Jazz nodded, tossing back his own drink rather than think about the implications of what Cord was saying.

“She won, she was done,” Cord whispered again. “Then she was gone. And I couldn’t find her. I knew she was out there and I couldn’t find her.”

“And not once did you fucking tell me.” Grabbing the liquor, Jazz refilled his glass then rose to his feet. “You didn’t tell me she was alive. You never breathed a word that you were searching for her.”

“She was my sister.” Possession rang in his voice as Cord came to his feet, anger flashing in his face. “It was none of your business.”

Jazz nearly staggered back at the declaration.

None of his business?

“She’s a Maddox,” Cord snarled. “You are not.”

“Cord, go back up the mountain.” Kenni stepped from the kitchen, her expression so fucking calm it made the bitterness in his stomach intensify.

“He’s a big boy, Kenni,” Cord drawled. “He can handle it.”

“Go back home, up the mountain, hell, I don’t fucking care, but take your attitude and your anger somewhere else. Now.” Not once did her expression or her voice shift.

“And if I don’t?” he challenged her.

The smile that curled her lips actually had her brother wincing.

“Then the next time you piss Jazz off I’m turning my back and letting him beat the shit out of you. How does that sound?”

Cord was silent for long moments before reaching back to rub at his neck while shooting Jazz a brooding look. “Is she serious?”

“If I’m lucky,” Jazz promised him, wishing the other man would get cocky enough to warrant a fist to his dumb head. Kenni would forgive it then.

“Who says I won’t beat the shit out of him?” Cord sneered.

“You might.” She shrugged. “But he’ll have the satisfaction of trying. Now, I’m going to shower and go to bed. I’m tired of refereeing for you tonight.”

Turning, she moved back into the house, the weary droop of her shoulders a sign of the exhaustion he’d recognized earlier.

“Deacon and Sawyer will be here in a few hours to watch the house.” Retrieving the drink he’d set on the banister, Cord tossed the remaining liquor back, grimaced, and stared at the empty doorway a moment longer. “That’s not Kenni, Jazz,” he said sadly. “Kenni’s explosive, loving, she doesn’t do anything halfway, and she doesn’t hold back her heart. Is that really the woman you’ve waited on all these years? Really?”

“Whoever she is, Cord, she’s the woman I’ve waited for,” Jazz assured him.

Setting the liquor heavily on the small table next to the grill, Jazz stomped to the front door. “You owe me a bottle,” he snapped before entering the house and locking the door behind him. Minutes later, the shades over the kitchen windows lowered. He set the alarm control for the house before heading to the bedroom and the woman still running.

And she would keep running, he realized, until something or someone stopped her.

CHAPTER 17

“Is there a reason you feel the need to wake me?” Scratchy, drowsy with sleep, Jazz’s voice rumbled through the fog-shrouded morning light.

“Because I need you,” she whispered, the hunger for him rising hotter, charged with needs and hungers she no longer tried to make sense of.

Thick, heavy black lashes eased open and electric-blue eyes peered back at her with a matching heat.

“How do you need me, Kenni?” he asked as she curled her fingers in the quilt and slowly began dragging it down his body. “You’re overdressed, darlin’,” he pointed out, callused fingers running up her arm to the narrow straps of the sleep shirt.

“I can remedy that,” she promised.

She was going to remedy it as soon as she pulled the blanket free of his body. As it cleared his erection, though, she paused.

Good gracious.

Thick, heavy, a blunt spear of iron-hard flesh rose from between his thighs, lying nearly to his navel.

“Had I taken a moment to pay attention here, perhaps I would have had second thoughts,” she murmured, running a finger down the heavy, throbbing vein that ran the length of the shaft.

“I would have convinced you.” He grinned.

Oh, he was cocky, so very certain of himself. Jazz was like a force of nature, never changing course once his mind had been set and wearing away resistance as though it had never existed.

“Possibly,” she agreed.

“Definitely,” he promised her. “So, do you remove that very pretty article of clothing or do I tear it from you?”

A shiver raced up her back at the thought of him tearing it from her body. The image was completely sexy. But the thought of other alternatives, of being brave, of pushing her own boundaries, was sexy as well.

Easing to her knees, Kenni gripped the hem of the gown. Slowly, her eyes locked with his until the material blocked them as she eased the gown over her head and tossed it from the bed.

“Damn. How perfect,” he sighed, a grin tugging at his lips. “Touch them for me.”

Her brow arched. “Afraid you don’t know how?”

“Oh, I know how,” he promised wickedly. “I want to see how you do it. How do you pleasure yourself, Kenni?”

“How do you pleasure yourself, Jazz?” she asked then. “You show me and I’ll show you.”

Strong, broad fingers circled the base of his cock as his breathing grew harder, heavier.

“I pleasure myself with thoughts of you, darlin’,” he breathed out roughly. “Wondering if you’re thinking of me. If you’re pleasuring yourself with those thoughts and how damned sexy it would be to watch.”

Oh, she had, many times.

Tipping her head back, she gave him what he asked for. Finding one of the hard, sensitive tips of her nipples, she slid her other hand from between her breasts, down her stomach, to the bare folds already growing slick with the heat spilling from her.

Watching him, watching lust galvanize his blue eyes as they followed the path, Kenni slid her fingers along the narrow slit leading to the aching depths of her vagina. Pausing at the swollen bud of her clit she circled the bundle of nerves before finding that spot at the side, barely covered by the thin separation of skin, and stroked it slowly.

“Fuck. Kenni.” Tight, the sound low and achy, Jazz breathed out her name as her legs parted farther. “Ah, baby, those sweet juices are spillin’ for me.”

She was lost in the look on his face, the sound of his voice as he watched her. Then her body electrified as the fingers of his free hand moved between her parted legs, two fingers tucking against the clenched entrance of her vagina before pushing slowly inside her.

“Yes,” she whispered, her fingers stroking, rubbing against the throbbing bud of her clit. “Oh, Jazz…”

His fingers stretched her, heating her flesh further as he penetrated it by slow degrees.

“That’s it, baby,” he whispered. “Let that pretty pussy milk at my fingers. Fuck, when it does that to my dick it’s all I can do to hold back. To keep from coming so damned hard I swear I’ve lost the top of my head.”

His voice joined the sensations racing through her body, drawing her muscles tight, lashing at her clit, the sensitive flesh of her vagina.

“Come for me, Kenni,” he whispered. “Let me feel you suck at my fingers like that tight flesh sucks at my cock…”

That fast. His words, the images, the thought of him coming inside her, that heat ignited an orgasm she could never hold back, sent her spiraling into that chaotic storm of sensation with a suddenness that had her breath catching.

At the first strike of ecstasy his fingers pushed hard and fast inside her, throwing her higher, spreading apart as her muscles clenched harder, tighter, pushing the pleasure deeper through her body, spearing parts of her soul she knew would never forget it.

Crying his name, shuddering, her body shaking with the tempest tearing through her, she was only barely aware of Jazz moving until he was behind her, pushing her forward and in the next instant he was working his cock inside the clenched, milking muscles of her pussy.