“I know you well enough.” She laughed bitterly. “I know all of you far too well at the moment, that’s for damned sure.” She flicked Chaya a pitying look. “And I can’t say just how much we all appreciate the fact that you at least keep him distracted sometimes, Chaya. You deserve sainthood.”
With that, she turned and stalked from the room, ignoring Natches’s amusement as he laughed at his wife and thanked her for “keeping him distracted.”
Lyrica couldn’t believe their nerve any more than she could believe that they’d refused to share their suspicions with her. Though it shouldn’t have surprised her, she admitted.
Hell, she should have suspected . . .
Perhaps she had suspected, because she hadn’t felt entirely safe since the day she’d left Graham’s home and returned to her apartment. Except for those few times she had been with Graham.
Stalking to his suite, she realized just how close panic was to the surface, and just how very unprepared she was for the danger facing her. And that only increased the risk for everyone involved.
—
Damn.
It took every ounce of self-control Graham possessed to keep the unruly flesh between his thighs from becoming painfully engorged as Lyrica tore into her family. With her eyes gleaming like green fire, that flush mounting in her cheeks, and mutinous fury stamping her expression, all he could think about was replacing all that defiance with hungry arousal.
She was a tempting mix of spice and sweetness and he realized he couldn’t wait to slide into his bed with her.
“I hate you!” Natches’s sudden declaration in his direction had Graham arching his brow in surprise.
“I’m brokenhearted,” he replied drolly, amused at the childish display of temper. “Am I still allowed on the playground?”
At Lyrica’s outburst, Chaya had plopped into the chair beside her husband, hung her head, and covered her face with her hands until it was over.
She was obviously well versed in Mackay dramatics.
Now she lifted her head and glared at Graham as though warning him to silence. But he wasn’t a Mackay—he didn’t have to put up with the bastard daily.
Yet.
Until he did, he could be just as damned snide as he wanted to be.
He wasn’t worried until Natches’s lashes lowered to stare back at him with cunning calculation, his smile full of icy disdain. Because until that moment, he’d forgotten Natches knew the very secret Graham had been hiding for far too long.
“You think you’re safe, don’t you, Graham?” Natches asked softly as everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath in anticipation.
Natches pissed was never a good thing, Graham knew, but he’d be damned if he’d kiss the man’s ass at this point.
Secret or no secret.
“I think I’m damned tired of playing into your game of Mackay machinations.” Graham grunted as he straightened from his slouched position against the fireplace. “Safe or not, Natches, I’m no puppet, and I refuse to play one now.”
The expression never changed.
“You’re cold inside,” the other man murmured then, disgust touching his voice. “Calculating and so absorbed with the mistake you made that you’ll make everyone in your life pay for it until the last breath you take.”
Graham glared back at him, wishing he could deny the claim. Unfortunately, they both knew he couldn’t.
“I learned my lesson,” Graham informed him. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” Natches smirked. “You want Lyrica so damned bad it’s about to eat you alive. But instead of paying attention to your own instincts, you’ll end up finding a reason, a transgression you’ll convince yourself she made, or you’ll make up your own just to ensure you never have to resurrect that dead little heart of yours. And then she’ll begin to realize that all she has of you is whatever pleasure you give her . . .”
“Enough, Natches. You think I want to hear this shit?” Dawg snapped in disgust as he rose from his chair and paced behind it to stare at his cousin furiously. “Let it the hell go for now.”
Natches jerked to his feet, facing Graham as Chaya followed and laid her hand on her husband’s arm warningly.
“Oh, I’m not going to hit him again.” Natches chuckled, the sound icy, filled with distaste. “I’m going to wait. And when Lyrica walks away from him, her little heart shattered in her chest, then I’ll remind every damned one of you of how you made me keep my rifle locked away instead of putting my fucking crosshairs right between his eyes.”
With that, he gripped his wife’s hand, gave it a little tug, and stalked from the living room.
The slamming of the door leading into the garage moments later had Graham scratching at his jaw in confusion before turning back to find all eyes on him once again.
“This happen often?” he asked the men, whose expressions ranged from resignation to contemplation.
“’Bout once a month or so.” Rowdy shrugged. “He gets bored sometimes when Chaya’s too busy to entertain him.”
“Good thing she seems to enjoy entertaining him,” Graham remarked caustically before moving to the bar for another drink.
Dealing with Mackays would end up driving him into AA at this point.
“You’ll be entertaining him if you hurt her.” The warning didn’t come from a Mackay this time. This time, it came from the one man Graham least expected—Brogan Campbell.
He had short dark red hair and the shadow of a darker beard, intense blue eyes, and savage features. He was a man Graham respected for his strength, but rarely agreed with.
“My days of entertaining the Mackays or their relations ended with that fist Natches planted in my face. As I told him then, that one was free. Another one will cost all of you. Now, if this little meeting is finished, dawn is nearly here and I’m damned tired. Get the hell out of my house or find a bedroom and leave me the hell alone. I really don’t care which.”
They were all tired. Tempers were beginning to fray and patience was wearing thin. Especially with him.
“Yeah, time to go.” Dawg wasn’t moving, though.
His hands gripped the back of the chair a little too tightly as the others rose and began filing out of the room toward the garage, where two SUVs were parked. Once the room was empty of everyone but him and Graham, Dawg stared at Graham with implacable determination.
In that moment, Graham realized he’d been wrong. Natches wasn’t the one to watch out for any longer, unless the threat he represented had the potential to be fatal. In this case, Dawg was the one to keep an eye on.
“Lyrica and I have an agreement,” Dawg said softly, the pale green of his eyes almost colorless now as his gaze met Graham’s. “I stay out of her life and she doesn’t move to Lexington. That’s worked for us so far, because she’s not really one to poke at things, ya know?”
Graham didn’t answer him. Instead, he watched the other man closely, hearing more than what Dawg was saying.
“I looked into your past myself,” Dawg stated then. “Whatever Natches knows, he’s not sharing yet, but I’ll warn you, he’s close to telling me, Rowdy, and Timothy. Once he’s convinced whatever happened will hurt Lyrica, your secret’s out. But he forgets, I’m not one to wait when I want to know something. I’ve known how interested Lyrica was in you from the moment you two met. When you returned to Somerset, I knew something wasn’t right, so I made some calls.”
Graham stared back at him, forcing back the emotion, the searing regret and humiliation.
Dawg’s expression was heavy with compassion and understanding, and that only made things worse.
“You’re a good man, Graham,” Dawg said softly then, releasing the cushioned back of the chair and straightening slowly. “You’re a damned good man, and I don’t want to hate you.” He shook his head wearily. “But that’s my sister, and I guess I love her near as much as I love my own kid. And I’m an overprotective bastard,” he admitted with resigned regret. “So knowing she’ll be sleeping with you doesn’t sit well with me. Not because she doesn’t deserve someone to hold her, but because she chose someone that just doesn’t have it in him to hold her as long and as tight as her sweet heart deserves. And that, my friend, will ensure I hate you, because you’re too fucking stupid to realize how much she does love you, and too damned selfish to just walk the fuck away from her.”