Nauti Temptress (Nauti Girls 1)

“What an abrupt change from a loving home to a cold, emotionless world,” she whispered, her emerald eyes dark with distress, with banked anger at the thought of his father’s cruelty.

And yes, it had been cruelty.

“I was eighteen and working with the FBI as an informant against a particular clique of students I was a part of when John David Bryce was assigned as the director of the bureau office I reported to.” There was something about the fact that he was holding her, his hands stroking her shoulders, his fingertips relishing the feel of her soft flesh, that dimmed some of the fury he usually felt at those early memories.

“What happened?” she asked.

He snorted at the question. “I was the pride of my regional office because of the information I was reporting on a small, select group of students creating their own homeland militia group. I was pulling in information on their parents, political and military figures, their sharing of information and top-secret files. And when John David, or JD as I usually call him, came into the office he felt the need to announce the fact that I was his son. Pride and all that.” He grunted in disgust. “Thirteen years of being ignored by the bastard and suddenly I was his son. When graduation came I dropped out of the program and went my own way for a while. That was when I met Candy.”

The feel of her lips pressing against his shoulder soothed him, and he found he didn’t want to get pissed. He didn’t want that darkness to mar the peace he found with her.

“I missed you, Eve,” he admitted as she lifted her head and stared up at him.

Regret filled him at the memory of the pain he had caused her the week before, the feeling of betrayal he knew she felt. Hell, he didn’t blame her for feeling it.

“I missed you. More than you know, Brogan,” she admitted as his lips lowered, taking a small, lingering kiss before pulling back.

The memory of last night swept over him again. The feel of her coming for him, destroying his senses with their combined pleasure and the heat that had built between them. Even clearer, though, was the memory of her crying out her love for him, and how he’d known in that instant that the emotion that swirled and drew them together was indeed love.

Yet he hadn’t told her he loved her as well.

He’d tried. His lips had parted, the words lying ready on his tongue before instantly shrinking back in response.

As that memory tempted him, as the words waited, once again at the tip of his tongue, he found himself once again unable to utter them.

Why? What could be holding him back?

She stared up at him expectantly, waiting. She wasn’t going to ask, and she wasn’t going to beg for his love. He would give it willingly or she wasn’t going to take it at all.

She wanted more than what he was giving her. It didn’t take an extra or heightened sense of what she was thinking to figure that one out.

She was going to make him say the words, he thought, feeling his throat tighten at the thought of it. He hadn’t said those words in a hell of a lot of years. More years than he often cared to remember. He didn’t even know whether he was aware of how to say them now.

“I missed you a lot,” he tried, brushing his lips against her brow as she continued to stare back at him.

A backbone of pure steel, Timothy had once accused her. As stubborn and determined as the mountains themselves.

And she was at that. But his block against the emotion that he had lived with for so damned long was just as stubborn.

He couldn’t say it. He wanted to, but there was always the chance he could have the girl and protect his heart at the same time.

And that was important.

Eve stared back at him for long moments, feeling a hint of nerves, a bit of uncertainty, but also a great capacity to love that he was still holding inside him like a miser held on to his gold.

She wasn’t satisfied with that now. She wanted the love that he was still holding inside his soul like a captive he refused to release.

She wanted all of him, not just the parts of him that he was willing to give her right now. She wanted the heart he was so protective of, the one she knew belonged to her, yet that he kept just out of reach.

She wasn’t satisfied with just knowing he cared about her. She didn’t want to just sense those emotions held trapped inside him. They weren’t going to do her any good if they weren’t allowed to be free.

She waited.

If she didn’t get the words verbally, even though she could feel them as he stared back at her, then she wasn’t going to accept any of it. She deserved much better. She deserved all of the man she loved, not just an awareness that he could love her if he let his emotions free.

She wasn’t going to let it break her, though.

No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she ached for him or how it would kill her to lose him, she wouldn’t let it break her pride. There was no way to keep it from breaking her heart, but the rest of her emotions were salvageable.