No one fucked with his family, especially his sisters, and got away with it if he could help it. And should he become too weak or too old or, god forbid, should he be taken out before he could stop it, then he and his cousins had done their best to make damned sure they had backup.

A man had to have backup, he’d always thought. It was the way he planned.

He had backup for those he loved, just in case . . .

And he prayed daily that it was never needed.

FOURTEEN

Moving into his bedroom, Graham fully expected to find Lyrica stretched out in his bed. Furious, but in his bed where she belonged. Instead, he found her in the sitting room, the lights extinguished as she stood at the window and stared out into the early morning fog blanketing the land.

“You know you’re not protected just because the room’s dark,” he reminded her as he moved slowly to the window.

Turning, she watched silently as he closed the heavy curtains before staring back at her.

“How long will this take?” she asked, pulling the robe Kye had brought to the room earlier tighter around her body. “How long will I be here, Graham?”

The thin silk did nothing to hide the tempting curves it covered or the matching violet silk gown she wore beneath.

“In a hurry to leave?” he asked, feeling a hint of anger at the thought.

“In a hurry to no longer feel as though I’m a danger to everyone I care for,” she retorted rather than answering his question.

The fear that she would be the reason someone she loved was hurt, or killed, weighed on her. It tormented her and left her filled with a searing guilt she couldn’t rid herself of.

“You’re no danger. The danger is to you. Those you love, those who love you, won’t see you hurt by this, Lyrica.” God, he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

Before thought and action coincided, his arm slid around her waist. He pulled her to him, flush against his body, the little gasp that fell from her lips causing his to quirk in amusement.

“You knew this was going to happen.” His voice sounded too dark, too rough. “We’ve both known for years that you were going to end up in my bed.”

“I knew,” she whispered, the pulse beating heavily at the side of her neck, drawing his gaze before it slid back to hers.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked, determined to let her go if it wasn’t. “If it isn’t, now is the time to tell me.”

Her soft, pink little tongue swiped over her lips, reminding him far too well of how it had licked over his cock that first night she had spent in his room.

“If it wasn’t what I wanted, then I wouldn’t be here, Graham,” she assured him.

“Then god help both of us.” Because he was too damned hard, too damned wild for her to do anything but give in to him.

—

She shouldn’t have been surprised by the immediate pleasure that suffused her body, Lyrica thought distantly. She should have expected it—it happened every time he touched her.

His lips touched hers, rubbed against them, and her breathing became hard, her heartbeat racing out of control as his hand slid beneath her hair to cup the back of her head. To hold her to him as he parted her lips and began sipping from the hunger that raged through her.

She didn’t just want him, she realized, she needed him. Her body came to life as it never had before, her flesh tingled in anticipation, the swollen bud between her thighs aching as her moan whispered between their kiss each time he touched her.

She didn’t know what to expect. She had no idea what to do. Until the spiraling storm of sensation began to rage inside her. Only then did instinct overcome shyness and hunger overcome trepidation.

Sliding her hands up the powerful breadth of his chest to his wide shoulders, she held them with desperate hunger as Graham’s head tilted, his lips slanting over hers with a groan.

The feel of his hands sliding down her back to cup her rear and lift her into the cradle of his thighs stole her breath. His hands guided her knees to his hips as she found herself pressed against the wall, the hard wedge of his cock pressing firmly between her thighs.

His kisses were hungry, deep, his tongue flicking over hers, tasting her as she tasted him, a haze of heat and need enveloping them as his kisses became harder, hungrier.

Even that first night it hadn’t been like this, this powerful, the pleasure rising so fast she felt herself teetering on the edge of mindless desperation.

The silk of her robe fell around her hips and thighs as she felt him tugging at the shoulders of it, sliding it against her skin. Terrified of losing his kiss, she lowered her arms long enough for him to jerk it from her, the silk forgotten as it fell away from her body.

His groan vibrated against her lips as her fingers slid into his hair, feeling the heavy warmth against her flesh. As though in retaliation, his hand slipped beneath her gown, cupping the bare curves of her ass before slowly, destructively, parting the globes and sending a flash of forbidden fire to attack the hidden entrance they protected.

Lyrica cried out as his head jerked back, his lips pulling from hers as he palmed her rear again and repeated the caress. That heated, swift spike of sensation at her anus had her juices spilling from her vagina, saturating her pussy and sensitizing the swollen folds.

He moved as his lips covered hers again. Holding her to him, he strode from the sitting room to the bedroom, the journey barely registering until she felt her back against the bed and his lips sliding along her jaw to her neck.

The rasp of his short beard and mustache created a prickle of heat that sent a shuddering hunger for more echoing through each inch of flesh he touched as he kissed his way to her shoulder. There, he nipped at her skin, rubbed his lips against it, then delivered a sharp, heated kiss.

He was marking her, she thought, dazed. Marking her flesh for anyone to see. But no one could see the mark he’d already left on her heart.

“Get this off.” The growl in his voice had flames licking at her breasts as he pulled back and hurriedly tore the gown over her head.

Staring up at him as he tossed the material away from her, Lyrica shuddered at the look on his face. It was pure lust, hunger at its sharpest, but in his eyes flecks of gold gleamed with something that had her heart clenching in response.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned as his hands cupped the weight of her breasts, his thumbs brushing over the hardened tips of her painfully sensitive nipples.

A whimpering cry fell from her lips at the touch of his callused thumbs, the ache radiating in the tight tips and echoing in the tingling bud of her clit.

“Here.” Reaching out he gripped her hand, pulling it to the outside curve of one breast. “Hold them for me, Lyrica. Give them to me.”

Oh god.

He was serious.

Lifting the opposite hand he cupped her fingers around the other mound, his expression tightening as she cupped her own flesh, seeming to offer her nipples up to his hunger.

And he took clear advantage of it.

His head lowered, his eyes locked on hers, his lips covering the nearest tip and suckling it into the heat of his mouth. The rasp of his tongue licking, stroking the violently sensitive nub had a fiery wave of exquisite pleasure shredding her control.

Heat suffused her entire body. It was burning through her thighs, pulsing in her pussy, and throbbing around her clit. Her hips moved against the hard wedge of his cock as it pressed against her, his lips drawing on her nipple, his tongue stroking and rubbing it until her fingers tangled in his hair to hold him closer to her.