The packs weren’t drug dealers, thugs, or murderers. They were like sentinels without backing. Hard fighting, rough talking, less than respectable, but sentinels all the same. Though they didn’t take anyone’s shit. A few were suspected to have killed; there were quite a few who slipped and smoked, shot up, or snorted their drugs of choice. But they kept to a code that their leaders enforced with unflinching swiftness. Those members knew better than to get caught, because Tigen, Black, and Forest would beat their asses and leave them lying.
Pulling into the parking space in front of her garage, Zoey hit the remote and waited for the door to lift, then eased the car inside. The heavy steel panels rolled back into place, locked down, and left Zoey sitting alone in the dimly lit interior.
She thought it would feel lonely, that the emptiness of her home would close around her. She hadn’t looked forward to that. That wasn’t what she felt, though. The warmth she’d felt while Doogan had filled her life was still there. It wrapped around her; the memory of his touch, the sound of his voice, the excitement he filled her with, warmed her. It didn’t ease the incredibly hollow pain that throbbed inside her.
“Time to figure things out, huh?” she said softly, one hand pressing to her lower stomach.
Of course, the baby wasn’t aware of the world around him or her yet. Still, speaking to the child resting there made her feel not so lonely.
“What are we figuring out?”
Doogan.
Her head jerked to the metal staircase, eyes widening at the sight of Doogan sitting on a wide step, watching her curiously.
He looked tired. He couldn’t have gotten much sleep since he’d left. From the looks of it, not much more than she had.
Stepping from the car and closing the door, she watched warily as he rose and came toward her. That confident swagger, the powerful presence, and the far-too-wicked glint in his eyes had her breath growing heavy, her body softening, the flesh between her thighs moistening.
“What are you doing here?” She sounded like some weak-kneed ninny without the strength to tell him to go to hell.
Wait, she didn’t have the strength to tell him to go to hell. The desire to wasn’t even there.
Still, she eased away from him, watching that wicked gleam in his eyes intensify as she tried to escape to the door of the gym. She made it as far as the front of the car before he stopped her.
“I missed you, witch.” His hands settled at her hips, holding her in place as she felt his erection pressing into her stomach.
“You missed having a fuck toy,” she accused him, still no heat in her voice, no strength.
She was such a pushover where he was concerned.
“A fuck toy,” he murmured, his hands sliding from her hips, beneath the sleeveless top she wore, to the naked skin of her waist. “I think it’s gone far past the toy stage, sweetheart. I think we’re heading into much more dangerous territory.”
Callused, rasping against her flesh, stroking, his fingers sent heated lashes of pleasure racing through her. She could practically feel her senses melting for him. The inner flesh of her pussy was definitely trying to melt for him. Slick and heated, her juices spilled from her, weeping to the swollen lips and engorged clit throbbing for his touch.
“Doogan . . .”
His lips stole whatever she was about to say. They covered hers, his kiss instantly ravenous, his tongue plunging inside and rubbing against hers.
Oh God, she’d missed him.
Wrapping her arms around his neck to hold him to her, Zoey tangled her fingers in his hair, moaning at the exquisite sensations racing through her, sizzling through her senses and wiping everything from her mind but the need for him. A need she couldn’t, wouldn’t fight.
TWENTY
She didn’t know why he was there, and for this moment in time she wouldn’t let herself care. For right now, the need for him, the need to have him touch her, hold her, one more time, was all that mattered.
“God, I missed you, baby,” he breathed out, his voice rough as his head lifted.
His hand slid to her hips again, lifted her, and laid her back along the still-warm hood of the car, his hands going to the snap and zipper of her denim shorts.
“I do have a bed, remember?” She frowned up at him, but her hips lifted, a moan spilling from her as he drew the material down her legs. “This is completely decadent, Doogan.”
His smile was knowing. “No, baby, this is completely tame,” he assured her. “We’ll get to decadent real soon, though.”
Well, at least he was staying around long enough for decadent. She wondered how far from decadent this was in his opinion, though.
“I haven’t forgiven you yet.” There wasn’t a damned thing for her to hold on to. Her fingers curled, reaching above her, finding the rim of the hood and gripping it desperately as he pulled her boots from her feet and dropped them to the cement floor.
“Let’s see if I can convince you to forgive me a little faster.” The dark growl in his voice was the only warning she had before his lips lowered, his tongue swiping through the swollen folds and sending her senses into flames.
Dark, almost black eyes stared up at her as he licked at her, his tongue rolling around her clit, rubbing at it, tormenting the little nub with striking flares of desperate pleasure. And it was so good. So good she could only lift to him, moan and whimper for more. More sensation, more of the whipping, whirling sensations that made her feel him all the way to her ragged soul.
A heated, sucking kiss to her clit had her hips jerking to him. When his head lifted, she was ready to wail in protest.
“Take the fucking shirt off,” he groaned. “Let me see your pretty breasts, Zoey, and those hard, tight little nipples.”
Still watching her, he flicked his tongue over the sensitive nub of her clit, then massaged it with a slow, rolling little move of his tongue.
She all but tore her shirt and bra from her, tossing the material to the floor, uncaring of where it fell. Immediately her fingers gripped her nipples, tightened on them, tugging at them as brutal fingers of overwhelming sensation tore straight to her clit.
“Fuck.” He pulled back, his gaze moving to her clit then to meet her eyes. “Your little clit’s throbbing for me, Zoey. Pushing against my tongue. So eager. It’s so damned eager to cum for me.”
“Then let me cum.” Lifting her hips, her fingers pinching at her nipples, she rode a wave of such intense pleasure she almost lost her breath.
“Not without me, baby.” As he pulled back, one hand gripped the iron-hard length of his cock that he’d already released from his pants.
Thick, heavy veins ran over it, blood pulsing through them in a throbbing rhythm. The plum-shaped head was dark, imposing in its width, and tucking against the weeping center of her body.
“I can’t wait, Zoey.” Hard, callused fingers gripped her thighs. “I can’t wait, baby.”
She licked her lips, fighting to breathe. “Don’t wait, Doogan. Fuck me . . . Oh God, Doogan,” she cried out at the first, hard push inside her gripping depths.
The tissue convulsed, clenched around the intruder, stroking and milking the hard flesh that came to a stop only a bare few inches inside her.
“Fuck. You’re tight,” he snarled, his teeth baring, extreme pleasure tightening his face.
“Take me hard, then,” she demanded, reaching behind her again to hold on to the rim of the hood. “Give me all of you, Doogan. Show me how to fly again. Make me burn . . .”
The groan that tore from his chest came as he drew back, paused, poised at the rippling entrance as his gaze locked with hers.
“Fuck me, Doogan,” she breathed out, her juices spilling from her aching pussy to meet the wide crest of his cock. “Hard . . .”
She needed him, ached for him; she’d been dying without him.
“Hard, baby, just like you want it.”
“Doogan . . .” She tried to scream his name.
Her body bowed, hips arching, her
breath stilling in her throat as he thrust inside her, still not to the hilt, but he wasn’t finished yet.
The next thrust buried him balls deep inside her, pushing past the muscles hugged tight around his shuttling flesh as he groaned her name, the sound of hoarse male pleasure rasping over her senses.
“Have mercy,” he breathed, the hard rasp pushing her higher as he began the rhythmic strokes she knew would send her exploding into rapture.
And it wouldn’t take long. She was climbing, muscles tightening, the spiraling sensations building fast, burning bright as he came over her.
One hand gripped her hip, the other curved around the mound of a breast, his lips covering the hard point of a nipple as he sucked it into his mouth. Firm, deep draws sent fingers of fiery sensation rushing straight to her vagina. The convulsive clench of her inner muscles around each hard thrust inside her dragged a groan from his throat, a cry from hers. His teeth rasped and nibbled at the tight bud; his pelvis scraped across her clit with each thrust as his cock throbbed, the head burying deep. Each stroke inside her, each slamming thrust parted sensitive tissue, caressed it, stoked the sensations burning so bright and hot inside her.
“Doogan, Doogan please,” she cried out as his arms slid beneath her legs, lifting them, pushing her knees back, his hips moving faster, harder.
Completely open to him now, the snug, clenched muscles of her pussy tightened, flexed, and in one blinding second Zoey felt the world explode around her and inside her.
She jerked in his arms, her cries echoing around her, joined by the hard, harsh growl of her name and the feel of his release spilling inside her. Hard, pulsing ejaculations shot his seed to the depths of her pussy, filling her with him and sending her racing into the fiery center of ecstasy.
—
Catching his breath took a while. Long enough that Zoey dozed beneath him, warmed by the lingering heat of the car’s motor against the metal hood and his body. Sprawled beneath him like a sexual sacrifice, all those unruly black curls spilling around her, framing her flushed, sated features.
He wanted to smile at the sight of her, but to allow that one small measure of happiness free too soon could destroy him later, if she decided his baggage was too much, his memories and his mistakes more than she could handle in the coming years. Because once he had his ring on her finger he’d be damned if he’d let her go. And he wasn’t waiting too damned long to put that ring there if she fucked up long enough to agree to it.
Easing back, he grimaced at the excess pleasure raking along the head of his cock as he pulled free of her. Her little protesting whimper assured him that same pleasure had stroked across her senses as well.
“Come on, wildcat,” he whispered, lifting her slight weight in his arms and carrying her up the stairs to the apartment.
She curled against him, her head resting against his shoulder, her arms looped around his neck, and he didn’t miss the fact that she felt as though she’d always belonged there. Right there, against his heart, held in his arms.
Entering her bedroom, he moved to the bed, placing her in the center of it and stretching out beside her. She draped herself across his chest, relaxed, drifting, he knew, in a sensual aftermath he hated to ruin.
Hated to, yet he knew if he didn’t tell her what he needed to, then he never would.
“The night we danced,” he told her softly, pressing her head to his chest when she would have lifted it. “I told you I was married. I married Eli’s sister when she told me she was carrying our child. For six years, I lived like a fucking monk. I took the vows, I kept them. The night I met you nearly broke that resolve, though. I wanted you with a hunger that nearly broke me. And I had no choice but to walk away, because you deserved so much more than a man who would have had no choice but to lie to have you.”
And he’d nearly done just that. If Jack hadn’t been watching him with that disapproving frown, if he hadn’t known Dawg Mackay would kill him and he’d break her heart and forever lose the belief in him he’d seen in her eyes, then he would have taken her.
But his wife was fucking a path through D.C., his daughter was still a baby, and he knew that keeping her if he divorced her mother would probably be impossible. He was a grown man; he’d made his bed, and he wouldn’t have his daughter pay for his need to escape that cold, hard rock he’d made for himself.
So he waited, kept track of her, watched her, ached for her from afar until Katie turned five and he’d filed for an annulment. His wife had left with her lover, Rigsby, and with Regan Doogan Moore’s help had attempted to take his daughter.
His breath caught when he told her how Katie died. He felt her tears on his chest, her silent sobs in the shudder of her shoulders.
“Less than six months later, Harley had tracked Catalina’s lover, her killer, to Cumberland; we just couldn’t figure out his identity or why he was in Kentucky. I left Harley here to find the bastard, see what he was up to.” His fingers clenched in her hair for a tortured moment. “The next thing I know, Director Bryce is on the phone telling me . . .” He had to stop, swallow past the lump in his throat. “Telling me you were in trouble and for me to get to Sam’s. And God as my witness, I had no idea Rigsby was behind it. I suspected his presence here had something to do with the weapons thefts from Fort Knox, but I had no idea anyone knew what I felt for you. And I never suspected Jack, not with his ties to the Mackays.”
Luther had filled all the blanks in. How Rigsby had known about Zoey, used her to distract Doogan and Harley while he and Jack continued to steal information on high-level military teams currently abroad on assignment. Luther Jennings was unaware how he was being used as a distraction if he was needed. Then Doogan had returned to Cumberland, his interest in Jack’s pack making the two men far too nervous.
He’d known more was going on than a threat to that pact when he’d arrived; he’d believed the threat was to Zoey, though, not the human resources information they’d found access to. He’d been distracted. That mistake had almost been a fatal one. He’d almost lost Zoey.
“I knew I loved you, Zoey,” he whispered. “I knew if I lost you too, I couldn’t live. Losing you would break me.”
“I was right here, Doogan. I was always here, waiting for you,” she whispered, finally able to lift her head to stare down at him.
And in his eyes she saw the pain, the rage, the man who had to face the fact that he could only run for so long, and that the time for it was over.
“Yeah, you are,” he whispered, reaching up to cup her face. “Graham came to see me a few weeks ago,” he said then.
She nearly stopped breathing. God, he’d promised . . .
“He told me if I waited too long to come for you, then he’d make sure when I got over my dumb and came back later, he’d make sure I left just as fast.” His lips quirked. “He’d do it too. I figured I better get my ass back here and claim you while your family was willing to let me.”
Her brow arched. “You need their permission?”
“Not anymore.” He tugged at her hair, pulling her to his kiss, whispering the words over her lips. “I belong to you, witch. Heart and soul. There’s no way in hell I can live without you.”
Her smile lit up his heart. Filled with love, with a promise that met the one in his heart.
“Welcome home, Doogan.” And her lips lowered to his, their kiss one of shared promise, of shared love.
When it was over, he tucked her against his side again. “Damn, I’m tired, honey. You wear a man out.”
“Better get your rest,” she murmured as he let his eyes drift closed. “I figure you have about seven months to recuperate.”
His eyes jerked open, panic flashing through him for about two seconds.
No, he told himself desperately, she didn’t mean . . .
“Zoey . . .”
“Did Graham tell you I was pregnant, Doogan?” she asked, her tone perfectly reasonable. “Because if he did, you walk your ass right back out of here. At least until it sno
ws.”
He blinked up at the ceiling. He tried like hell to swallow.
Slowly, he sat up, telling himself his hands really weren’t shaking. He wasn’t ready to pass out because he couldn’t breathe past the tightness in his chest.
“What did you say?” he wheezed.
That siren’s smile, those witchy eyes. Emerald circling celadon. So damned beautiful she could steal his breath even when he wasn’t in shock.
She caught his hand and dragged it to her still-flat stomach. “I warned you,” she reminded him. “I just didn’t realize the pill I was on was low dose. My doctor figures I’m about six weeks pregnant.”
He stared at his hand where it covered her stomach, realizing what she hadn’t told him.
“You weren’t going to tell me.” He turned his gaze to her, glaring back at her. “Were you?”
“No, I wasn’t,” she admitted, stubbornness flashing in her eyes. “If you didn’t want me without a baby, then you could do without me. I wouldn’t have kept our baby from you, though.” Regret filled her expression. “I would never punish our baby, Doogan. I would only love it, and you, and always regret what hadn’t been.”
His Zoey. His witch.
“I love you, but I’m spanking your butt for that one,” he promised her.
A little roll of her eyes was followed by a smothered yawn. “Later, I might let you.”
Later.
But he could kiss her. He could let his lips whisper over hers and he could thank God he got over his dumb in time to claim her. And their child.
Their child.
Damn. When he’d felt as though he’d come home the night he’d danced with her, he’d been right.
Zoey was home.
His heart.
His soul.
The mother of his child.
His sweet seductress and his life.
And for the first time in his life, he was complete.
EPILOGUE