The three leaders of the largest packs to sign with Homeland Security, Tigen, Black, and Forest had been surprised to see them there, but Zoey was the one who had been shocked to learn the lengths the three men had taken to get to know the Mackays once Zoey and her sisters were moved to Kentucky.
Dawg, Natches, and Rowdy had seemed years younger as they escorted her into the Louisville bar where the meeting was held. Armed and dangerous, their gazes watchful, their still muscular, powerful bodies ready to move if they had to.
According to Black, the pact would have moved much faster if her family had been involved simply because protecting her would have been an assurance they wouldn’t have had to double- and triple-check. They had never trusted Jack or his pack to protect her. And it was probably a damned good thing.
They were willing to protect the pack Jack had left, though. The suddenly orphaned men and women who had made the pack their family and support network had been at a loss, just as Billy felt. Forest had agreed to move into the area and allow Jack’s to integrate with it. The men and women who followed him could also integrate easily into the surrounding counties and their workforce, just as they did wherever Forest led them each season.
They were like modern-day Gypsies, she’d always thought. Waiting, subconsciously searching for that one place they could call home. Maybe Lake Cumberland could become home for many of them.
The packs weren’t drug dealers, thugs, or murderers. They were like sentinels without backing. Hard fighting, rough talking, less than respectable, but sentinels all the same. Though they didn’t take anyone’s shit. A few were suspected to have killed; there were quite a few who slipped and smoked, shot up, or snorted their drugs of choice. But they kept to a code that their leaders enforced with unflinching swiftness. Those members knew better than to get caught, because Tigen, Black, and Forest would beat their asses and leave them lying.
Pulling into the parking space in front of her garage, Zoey hit the remote and waited for the door to lift, then eased the car inside. The heavy steel panels rolled back into place, locked down, and left Zoey sitting alone in the dimly lit interior.
She thought it would feel lonely, that the emptiness of her home would close around her. She hadn’t looked forward to that. That wasn’t what she felt, though. The warmth she’d felt while Doogan had filled her life was still there. It wrapped around her; the memory of his touch, the sound of his voice, the excitement he filled her with, warmed her. It didn’t ease the incredibly hollow pain that throbbed inside her.
“Time to figure things out, huh?” she said softly, one hand pressing to her lower stomach.
Of course, the baby wasn’t aware of the world around him or her yet. Still, speaking to the child resting there made her feel not so lonely.
“What are we figuring out?”
Doogan.
Her head jerked to the metal staircase, eyes widening at the sight of Doogan sitting on a wide step, watching her curiously.
He looked tired. He couldn’t have gotten much sleep since he’d left. From the looks of it, not much more than she had.
Stepping from the car and closing the door, she watched warily as he rose and came toward her. That confident swagger, the powerful presence, and the far-too-wicked glint in his eyes had her breath growing heavy, her body softening, the flesh between her thighs moistening.
“What are you doing here?” She sounded like some weak-kneed ninny without the strength to tell him to go to hell.
Wait, she didn’t have the strength to tell him to go to hell. The desire to wasn’t even there.
Still, she eased away from him, watching that wicked gleam in his eyes intensify as she tried to escape to the door of the gym. She made it as far as the front of the car before he stopped her.
“I missed you, witch.” His hands settled at her hips, holding her in place as she felt his erection pressing into her stomach.
“You missed having a fuck toy,” she accused him, still no heat in her voice, no strength.
She was such a pushover where he was concerned.
“A fuck toy,” he murmured, his hands sliding from her hips, beneath the sleeveless top she wore, to the naked skin of her waist. “I think it’s gone far past the toy stage, sweetheart. I think we’re heading into much more dangerous territory.”
Callused, rasping against her flesh, stroking, his fingers sent heated lashes of pleasure racing through her. She could practically feel her senses melting for him. The inner flesh of her pussy was definitely trying to melt for him. Slick and heated, her juices spilled from her, weeping to the swollen lips and engorged clit throbbing for his touch.
“Doogan . . .”
His lips stole whatever she was about to say. They covered hers, his kiss instantly ravenous, his tongue plunging inside and rubbing against hers.
Oh God, she’d missed him.
Wrapping her arms around his neck to hold him to her, Zoey tangled her fingers in his hair, moaning at the exquisite sensations racing through her, sizzling through her senses and wiping everything from her mind but the need for him. A need she couldn’t, wouldn’t fight.
TWENTY
She didn’t know why he was there, and for this moment in time she wouldn’t let herself care. For right now, the need for him, the need to have him touch her, hold her, one more time, was all that mattered.
“God, I missed you, baby,” he breathed out, his voice rough as his head lifted.
His hand slid to her hips again, lifted her, and laid her back along the still-warm hood of the car, his hands going to the snap and zipper of her denim shorts.
“I do have a bed, remember?” She frowned up at him, but her hips lifted, a moan spilling from her as he drew the material down her legs. “This is completely decadent, Doogan.”
His smile was knowing. “No, baby, this is completely tame,” he assured her. “We’ll get to decadent real soon, though.”
Well, at least he was staying around long enough for decadent. She wondered how far from decadent this was in his opinion, though.
“I haven’t forgiven you yet.” There wasn’t a damned thing for her to hold on to. Her fingers curled, reaching above her, finding the rim of the hood and gripping it desperately as he pulled her boots from her feet and dropped them to the cement floor.
“Let’s see if I can convince you to forgive me a little faster.” The dark growl in his voice was the only warning she had before his lips lowered, his tongue swiping through the swollen folds and sending her senses into flames.
Dark, almost black eyes stared up at her as he licked at her, his tongue rolling around her clit, rubbing at it, tormenting the little nub with striking flares of desperate pleasure. And it was so good. So good she could only lift to him, moan and whimper for more. More sensation, more of the whipping, whirling sensations that made her feel him all the way to her ragged soul.
A heated, sucking kiss to her clit had her hips jerking to him. When his head lifted, she was ready to wail in protest.
“Take the fucking shirt off,” he groaned. “Let me see your pretty breasts, Zoey, and those hard, tight little nipples.”
Still watching her, he flicked his tongue over the sensitive nub of her clit, then massaged it with a slow, rolling little move of his tongue.
She all but tore her shirt and bra from her, tossing the material to the floor, uncaring of where it fell. Immediately her fingers gripped her nipples, tightened on them, tugging at them as brutal fingers of overwhelming sensation tore straight to her clit.
“Fuck.” He pulled back, his gaze moving to her clit then to meet her eyes. “Your little clit’s throbbing for me, Zoey. Pushing against my tongue. So eager. It’s so damned eager to cum for me.”