Nauti Dreams (35 page)

know about it and suspect.

But Chaya shook her head quickly. “I’m telling you, only three of us know about it.

Cranston, me, and the electronics expert Cranston works with on the side. He’s not even

agency. And I know Cranston has it with him. He’s just been waiting for a chance to test

it.”

It could work. He narrowed his eyes, watching her silently for long moments. If it didn’t

work, if reception didn’t go through, if the electronics failed, then what the hell. Nothing

lost. Except blood. If DHS couldn’t make the charges stick on Dayle, then Natches, as

much as he was finding he hated the thought of it, would take care of things himself.

His home had been torn apart in the past year because of Johnny and Dayle’s crimes.

Once news had leaked of the activities some of their citizens had been involved in, the

town had been left in a state of shock. It was time for it to end, one way or the other.

“This could work, Natches,” Chaya urged him softly. “We can have the van in town

before daylight if I contact Timothy now. I’ll call Alex; he’ll be able to get to Timothy

without anyone else knowing. Everything can be ready and waiting before Dayle ever

calls you.”

What was there left to lose? If it worked, then he wouldn’t have to face Chaya after

shedding more blood. Despite what he had told Sheriff Mayes—that killing Johnny was

better than sex— he admitted now it had put a mark on his soul. Not a regret, but a

knowledge that he sometimes found himself shying away from.

If he killed the man who sired him, what example then was he laying for his children?

Children who would grow one day to no doubt hear the tale. Some secrets you just didn’t

keep when everyone pretty much knew everyone else.

“Call Alex.” He finally nodded. “I’ll get a message to Dawg and Rowdy. They can slip

over without the eyes watching ever suspecting a thing. We’ll get things ready to go.”

Chaya felt her heart almost explode in joy. He wasn’t dismissing the idea, he was

embracing it. He didn’t want her involved, but he was willing to allow her to back him,

and that concession, she knew, hadn’t been easy for him.

Being with Natches wasn’t always going to be easy, she had found that out. When he

decided something, he could obviously get incredibly stubborn about it, even with her.

But he could listen to reason. That was all she asked of him, to listen to reason.

“Look at your face.” His lips quirked with a hint of amusement as he reached out and

touched her cheek. “You’d think I just gave you diamonds.”

Chaya shook her head slowly. “Something better than diamonds, Natches.”

“What could be better than diamonds?”

“Your trust.”

Natches stared back at her now, almost confused. Chaya’s eyes were shining, the golden

brown a rich honey color, filled with warmth and some strange glow of happiness. Hell, a

man would think he had just given her the crown jewels or something.

“Chay.” He shook his head, letting his fingers trail down her cheek before pulling back

and continuing to stare at that strange sight. “Baby, you’ve always had my trust.”

“Not all of it, Natches.” She shook her head. “Not when it came to being here for you,

with you. It’s something you don’t even fully allow Dawg and Rowdy.”

He frowned at that. “I discussed this with them. We made up the plan together.”

“And then you sent them away,” she told him. “You gave them just enough to satisfy

them, just enough to make them feel as though they were a part of it, but you were still

going in alone.”

“I’m still going in alone,” he warned her, making certain she understood that. “You’re

not going in with me, Chay.”

“But I’ll be there with you,” she whispered. “And I’ll be close. I’ll know you’re safe, and

you’re willing to allow that risk, so I can make certain you’re safe.”

“Hell.” He rubbed at his jaw roughly. “Like you’d back down.” He glowered back at her.

“You’d give me a run for stubborn any day, do you think I don’t know it? You just came

up with a solution I wasn’t aware of. I’d have figured something out before the meeting.”

It wasn’t that big of a deal, he kept trying to tell himself. He’d walk into the meeting, see

what the hell was going on, get some information then hand Dayle Mackay over to

Timothy Cranston and DHS. It was that simple. But he didn’t intend to take any chances

with Chaya’s life.

“And let me tell you something now,” she said then. “Earlier, you said he created you.

Dayle Mackay didn’t create you. You made yourself. That’s all any of us do.”

Natches shook his head at that before reaching out and dragging her from the chair to his

arms.

“You’re a dangerous woman,” he told her as he held her against him. “And maybe you’re

right. Either way, I’ll be the one to bring him down. Now make that call to Alex and get

your plan set up. I don’t want Dayle calling before you have everything ready.”

He let her go and watched as she moved across the room to retrieve the wireless earpiece

to her laptop.

“Just in case the cells aren’t secure enough at the moment.” She frowned as she sat down

in front of the laptop. “I prefer not to take chances.”

She sent the encrypted e-mail quickly. A short, terse request for a new cell phone and

accompanying accessories. Cranston would know what she was talking about.

Within minutes, his reply came through. An affirmative and already in place. As usual,

Cranston was moving ahead of everyone else, she thought with a smile as Natches read

the message over her shoulder.

“Bastard,” he muttered, but there was that vein of amusement again.

“What time are Dawg and Rowdy supposed to be here?” she asked as she rose to her feet

and moved to him, eager, almost desperate to touch him now.

She needed him, a part of her was so hungry for him, to be held by him, that she

wondered if she could bear to wait even as long as it would take to undress.

He caught her immediately, his arms, so strong and sure, wrappingaround her, lifting her

to him. “We have plenty of time,” he promised. “God, Chay, I’d steal time if I had to for

this.”

He tumbled her to the couch, coming over her as his hands pushed at the cotton leggings

she wore and stripped them from her.

His lips came over hers, his tongue delving deep, tangling with hers as her hands tore at

his belt, at the fastening and zipper of his jeans.

It was always like this with Chaya. Wild and explosive, so searing that sometimes he

wondered if he would survive it. And always desperate. As though a part of him couldn’t

believe she was actually here, in his arms, a part of his life.

He’d let her run from him for too many years. Trying to let her have the time and the

space she needed to come to grips with everything that had happened in her life. And he

wondered if that hadn’t been a mistake. For both of them. The years they had lost could

never be returned. But they would ensure that he cherished every moment he had with

her.

As he stripped off her clothes, then tore his own off, he stilled, staring down at her, naked

and aroused, her body flushed and heated as he spread her thighs and moved slowly

between them.

Her breasts were swollen, her little nipples peaked and hard, reaching out to him, eager

for his hungry mouth. He took first one, then the other, sucking at the sweetness of her

flesh and the tight warmth of the tender peaks. He kissed the curve of her breast, then her

shoulder, as he rose over her.

“I love you, Chaya,” he whispered in her ear as he began to press his cock inside her.

Instant, silken heat began to enclose his sensitive cock head. Liquid fire tightened around

it and sucked him inside, inch by inch until he was gritting his teeth against the pleasure

consuming him as he buried himself full length inside her.

It was like living in ecstasy, the moments that he was a part of her. The way she took

him, so freely, without hesitation, giving every part of herself to him whether she realized

it or not.

He had always known it. Whether it was one of the kisses he stole, or now, buried so

deep inside her that he didn’t know where he ended and she began, he could feel her soul

clasping him. Just as surely as the depths of her pussy encased him, her soul encased him

as well.

Natches sheltered her beneath him, held her to him and began to move, to thrust slow and

easy inside her. Each penetration dragged a hard breath from his chest and caused her to

breathe in roughly. She trembled beneath him, shuddered with the pleasure he gave her.

She made him feel stronger than he knew he was, more powerful than he had ever

imagined he could be.

“Oh God, Natches. It’s so good.” Her breathless cry sent a surge of pleasure racing up his

spine.

“Hold on to me, Chay.” Her arms were already wrapped tight around his shoulders, her

nails digging into his flesh. He carried her marks every time he took her, and he gloried

in it.

His head lifted so he could watch her face as he took her. Watch the flush that washed

over her expression, the perspiration that gleamed against her flesh.

Nothing in his life had ever been so beautiful as Chaya in her passion. And nothing, no

one, could strip his control from him as she did.

He moved against her, harder, deeper. He groaned out at the tight clasp, the feel of her

pussy tightening around him, trying to hold him inside her each time he withdrew. The

feel of her pleasure mounting, the convulsive clench of silken muscles around him, her

rising cries, the demand in the return thrust of her hips.

He was losing control. He could feel it. His muscles tightened as he fought to hold back

just a little bit longer, to feel just a little bit more of her pleasure.

Then she melted beneath him, around him. Her hips slammed into his and her cry filled

his ears, and holding on was impossible.

Her name was on his lips as he thrust inside her again, again, lost in the release rising

inside him until he buried inside her one last time and felt the hard, forceful jets of his

release throbbing from his cock.

Nothing had ever been this good in his life. Nothing else had ever filled him, fulfilled

him, as Chaya did.

“I love you,” she whispered at his ear. “God help me, Natches, I love you so much.”

And those words, they completed him.

NINETEEN

Natches moved the Nauti Dreams from her berth beside his cousins’ houseboats and

pulled her into a spare slot at the other end of the marina. To preserve the illusion, he had

told Chaya. His expression was still, too still and too quiet, as though he were with her in

body only.

Chaya leaned against him as he maneuvered the craft from the second-floor control room.

He sat back in the custom leather captain’s chair, guided the huge craft into the empty

slot, and watched as two of the marina’s part-time workers secured her to the dock.

It was dark; clouds rolled over the moon and blocked the stars as a cold wind whipped

around the glass-enclosed control room.

“When this is over, we’ll find a house,” he said as he stared off into the mountains

surrounding them. “I think a baby needs a real house.”

Chaya pressed her lips together and found the ache and the panic building inside her at

his voice.

“A baby just needs a home, Natches,” she told him softly. “And two parents.”

What he was getting ready to do wasn’t without an element of danger. Chaya had read

Dayle Mackay’s Marine file. He had been a mess cook with control issues. He used his

fists indiscriminately, not caring who he hurt, or how he hurt them. But he was proficient

with weapons, namely, a knife. His hand-to-hand skill rating was high, and from

everything else she knew about him, he didn’t have a conscience.

But it wasn’t the thought of the physical danger that had him staring off into the distance;

it was who he was going up against. What he was going against. The man who should

have been his father.

“I was seven the first time he locked me in the closet,” he said. The lethal throb of cold

determination in his voice had her hands tightening on his shoulders from where she

stood behind him.

“He kept me in there until I thought I was going to die,” he said.

“Almost two days. No food, no water. When he dragged me out, I was almost senseless

with fear. After I managed to get cleaned up and he gave me a drink of water, I lied for

him, just like he wanted me to do before he put me in that closet. And he told me,

‘Loyalty, son. That’s all I want from you. Just be loyal.’ ”

Natches couldn’t even remember what his father had needed him to lie about at the time.

Something inconsequential. It always was. Just something to prove his loyalty.

“And what did you want?” she asked him.

Funny, he could hear the ache in her voice for him, just that easy. As though he were that

much a part of her, that he knew how much she ached as he talked.

He had never felt another person the way he felt Chaya. The way he had always felt

Chaya.

“I caught Faisal’s transmission the day they brought you into that camp,” he said instead

of answering her question. “I checked the area, desperate for a place to hide you, because

I just knew I was going to pull out a mess when I went in for you. The caves were a no