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

smile, the promise of passion in her eyes, the need to touch her, the certainty that she could calm the beast that raged inside him.
    Damn her. She’d managed to worm her way into his life, there was no doubt of that. He’d missed her in the past few weeks since she had started riding her Harley to the restaurant rather than calling him and bumming a ride. Hell, he’d more than missed it. It was as though something were suddenly missing from his life. There was an emptiness where those hours lay now, a sense of waiting.
    “Why don’t you have a lover, Rogue?” He looked around the apartment. To his knowledge, as long as she had lived in Somerset, Rogue had never had a lover.
    He didn’t count the pictures that had ended up on the Internet. He’d investigated that himself, and though he could never find proof, there was enough suspicion to prove to him that Rogue had been used somehow. Rumor was Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay had targeted her when she had defended Zeke’s son over a test at school. Nadine had never liked Shane because Zeke had refused to walk the same path his father had walked. Thad Mayes had held the position of sheriff for years, and through that time he had protected Dayle Mackay and the Freedom League’s collective asses. He hadn’t just protected them, he had been part of them. Zeke refused to follow that path, and Nadine had finally found a way to strike back, through Shane.
    A month after standing up for his son, Rogue had left the bar with a strange couple. She hadn’t been well known then; no one had thought to question her when she left. And then Rogue had been out of a job in the school system and the pictures had shown up on the Internet.
    Oh, Zeke knew how Grace and Mackay had worked, he thought as he found himself moving across the room, his gaze drifting, again, to the scalloped lace that peeked over her leather vest.
    Bra or camisole? he wondered. Probably one of those short little camisole things. Scarlet red and flirty. Just like the shoes she carried in her hand.
    “You didn’t answer me, Rogue,” he reminded her. “Why don’t you have a lover?”
    And he wasn’t certain he wanted to hear the answer to that question. The same reason perhaps that he didn’t have a lover. Because he couldn’t have Rogue.
    “Does it matter why?” She stood still, determined as he moved to her, stopping within a breath of touching distance.
    He stared down at her, feeling things he knew he had no right to feel. Things he knew he shouldn’t feel, not for this spritely little woman-child that was much too young for him.
    He was playing a dangerous game tonight and he knew it. But he needed a taste of her. Just enough to hold him over, to dampen the lust raging through him.
    “Don’t play games with me, Zeke,” she breathed out wearily. “Honestly, I don’t have time for them. I don’t have the strength for them right now.”
    “Have I ever played games with you, Rogue?” he asked, reaching out to touch her cheek, knowing, damn, he knew this was a mistake. The worst mistake he could possibly make right now. Because he couldn’t follow through. He couldn’t have her and revenge. It wasn’t possible.
    She didn’t answer him. He could have used one of her smart remarks right now. Something to remind himself that she was way too young. Twenty-six, even if it was almost twenty-seven, was too far from thirty-seven years old. Eleven years. Two years less than that which separated Alex Jansen and his fiancιe, Janey Mackay, Zeke thought. But just because Alex could handle it didn’t mean Zeke could. Hell, his son, Shane, was nineteen. He was closer to Rogue’s age than Zeke was.
    “You don’t play games,” she whispered, her expression softening, transforming, turning sensual, tempting.
    Damn, the things he wanted to do to her. The ways he wanted to do them. He was here to question her about her cousins’ deaths; instead, he found himself relishing the softness of her cheek. Skin