Free Nauti Temptress by Lora Leigh Page A

he was seriously afraid could end up owning his soul.
    His father had once told him that a man knew when he’d met his mate. That if he waited, kept his dick under control, and didn’t fuck up, then he’d find that mate.
    He was thirty-four. A little old to be finding his mate, he thought.
    Not that he believed in the whole mate-finding business. He didn’t. But if it actually existed, then there was no doubt he’d found his in Eve Mackay.
    The hunger he felt for her was like a white-hot flame burning his senses and his common sense to cinders. He’d waited two and a half years. Waited and watched, flirted with subtle demand, and teased until he finally managed to snag her interest.
    Not that it hadn’t been there before; it had been. But there were things that had to be done first, plans that had to be placed into motion.
    Everything was in place now.
    Brogan and his partner, his brother, Brody, now held the better part of the files that had been marked to be stolen. The inside source who had first contacted DHS gave them the information on each file targeted, and Brogan made damned sure he got to them before the real thieves could.
    If the thieves wanted to acquire the missing files, then they were going to have to come to him.
    According to Doogan, there was only one piece to the puzzle left to acquire: Eve’s loyalty and the perception that she was Brogan’s lover.
    What would make a source contact him if he knew Eve trusted him enough to be his lover? What the fuck was going on in this damned place, and just how screwed up were the criminals operating here?
    Pulling the cycle to a wide clearing at the side of the road, he turned around and headed back to town. Like Eve, he’d had no sleep the night before, and if he was going to seduce his wild little Mackay, then he was going to need all his wits about him.
    Because seducing her wasn’t going to be nearly as hard, he feared, as keeping the independent, unfettered state of his heart intact.
    He had a feeling Eve was invading it, and that could only spell trouble for both of them.
    Besides, his long-term agreement with Mercedes Mackay included two days per week that he pitched in on the upkeep of the inn and grounds. And it was time to cut the grass.

FOUR
    Eve could feel a headache coming on.
    Right there in her left temple. It was that heaviness that assured her the discomfort had no intention of going away.
    And she should have expected it from the lack of sleep, the upsetting meeting with her brother, and the knowledge that no matter how badly she wanted him, Brogan was out of her reach.
    To make matters worse, some of the less desirable members of the small Cumberland Touring and Motorcycle Club had taken a table right beside the step that led from the main floor to the bar area. Two of those members were determined that night to push her headache from irritating to migraine status: Donny Sutherby and his lover, Sandi Mikels.
    Donny, nicknamed “Bowie” by the club, was barrel-chested with a bearlike body, thick armed and heavy thighed. His straight, conservatively cut dark brown hair was thinning on top, while his pale blue eyes always looked suspicious and mocking.
    Dressed in baggy jeans and a dark T-shirt that did nothing to hide his too-thick thighs and biceps, he swaggered when he walked, and even when he was sober one would swear he was drunk.
    Sandi, a part-time stripper in Boston, followed him each summer, taking her place on the back of his motorcycle for the summer road “tours” the group took.
    How a part-time stripper could afford to take the summer off, Eve hadn’t figured out.
    Her overblown figure was poured into snug jeans and the typical summer camisole that was at least one size too small as it stretched across the boob job she was so proud of. Personally, if she were Sandi and she was going to get a boob job, Eve thought, she would have gone with one that more suited her diminutive frame rather than a set of double Ds that made her