his fists on the edges of the recliner, as if holding himself back so he wouldn’t do anything to scare her. She felt his want like heatwaves shimmering between them. With every touch, she lit a match. He wasn’t quiet, he was restless, a pacing beast who had locked himself in chains for her. He gasped and growled and hummed if he liked something, like when she ran a finger on his thigh, close to his sex. He raised himself up, muscled arms straining, beautiful body arched like a bow, a line of sweat rolling down the center of his chest so she just had to catch it, suck on it and his skin.

Something shattered.

Fragments of silvered wood scattered around them. He’d broken the armrests of the recliner with his bare hands and now he buried those hands in her hair.

“Touch me, oh, Christ—”

He guided her so that his cock brushed her cheek.

His breath hissed as if she’d hurt him. His huge body trembled, on the verge of the cataclysm he’d warned her about.

It felt hot against her lips, hot satin, moist at the tip. She didn’t know what else to do so she just rubbed her face softly against him while he cursed and arched against her. A second later hot liquid spurted, hitting the side of her face and neck.

He was panting, still trembling like he’d run a race. His arms fell away and he stared at her, dazed.

A second later clarity snapped into his eyes and he sat up abruptly, all soft enjoyment gone. “Are you all right? Oh, shit! What did I do? Did I scare you? Jenny, did I scare you?”

She grabbed his face in her hands, holding on. “No, I’m fine. Taz, really—”

He didn’t look as though he believed her. Then he winced. “You’re all covered with—”

“Taz!”

But he didn’t listen to her. He raced to his big beach towel, wetted it in the pool of water then scrubbed her. She tried to bat his hand away. “Hey, I didn’t mind.”

He swiped at her again and she grabbed the cloth. “Taz, it didn’t turn me off. It was…natural.”

He dropped his gaze. “I just never wanted to be that way with you,” he said.

She frowned. “What way?”

He swallowed and then looked at her. “I liked seeing my spend on you. Did you know that?”

His words made her blood sizzle. She was still aching, hurting, restless, keyed up. “Why didn’t you want me to know that?”

He shut his eyes for a moment. “Because it opens a door.” Then before she could ask what he meant, his mouth claimed hers and his hand, both sensitive and callused—much like he was—was on her leg. She hissed a breath, craving, craving his touch.

She felt like her skin lit one cell at a time as his fingers brushed her bikini bottoms. She was blooming like one of her roses, about to shatter in the heat. He cupped her and she jerked, lightning shooting through her at the confident way he held her.

His hands seemed to tell her, You are a woman and I know you. I know your depths and your pleasures.

Her body did a little dance, back and forth onto his hand, rubbing, grazing, unable to keep still as the music riding her crashed. A beat in the blood. An oath taken.

When he pushed aside her clothing and met her flesh to flesh for the first time, her eyes snapped open and she looked at him, into his brilliant green eyes, swallowed by the dark pupils reflecting her like shadowed mirrors.

He liked to watch.

As she jerked and gasped, he licked his lips, as if hungry to taste her. A thick finger played at her opening, finding her wet, swirling and swirling as if caught in a nautilus shell. And just when she thought she’d scream and claw for what she anticipated, Taz impaled her on one gentle finger.

“Oh. Oh!” She didn’t have time for fear, was too far gone for any dark slivers to pierce through this sweet moment. This wasn’t what had happened to her in the past. This was sun setting in glory and the chill of the approaching night and the smell of sweat and want and his hand exactly where she needed it. Oh, God.

Soon it was two fingers. She held onto his shoulders fiercely and he looked back at her with equal fierceness as if he wanted her to mark this moment, as if he wanted to change her into something she had never thought she’d be.

His.

Chapter Eight

“That’s it, baby. It aches, doesn’t it?”

She whimpered in agreement. She hovered, on edge, wanting to gallop free but something pinned her in this moment.

Taz.

Even as he gave to her, he withheld, drew things out so that her body was nothing but sparking circuits, tangled and messed by his hands alone.

“Do you want the most mind-blowing pleasure ever?” he murmured directly into her ear.

“Ah… Yeah,” she agreed, drowsy, wilting, dying, living at every stroke.

“Hang on. Don’t worry, I won’t let you hurt.”

Hurt. She frowned, not understanding, until those magical fingers were gone and she became aware of how her bikini bottoms were also gone. She was sitting bare-bottomed on Taz’s chaise, her body throbbing urgently. A flush stung her face and neck.

She couldn’t help looking around, hoping none of her neighbors could see her, like elderly Mrs Kent. Nope, there was a big hedge blocking her view. Jenny realized that the only house that overlooked this hot tub was…her own.

So why had Taz never put up a fence for his privacy? He used to be so prickly. Leaving this private space open to her eyes was almost like he’d wanted her to see him, watch him, even when he was at his most unfriendly.

And it went two ways, Jenny realized. If she could watch him, then he could watch her…

Had he done that?

Taz’s kitchen door slammed and he was back, some kind of metal tube thing in one hand with buckles at either end. Dazedly, she stared at it.

“May I put this on your thighs?” he asked her, suddenly very formal.

“Put…” She frowned. “What is it?”

“It’s a spreader bar. It keeps your legs open if you try to close them.”

“But—”

“For what I want to give you, I want you open. I want you to have no choice but to take it.” He dipped closer to her ear again. “To enjoy it.”

She looked at him and not at the toy. “All right.”

He was swift, efficient, buckling the device around her thighs. “Taz, what—?”

“I’m gonna make you scream.” He lifted her into his arms.

The water was hot, frothing. She gasped at her abrupt introduction to it.

Taz was behind her, his big body encompassing hers. The bar felt odd. It wasn’t wide so her legs were in some kind of gymnastic split, but she was wildly aware that her legs were open and she couldn’t close them. For some reason that added a lick of dark heat to her needy body.

His hand cupped her neck. “Don’t think. Just feel.”

He gave her a long, wet kiss, his fingers returning to play with her so that she fell back against him shamelessly. When she tensed and tried to move her position to enhance her sensations, the bar impeded her movements, gently correcting her.

Without that freedom of movement, her attention focused on his touch so that every brush of a finger became almost excruciating. He was slow and thorough. The warm, lapping water and dim lights surrounded them, making it a softer, erotic world of the forbidden. Never had a man’s hands been inside her that she could remember. And the bar… The bar was definitely a naughty prop. Her imagination went wild, wondering what he’d used it for before. Had he used it during sex?

A wallop of heat moved through her.

“You like it?” His tone was smug, as if he knew.

“It’s strange, but yes.”

Taz lifted her so her knees rested alongside his on the long bench, both of them facing toward her rampant flower beds. She felt him, heavy and solid and masculine, grounding her deliciously. Her pulse was thumping. She tried to close her legs and whimpered. Before she could ask him what he had planned, he reached between her legs and held her sex fully open. She gasped at the exposure, digging her fingernails into his arms.

“Taz!”

“Hang on, just—”

A bolt of churning hot water hit her, straight to her pussy.

She screamed, back arching, throat burning and, given no choice, she came.

Jenny was still panting after her third climax, limp and luscious, opening drowsy mossy eyes to look at him. He saw reflected there trust, and warmth in her cheeks and absolutely no fear.

Satisfaction seized him.

He’d pleased her. He’d made her scream and claw and beg for him to stop, but she hadn’t really wanted that, oh no. She’d wanted the ruthless way he had made her come, again and again. By her third climax, her contractions had gone on and on and each indrawn breath, each bead of sweat on her face had spoken for her.

“Are we…done?” She blinked at him like a sleepy doe.

“No,” he said. He lifted her gently from the water and laid her on a blanket. She sprawled there, looking like a windblown wild rose he’d find by the ocean.

“Um, huh.” She closed her eyes but then they flared wide as he probed her too sensitive pussy with slick, cool fingers. “What are you…?”

Her swollen sex was a deep pink color and the gel made her shine. He wanted to kiss her there with the bar to keep her from closing her legs shyly.

He swallowed. “It’s lubricant. You need it to have sex after being in the water.”

“Sex,” she repeated.

“Sex. Like this.” He couldn’t resist any longer. He mouthed her sex and she jerked. Tried reflexively to close her legs. He gave her a deep kiss and her eyes flared wide.

“I can’t—”

“Oh, but you can.” He drank of her, the taste of chlorine from the hot tub, the cherry-flavored lubricant and the faint musky scent of her growing arousal. He kneaded her buttocks, felt her clench at each lash of his tongue. He used his fingers to anoint her with more of the cream, even as he sipped and savored as she shuddered, racked by his attention. “You can,” he breathed against her and she jerked as she came again, brought to it so easily this time since he had kept her simmering.

He set out to make her think it was the best idea ever, allowing him to have her, plying her with his fingers, stroking until she stretched for more of his touch. When he thought she was safely moist, he reached for one of the condoms he’d also brought from inside the house.

She watched him put it on, her eyes wide. He was deliberately unsubtle. If Jenny was frightened, he needed to know.

Did she know that he was afraid, under his confidence? That he’d never made love to a virgin, never mind a woman who had been hurt the way Jenny had? And somehow he had to make this so hot, so wonderful for her.

But as he watched her, he saw that she accepted what he was doing the same way she’d accepted the spreader bar, without judgment or expectation. He’d given her intense release as a reward for trusting him, for letting him have a small amount of control of her lovely virginal body.

And now she wanted more.

Christ, could she accept his darker impulses to dominate her innocence?

He lifted her back into the water and then came up behind her. She’d made him come earlier, so easily, so impulsively. Usually he made it through an entire night without coming with his many lovers, but with her he ached for the completion he knew he’d find only inside her. Jenny.

“I used to think about being here with you,” he told Jenny. “Like this.”

She lay slumped against the wall of the tub where the jet would catch her sex when he turned it on again. She stiffened when he brought her hips against his, when his cock brushed her opening. “I’ll be gentle,” he groaned. “And if you don’t want it, God, Jenny, tell me because doing anything you don’t want will rip me up inside.”

Something in his voice seemed to awaken her. She held his eyes and when his hand covered hers, they meshed fingers.

He slowly began to work his heavy size into her small opening, watching her expressions, mesmerized by another person’s feelings during sex the way he’d never felt. With his usual lovers, it had been academic, a bit like watching to make sure bath water wasn’t so hot it was scalding.

With Jenny he felt a searing need to heal her with his body. It was crazy—how could he do that? No one could do that. But he was no good with words. He cut with words, he was sarcastic and guarded with words. He didn’t know how to give to her with words what she needed.

But his body was a well-trained instrument of pleasure. He could use it to make Jenny shatter and then to make her so glad she was in pieces so that all she’d do was give him that sleepy smile.

Sex was how he’d found his own way out of pain. It wasn’t the best way, and it had never been about love, but he’d learned to embrace it.

For him sex had been first a monster but then he’d forced himself to face it, to wrap his hand around it and force it to submit. He’d mastered it and so he’d mastered himself.

It couldn’t be that way with her, he knew. It was too brutal for someone who was so sensitive. But still he had only his body to give to hers, to heal hers.

He wanted to turn up the heat.

Jenny floated, forced to pleasure by Taz’s hands, by the odd little bar between her legs. She burned constantly now, embarrassingly easy to ignite. She felt sexual for the first time in her life, her body heavy and pulsing, waiting to be sated again.

Taz made thunder vibrate through her body, explode out through her fingertips.

She’d never known such pleasure.

It was as though he took her and threw her into the sun, burning everything away but what his body gave to hers, forced upon hers.

When Taz carried her from the tub then almost clinically began to prepare her body for penetration, she squirmed. She couldn’t make sense of it to herself, but the way he handled her, as if he knew all of her secrets, was the sexiest thing she’d ever experienced.

Maybe this was why she’d woken up for months, hot and sweaty and hurting for Taz. She hadn’t known what he could do to her, but she’d known it was something she needed.

Now in the water it felt like the end of the story they’d been meant to share, almost from the beginning. He was fullness. A muffled grunt. The slide and retreat and he was… Oh. Too big? But she wanted him, wanted more of the achy pain of accommodating him.

He reached under her bikini top, tugged it away and revealed her breasts. She watched him play with the hard points of her nipples, his brown hand, her pale skin. She felt rooted and heavy like a tree, flowering at his touch.

“You have the sweetest little cunt,” he told her.

“Oh, my…God…”

“What?”

“Just… I never thought you’d say that.”

“Why not, little Jenny?” His hand slid into her folds with confident possession. “You feel so good here, takin’ me. I’m going to want it all the time. I’m going to make it good for you so you’ll let me do you.”

“I thought…” Her nails bit into his forearms, her head rising and falling with his thrusts. “You’d just show me the ropes.”

His hands on her hips tensed and relaxed. “Is that what you want, Jenny Ann?” He growled. “You want to get ridden hard and then try to forget me? Try it.”

“Oh… I…” How was she supposed to think? His body swept her away, the tidal rhythm, the feel of his penis when it lodged fully into her, the drag of the bulbous tip.

The grind of their bodies together was deliberate, leisurely, but sweat beaded his upper lip. The water intensified everything, making her lazy and open, both spent and hungered.

It had to end soon. She couldn’t bear it.

When he spread her with his fingers, it felt different with his penis buried inside her. She felt more vulnerable, sensitized.

He turned on the jet, thrusting hard at the same time. Bombarded, she tried desperately to close her legs at the agony of exposure, but the bar prevented it.

“Take it!”

“Taz, please, please…” She climaxed, long rolls of feeling until she was clinging to the side of the tub and finally to him.

He had to carry her from the water.

Jenny lay limp on the battered recliner. Taz wrapped her in a towel and made her drink a full glass of water.

His body was aching pleasantly from his intense release, but he rubbed his chest, wondering if he had heartburn or something. Had the sex been good enough for a virgin? He’d been rough and he’d said things he knew weren’t…romantic.

“What time are we picking up the puppy tomorrow?” he asked, trying to shove aside this fucking useless handwringing.

“Um.” She blinked. “Ten thirty. I’m just getting orientation before I take him. The shelter really needs space for new animals.”

“That’s okay, we’ll find you a dog trainer.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I still have puppy stuff in the back of my truck. Remind me to get it out for you.”

A long stretch of time passed. Taz reached out and took Jenny’s hand and she said shyly, “It was good. Am I supposed to say?”

“Uh, no, you don’t—fuck, yeah! Tell me everything, like I’m one of your girlfriends. Be frank.”

Jenny laughed at his disgruntlement.

“Sexually you just took over.”

“And that was okay?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know anything else right now.”

He didn’t like that. “You won’t have anything to compare me with. Not any time soon, Jenny Ann.”

“Is it this good all the time? Do you feel this relaxed? This need to constantly smile?” She smiled, dazzling him, her face lit as bright as the sunlight dancing on the hot tub. “If this is how you feel, no wonder you’re always having sex.”

He frowned. “No, it’s not always like this.”

She looked at him, all big eyes. He wanted to see those eyes late at night, looking at him from his bed or her bed, he didn’t care—just so long as they shared one. Would she put up a fight if he pushed for it?

And what was he thinking? He’d never shared a bed with anyone.

Her forehead wrinkled. “Why do you sound annoyed? I thought sex made men lazy and sleepy.”

“I’m not annoyed. I’m just saying that it’s… Look, you don’t need to be like me, all right?”

She frowned. “Huh?”

“I mean, you’re a free lady, sure. But volume doesn’t equal quality.”

“Why would you think I want a lot of lovers?”

He swiped a hand through his hair. She was all glowy and smiling and finding the power of her womanhood and he was terrified. Didn’t it figure?

“Men look at you, don’t they?”

“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “I haven’t paid much attention.”

“I made you feel this way,” Taz stated. “I’m that good.”

Now Jenny sat up, studying him. She reached out and stroked his face. “Taz, you really are. I just figured… You’ve never been with the same lady more than once. Why would I be any different?”

“You just are, Jenny Ann. And I don’t want you looking for another boyfriend.” He put his hands on her hips. “We share a puppy and I built you a damn fence and made you breakfast. Don’t you forget it.”

“Taz…” she sighed. “If we don’t stop this now, I’m going to fall in love with you.”

He stared.

She smiled rather sadly. “Yeah, I know. Probably I shouldn’t just up and say it, right? None of your experienced lady friends would. But if it happens, and I fall for you, what are you going to do?”

“Take care of you,” he said, the words just there on his tongue. And that was all he knew about this love stuff, damn it. “Jenny, none of the women I’ve dated would take that risk. Didn’t Dharma tell you? I figured she’d warn you away from me.”

“She tried. FYI, the whole bad boy thing only makes women wild to tame you.”

“Is that what it is? I thought it was my cologne.” He tried to smile, but he was worried for her. How could she tell him these things? Now he’d be sweating over hurting her even more.

How did a man take care of a woman who might fall in love with him?

Chapter Nine

“Where are you taking me?” Jenny groused.

“To bed.”

“But—”

“Not one word, young lady.” He swatted her behind and then, because it had felt so good doing it, did it again. She had a lovely ass, round and full, which she no doubt thought was too big. Women could be ridiculous.

Jenny gave a muffled complaint but since she was currently cuddled in his arms as he carried her into his bedroom, she didn’t put up much of a fight. He could see he’d have to be the one disciplining their puppy. She’d be hopeless.

She yawned hugely as he pulled back the covers then proceeded to lie on her stomach in the middle of his bed, legs sprawled, arms askew. Was this how she slept? This sharing a bed business was more involved than he’d thought. He paused, trying to figure out how one small woman could take up so much room in a king bed.

Finally he gave in and slid in beside her, yanking her into him so he was partly covering her, their legs tangled. He wondered if she’d have trouble sleeping with him. He knew she slept alone, neighbors knew these things about each other.

Her answer was a less than delicate snore. Sex obviously had a sedative effect on Jenny Ann Green. He stroked her bare back, stroked her hair, loving touching her after all this time of looking and forcing himself to stay away from her.

In fact, he decided he wanted to look at her, really look at her, and not have to worry she’d be looking back and seeing…something in his eyes. He turned her onto her back. She gave a sleepy, unladylike grunt that made him grin. But then he lost the smile when he looked at her breasts. Round and strawberry tipped. He wondered if they’d taste like the berries he sometimes helped himself to in her garden. He closed his eyes and brushed one tip very gently with his lips. He didn’t want to wake her. Frankly he wasn’t sure he could, the way she was grunting and snoring, sounding like a drunken pig more than an enticing woman…but for some reason he liked the little pig sounds. It made her even more of an alluring woman.

Her little patch of hair was neat and a soft brown. He heated just looking at it. Mine.

She thought she’d find pleasure like he’d given her with other men? He’d make sure she didn’t find out any time soon. She was his, the only woman after years of taking men and women home to play with that he’d let into his bed.

He sat back on his heels, looking around.

Not that his bedroom was anything to speak of. What did it look like to her? He’d bet hers was like her kitchen and living room, full of soft floral wallpaper and fresh flowers. And that dried stuff women were always putting in bowls and sachets.

He leaned down and sniffed her neck, getting a whiff of lilac.

Lilacs were old-fashioned. In this climate, they took a lot of watering. Jenny fussed over hers like they were her children.

She was lonely.

It hit him, all the time she spent in her garden, nurturing, digging, rearranging. She had to love it, but it was where she poured all her feeling. He knew because… Because he’d done the same in anonymous sex. In taking someone over for a night and seeing what he might uncover.

Although of course he wasn’t lonely like Jenny.

Jenny woke slowly. She was curled against something hot and snoring. Her new puppy? She blinked and came to wake in shock as she realized that for the first time in her life she’d fallen asleep in someone else’s bed, in their arms. A very male someone.

Taz.

He was unshaven, his hair looked flattened on one side. He was big and completely tanned—everywhere—and his erection was prodding her rear end.

Her eyes pricked and she reached out and cupped his cheek.

He shot up in bed like she’d fired a cannon. “What?”

“Um.” She gave an uneasy shrug.

“Are you all right?”

“Well, yeah…”

He cocked his head. His eyes were bloodshot. Why was that adorable? “You’re all right?”

“I just said so.”

“You woke me up.”

“Sorry.”

“You gave me a—” He shut his mouth.

“Were you about to say I gave you a scare?”

He scowled.

“Not used to sleeping with someone any more than I am, huh?” She gave a deliberate scan of the room. “I guess that’s where all the girlfriend touches come in.”

He looked like the idea was completely bizarre. “There are none.”

She quirked her lips. “I know. And I know you were probably…concerned about me, but I haven’t done any sleep gardening in the daytime. Uh, not that I remember, anyway.”

“I found you two weeks ago with the biggest, sharpest set of shears I’ve ever seen. You were trimming the hedge. In your sleep.”

She blinked. “Is that why my tool shed has that fancy new padlock? I was going to ask you—”

“Yes, and you can’t have the combination until the sleep gardening stops. I keep you safe, Jenny.”

Touched, she brushed her lips against his. “I know.”

“It’s good you know,” he grunted. “What time are we going to get that puppy?”

“Oh, my God.” She laughed and leaped out of bed, then looked at her naked body in horror. “How am I to run to my place and get showered and dressed?”

He got up, towering over her. She thought deliberately. He tapped her nose. “You will shower here. You can wear some of my shorts and a T-shirt.”

“Taz, I’ll be buried in your clothing.”

“I want you in my clothing,” he said, as if that ended all discussion.

She looked at the time again and dove into his en suite. Her heart was pounding for more reasons than merely running late. Taz was not acting at all like Taz.

Dharma had called him an out and out sexy bastard, the kind a lucky woman had for one night, fantasized about for years afterward but could never be a ‘keeper’. Jenny knew this. She’d watched Taz for months, heart aching, as he’d brought home beautiful women. Yet, he’d never shared his hot tub with them. He’d never bought a padlock for a garden shed to keep them safe or taken them shoe shopping at the mall when they were too afraid to go there on their own…

The door to the shower stall swung open and Jenny yelped.

“Jesus, woman, could you have it any hotter in here? I’ll be limp from the heat.”

He wasn’t anywhere near limp. Jenny’s eyes widened, taking in his size and the steady way he was regarding her. “Taz. We’re late,” she squeaked.

He lifted her against the tiled wall. “So we’ll just be later.”

He thrust inside her, eager, hard. She cried out, hands digging into his shoulders. His lips quirked and his eyes were intent on her bobbing breasts, on the place where their bodies joined, on her legs wrapped around his hips. “Some things you just make time for.”

But he wasn’t just making ‘time’ with her. She dug her heels into his buttocks, scalding heat igniting yet again as he moved slightly so he could touch her with one rasping finger. When he fingered her ass, her eyes widened in shock. “Taz!” How did he know how to do that to a woman?

He drove the tip of one soapy finger into her. Her body rioted, the heavy, almost wrong feeling dragging her deep… Need it—

Softly this time, “Taz…”

* * * *

“Taz, stop the truck!”

Taz hit the brakes. Jenny exploded out with Jet in her arms. The puppy vomited in the tall grass on the side of the road.

“He can’t stop heaving!” Jenny gave him a frantic look.

“It’s okay, honey. He’s just having a hard time bein’ in the truck. Stay here.” Taz strode back to his vehicle, moved it to a place where he could safely leave it on the shoulder then returned to Jenny and Jet. Jet looked at him out of eyes that were somehow familiar. Weird. He obviously was feeling sleep deprived. “He’ll be fine. Maybe… Let’s walk him on the beach for a while. It might calm him.”

Jenny nodded and Taz settled the puppy on his shoulder. The little animal was shivering. Jenny took his free hand and they walked down the slope to a deserted stretch of windy beach.

“If he doesn’t improve by the time we finish the walk we’ll take him to the vet the shelter recommended in our neighborhood.”

“Okay.” Jenny knelt beside Taz as he put the puppy down. He unclipped the leash and for a second Jet froze, sniffing and looking around as if he was overwhelmed. Then he tentatively walked to a pile of sea kelp and driftwood, digging a giant paw in the mix.

Jenny wrapped her arms around herself as if to keep herself from going to the puppy. “He doesn’t seem to want to be anywhere near us.”

“He doesn’t know us, Jenny. He doesn’t have a reason to want to be with us yet.”

“Because he wasn’t treated well.”

Taz rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess.”

Jenny looked up at him. “I used to see that same look in your eyes sometimes. That hopeless look?”

Taz shook his head at her. “Where do you get this shit? Oh, yeah, ‘cause you’re a woman.”

Jenny’s eyes flared with hurt, but she kept her gaze on his. “You haven’t made a remark like that for a while. I guess I hit too close to home, huh?” Before he could say anything nasty, she walked to the puppy. She didn’t try to touch Jet but sat down and busied herself working bits of driftwood into a pile.

Taz sighed, feeling the tension of their fight soften as he watched her. Inevitably the puppy became curious and stabbed out a paw, demolishing Jenny’s woodpile.

Jenny Ann just built another one.

Taz carried Jet into Jenny Ann’s kitchen. “You have to work that fire tonight?” Anxiety spiked through her voice. She tried not to give in to it, but the wildfire reported on the radio during the drive home had alarmed her.

She didn’t have to ask if the men and women of Station 57 would be going out to help where they could. Much of the area surrounding their little sub-town was still desert scrub. It could go up like tinder. It had the night of her attack.

She swallowed. She could feel those long shadows in her mind growing larger.

“It’s my job, honey.” He had his hands on his hips, looking like an old-time gunslinger. The mirrored sunglasses, the stubble on his face. He was all about the dare.

“Just be careful, all right?”

He put his arms around her neck. “Are you gonna be all right? I can ask Dharma to come over and stay with you.”

“What? No, I don’t—”

But Taz had his phone out. As Jenny tried to steal it from him, thwarted by his height, he made a call. “Yeah, Sian, hi. I wondered if you and Dharma were doing something tonight while Luke, Fred and I are on duty.”

Jenny sagged against the counter, crossing her arms. The puppy nosed one of her runners, but then carefully backed away before she could touch him. Yep, she could see now why she’d fallen for him. He definitely reminded her of Taz.

Except… Lately Taz was letting her touch him.

“That would be great. She’d come to your place, but she’s got a puppy.” Taz held his phone away from his ear and Jenny heard some squealing. “Golden retriever. Oh, yeah? Well, they got another in the shelter. You and Luke could check it out tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell him. Okay, bye.”

Taz put his phone in his shorts pocket and looked at her. “They, um, they’re coming over here.”

“You invited your best friends’ families to stay with me? Taz, they’re going to think I’m a basket case.” Her belly tightened at the idea of pretending to be okay for hours and hours. It had been hell when her mother had stayed with her. She didn’t think she could do that when her anxiety was running hot for Taz.

“We all pull together when it gets tough.” He pushed her hair behind her ears. “Jenny, I can’t do my job if I’m worried something will happen to you. There hasn’t been a fire like this since the night—”

She nodded, unable to speak.

His forehead rested against hers. “I remember how your face was the same color as the sheets back in the hospital. And you were a lot tinier than I thought. I never want to see you like that again. It’d kill me. Just do this for me, okay?”

She sighed. “You think I’m tall because normally it’s the force of my personality that gives me height.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “It’s going to be okay. We’re very careful. We have a meteorologist on site to make sure we don’t get in over our heads when we work these kinds of fires near the town.”

“I know I’m supposed to be brave and say ‘sure it is’, but I’m so worried about you I feel sick.”

“Now you know how I feel when I find you in your garden in the middle of the night. It scares the shit out of me and I want it to stop, Christ, I want it to stop, but I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Taz, you make sure I’m not alone. Thank you for that.”

He huffed out a sigh. “All right. Have you got everything for a night with a new puppy, a preggo woman who could pop at any moment—?”

“Taz!”

“…a feminist who hates my guts even if she has to admit I’m sexy…”

Jenny was smiling. How did he do that? Her fear was still floating around like a big iceberg in her chest, but Taz made her smile.

“You got chips?”

“And the fixings to make fresh salsa.”

His eyes gleamed. “You make it fresh? I so am coming over for nachos soon.”

“I’ll make them for you if you promise not to do anything too brave tonight.”

“I’ll be as cowardly as possible and still keep my job.”

“Jerk.”

From out in her driveway, Jenny heard a car parking. The company Taz had arranged had arrived so she had to put her game face on.

“I gotta go back to my place, grab some gear.” Taz backed away, then his sneakers skidded, squeaked. He looked down at the handmade Mexican tiles on her kitchen floor. “Uh, Jenny? I think you’ll have to clean up. Jet…”

Taz handed her some paper towels and then kissed her on the run.

Jenny rinsed them in soapy water before kneeling to wipe her floor. Having a brand new terrified and accident prone puppy maybe wasn’t such a bad thing.

It would be a welcome distraction tonight because there was no way she’d be able to sleep until Taz was back home.

Chapter Ten

“She makes salsa from scratch? Really?” Luke asked, chainsaw hanging from one arm.

Taz downed another huge gulp from his water bottle. “Yeah, maybe… Maybe you and Sian can come over to our neck of the woods soon, share a hot tub and I might persuade Jenny to make enough for all of us.”

Luke’s eyes widened, hot blue in his ruddy, dirty face. “You mean you want a couples’ night?”

Taz shrugged, avoiding his best friend’s gaze. “No big deal.”

“Taz, man, what is going on with you? Everyone at the station house has been wondering. First you practically glue yourself to Jenny’s hospital bed after she was hurt…”

“Her mom didn’t arrive for a couple of days. Someone had to watch over her.”

“Uh-huh. Then you come to work looking bagged all the time and I know it’s not because you’re tom cattin’ around. No one’s seen you at the club in months.”

Taz’s gut tightened. “Jenny doesn’t fit into that part of my life.”

“Oh, really?”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I thought I’d keep my more dominant side safely away from Sian… But turns out she likes it.” Luke smiled, a happy, married guy’s smile.

“Jesus, she’s pregnant. You can’t still dom her in bed—”

Luke raised his eyebrows.

“Gah, I don’t want to know.”

“You single guys. No balls.”

Taz shrugged. “Jenny’s been through a nightmare. I have to protect her.”

“What if she doesn’t want protection from you?” Luke started humming the music for Another One Bites the Dust.

Taz gave him the finger.

Then it was time to cut brush and dig again. The fire wasn’t as bad as the one that had left a blackened scar through town, but that could change at any moment. It all depended on the wind coming off the ocean and the heat radiating up from the desert.

Jenny placed a large plate of nachos in front of her two guests along with giant glasses of iced tea. “The tea is decaffeinated.”

“Oh, thank you! I forgot to ask if you had anything like that,” Dharma said. She glowed, her tanned skin, her curiosity sparkling as she looked around Jenny’s small living room. Jenny was glad that it was full of the fresh cut flowers she placed almost daily from her garden. And it was neat, of course. Her mama had raised her to be a clean freak. In the South, you never knew who’d be dropping by and they would judge you for how you kept your house, at least in Jenny’s family.

“No problem. A friend at work pointed out recently how people don’t realize tea has more caffeine than chocolate or coffee.”

“So you work out of your home?” Sian asked. “That must be convenient with the puppy.”

She was the gentler of the two women and Jenny felt she had more in common with her. As well as a sharp longing every time she looked at Sian’s wedding ring and large belly.

Jenny sighed. What was she doing, dreaming about Taz in a role of husband and daddy? She was a small town girl with small town wants. Marriage, children.

But that was not who he was.

She wasn’t exactly sure she knew who he was, other than her protector in the night. He wasn’t letting her see.

“It helps working at home since I have to let Jet out every five minutes. Can I ask if either of you have ever had a dog?”

When both women shook their heads, Jenny sighed. “We had family dogs, but not one I was solely responsible for. It has to get easier, right?”

Sian grinned, patting her belly. “I think you’re in for it. Chaos.”

“I keep thinking I should take him back to someone who can take care of him because I’m not old enough, patient enough to do it! It’s a good thing Taz promised to help me train him to the leash.”

“Taz…said that?” Dharma asked. “Wow. He’s acting totally weird lately, but he is a guy. But what are you doing, Jenny?”

Jenny raised her brows. “Right now? Making sure my puppy gets lots of fluids since he was sick earlier, and feeding my guests.”

Sian laughed, looked at Dharma. “She’s got too much backbone for you to push around.”

Dharma grimaced. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh, yes you would.” Sian winked at Jenny. “I’m her boss, but you wouldn’t know it some days. So I guess if you can stand up to Dharma, you can hold your own with Taz. That means you’re one of us now.”

“What does ‘us’ mean?” Jenny asked.

“In love with one of the men of Station 57,” Dharma said.

“You make it sound like a bad thing.” Jenny was clueless.

“Dharma is too young for Fred. And she’s artistic,” Sian said.

“So?”

Sian smiled. “And I was raised with Luke as brother and sister.”

“Ohhh. Was it weird, wanting him?”

“I don’t know, I never didn’t.”

Well, that was frank enough that Jenny thought she could be honest. “I’m think I’m falling for Taz.”

“Not smart,” Dharma said.

“Nope.”

“Well, he is sexy,” Sian said. “Even famous.”

“Famous? How do you mean?”

Dharma exchanged a look with Sian.

Jenny put her glass of iced tea down with a click on her coffee table. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“How well do you know Taz?”

“He’s sweet, protective…”

“Taz is a legendary dominant, Jenny,” Sian said gently. “And he’s not known for being either.”

The puppy ran over the tiles in Taz’s kitchen, which were Spartan all-white, before skidding into the cabinets. “Stop it!” Jenny’s voice was sharp.

The puppy cringed.

Great, she was scaring the little guy and she’d only had him a day.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just feeling”—guilty—“tense.”

Tense because she’d taken the key Taz had given her a few weeks ago and let herself into his house to snoop. Keys jangling, she walked over to the door that led to his basement. She headed down the stairs, hearing them creak extra loudly under her feet. As an afterthought, she closed the door behind her so that the puppy wouldn’t take those stairs and hurt himself.

Workout equipment. Barbells, a weight bench, a treadmill and a Bowflex. Taz worked hard to maintain that amazing body, not just running on the beach and swimming.

But what else did he do down here?

She chewed her lip, staring at the door on the far side of the room.

When she tried it, she found it was locked.

Taz rubbed his left eye as he let himself into his house near dawn the next morning. His body felt like he’d been beaten with a bag of potatoes. His neck was stiff and his eye… He rubbed it again, even though his own medical training told him to fucking leave it alone.

Jenny’s house was dark. He’d already been over there, let himself in. She and the puppy hadn’t been in her bedroom. He hoped to hell she was somewhere in his house because if she wasn’t, he’d have to go out looking for her.

He snapped on his kitchen light.

Jenny was sleeping with her head on his table. Jet was sprawled at her feet, one front paw raised in a strange ‘high five’ puppy gesture.

“Jen.” His voice sounded like a raspy fog horn. He cleared his throat. “Hey, Jenny, you okay?”

She sat up, blinking at the light. Taz was relieved to see coherence in her eyes. She wasn’t drifting somewhere he was afraid to touch her.

“Um, sorry. Last thing I remember, I made some coffee.”

He saw it and went and poured himself a mug so he could keep his hands off her. Luke poking him earlier had stirred the darker parts of himself. So had coming home and finding Jenny and the new pup in his house.

It felt right, damn it. Her house was nicer than his, he supposed, more finished. Prettier. But he wanted her here, under his roof and in his bed waiting for him when he got home.

And shit, even he, caveman that he was, knew now was not the time to bring this up, not when he was dragging his sorry ass.

“Let me get you something to eat with that.” Jenny went to his fridge and while he watched, bemused, she pulled out an omelet on a plate. Only hers had salsa and chips on it. Oh, man. He was such a goner.

He fell on it like a starving man, feeling her watch him as she sipped her own coffee.

“What happened to your eye?”

He grimaced. “Spark from the wildfire we killed. It’s all right, just sore.”

“Don’t rub it.”

He cocked a rueful eyebrow. How had she known he was going to do that?

He got up and offered his hand. “When was Jet last out?”

She took it, getting to her feet. “I…don’t remember. I came over here and…” She looked uncomfortable.

“Jen, I liked finding you here,” he said, deciding to make his feelings plain. He didn’t have time to pussyfoot around whatever female thing was going on in that brain of hers.

“Taz.” She swallowed. “I came here to spy on you.”

It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. And he had to stop himself from grinning. “Please, you sound like a trailer for a thriller. If you wanted to paw through my underwear or put a camera in my shower? I’m on board. Totally.”

“A camera in your shower?”

He waggled his eyebrows. “I’d love to give you a show, honey.”

He guided her out of the side door and they let Jet run around Taz’s less than stellar-looking flower beds. Hell, maybe he should just let her do his yard too. It was a good excuse to get her on his property and she looked hot in her little shorts, ass tilted at an enticing angle.

She took his arm, squeezed it so he’d take her seriously. “No, I mean… Dharma and Sian made me wonder if you might be hiding a part of yourself from me, maybe because you thought I couldn’t accept it, so I came over here to root around.”

He shook off her hand. “What exactly did they say?” God damn them. Women were always interfering—

He gusted out a sigh. No. No. He wasn’t going to think that way anymore. Jenny was a woman and she was honest with him, even when she knew it would cost her.

And he knew Sian and Dharma were only trying to help her. They could see how innocent she was. God knew Taz should keep his dirty hands off her.

“Well?” He couldn’t help that his voice was testy.

Jenny had her hands on her hips now, looking him in the eye. “They’re right, aren’t they? I’ve always felt like you were protecting me from something about yourself. It would explain why you were such an asshole to me for so long.”

His throat closed up. “Did you go into my playroom, Jenny?” he asked, very softly. If she’d gone in there without him, unprepared… What would she think of him?

She pushed her hair back, tension sagging from her shoulders. “No. I… When I found the locked door I knew I could probably find my way inside, but that’s not what I wanted.”

He crossed his arms, knowing he looked intimidating, but that was okay. She’d pushed this. She wanted to know his secret? Well, they’d both see. “What did you want?”

“To ask you about it. To not just invade your privacy because you’ve been so good and kind to me and you don’t deserve that, me just going behind your back.”

“Oh, Jen.” And just like that she melted him. “Come here.” He cupped the side of her face, brought her close enough so he could rest his forehead against hers. It had to be so scary for her, getting close to a man like him.

Of course she’d want to know what he was hiding.

“Everything Dharma told you about me, everything you’re afraid of is true,” he said. “I’m not the man for you.”

Instead of getting tearful the way he’d half expected, Jenny crossed her arms. “I am tired of people assuming that a—poor little Jenny is a basket case and will never be strong again, because I’m healing, damn it, and I plan to be stronger than ever, and b—that you’re a total asshole. Are we clear?”

Taz blinked. “Uh. Sure.”

“All right then.” She raised a brow. “Planning on sharing your dark secret before we both collapse from lack of sleep?”

He surprised himself by giving a crack of laughter. He tugged her close again. “Come here, you.” His heart was thudding and he felt a little sick. Because he was beginning to think that maybe she might not be the only one who could fall in love here.

“Is he done?” He nodded to Jet, who’d collapsed on his back, snoring in the grass.

Jenny’s eyes softened. “Aw.”

Taz rolled his. “I knew this would happen. You’ll be that puppy’s slave.”

“I look forward to my servitude.”

Taz hefted the pup in his arms. He was a solid, warm weight as he carried his dog and led his woman back into his house. When he put Jet in his dog bed, he again offered his hand to Jenny. Fuck, his palm was sweaty. He tried to comfort himself with the memory of their lovemaking. She’d enjoyed being submissive to him. She’d liked the way he’d taken control in the shower too.

“You liked the stuff we did. Sexually, I mean.” Gently he led her to the basement door, dread gathered like a ball in his gut. He couldn’t lose her. If she couldn’t accept him for who he was… What would he do?

Her eyes warmed. “Yes, although the girls said the spreader bar was a new one on them.”

“You told them about that?”

Jenny snickered and jabbed a finger in his chest. “No. Gotcha.”

“Wench.”

“Hey, wench sounds powerful and sexy. Better than some of your ideas about women.”

“Um.” He decided not to touch on those. He knew he still had a lot of edges she’d want smoothed.

He took a key out and opened the door to his playroom, switching on the light before he lost his nerve.

Then he stepped back and let Jenny make up her mind about whether she wanted to enter his world or not.

Chapter Eleven

Jenny wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. Some kind of dark red leather hangout? Silver spikes and face masks and whips?

“It’s…beautiful.”

The room wasn’t large but it was cozy. A tall wooden four-poster bed was in one corner with an empty fireplace in front of it. With the climate so often hot, it would not often be chilly enough to light, even in a basement.

“It’s electric,” Taz said. “It doesn’t give off heat.”

Jenny looked over her shoulder at him. He was still hovering in the doorway, tension riding his shoulders. His face had dirt streaks and his eye was the color of the planet Mars, reddish and sore. “So you like the ambience of firelight?” She deliberately chose the word ‘ambience’ rather than the one that came to mind—romance. Taz already looked spooked, though she didn’t know why.

He couldn’t be worried what she thought of this place, could he? Her confident, fuck-the-world Taz? He was so rude and crude, but also so sure of himself, like the bedrock that built their coastline.

An Elizabethan style sideboard had handsome brass candlesticks with pink candles in them. Pink seemed incongruous. Again, shouldn’t they be black or red? Something macho? As if reading her thoughts, Taz’s lips quirked. “Women like the pink. They are also unexpected, which is disarming.”

“Ah. Crafty devil.”

He watched her, his eyes sharpening to something that looked almost…predatory. A shiver ran down her back. She had the strangest impression that now she was here in this mysterious room that he didn’t want to let her out.

That he wanted to keep her here, trap her here and do with her things that would suit heavy silk brocade wallpaper and the pendulous Fortuny chandelier sitting over a marble dining table.

She swallowed audibly.

Taz stepped into the room and shut the door quietly behind him.

“You’re not afraid,” he said. “You should be.”

She stood her ground, sensing that he was testing her for some reason. If she backed away, if she showed her nerves, he’d be back to coddling her again, the way he had right after she’d gotten out of the hospital.

And she didn’t want that. Not anymore. At first he’d been her protector, her guardian, and she hadn’t let herself see him as sexual for a long time. He’d held her when she would wake up disorientated and break into hot, silent tears.

He’d been with her through her worst.

But she wasn’t so broken anymore. Every day she got stronger. She’d made a date with Dharma to visit the local spa for a mani and pedi—just as if she hadn’t stopped visiting for months. Somehow she was going to get in her car and go and if she was keyed up, she’d still make herself stay and enjoy it, damn it.

“I went to the corner store,” she said, holding Taz’s challenging gaze. She could feel that under his show of intimidation some part of him ached for her, woman for his man. Was she ready for that?

His eyes widened. “You drove out there by yourself? Jenny, you should have waited until I was home! I would have got anything you needed.”

“Yes, you would. Everything except a backbone, Taz,” she said, lifting her chin. “It was time. I was scared. I did forget half the things I meant to pick up. But I will go again, and I’ll do it alone.”

His eyes softened, then heated. With pride, in her.

Jenny gestured around the room. “It’s like a Victorian brothel.”

Taz nodded, face contemplative now as he looked around. She preferred it to the tension.

“I feel like I’m in a fairy tale, like I only found this room now because I was ready to find it.”

His gaze sharpened on hers. “Jenny, I have tied up both men and women here. I like to do dark, dirty things to them. But what I want most of all is to do them to you.”

Jenny blinked.

And, okay, Taz inwardly winced. Did he have to be so goddamned blatant about what he wanted from her?

As soon as he’d seen her in this room, he’d stopped denying that all along he’d hungered for her here…in chains…and under his command.

Jenny touched the beaded trim on a lamp, making it tinkle, the soft sound somehow suggestive, almost flirtatious. But it couldn’t be. She’d run from him any moment. “You do realize that this is your secret garden?”

“Garden?” He frowned. “I don’t have any flowers in here.”

“Um, yes, that is an oversight. But you’re missing the point. My garden isn’t just a physical place, it’s where my heart is. I pour my bad days into the soil. I’ve bled there, and I’ve…let myself be broken there.” Her voice hitched then she swallowed and lifted her chin again. “You have to let go of the past to heal and part of that is grief.”

He went to her, but she held up a hand. “No. No more coddling, Taz. What I meant is, this is your place to go after a bad day, isn’t it? It’s your place to feel safe and passionate. Your place to celebrate your sexuality instead of being made to feel shame for it.”

Oh, Christ.

Why had he ever thought her a simple, defenseless woman? She saw too much.

To the heart of him.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t feel ashamed. Not anymore.”

She smiled, radiant as one of her sunflowers in August. “No, and that’s the point. I use my garden to heal. And that’s what you’ve done here. This isn’t a dirty place, it’s beautiful, full of life. Now I see why the rest of your house is so empty. It’s not where you live.” She ran a finger over the side table. It came up grimy. “But you haven’t been here for months, have you?”

He shook his head. “There’s been no one else since the night in the hospital. Do you think I could think about sex when you wake up screaming?”

She held his gaze. “You needed to heal me like you healed yourself, but you didn’t know how. Obviously the same method you used wouldn’t work for me.”

“Uh, no.” Was he blushing?

Dangerous, she was dangerous because he’d never be the same, not since he’d held her in the mud of her garden, listening to her heart break one shovel of dirt at a time, not since he’d led her into this place, his secret heart.

“Will you be with me here?” He felt like he’d waited forever to ask her, forever to have her here.

She nodded. Jenny Ann Green wanted him, for who he was. “Yes…but Taz? What’s that weird smell?”

“It’s, um, the other half of my secret.”

And he opened the large wardrobe cabinet, watching her face as he revealed what was inside.

Jenny stared, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. “You paint? Wow, you paint a lot.” The smell was turpentine and oil. She saw scattered color-smeared tubes, a palette tray with dried paint, a knife and brushes and paper towels.

Then she saw the canvases hidden in the bottom portion of the wardrobe.

What he painted! She couldn’t stop herself from blushing as she caught a hint of what he liked to paint, but she was going to see Taz for who he was, damn it. She was through adoring him from a distance. She wanted to know him. “May I?”

“Ah…sure.”

Now he looked uncertain of himself. A little like how he’d been in the shoe store as she had looked at shoe after shoe. Adorable.

It helped to think about that and not about the painting of a beautiful brunette woman looking over her shoulder enticingly at Taz. Her hands and feet were tied to the scarlet tufted bench Jenny had glimpsed at the end of the bed in this room, leaving her sex open to the viewer of the painting. One heavy breast was revealed and her rear end was a suggestive pink, as if she’d just been spanked.

And her eyes… Her eyes were the same moss green as Jenny’s.

“You painted me in here?”

Taz closed his eyes and sagged against the door. “Yes,” he whispered.

“But…”

His eyes snapped open, gleaming, animalistic. “You think I could tell you how I felt, how I wanted you? I’ve been painting you for months. And before I did that, I had women here who looked like you. I’m surprised you never noticed.”

Jenny’s eyes rounded. Oh, God. She had, just not consciously. But when she thought back to those last days before her attack, she’d seen him only with brunettes.

“I couldn’t get you out of my head. I couldn’t go near you.” He laughed, an edge of frustration. “Even a bastard like me doesn’t want to hurt the innocent.”

Jenny wetted her lips. She knew she had to handle him carefully. Because her protector was wounded too, had been wounded a long time. “I’m not innocent anymore.”

“You are.” Pain twisted like a lightning strike across his face. “It was enough at first just to take care of you. To know you hurt less every day, that you would heal, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop thinking of you here with me.”

Jenny reached for another painting. It was her on the bed, scarlet silk wrapped around her wrists and ankles, her legs spread lewdly even as her eyes were shining. He’d captured shyness and eroticism in the same work.

As she went through the paintings she found sketches of herself sleeping naked in her garden, her hair tangled as if from a man’s hands. In all of them she looked whole, healed, utterly female.

Throat aching, she let the paintings fall back into their hiding place.

Taz wasn’t looking at her, his gaze on the floor. “Just go if you’re going to. I won’t try to stop you.”

Jenny frowned. Then made herself go to him. “Why would I go?”

His gaze snapped to hers. “You think I don’t know those are just fantasies?”

Courage. She was going to have to find her courage if she wanted Taz for her own. She held his gaze. “What if they’re my fantasies too?”

Taz swallowed. Pain, confusion… Yearning.

“They couldn’t be.”

“Why not?”

His head fell back. “Because I’m close to you now. Close, do you understand me, Jenny? And I’ve never been close to anyone, not in all my life.”

Tears pricked her eyes. “I do understand. I feel the same way about you.” She squeezed his hands. In a hushed voice she asked, “What if my being here with you would only make us closer?”

Heat flared in his eyes like a match igniting. His nostrils flared and on a primitive level she felt as if he were taking in her scent, taking in her readiness, her want of him.

“Yes, Taz.”

“I’d be afraid of…scaring you.”

“You’ve never done that. You’ve always taken care of me.” She looked into his eyes, willing him to believe. “In all these months, I’ve learned to trust you. You’ve picked up the pieces, held me when I vomited, cooked for me when I thought I wasn’t hungry, taken me shoe shopping and helped me take a risk on a puppy.”

Taz swallowed, looking utterly caught by her.

“I trust you. You would have to lead me because I don’t know my way in this world, but I want to try. I want to be the woman I see in your paintings.”

Chapter Twelve

Jenny moved restlessly in his arms.

Taz stiffened, pulling her close. He knew what was happening.

She was having the nightmare again. Soon she’d leave his bed and go out to the garden, trying to bury her pain working there, her subconscious looking for the place she would feel safest.

He sat up, running a hand through his hair. They’d only managed a couple of hours of sleep. He ached from fatigue. Worse, he felt lost. How could he help her? How could he finally kill her ghosts so she’d be free?

When her eyes snapped open he jumped. Her face was impassive, her eyes wide. Seeing and yet not seeing.

She moved to get out of his bed.

He couldn’t have it. He couldn’t watch her go through this anymore. It was tearing away parts of him, exposing a wound he’d thought long closed.

She had to stop hurting so he could stop hurting.

They’d decided they wouldn’t use his playroom or do anything kinky until they’d caught up on their sleep, but what he had in mind couldn’t be put off for a better time. “There is no better time,” he muttered.

Not as long as his Jenny still suffered.

Somehow he had to free her.

His eyes widened as he remembered what she’d told him she remembered of her attack. Shadows… More than one man…

He reached for his phone even as he looped a possessive arm around Jenny, keeping her from leaving his protection.

* * * *

Zane stared at Taz in disbelief. His sea green eyes were bloodshot. He had to be as exhausted as Taz, but he’d come when Taz had called him.

“You want me to what?”

“Hold Jenny while I kiss her. It’s not that hard a concept,” Taz growled. He’d explained himself twice. He wasn’t doing it a third time.

“Taz, it’s three in the morning.”

“So you said. Twice. Just do what I told you to do, rook. Come on, I know you like her. This is your chance to be a hero and help her from these nightmares.”

“Whoa. You’re in love with her,” Zane said.

And Taz had…nothing. He couldn’t automatically and sarcastically put the rookie in his place because the truth was that he’d been in love with Jenny Ann Green for a long time.

He hadn’t been man enough to let himself see it.

“She was attacked by three men.” Taz’s voice broke. This was so fucking hard to talk about. But he had to do it. For Jenny. “I want to eclipse that experience, give her subconscious something else to think about.”

They were in Jenny’s garden. She was digging, her blank concentration a little spooky. She might as well have been alone in her own world.

Zane looked at her and anguish twisted his face. “I don’t know if I can do it. She looks…”

“You’ll be helping her,” Taz pushed. “She doesn’t want to be like this anymore.”

Reluctantly Zane knelt behind Jenny. After a moment, he put tentative hands on her shoulders.

Jenny acted like she didn’t even feel the gesture, continuing to dig.

“If she doesn’t like this, I’m stopping,” Zane growled.

Taz knelt in front of Jenny and as he had so many times before, he spoke softly to her. “Jenny. Look at me, baby.”

It took a while but finally a slight frown furrowed her brow. Her hazy eyes focused on Taz’s face. Before she could speak, he pressed his lips hotly to hers, putting everything of himself into the kiss.

At first her lips were cool, her touch as blank as her expression, but his fire ignited hers and her hands were in his hair and she moaned as his tongue penetrated her mouth, claiming her.

She was pressing herself against him when Taz felt her abruptly stiffen.

She’d felt Zane’s light touch on her shoulders.

She broke away, gasping for breath. Taz saw the same confusion and fear…read her dejection at being here again in her garden.

No, she hadn’t healed. Not yet.

But maybe tonight he could finally find a way to help her.

“It’s Zane,” Taz told her.

“Zane?” Jenny looked over her shoulder at Zane, who was busy blushing again as if he’d never seen a couple share a passionate kiss.

“Yeah, um, hi, Jen,” he said.

“Uh, hi.” Jenny stared at him for a moment then turned to Taz. “Why is he out here?”

“Because I asked him.”

She made a growling sound and Taz found himself grinning. She lit him up. She could do that, break him one minute and light him up the next.

“Jen, I figure if he’s there while I touch you, it might bring some things back.”

Jenny paled.

Taz swallowed, rubbing his chest. He hurt there, a hollow, unending ache. God, he couldn’t take this anymore. This had to work. “Your mind won’t let it go. I don’t know what else to do anymore, Jen, but try a similar but very different situation. Yes, we’ll be here, two men, but we’d die before we’d ever hurt you. And you have to give your consent. You have to give yourself.”

He wanted to compel her, wished somehow that along with his experience at persuasion he somehow had magical powers because he would use them without hesitation to heal her.

“When I…ran away from home, I had some hang-ups.” He swallowed, not sure he could go here, face this. “I had a lot of angry user sex. I punished the people who wanted to lie down with me. You think I’m a jerk now? I found people’s weaknesses and I was ruthless, tearing them down, making them feel shitty just because they found me hot.”

Jen looked at him, simply looked, accepted, and another part of Taz’s dark history fell away like a shedding iceberg.

“Yeah, I… I met another dominant and he was ruthless. He challenged me to submit to him and he did everything to me that I’d prided myself on doing to others.” Taz swallowed. “And it hurt, Jen. It wasn’t funny, it sure as fuck wasn’t sexy. But he helped me see myself. I know I still have problems with women. But I’m gonna work on that for you so can you try this with us tonight? Because it breaks me to see you like this and I just want to help you heal.” He squeezed his eyes shut, afraid of what she’d see there. “Please, Jen,” he asked very softly.

“Okay.”

His eyes snapped open and he felt the chasm open between them. Did he really know what he was doing? He had only the strength of purpose he’d honed as a dominant. It was scary, where he was taking her, but he’d be with her every step of the way.

He kissed her again, using his mouth to try to give her comfort, to burn away the layers and get to her. She was stiff and cold but when he touched her, over and over, gentle as water lapping the beach, she began to warm for him again. She clutched his shoulders, losing herself.

She loves me. Christ, she loves me.

Knowing that he held a vulnerable woman in his arms made him shake. He was scared. If he hurt her, he’d feel it. He’d lay himself open and bleed.

Her gown-covered breasts brushed against his bare chest and he groaned. For him, just that, her kiss, the brush of her body, and he was ready to have her. He burned to have her and knew that the dark part of himself was also getting off on the way that Zane was breathing harshly as he watched Taz pleasuring Jenny. The younger man’s cheeks were flushed, his eyes wide and dilated. Taz had the funny thought that maybe Jenny wasn’t the only inexperienced one here in her garden tonight. Could Zane actually be…a virgin?

A second later he shoved aside the insane thought. Nah. He was just so celibate it was no wonder that Jenny’s innocent fire aroused him. The way she went from stiff shyness to ardor. The way she grasped Taz’s cheeks in her hands and forced him to give her more of his kisses.

He caressed her mouth with his, taking forever to savor, to lick and curl his tongue with hers, to tease her into melting submission.

When he put his hand on her breast, she jumped as if she remembered they weren’t safely alone, that Zane was there, his hands tense on her shoulders. As if he couldn’t stop himself, Zane buried his face in Jenny’s long, tangled hair, inhaling her lush female scent.

Zane’s arousal only fired Taz. This was his beautiful woman. His to heal, to protect, and in this moment to enjoy her flowering like one of her wild roses.

On a primitive level, he also liked showing her off.

Mine. Look at what’s mine. And you only touch her if I allow it, so eat your fucking heart out.

He’d known his plan was insane, known he was sleep deprived, desperate… But somehow the insanity was working. Jenny breathed out a sigh as his mouth found her breast through her gown, sucking strongly while he kneaded the other one. She trembled, her body held upright only by the two men captivated by her, servicing her.

Taz had always seen sex as a golden ribbon, a flow of energy that could move from one person into another. Sometimes that flow could be interrupted so that it was choppy, unsatisfying, and sometimes it moved like a storm overtaking the land, merciless, taking everything in its path.

This was the stormy kind of flow, catching him and Zane and Jenny so they moved together like survivors of a shipwreck, alive, desperate to touch.

Hands brushed over Taz’s where he was squeezing Jenny’s breasts. Zane. He wanted to touch, couldn’t hold back.

Taz dragged his hands down to Jenny’s hips, testing them under his grip, and suddenly he was impatient that she was clothed at all.

“Jen… Take off your gown.”

Jenny’s eyes widened as she absorbed the situation. Zane’s hands on her, Taz’s eyes heavy with suggestion, Jenny crushed between them, wild. She bit her lip then gave a hesitant nod.

He reached down and lifted the gown, pulling it free, revealing her pale, vulnerable body.

Vulnerable. Why had he never seen a woman that way?

Zane groaned, putting his open mouth against Jenny’s neck.

Jenny gasped, her head falling back, her back arching so that Zane could play with her nipples. He wasn’t being gentle, too far gone. He left pinkish marks on her neck from whisker burn.

Dark arousal curled in the base of Taz’s spine. He loved this, watching Zane and Jenny and being the one in control.

For this moment, they belonged to him.

His hands slid down Jenny’s thighs, spreading them. She leaned against Zane, her dazed eyes and dewy, well-kissed mouth.

She looked like a woman pleasured by two men, not a woman who had ever been hurt by more than one man. Would she remember this the next time those shadows chased her? He could only feel that the physical, the touch of hands and mouths and need would do what all the talk, all the trying had never done.

Heal her.

“Watch me make you come, Jenny,” Taz commanded.

He spread her and began to stroke her, merciless, experienced. He knew she liked to be forced to the edge, liked to be made to submit.

“Oh, God,” Zane muttered and he reached down as if he couldn’t stop himself, brushing his fingers against Jenny’s slick heat. She was succulent, glistening.

Jenny shuddered, pressing back against Zane. Her hand covered his as if she was loving this, two men pleasuring her, unscripted, slightly dangerous.

“Come, Jenny,” Zane whispered. “Oh, Christ, come and let me watch you.”

Her body rippled like a dancer moving under their touch. Two sets of hands ministered to her, stirring her—

She climaxed, her body undulating. A low, hoarse sound broke the quiet of the night.

Taz felt awe move through him, clench his chest and muscles until he was weak, staring into the radiance of Jenny’s face.

Zane pushed aside her tangled, damp hair and kissed the side of her face fervently. “I’ve never… Thank you, Jenny. God, you are the most beautiful…”

Jenny colored, her shyness returning, but her gaze went to Taz, sharpened, as if checking him out to make sure he was all right.

His throat tightened.

Worried. For him.

“Do you want more?” he asked her.

She nodded, a tiny smile on her lips. He’d pleased her and she knew damn well that whatever he had in mind would only please her more.

“What about you, Zane?” There was an edge to his voice, one he couldn’t help. Command. Direction. Dominance. He was the alpha male here.

Zane met Taz’s gaze despite his blush. “I…don’t want to leave.”

Taz nodded. “Not until I’ve satisfied you.”

Zane’s eyes flashed to Taz’s, widening.

“Come here, Zane,” Taz demanded. “I want to thank you for the extra set of hands tonight.” He knew that his tone made it clear, not unkindly, that that was how he saw Zane.

“Jen?” Taz raised an eyebrow, watching his girl.

She’d pulled on her nightgown again, but that was all right. He knew how bashful she was. She was not like the women he’d shared in the past, ready to take any cock. She was his only.

He’d never owned a woman before, not as a master. He knew Jenny would probably baulk at the way he phrased it, but it gave him a secret sense of satisfaction. He wouldn’t spell it out to Jenny—not now—but sometime in the future when she was confident in his love, when he’d mastered her many times, he’d whisper to her about how he saw her, enslaved as soon as he touched her, willingly, warmly.

His.

“What are you going to do?” she asked and he saw curiosity in her gaze but no jealousy. The little vixen found it hot, two men.

“Just a little fooling around. Kind of like the calendar,” he said, wanting to clearly reassure her that he wasn’t reverting to his fuck-of-the-night days.

Jenny would learn he was a hot, insatiable man. Soon he’d teach her how much she’d enjoy being spread out on his tufted spanking bench. How she’d learn to love her hands locked above her head in padded cuffs, her legs spread for him whenever he came home and needed her very female body.

Jenny Ann Green was going to learn to please her man and, in doing so, please the hell out of herself.

He cupped the back of Zane’s neck and led him to the hot tub. Jenny followed, arms wrapped around herself. Taz directed Zane to sit on the same lounger where he’d pleasured Jenny.

“Are you going to do dirty things to him?” Jenny asked.

Taz laughed at the anticipation in her voice.

Zane looked nervous, but when Taz ran a fingernail down the other man’s spine, he shuddered. “Careful. I’ve never—”

“Not with anyone?” Taz took a handful of hair then kissed Zane erotically for Jenny’s benefit. And, he admitted, Zane wasn’t so bad. If he was still the bad boy he’d been, he’d do him.

Now he was hyper aware of Jenny watching, of the way her breathing had picked up.

“You want to see him without his shirt? I agree.” In Zane’s ear, Taz muttered. “Perform for her, pretty boy. She’s getting so hot watching us. Can you see it?”

Zane ripped off his T-shirt. His gaze was glued to Jenny, who was shifting restlessly.

“Jenny, watch me,” Zane whispered. “Baby… You are so beautiful. You turn me on when you watch us.”

“And she’s mine.” Taz jerked Zane by the hair, making his point. “Say it.”

Zane’s lips twisted. “She’s yours, Taz. Christ, she’s been yours for months.”

Taz felt like laughing again. Well, Zane had a backbone. “Shut up. You’ve got your own problems.”

He unzipped Zane’s fly and Zane’s long, elegant cock fell out. Taz saw Jenny’s eyes grow huge, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening. He knew he was bringing a fantasy to life for her, two gorgeous, sweaty firemen together.

He grasped Zane’s cock firmly, and Zane’s back arched in reflex. His hands fisted as if to keep himself from trying to direct Taz’s actions.

“Aren’t you a good boy?” Taz murmured.

“Fuck you,” Zane gasped. “Uh!”

Taz squeezed him harder in retaliation, but Zane lived for it.

“Come here, Jen,” Taz purred. His eyes were heavy lidded as he watched his innocent woman creep tentatively closer, her gaze glued to his hands on Zane. Oh, she liked it. She would never have admitted it, good girl that she was, but she probably had wondered about what Taz had done to all the people he’d spent the night with. Now he was giving her a look-see.

“Can you lose the gown, baby?”

She clutched it so he let her think about it. Then her spine straightened and she flung it off defiantly.

Both he and Zane stared, hungry.

“I want your mouth on her,” Taz growled. “I want you to please her.”

Zane made a growling sound. Jenny jumped when he reached out and jerked her forward, nuzzling her sex with his lips like he was starving for the taste of woman.

Taz released him. “You’ll come without anyone’s hand on you,” he said, implanting the command.

Zane didn’t seem to hear. His hands were digging into Jenny’s hips as he devoured her. A little clumsy on technique, but so hot it didn’t fucking matter. Jenny was moaning, her eyelashes quivering against her cheeks, her throat a beautiful arch.

Taz stood behind her, deliberately putting his hands on her shoulders.

Two men. Let her feel it. Let her feel how we worship her…

Jenny was burning up. She’d never imagined she’d want this, two men. But Taz had pulled the curtain away from a yearning she’d never acknowledged—she didn’t just want the bad boy, she wanted to live some of his experiences.

“I wish we were in my playroom now, Jenny. I wish it were months and months from now and you were used to all my dark, dirty ideas,” Taz whispered directly in her ear. He began to tease her breasts and she arched instinctively into his touch. Below, Zane’s whiskers abraded the sides of her open thighs deliciously as he fed from her, tasting, sampling, holding her still for the lash of his tongue.

Oh, God…

“I’d have you both, my two innocents. Zane would be tied to the spanking bench, his ass red from my welts.”

Jenny’s breathing exploded from her chest.

“And Zane would go down on you while I fucked him from behind.”

Just like that, with Taz’s words, with his finger circling her backside she was…coming…

Epilogue

Taz woke up curled on the lavish bed in his playroom.

He was not alone.

Jenny was with him, her long hair rippling down his body.

And Jet was sleeping on Taz’s feet. One of his ankles felt dead from the weight.

In the three weeks since the threesome they’d experimented with to try to deal with Jenny’s demons, she’d had only one incident of sleepwalking. And that had been after she’d pushed herself at work and been exhausted. Taz intended to make sure that didn’t happen again anytime soon.

Turned out that healing his woman was a sweet thing.

She nuzzled closer to him and he glimpsed her ass, still pink from the spanking he’d given her the night before. The air was redolent of scented candles, firelight, oil paint and Jenny.

Jenny sat up, her breasts a plump weight against his chest. “What are you thinking?” she asked in her typical hoarse morning voice. Jenny didn’t sound like her normal self until she’d had a couple of mugs of coffee, but he liked the gritty morning-after sound.

He was planning to be the only man who ever heard it. He was working up to asking her to move in to his house. He didn’t care what she did with hers, sold it, kept it, whatever. He just wanted it clearly understood that she slept with him now. And maybe after they’d lived together a couple of weeks he’d be ready to ask her to marry him.

He wasn’t whipped. He wasn’t going to want insta-kids or anything. And he was still, reassuringly, an asshole sometimes.

But he loved Jenny so much he was gut sick with it.

He was crazy for her hair, her laughter, her tits, her smile, the way she came, the way she slept in his arms with her little piggy grunts…

“Don’t you know never to ask a man what he’s thinking?” Taz teased. “It’s usually with his dick.”

She raised her brows. “You can’t always think about sex.”

“Nah. Occasionally I think about food. And sports. But mainly it’s all T and A.”

“Well, I was wondering how Zane’s smoke jumping season is going,” Jenny said.

“Mmmm, I’m sure the rook will do okay.” Taz lifted a shoulder. He figured that the younger man had lit out right after their night together because he didn’t want to feel awkward around Jenny and Taz. Man, Zane was shy with a capital ‘S’.

Taz wouldn’t have felt awkward, of course, but Jenny might have so he was grateful that Zane had taken off. Everything was still new with this relationship thing and he still screwed up and said something that pissed Jenny off and she still needed him to watch over her—though he had to be real careful to keep that to himself since that was one of the things that pissed her off.

“Who’s going to take that great big beast of yours for a walk?” he asked her, wondering, if he walked their puppy, if she’d make him a salsa omelet. A lot of good days started with one of Jenny’s omelets. It had been a tradition with them, right from the start. Sun is rising, and today is going to be better than yesterday.

Grinning, Jenny slipped her hand under the sheet and over his chest and down his six pack and—whoa—wrapped her hand around him.

“My great big beast, huh? I don’t know, feel like walking?”

Coming Soon from Totally Bound Publishing:

Loving You

Jan Irving

Released 11th April 2014

Excerpt

Chapter One

The rumors are true—Kealton James works out in the nude.

Gwendolyn Thompson shifted deeper into a discreet pocket created by the ship’s bulkhead. Fortunately, a large tropical plant also served to screen her generous curves from view.

And quite a view it was. Despite the late hour—the designated sleep time—Kealton was running through katas, whirling and striking as though he faced a deadly opponent, his naked body oiled with fresh sweat. It was nothing like the easy-going martial arts instruction he typically offered passengers aboard the Loving Kindness cruise ship as it navigated a leisurely path between planets.

Kealton was mesmerizing, his shoulder-length blond hair caught back in a silver clip snapping against his body as he kicked out one muscled leg. He whirled, leaping high, his indigo blue eyes seeming to hold hers for a heart-stopping moment. But it couldn’t be. If he knew she was here spying on him, surely he would stop, demand that she leave. It wasn’t as though they were friends—not exactly. She wasn’t sure what they were. It was as though, whenever she was around him, she lost her balance, her sea legs. She wanted to get closer to him as much as she wanted to avoid him.

He swung, sinewy back to her, each muscle articulated like a lean tiger about to spring. He moved as gracefully as the kelp on Seta III, undulating in the seabed. His hips, the backs of his thighs, his tight ass.

Gwen rubbed her palms against her own plumper thighs, perspiration breaking out on her upper lip. Just that morning they’d been sniping at each other in the cafeteria, but now she wanted to be underneath him, wanted all that sweaty ferocity inside her, pleasing her.

It made her feel helpless to be so…out of control, but he had the power to make her feel that way.

She’d watched Kealton covertly for months, long enough now to recognize some of the stances of his martial arts routine. Grasshopper, shifting into leopard, legs spread, then up to one side for snake. Feel the rise of dragon. Strike like tiger, at last coming to rest with xiau hung.

He hung his head, big chest moving rapidly as he reached up and yanked the clip from his hair so it tangled around his damp skin in ringlets. His nipples were beaded, surrounded by a chest so slick it looked as though it had been oiled by an appreciative hand. He ran fingers over his pectorals and down his abdomen, stopping only when he’d also touched his cock.

Gwen couldn’t keep a small sound from escaping. Shock? Want? She wasn’t sure. The man had absolutely no shame. He obviously liked to touch himself freely, and even though she knew he believed he was alone, it was almost as if he was performing for her, showing her where he wanted her to touch him.

When Kealton gave a mocking bow in her direction, Gwen’s heart leaped into her throat. Caught!

But as her tight shoulders fell, she knew that of course he had seen her. In the time she’d known this reserved man, he’d been like one of his ancient katana swords in the midst of their easy-going crew—sharp and lethal. He stood apart, and because of her past, Gwen had her suspicions about his personal history. So far she’d made little headway in confirming it, despite using some of her mother’s old contacts in the Alliance military.

According to his personnel file, before he’d come aboard the Loving Kindness, Kealton had worked on two other cruise ships. But it didn’t jive with the man who had been so aloof and watchful when he had first come aboard.

Gwen stepped from her hiding place, trying to keep her eyes on his face and not on his toned lower body and heavy cock. He was still stroking it, and it hardened, so she flushed, but she didn’t look away.

Damn him, he was trying to provoke her.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“You weren’t intruding,” he said, his voice whisper-soft as a blade cutting through air. As always it made a strange sensation curl low in her spine, as if he’d grazed a finger over her backbone.

She stared into his dark eyes. He said nothing, waiting, so she was aware of her pulse beating a nervous tattoo in her ears. It occurred to her that when they’d argued, she’d been as much at fault as he was. She knew it was because she was afraid that if she gave herself a moment to simply look at the man, she’d invite him back to her cabin, break her own rules about getting involved with fellow crew members.

Kealton was deep waters. A smart woman kept her distance or risked being pulled under.

She cleared her throat. “I came to discuss the next rotation of duties, but when I opened the door to your, uh—”

“Dojo. I call this my dojo.”

She blinked. Kealton was nothing like Mr Wallington, their previous martial arts instructor. That former employee had never bothered to give a name to the small studio covered with woven mats—but neither had he haunted her thoughts the way enigmatic Kealton did. “Right. You were”—she held his look with an effort—“busy, and I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

“More like when you walked in and found me doing katas in the nude, it was too late to politely retreat to safer waters,” he said, and his lips quirked. He moved closer, put one lean arm against the wall so that she could smell the hot musk from his workout, see a line of sweat running down his chest. “Isn’t this the time you usually start clawing at me? Let’s see, at breakfast rotation it was over my lack of support for the finger painting contest running on D Deck this week.”

“Come on. You know it wasn’t finger painting.” Her lips quirked as well. “It was painting murals with acrylics.”

“Right.”

“It’s always good when the crew participate.”

“I wasn’t interested. But I think we both know the real reason you like to give me a hard time.”

“You scare me.”

“I scare you.”

Gwen rubbed her forehead. “You’re an unusual man,” she said. “You don’t fit in with the rest of the crew.”

“And as our perky cruise director, it’s your job to make sure everyone is having a good time,” Kealton said. “Fitting in.”

“Shouldn’t you…? Okay, I give up. Can I get you a towel or something?” Gwen asked. The only way she could stop sneaking a look at his heavy erection was if it was covered up. Maybe.

“Distracted?”

“Yes.” Gwen wanted to touch him, to feel that coat of moisture on hard, smooth skin. The man didn’t look like he’d done a bout of martial arts, but more like a bout of sweaty sex. Sex done the right way, so it was hard, long, clawing-someone’s-back, coming-more-than-once sex.

Not that she’d know about that, since she’d never had it. But she had a feeling Kealton knew all about how to give it to a woman.

Kealton smiled, and a dimple appeared in his left cheek. “Good. I was hoping you’d notice.”

Gwen felt her eyes widen as he reached over and picked up what looked like a black rectangle of fabric. It turned out to be a loincloth.

“Well, that’s just worse,” Gwen said wryly. “It makes you look even more, um…” He was still beautifully erect, like a secret, erotic statue she might look at alone in her room, his cock outlined by the silk. Now she couldn’t take her eyes off him. What would he do if she dropped to her knees and put her lips against him, mouthing him through the cloth? Would his taste come through the material? Would his hands grip her head as he gasped while she pleasured him? Would he order her to take all of him, to suck him until he came deep in her mouth?

It looked like she’d have another sleepless night, wondering about him, wondering what it would be like to lie with him. Terrific.

“Gwen, come back to my cabin. Now,” Kealton ordered. He had somehow managed to corner her into her former hiding place, both arms raised so that she was surrounded by him. His position put his entire body on full display, including his armpit hair.

He was not androgynous, like most of the men she knew. She was used to smooth skin, gentle muscles generated by body sculpting. Kealton didn’t body sculpt. He sweated—completely, barbarically male. “I’m not one of the females you connect with. I didn’t come here for sex.” Gwen strove for her usual coolly dismissive tone when handling Kealton—which was like handling something that might explode before she got to a safe distance.

His response to her tone was a lowered brow and a tightened jaw—she also got under his skin.

Satisfaction jabbed her. She could move him. She could touch him as he touched her. “I need to know if you can do an extra rotation of pottery since you volunteered to teach it. Mr Jansen’s taking some time off, so we’re short activities for our passengers. Remember, participation?”

“Participation,” he scoffed. “That’s really why you’re here late in the evening rotation, all alone with me?”

An unexpected laugh bubbled up. “I did hear stories from the crew that you do your routines in the nude late at night,” she confessed.

He raised a brow, folding his arms, even more appealing with amusement lighting his expression.

Careful, she told herself. The longer they were alone, the harder it was to shove away awareness of the uneasy cocktail brewing between them. Even on a purely physical level, they did not mesh. He was sleek, hard-bodied. She was soft, frankly a little chubby because of her love of moonbeam pastries every morning with her coffee. She could body sculpt, but she was usually so busy with her job that she found the fussy treatments at the ship’s spa annoying.

In her suit she looked professional and, all right, perky, as he’d called her more than once, but she knew she projected the reassuring and bright presence that passengers could relate to on a romantic cruise through the stars. It didn’t matter that it was a façade. At least it hadn’t until she’d met Kealton. He took swipes at her, as if trying to get to the real woman under the calm mask. It was damned annoying because he could have other women instead of digging at her, and she wished he’d leave her alone.

Besides, she was nothing like the lean and dangerous-looking women he sometimes dragged to his cabin with all the finesse of a caveman. Gwen had taken note that these women didn’t leave his rooms for at least two days, and when they emerged, they walked around with a dazed expression on their face.

Just what was it like lying under this man for two days? What did he do to a woman? Gwen’s stomach muscles tightened, and her body felt slick, as if she were about to take Kealton’s thick erection

“You’re not my type,” she said, taking up his gauntlet.

“You mean like that boring stockbroker six rotations ago?” Kealton was staring at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “Did he stop talking about himself long enough to make you come? I’ve wondered.”

“Spying on me?” Gwen put her fists on her hips. “Nice.”

“No more than you do with me. You’re aware of everyone I’ve slept with since I came aboard this ship, aren’t you, kitten?” Kealton reached out and put gentle fingers on the side of Gwen’s neck where her pulse was thundering, making his point. “Because of what’s between us. Because we need to fuck each other.”

“You could learn something from the men I date. They’re gentlemen. They’re not crude.” Kealton’s touch seared her skin. She shoved aside his hand, aware that even the color of their skin contrasted—hers a warm cocoa while his was fair.

“You’re Aurellian, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her colony was made up of darker-skinned people.

“I’m from Old Terra,” he said.

“I know. I read your record,” she said. “Old Terra, very different from the rest of the galaxy. All that stuff about celebrating differences.”

He looked amused again. “I got a black eye when I explored differences in cultures for the first time back home,” he admitted. “But it’s not so bad. Some of the colonies are a little too…cloistered for my taste. Don’t you know opposites attract?”

She rolled her eyes at him, and he laughed, but then his voice deepened. “Come on. You and me? Just picture us in your canopy bed together, my paler body covering yours, your legs wrapped around me…”

“How did you know I have a canopied bed?” She was blushing, but she lifted her brows.

“I asked Jasmine, of course,” Kealton said, referring to Gwen’s best friend. “I’m a retired soldier, so I’m a little rough around the edges.” He ran a calloused palm down her bare arm, making her shiver. “I guess none of your gentlemen would tell you they look at you in your tidy suit and imagine making a mess of your hair while they sink balls deep into you.”

And that was her cue to leave. “Sorry I disturbed you.” She pushed him aside, but as she did, one of her bangles got caught in his long hair, and she made the mistake of looking up.

His gaze was hot on her face but with a trace of pain that made her belly knot.

“Gwen, just once take what you really want,” he whispered. His mouth brushed hers delicately, like one of the humming flyers on Midas IV as it sipped nectar.

Damn it. Of course she wanted more. She moaned as she dragged him closer, so that his body crushed hers, crumpling the outfit he’d ridiculed.

He kept up the teasing kisses, treating her like one of the porcelain tea bowls he made in the pottery studio. But she didn’t want him to treat her like something delicate.

Gwen tugged at his hair until he gave a little laugh before he took her mouth in a rough kiss, his whiskers burning her tender skin. Her nails dug into his bare shoulders. He freed her mouth to stare at her before he hefted her against the wall. She slid up, her hair falling around them in a curtain.

“Right now, Gwen. I need to put it in you, and you know you want it.”

Crude. He was so crude, but… His hand slid under her skirt and brushed against her satin underwear. She was hot and creamy, wet against him. She lifted her legs up against his hips so she could feel him deeper.

“I can make you come.” His fingers slid into her folds. She watched him as he touched her, heart pounding in her ears. God, she hadn’t had an orgasm except at her own hand in so long… He was right—she was aching for it.

She shut her eyes, losing herself in the feel of him touching her, invading her. He didn’t ask her permission. He just took as if her body belonged to him, as if it was his to play with.

It shouldn’t turn her on so much, not when she knew he was keeping secrets.

“Wait. We can’t… If you’ve spent the past few years tamely working on cruise ships, I’ll eat one of my elegant outfits.” She swallowed. “More like you’re a member of the special forces, one of the Alliance’s elite.”

He said nothing, and that said everything. So she had been right. He was just like her father.

“Why are you here?”

“If I’m who you think I am, do you think I can tell you that?” he asked.

Her breath stalled in her chest at his response. “I don’t want to get involved with someone…dangerous.” She liked her life safe. He was not safe.

He smacked a fist against the wall.

“Don’t do that. Don’t use what you suspect about me to shut out what’s important. Look at me. Look at us.”

He pulled his loincloth down then took his cock in his hand, moving it so that the tip of his penis brushed against her damp curls.

“No!” Instinctively, she jerked away from the hot, primal feel of him. Too fast. She would come in another moment. He would thrust up into her, and she would shatter for him. She wanted it, needed it, but who was she letting touch her? She scrabbled against the wall.

“God damn it!”

They collapsed in an inelegant tangle on the floor, his larger body underneath hers, as if he’d worked to cushion her at the last moment.

Panting, she sat up, and his naked cock prodded between her legs, where she was slick, her panties damp against her body. She moaned at the thick feel of him against her, her body clenching with the need for satisfaction.

“Gwen.” He gripped her rounded hips, his attention focused on her. He felt… Oh! She couldn’t stop herself from grinding down on him.

“Oh fuck!” he groaned.

Somehow she fell off him, lying beside him in a ball, hurting. She’d been so close…

Finally she managed to use her arms to push herself to her feet, where she swayed. She blinked, feeling drugged. One of her shoes was missing. In the mirror across the room, she saw that her coronet hairstyle was a wild tangle around her face. Her dark eyes were huge and scared. She was so close to release that the movement of standing up was almost enough to make her come.

“What the hell are you doing?” Kealton growled. He looked grumpy.

Well, she was grumpy too!

“I told you, you’re not my type.” It sounded weak and stupid.

“That’s bullshit! We nearly fucked.”

You could hurt me, she thought. You could hurt me.

She found her shoe, the shape of the ordinary accessory feeling alien in her hand, as if she’d never seen one. She dragged her tongue over dry lips, lips that still felt crushed from Kealton’s mouth. She managed to replace the shoe on her fourth try.

She couldn’t help looking at Kealton sprawled naked and hard on a woven mat, his long hair in his blue eyes, his legs open, his cock curved toward his stomach from a thick thatch of lusty blond hair. His hands were fisted against the floor, as if he was forcing himself to keep them off her.

“This isn’t over,” he warned her.

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About the Author

Jan Irving has worked in all kinds of creative fields, from painting silk to making porcelain ceramics, to interior design, but writing was always her passion.

She feels you can’t fully understand characters until you follow their journey through a story world. Many kinds of worlds interest her, fantasy, historical, science fiction and suspense—but all have one thing in common, people finding a way to live together—in the most emotional and erotic fashion possible, of course!

Email: janmairving@gmail.com

Jan loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.totallybound.com.

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Totally Bound Publishing

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Legal Page

Title Page

Book Description

Dedication

Trademarks Acknowledgement

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

New Excerpt

About the Author

Publisher Page