Page 5 (1/2)

Dawg tapped his fingers on the steering wheel "You ran frorowled back at her

Not every chance Not one dark night when she had found him too drunk to drive and helped him home And then helped hi the regret that welled inside her If only she had been smarter

If only she had faced the truth then, and what had happened Maybe the past eight years would have been different If nothing else, she ht not have been tormented with sogrunted at that "Too bad you weren’t sht If you had, you wouldn’t be here now"

Too bad she hadn’t been sin with But no, she had to co home She missed the mountains, the lake, and hohosts to rest She had come home toShe just hadn’t expected to make peace with him in quite this way

Instead, she found more de on Dawg for so as imperative as her freedom And there wasn’t a doubt in her mind exactly how he intended to manipulate this one

He had been after her ever since she had returned to Soo He hadn’t stalked her

He was just always around Always s once-over, that invitation to play If he wasn’t doing that, he was glaring at her And he filled her dreaht and the consequences of it

She watched thehis hand on her knee when he wasn’t shifting gears in the powerful pickup, and feeling the warh her skirt

At least he wasn’t groping her Her body was so hyped on nerves right now that she wondered if she could bear that If her heart could bear it

She thought she had learned her lesson before leaving So was, she knehat he intended, and she knew she could never live with it

The Nauti Boys were legendary in So counties Their prowess, dedication to a wo those women had been well-known Her brother, Alex, had warned her about Dawg repeatedly

Her head had warned her about Dawg, but her heart hadn’t wanted to listen She could tame the bad boy, she had assured herself Love would make him possessive All she had to do was touch him, love him, and he would realize he loved her

She snorted silently as she peeked a look at his hard profile

What a fool she had been Naive, impossibly innocent, incredibly foolish And she still hadn’t learned her lesson, not all the way to the soul Because a part of her had never forgotten that one night

That sultry suular deterht her the true depths of carnal pleasure and the ulti to work" The words tore from her lips as he pulled into the small marina his uncle Ray Mackay owned

She could feel the panic building in her chest now, the certainty that the Nauti Daas going to hold more memories and more heartache than she could bear

"I can’t do this" She was shaking as Dawg pulled the truck into the private parking slot in front of the nition, he turned and stared at her silently

Him or jail She could see it in his expression

Crista shook her head slowly before sing tightly

"I’m not one of the Nauti Boys’ whores," she whispered harshly "I can’t play one to stay out of jail, Dawg I’d rather rot in prison than buy my freedoht green eyes icy, unemotional, as he watched her His expression was as dark as the shadows around them and as still as death

This wasn’t the , Ja"

Mackay had had a will of iron, but he hadn’t been cold He’d been hard but not unemotional Not as he was now

He had joined the Marines just after she left town; she knew that He’d spent one tour, when he had been shipped home because of a wound that shattered his kneecap Not that she had seen any sign of an injury in the way hehis knee almost absently as he watched her

"We’ll talk about this on the boat," he finally said warningly "Not here"

"No, Dawg" She reached out, gripping his aro out to that boat, and I won’t spread myself for the Nauti Boys I wouldn’t do it when I was too stupid to know any better, and I sure as hell won’t do it now You’re fooling yourself if you think you can convinceto that boat didn’tyourself for anyone but ht years ago, she had slipped fro like a thief in the early , a part of herself she had never regained

Now Crista stepped back through the reinforced French door that led into the living rooainst the memories that threatened to overwhel on the small table that sat beside the couch It was a maroon plush couch nohere before it had been black leather Arecliner sat by the side of the same table

The television was now mounted on the wall on the side they entered, and across the roo table and four chairs

A teak bar separated the dining area from the kitchen, two captain’s barstools placed under it

The rug was a rich, thick forest green Eight years ago it had been a dark tan The living roo a s but still a broad male influence Dark woods and few frills

A picture of his Marine Corps unit sat on the table by the couch alongside a picture of the Nauti cousins in careens and a picture of Rowdy and his fiancée, Kelly Salyers