Nauti Enchantress Read online

  Holding her hips with one hand, he used the other to guide the broad flesh into place. He watched as his flesh parted the flushed, slick flesh and began pressing inside. Watched as she stretched around him, her cries filling his senses as the snug muscles began to grip him, milk him inside her, lashing his flesh with heated ripples despite the covering of the condom.

  God, he wanted to go slow. He wanted to ease in. Wanted to relish every sensation.

  The hard, desperate thrust inside her tightly clenched cunt shocked him. He was buried to the hilt, her flesh tight around him, stroking his cock, tearing past his control.

  “That’s it,” he groaned as her hips rolled beneath him, causing her inner muscles to stroke him tighter, to ripple exquisitely around him. “That’s it, baby, fuck me back. Give it to me, Lyrica.”

  The sharp clench of her tissue nearly had his cum shooting past his control.

  She liked the raw, sexual words, he realized. Or was it the sound of tortured pleasure in his voice that had her pussy clenching so tightly on him?

  Whatever it was, he couldn’t fight the lust pounding through him, the imperative need to pound inside her until he drew her release from her again. Until he could give her his.

  Holding her hips, he watched his flesh shuttling fast and furious, penetrating and retreating, fucking into her with desperate strokes as her cries began to fill the air around him. She strained beneath him, her hips rocking back to him, her fingers clenched desperately in the blankets beneath her.

  He was too fucking close.

  Fighting for breath, for control, he slid his thumb into the narrow crevice of her rear, found the incredibly sensitive entrance there, already slick from her juices as they spilled from her pussy.

  “Graham,” she cried out in shock as he pressed his thumb into her, feeling the flesh part, the burning grip on his thumb transferring to his cock as her pussy clenched and spasmed, her body tightening as a wail of ecstasy escaped her lips.

  The milking heat of her inner walls tightening around his cock triggered his own release. Her anus clenched at his thumb, sucking at it as her pussy sucked at his dick, her release raining over the latex-covered flesh.

  Burying himself deep, he clamped his teeth over the low growl that escaped him, electricity racing up his spine before tearing back down it and striking at the depths of his balls.

  The first agonizingly rapturous jerk of his cock shredded his senses. His seed spilled from his body as he pumped inside her, jetting harshly in response to the heated slide of her juices spilling along his latex-covered flesh, the gripping muscles rippling around his cock.

  Burying himself deep inside her, he let the steady, hard pulse of his cum spill from him. Each lash of pleasure burned at his senses until he collapsed against her. His breathing was rough, agonized. Sensation still coursed through his senses, rasped over his flesh. Beneath him, the shudders of her own release still trembling through her body, Lyrica’s little sobs of pleasure dug sharp talons of another, unfamiliar need inside his chest.

  Never in his sexual history had he known anything so brutally hot, so exquisitely pleasurable as fucking this small, too innocent young woman through the near-violent orgasms that had gripped her.

  Nothing had ever affected him more, either.

  Drawing from her, his knees still weak, Graham grimaced at the tangle of denim around his legs. Hell, he hadn’t even taken his jeans off, and working them free of his body now was almost impossible.

  Long moments later, fully naked, he forced himself to the bathroom, where he disposed of the condom before running warm water over a hand towel and wringing it tightly into the sink.

  He didn’t pause to consider what he was doing. He didn’t even think about it until he’d eased Lyrica to her back and gently wiped the perspiration from her body. He was parting her legs, the cloth cleaning the smear of blood from her inner thighs before he realized he was doing something he’d never done before for any other woman.

  He was taking care of her. Easing her. Claiming her.

  Son of a bitch, he’d had no intention of claiming her when this began.

  He had no right to claim her.

  Hell, this wasn’t supposed to happen.

  FIFTEEN

  Something had changed, Lyrica thought two days later as she awoke. Lying in Graham’s bed, awaking alone, was beginning to bother her. No matter how long she lay there, he didn’t check to see if she was awake. When she went to bed at night, he did join her. But the only proof she had that he slept in the bed was the indent in the pillow each morning and the mussed blankets.

  His day was filled with meetings with Elijah, calls to contacts, and hours spent on his laptop searching down “leads.” She was starting to think the leads were no more than an excuse to ensure he didn’t have time to touch her.

  If it weren’t for the way he watched her, she’d believe she’d imagined the hours she’d spent with him buried inside her. Because he sure as hell wasn’t doing anything to touch her now.

  Whatever the shadow she’d sometimes glimpsed in his gaze over the past year was, it seemed to have grown in the past two days. His expression was remote, his mood dark, and only his eyes betrayed the lust that still lingered between them.

  Confused and uncertain, she forced herself from the bed and into the shower, the change in Graham still plaguing her even as she dressed for another day behind closed curtains, hiding from whatever threat existed outside.

  She was getting tired of hiding.

  She’d known she would. If she had known what was going on to begin with, she would have demanded her brother and cousins come up with a plan that would draw the threat out into the open rather than piecing everything together the way they were now.

  Had she been given a chance to consider it the other night, she might have demanded it then. One thing was for certain, she couldn’t continue like this. She was already going stir-crazy.

  Her life wasn’t one of idle days and lazy nights. She worked three jobs in any given week: Dawg’s lumber store, the marina, and the restaurant Natches and his sister ran in Somerset, simply named Mackay’s.

  She worked wherever she was needed most at the time or wherever her interest drew her on any given day. She didn’t just sit around, unless it was in front of her laptop writing. And writing wasn’t a vocation for her. It was an outlet for the hopes, dreams, and pains that she often found herself too sensitive to.

  Freshly showered, her long black hair blow-dried to ribbon straightness and falling to the middle of her shoulders, Lyrica hurriedly dressed.

  A white lace bra and matching panties, a fluttery chiffon skirt in soft pastel waves of color, and a white cotton camisole tank that fit over her breasts with snug appreciation for her curves before skimming over her stomach and disappearing into the thin band of the skirt. Pushing her feet into a pair of tan brown leather sandals, she left Graham’s bedroom and headed to the kitchen.

  They had twenty-four more hours, she decided, to at least come up with a reasonable lead. After that, they were going to have to revise their plans just a little bit, because living like this . . . there was no way she could continue to do it for long.

  Her heart wouldn’t survive it.

  Stepping into the kitchen, she was surprised to see Graham sitting at the small breakfast table with his laptop, a steaming coffee sitting at his elbow.

  His head lifted as she stepped into the kitchen, his golden brown eyes narrowing on her, the flecks of gold firing instantly as she paused at the doorway.

  “You’re not in the office,” she observed as she moved to the coffeepot.

  “Don’t appear to be, do I?” His tone was carefully modulated. Not a hint of mockery or sarcasm was to be found in his voice or his expression.

  But she still felt it.

  Tensing, she poured the coffee before cradling the cup in her hands and turning back to him.

  “Do you have a problem with me being here all of a sudden?” she asked curiously, hidi
ng the flash of pain that struck her at the thought.

  “Did I say I had a problem with you being here?” A dark blond brow arched questioningly, and still there was no sign of the dark anger she could feel just beneath the surface.

  “You wouldn’t say, whether you had one or not,” she felt the need to point out. “Other than sleeping with me, you’d take care of me the same way you’d expect my family to take care of Kye. I know you that well at least.”

  Something flickered in his gaze then. An acknowledgment of her point, perhaps?

  Lifting the cup to her lips to ensure she gave away as little of the pain the thought caused her as possible, Lyrica sipped at the coffee slowly.

  “If I had a problem with you being here, then trust me, you wouldn’t be here,” he promised, his expression tightening as he turned his attention back to the laptop.

  “You have me for twenty-four more hours,” she stated, her resolve hardening. “Then I’m calling Dawg.”

  With that, she set the coffee cup on the counter and turned and walked from the room.

  “Like hell.” He caught up with her before she cleared the kitchen doorway. Catching her arm in a firm grip, he had her swung around before she realized he’d even moved from the table. “What the fuck do you mean by that?” The gleam of gold in his gaze seemed to intensify as he pulled her to him, his powerful body tense, tight, and hard against her.

  “Stop with the he-man bullshit, Graham,” she snapped, pulling away from his touch as quickly as possible. Even angry and hurt, she felt nothing but pleasure when his skin touched hers. “I don’t have time for it, and I don’t want to deal with it. Dawg has twenty-four hours to figure out what the hell is going on and how to fix it, or I’m leaving.”

  His expression became so tight, so fierce, it bordered on savage. Lips thinning, the muscles at his jaw clenched tight, he glowered down at her with such dominant force that she almost backed down. It was as though some preprogrammed female part of her DNA instinctively reacted to the demand for submission.

  “The hell you are. Do you think I’m busting my ass to figure this out so you can give me a deadline before waltzing out of here and making yourself a target? I don’t think so, sweetheart.”

  She smiled back at him, making damned certain her smirk was identical to the one Natches was known for.

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Twenty-four hours,” she said again, calmly. “Then I’m leaving.”

  “I’ll lock you in the fucking basement.” It was a promise.

  “You could have been a Mackay,” she stated, her voice heavy with derision. “How long do you think it will take before Dawg finds out?”

  “As long as it takes me to call him and tell him you’re trying to leave. About five minutes after I lock the door.”

  She had to laugh. “You have to come back in at some point, Graham. Do you think I’ll actually let you leave alive?”

  A frown jerked between his brows, outrage glittered in his eyes, and he was so tense, so prepared to lock her in that damned basement, that the power pumping into his muscles actually seemed to make his biceps appear larger.

  “I’ll send Elijah in first,” he said.

  The back door opened at that moment and Elijah stepped in, a questioning grin tugging at his handsome lips as he arched a dark brow over humor-filled blue eyes. “Send me where?”

  In the same instant, he seemed to sense the tension filling the room as it whipped from both of them.

  The door closed slowly behind him. “Should I leave?” His throat cleared uncomfortably as he remained by the door.

  “Of course not, Elijah.” Lyrica grinned, stepping away from Graham and moving to the coffeepot. “I was just getting ready to make some fresh coffee before going upstairs and working on a new sales program I promised Dawg. Would you like a cup?”

  Elijah’s gaze moved to Graham as the other man stomped back to the table and the open laptop.

  “Is it safe?” he asked, the barest hint of mockery tugging at his lips.

  “Unless she throws it at you,” Graham stated, his voice low as he threw another glare her way.

  “She wouldn’t throw it at me.” Elijah gave a confident laugh. “She likes me. Don’tcha, Lyrica?”

  “All the girls like you, Elijah,” she laughed as she threw him a smile over her shoulder. “Some much better than others.”

  He winked. The charmer. “Yeah, they like my redneck charm,” he drawled. “Works every time.”

  Lyrica only snorted before starting on making fresh coffee. Rinsing out her cup, she set it beside the coffeepot before turning back to the two men. Both were watching her closely.

  Propping her hands on the counter behind her, she tilted her head inquiringly. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Graham murmured. “Not for a good twenty-four hours at least.”

  “Not on my end.” Elijah grinned. “I just stepped in to let the boss know about his cows since he couldn’t get out there today. He’s particular about bovines, ya know?” He turned to Graham then. “What happens in twenty-four hours?”

  “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” Graham answered tightly. “Now, tell me about my damned bovines.”

  Bovine his ass, Graham thought in irritation. The cows were fine; he’d checked on them himself no more than two hours before. Elijah’s only job was monitoring those cameras and tracking anyone who came too close to the lake house.

  Graham owned over five hundred acres, with the western corner butting against the lake and no neighbors for several miles. If anyone was out there, then it was Elijah’s job to identify and track them.

  “You had a few strays.” Turning to Graham, Elijah’s gaze hardened while his voice remained easy, almost teasing. “This one little shit slipped away from me on the upper end of the lake, though. I’ll go out later and see if I can’t pick its trail up again.”

  As he spoke he tapped an icon on his phone and pulled up a picture.

  There was no way to tell much about the watcher, except the fact that it sure as hell wasn’t a poacher, hunter, or lone fisherman. The figure was dressed in black, with a black military face hood in place and dark glasses. Male or female, who the hell knew?

  “Was it off the farm when you caught sight of it?” Graham asked.

  “Naw, I saw the little critter just ahead of that outcropping of boulders up the ways a bit.” Elijah tapped the phone again to point out the fifth of a dozen cameras spread around the house. Five was just above the back of the house, the same side Graham’s bedroom was on.

  “I’m confident you’ll track it down,” he murmured, glancing over at Lyrica.

  Leaning against the counter, she watched them in amused interest, though the expression on her face was frankly skeptical. The last gurgle of the coffeemaker indicated the brew’s completion, prompting her to turn, fill three cups, then slide the pot back into place.

  “Here, you two drink your coffee and talk about your ‘bovines’ in peace,” she said. “I figure they’re kind of like Dawg’s ‘cows’ when he doesn’t want Christa to know he and Natches are out checking for trespassers. The two-legged variety.”

  “Huh?” Elijah turned back to her, frowning as though confused.

  Lyrica only laughed. “Natches uses a similar expression whenever he’s lying through those disgustingly healthy teeth of his, Eli. Save it.”

  “Those are his teeth?” Poor Elijah, she distracted him so easily, Graham thought in disgust. “He’s too old for teeth like that.”

  “He’s forty-three, not fifty-three,” Lyrica laughed. “Now, Rowdy just hit forty-five. And those are indeed his natural teeth as well.”

  Graham frowned. Elijah’s gaze flicked to those pretty, sun-kissed legs as she set the two cups on the table.

  “Hell, none of them look forty,” Elijah said with a grunt as she moved back. “They’re aging well at least.”

  “Let’s see if I let them live to see their next birthdays,” Lyrica
suggested, her smile tight as she turned away from them, collected her own coffee, and moved for the doorway.

  “Lyrica.” Graham watched as she tensed at the doorway before turning back to him.

  “Yes, Graham?” The saccharine sweetness of her smile didn’t fool him in the least.

  “We’ll finish our discussion, soon.”

  “Of course we will.” She shrugged as though not in the least concerned. “Until then, you have twenty-three hours.” Then she flashed Elijah a bright smile. “See you later, Eli. Tell Timothy and Dawg I said hey when you see them later.”

  She left the room, the little skirt flirting just below her thighs as she turned the corner and headed back through the house.

  As Elijah turned, his arched brows and the grin on his lips assured Graham that the other man found the situation immensely funny.

  “Poor Graham,” he murmured.

  Bracing his elbows on the table, Graham directed a focused, narrow-eyed look on the younger man. “You have something to say?”

  “An observation, perhaps,” Elijah murmured.

  “And that would be?” Graham doubted he really wanted to hear it.

  “You obviously have twenty-three hours to fix the situation or she’s leaving.” Leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest, Elijah watched him knowingly.

  “So?”

  He shook his head pityingly. “Or twenty-three hours to give her a reason to hope it takes her brother a while to figure this mess out.” Dropping his arms, he rose to his feet, his gaze flashing with something more than pity as the amusement dropped away. “If you don’t want her, Graham, let her go—give someone else a chance to make her happy. Or finish what you started and see what you’ll be throwing away when it’s over. If you let her go now, she might have a chance of finding happiness later. That would be the humane way to handle this.”

  Graham rose slowly to his feet. “Interested, Elijah?” he asked softly, his fingers curling into fists at his sides at the very thought of the bastard touching her.