THE NAUTI CHRONICLES

So that was what had happened to his shirt. Rowdy Mackay leaned against the kitchen doorway, tilted his head and watched in amusement as his

stepsister Kelly shuffled over to the refrigerator and opened the door to peer into the interior.

The long gray Marines T-shirt swallowed her slender frame and hung well past her thighs. A pair of his matching gray socks covered her small feet,

and gray sweatpants hung from her hips. Not his, he thought in amusement

—obviously hers but loose enough to make a man wonder why the hell she was suddenly hiding that curvy little body he knew she possessed.

Especially when she had never bothered to do so in the past.

This outfit was a far cry from the snug shorts and T-shirts she used to don for summer sleepwear. Long honey-gold curls fell from the crown of her head to the middle of her back, the loose ringlets tousled and still a bit tangled from sleep, and damn if she didn’t look like she had just dragged herself from a lover’s bed.

He knew better, of course. His parents’ rules were strict. He might live under their roof during the brief times he was home, but he didn’t bring his women here for the night and he knew damned good and well Kelly

wouldn’t bring a man here. The treasured princess of the house might be spoiled beyond bearing, but she respected her mother and stepfather. So

dragging herself out of a lover’s arms before making her way to the kitchen wasn’t a scenario that was likely to happen here.

It was one of the reasons he had stayed away as much as possible since she had come of age. One of the reasons he had taken that last tour with the

Marines. Some things a man just knew he was too weak to resist, and he had accepted long ago, he was too weak to resist Kelly.

That realization had come along about the time she grew breasts and he was noticing those breasts. Somewhere around the time that she started teasing him with innocent smiles and brushing against him, and he was enjoying it. Feeling like a pervert, but damned if he wasn’t enjoying it.

It was then he joined the service just to get the hell out of the house, to get away from her. College wasn’t providing him the escape he needed.

She was still there, and so was he, too often. And he was weak. Weak men were dangerous creatures. A twenty-two-year-old man had no damned business touching a sixteen-year-old, and he had known it. The only other option had been leaving. So Rowdy had left.

He was still too weak eight years later. His time in the Marines had taught him self-control, finished his education, and brought him into manhood. But his greatest weakness was still his greatest weakness.

Kelly.

“I don’t wanna cook.”

His lips quirked at the early morning grumpiness in her voice. She was talking to herself. Some things never changed. The sun would rise in the

east and set in the west, and Kelly would always mutter to herself when she was irritated.

“There’s cereal in the cabinet.” Rowdy expected her to turn with a smile bright enough to rival the sun. His arms were ready to open for the handful of woman barreling toward him. He wasn’t expecting what he got though.

Kelly screamed. The refrigerator door slammed closed hard enough to rattle the contents as she turned to dart through the opposite doorway.

Her face had gone paste-white; her wide gray eyes were filled with fear, her socked feet slipping on the hardwood floor as she suddenly realized who he was.

Who had she expected?

She was poised to run but fighting to stand still. Conflicting emotions ran across her expressive face as her eyes met his, and the room filled with a tension that had never been there before. Her nostrils flared, like an animal testing the wind for danger, certain it was there, knowing it was at risk.

Fear filled her eyes. Beautiful gray eyes that had softened with her love for him for years, now stared back at him, stormy, dark with shadows.

Rowdy narrowed his eyes on her, his body stiffening. No, it wasn’t fear. For a moment, there had been pure, shocking terror. A woman aware that she

was alone with a man, that she was weak, that her security wasn’t assured. He’d seen it overseas in the eyes of a thousand women, and he saw it now.

“Rowdy?” Her voice was high, thin, her hands bunching in the front of her shirt, fisting the material as she shuddered. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s home, isn’t it?”

He had been ready to catch her as she ran at him. She always ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck, pressing her tight little breasts against his chest and slapping a kiss to his cheek. For eight years, he could count on Kelly’s greeting. Until now. He wondered in which direction the sun would rise now. Some things should just never change.

“Oh. Yeah.” She nodded, her eyes darting around the room before a nervous smile tilted her soft pink lips, trembled there for a moment, then disappeared. “We weren’t expecting you. Did you tell Mom and Ray you

were coming?”

“No. I never do.” His battle instincts were humming now. This wasn’t normal. It was so far from normal that he knew with a clench of his gut that he wasn’t going to like whatever the hell had been going on here.

Suddenly, nearly a year of his father’s discomfort when they talked on the phone rose within his mind. Every time he had asked about Kelly, Ray

Mackay’s voice had tightened, become tense. When he asked to talk to her, he was given excuses.

The letters he had received from Kelly had changed too. She no longer sent pictures, no longer filled the exchanges with innuendo or teasing comments. She had still written, but it was different, a difference he couldn’t put his finger on, couldn’t explain. He had felt it though, felt bereft without the

warmth he always found in the exchanges.

“No, you’re always sneaking up on us.” There was that nervous smile again, the way her eyes darted around the room.

Rowdy held himself where he was, leaning against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He could be a patient man when he had to be.

But he had also learned that sometimes, there was no choice but to forge ahead and confront whatever enemy waited in the dark. He’d learned to forge ahead just as well as he had learned to wait.

“What’s going on, Kelly?” He straightened from the doorway, dropped his arms and tucked his thumbs in the waistband of his low-slung jeans.

His chest was bare, the cooling breeze from the air conditioner drying the sweat that had dampened his flesh. He’d been cleaning the Harley, polishing his baby and getting her ready for her first ride in over a year.

He’d dumped his duffel bag in his room and headed straight for the

garage, knowing his father and stepmother would be at the marina, and figuring Kelly would be there as well.

The fact that she wasn’t was interesting. Her reaction to him even more so.

“Nothing’s going on.” That damned quick, nervous little smile was starting to get on his nerves. Her lips were trembling, and he could see the frantic distress in her eyes.

“You’re a lousy liar, baby,” he grunted, heading for the fridge and watching as she edged out of his way.

She kept her eyes on him, watching him suspiciously as he opened the door and pulled a bottle of water free. Uncapping it, his gaze locked with hers, he brought it slowly to his lips.

Now there was a glimmer of the girl he had left eight years ago. Shyly

watching as he drank from the bottle, her little tongue flicking out to swipe over her own lips, as though she were thirsty. A hungry little gleam filled the soft depths of her eyes, darkening them, making them appear stormy,

cloudy.

“When did you get back?” She crossed her arms over her breasts, tearing her gaze from his. “Do Mom and Ray know you’re home?”

“Not yet.” He recapped the bottle and set it on the kitchen isle as he continued to watch her. “I had Dawg pick me up from the airport this morning. We pulled in here about seven.”

She nodded, a jerky little movement that had his fingers tightening as he watched her. The suspicion growing in his mind sent black anger swirling

through him. Something had changed her, something dark and ugly, and he could see it in her eyes, in the regret and the anger and the fear that filled her expression.

The girl he had loved nearly all her life was terrified of him. She wasn’t wary, or nervous, she was flat out scared. This was the same girl

he had held as a child when her father died. He’d been a scrawny teenager, she had been too young to understand the sudden death that had rocked her world, and had sought out the boy who ruffled her hair, teased her about her skinned knees and protected her from the bullies.

This was the same girl he’d taken to her senior prom when her date had stood her up. The one he had danced with on the dance floor and had to

hide his erection because he knew he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t have her. The girl he had kissed one night when he’d drank too much, the one he had touched too intimately before he headed back to base four years before. She was his girl, and suddenly, she was terrified of him.

“So where’s my hug?” He leaned against the middle counter, watching her closely.

What little color had returned to her face, drained. Her eyes jerked to his, then away, her throat working as she swallowed tightly.

“I have to get dressed. I have to get to work.” She turned on her heel, moving for the doorway.

“Kelly.” Knowing he was making a mistake, feeling that knowledge to the soles of his booted feet, Rowdy reached out to catch her wrist.

His fingers touched her, curled around the bare skin when she shrieked, turning on him with a flash of fear as she jerked away from him, her body tightening defensively.

“What?” She gave it a good fight. She tried to cover her reaction, but the way she suddenly backed away from him and the fear on her face gave her away. There was no hiding the fact that his touch had terrified her. That being alone with him, that having him near her was suddenly something to fear rather than a way to tease him, was impossible to hide.

“Kelly, where’s Dad?” He kept his voice cool, kept himself controlled. But fury was racing through him. Only one thing could cause a reaction

-

like this, only one thing would have changed the teasing, tempting little minx he had known into a terrified, scurrying little rabbit.

“The marina.” She licked her lips again, her gaze jumping away from him, her expression warring between fear and frustration. “I have to get dressed. I’ll…I’ll be down later.”

She ran from him. As quick as that she turned tail in those sloppy, ill-fitting clothes she was wearing and moved quickly from the kitchen to the

staircase in the entryway and rushed upstairs.

She left him alone in the sunlit kitchen, his fists clenched, anger surging in his gut and his suspicions all but confirmed.

He turned abruptly and stalked to the phone, ripping it from the base hanging on the wall and punching in the marina’s number.

He waited through four rings impatiently, one hand propped on his hip, the other clenched around the phone with a force that should have shattered it.

“Mackay Marina.” His father’s booming voice suddenly came over the receiver.

“Hey, Dad, how’s it going?” Rowdy kept his voice calm, controlled.

“Hey, Rowdy, not too bad.” Ray Mackay chuckled. “How did you get to call so early? That CO Of yours sleeping on the job?”

“Hell if I know,” he drawled. “I didn’t sign up for another tour, Dad.”

He had planned to, had every intention of doing so until his last birthday passed and he realized that running from some things wasn’t working.

“I’m home. Showed up about seven this morning.” Tension suddenly sizzled across the line.

“You’re home?” His dad’s voice was deliberately bland, the tone mild. But Rowdy knew his dad, sometimes too well.

“Yep. Saw Kelly too.”

He wasn’t a fool, but even if he had been the muttered curse that came across the line would have warned him.

“We’re on our way home.” Ray confirmed his worst fears. “We need to talk.”

Rowdy hung up the phone, stared around the kitchen then breathed out heavily as he wiped his hands over the short strands of his hair.

Hell’s fire. He came home to court his favorite girl, to settle down, to stop fighting what he knew was a losing battle. Had he come home too late?

Kelly let the hot water from the shower flow over her, wash away her tears, though it couldn’t wash away the feeling of hands holding her down, of fetid breath on her face, hard, wet lips covering hers.

It couldn’t drown out the rage and anger, or the fear. It turned her skin pink from the heat and stung her tender flesh, but it couldn’t ease the need that lay just below the memories of a night she feared had changed her life forever.

Rowdy was home. All six-feet-four-inches of hard, muscled flesh and teasing sea-green eyes. He was home after more than a year away, a man full-grown, mature, and sexy as hell.

She wiped at her tears again, her breath hitching in her throat as she remembered one of the few nights she had followed him to the lake. She had known where he was going when he left, knew where to find him.

The houseboat was Rowdy’s pride and joy, and it was his escape. And she knew where he would head, to the Point, a serene cove where he and his buddies gathered on the weekends to drink, fish, to let off steam and party out the excessive energy they always seemed to have.

“Dad’ll kill me.” He had been just a little drunk, and way too sexy. His sea- green eyes had darkened, his expression growing heavy with desire as he pressed her against a tree.

They had been hidden in the shadows from the rest of the group, sheltered.

The heat of summer and lust had wrapped around them. He had been a man, and she had been too innocent, too uncertain in how to contain the need that pulsed in every cell of her body.

“I won’t tell him,” she had whispered, her palms smoothing up his chest, feeling the prickle of the light growth of body hair that spread over his torso as his hands had gripped her hips, pulling her against his thighs.

“He’ll know I touched you.” His lips had quirked into a smile. “You’re like pure, raw liquor, Kelly. And you go to my head faster.”

She had fought to breathe, to contain the explosion of satisfaction and joy that rushed through her bloodstream.

“I’m leaving again tomorrow, baby.” At first the words hadn’t made sense. “I took another tour. Damned good thing, because sure as hell I’d end up

doing this, and fuck us both up for good.”

Agony had washed over her body even as pleasure had exploded into fragmented, flickering rays of sensation. His lips had covered hers, his tongue teasing her as he sampled her kiss then tasted the tears that fell from her eyes.

“One kiss, baby. Just this. Damn, you’re going to break my heart.”

He had kissed her as though he were starved for her. One hand had curled in her long hair, the other had cupped her breast, his thumb rasping over her engorged nipple, their moans whispering together as the summer night enfolded them.

The hard length of his cock had pressed between her thighs, rasping against the thin material of her bathing suit, caressing her swollen clit.

Even through the heavier material of his jeans she had felt the throb of his erection, the length of it, the promise of passion and satisfaction.

“Don’t leave,” she had whispered as he drew back from her. “Don’t go, Rowdy.”

“If I don’t, I’ll ruin us both forever…” He had set her from him, staring down at her, his eyes raging with lust. “Don’t forget me, darlin’, because sure as hell, I don’t think I’ll ever forget you.”

He had never touched her again. He had taken her back to the shore and

walked her the short distance to the small parking area above the point. He had put her in her car and sent her home. And the next morning, he had been gone. And he had never touched her again. She had lived on fantasy and dreams, because Rowdy made certain there was no chance of a repeat performance. And she had plotted and planned for his return. She had moved out of her mother’s home into a small apartment in town. She had

begun monthly visits to the local spa where she was plucked, waxed, toned and lotioned on a regular basis. For too short a time.

Within three months of moving out all her dreams had turned to ashes and fear had taken its place. Her own foolishness had led to her downfall, and pulling herself from the shadows of the terror she had experienced was taking all her strength. She didn’t know if she could survive dealing with Rowdy and her need for him, on top of it.

She leaned her head against the shower wall, her breath hitching as she fought back her tears. He knew something was wrong. There was no way to hide it. She looked at him now and she didn’t just see the man she had been in love with since she was a child and he was a teenager.

She saw someone she couldn’t fight, couldn’t struggle from if she needed to. She saw a threat.

Her fists clenched as she pressed them against the tile, anger building in her chest until she wondered if she would be able to hold back the screams that pressed at the back of her throat.

She loved him. She had loved him forever. Dreamed of him, ached for him, waited for him. And now she was too damned scared to even welcome him home.

Are you my good girl, Kelly?

She flinched at the memory of the rasping voice at her ear as a hard male body held her down, as the slickened fingers of the other hand probed between her buttocks, ignoring her struggles, her muted screams through the gag over her mouth.

She had been bleeding from the numerous cuts he had made on her body

after he tied her spread-eagled on her bed. The wounds had burned like fire

as they bled, the adrenaline pumping through her, making the blood race through her body and pour from the cuts. It had made her weak, made it hard to think; to work the hastily tied gag loose enough for one piercing scream as she felt him attempt to penetrate her rear.

God, she hated the memory of it. Hated the feeling of helplessness that followed her, even now. She had been unable to fight; unable to protest anything he did to her. And the nightmares that alone brought left her

shaking in the darkest hours of the night.

She had been terrified of Rowdy knowing. Fearing he would blame her, that any chance she had of being held by him in the future would be gone.

Because they weren’t finished. He had assured her they weren’t finished, that the time would come when she would be his woman. And she had known what that meant. Had known that there were hungers, pleasures

Rowdy would give her that she would never experience with another man. Pleasures that she feared had now been taken from her.

But even more, she had feared for Rowdy. He would have never stayed

where he was if he knew what was going on at home. He would have left, with or without permission, he would have returned for vengeance. Rowdy protected those he cared about, and Kelly knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would have come racing home, even if it meant going

AWOL.

She rolled her head against the shower wall, clenching her eyes closed, seeing Rowdy, his gaze suspicious, his expression hard, determined. He

would know now. Dawg and Natches had promised to keep the knowledge to themselves only until Rowdy returned home. And that knowledge might very well destroy what was left of her heart.

Shame curled through her mind, lashed at her emotions and left her stomach churning with the sick realization that there was no longer a way to hide

from him. As long as he was a world away, she could pretend, for short periods of time, that it hadn’t happened. That everything was the same as it had always been, and that the sick bastard who attacked her wasn’t now trying to finish the job. She could pretend…

But now Rowdy was home. And Kelly knew, once he learned the truth, he would never let it rest. He would find the stalker tormenting her, or he

would die in the effort. And the fear of his death overshadowed even the fear of the threat she faced herself. Because life without the promise of

seeing Rowdy, of hearing his laughter and the dark promise of passion in his voice, was a life Kelly didn’t want to contemplate. A life she knew she didn’t want to face.