{Nauti Boys 5} - Nauti Deceptions by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online Page A

both of them.
    He nodded. “I’ll keep checking things out,” he told her. “But unless forensics or the coroner comes up with something, then murder-suicide is what we’re looking at. And it damn sure looks as though Joe killed Jaime and then himself.”
    Her lips twisted mockingly. “Yeah, and there are pictures on the Internet that make me look like a world-class slut,” she reminded him. “Trust me, looks are incredibly deceiving.”
    His gaze darkened, though it never moved from her. Sometimes, she wondered exactly what was going on behind that fierce gaze. Hawklike light brown eyes that seemed to reflect shadows of emotions that she could never really decipher.
    “I’ve never seen the pictures,” he finally said, surprising her.
    Rogue’s brow lifted. “Really? You must be the only man in the county that hasn’t managed to find them.”
    Zeke wasn’t a man to lie, about anything.
    “I never went looking for them,” he told her. “I didn’t want to see them, Rogue, because they didn’t matter between you and me.”
     
THREE
     
     
     
    Of course they didn’t. Those pictures, one way or the other, would never change the fact that he might want her, but he had no intention of touching her.
    She’d tested that theory over the winter. All the rides she’d requested after the long hours she had put in at the Mackay restaurant. The nights she had invited him up for a drink or tried to linger in his vehicle to talk, to flirt. She’d given up. She’d let it go. She wasn’t begging him.
    She unfolded herself from the couch, reached down, and picked up her shoes before staring down at him.
    “Do you have any further questions, Zeke? It’s late, I need a drink, and I was looking forward to a bubble bath. Honestly, I don’t know what else I could tell you about Joe and Jaime that you don’t already know. Or think you know.”
    And she couldn’t handle being in the same room with him tonight. She wasn’t as strong as she had been in the winter. Perhaps those winter months had weakened her. Hoping against hope each night that she had flirted her way into his car that something, anything, would come of it. Only to have her hopes dashed time and again.
    “You’re throwing me out?” He tilted his head and looked up at her, his gaze flashing with a heat she was afraid to delve too deeply into. “After weeks of trying to get me up here to your apartment, you’re not even offering me a beer?”
    “No. I’m not. Good night, Zeke. Lock the door on your way out.”
    She turned and walked to the open bedroom door. She could feel his gaze on her, felt him watching her, his eyes burning into her. Suddenly, her skirt was too short, the vest flashed too much skin at her midriff and back. She felt exposed, vulnerable. She felt weak.
    “Hell of a change, Rogue. You tried to seduce me half the winter. What happened?”
    She stopped and turned around slowly to see him standing, cocky, assured, confident.
    “I gave up,” she replied shortly. “As you said, I tried to seduce you. You weren’t willing. I don’t beg. End of story.”
    His expression tightened, a muscle jumping at his jaw as his gaze raked over her then.
    “You’re too damned young,” he finally berated her, and perhaps himself as well, she thought. Or he was trying to convince himself.
    “I’m too damned tired to play games.” It was all she could do to keep her shoulders straight and to fight back the tears. “Joe and Jaime were family. This has hit me rather hard, and as you see”—she lifted her arms wide to encompass the empty apartment—“it’s just me and the bubble bath for comfort. I don’t need to add games to tonight’s stress if you don’t mind.”
    Zeke watched Rogue closely. He saw it then. That shadow in those deep violet eyes that had held his attention. A shadow he had never seen before. Loneliness. Loss. He knew that feeling. And in the past five years whenever it struck, it was Rogue that came to mind. Her