“Yes,” Jack and Deke said in unison in voices that indicated they weren’t backing down.
Kimber sighed. She hated being coddled and hidden away, but doing it kept Logan, and now Hunter, free to watch over Dad, rather than standing guard over her…just in case.
“Fine. You win.”
After dropping another kiss on her dad’s cheek and getting a stiff half hug from Hunter, Kimber allowed Deke to escort her out the door.
On the way out, they crept through the hospital, taking a different route. It whipped them past the hotel’s gift shop, complete with current magazines and newspapers. And there on the front was a picture of her and Jesse the night he’d announced their engagement onstage in Houston. The headline screamed “Is the Wedding Off?”
Before Deke could drag her away, she slipped into the store and grabbed the magazine and started skimming. The pictures themselves showed him smiling—
almost frantically so—and denying the breakup, insisting she was “the one.” There was a brief news item about the explosion, almost as a throwaway. The magazine was far more concerned about whether Jesse had really reined his party ways and whether his upcoming album would do poorly now that he appeared to be both taken and unstable. A picture of him scrambling across Jay Leno’s desk, looking frenetic and off-kilter, confirmed that the merry-go-round of Jesse’s behavior went on. Hell, he looked like he’d lost touch with reality.
Deke snatched the magazine out of her hand and put it back on the rack. “Don’t read that shit. You, of all people, know it’s not true.”
“What the hell has he been doing? I called off the engagement. I copied every press organization I could think of.”
Deke gritted his teeth as he led her out of the gift shop and toward the car. Jack flanked her, holding Morgan’s hand. “Some of the press disregarded your e-mail as a hoax.”
“Damn it! I copied Jesse himself. I broke things off with him. He knows I sent that e-mail.”
“Yeah. Well, he ain’t telling.”
Kimber bit the inside of her cheek as Deke urged her into the car, his ever-observant eyes scouring every inch of the parking lot, probably seeing every ant that lived in the cracks of the concrete. Jack clapped Deke on the shoulder and took off with his beautiful wife.
What the hell was she going to do? She couldn’t do anything about Jesse’s massacre in the press… When she left the swamp, she didn’t want the vultures with cameras at her door night and day. And this couldn’t be healthy for Jesse.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” Deke warned as he sat in the driver’s seat and backed out, “the answer is no.”
“I have to do something to stop all this.”
“No.”
“But—”
“No.”
“Damn you. Why not?”
“We’ve worked long and hard to protect you. Jesse’s made his own fucking bed. I stood there and watched while you went to him. He couldn’t make it work. You’re not going to risk your life to drag his stupid ass out of this mess because he’s a head case.”
“But—”
“You want to go back to him?”
Damn. Way to back her into a corner with just a few words.
“No.”
Deke flashed her a look with those wild blue eyes she couldn’t quite decipher.
“You okay with me and Luc?”
“I don’t like hiding out in the middle of nowhere and having to be away from Dad.”
“Answer the question.”
Was big, seemingly invincible Deke asking if she was happy and wanted to stay with him and his cousin? It seemed to matter to him. She repressed a smile. The question seemed almost…sweet. It spun a sugary hope inside her.
She reached across the SUV and put a hand on his thigh. “You know I am.” He nodded as if that ended the conversation. “Then no more about that prick.
Ever.”
The next week passed by slowly, a mixture of euphoric highs in Deke’s and Luc’s arms and wrenching lows hearing about her father’s unchanged condition.
Hunter’s chilly disapproval blared through the phone every time she talked to him, adding to her tumult.
As if sensing her confusion and sadness this morning, Deke had awakened her with soft kisses on her neck—and demanding fingers inside her sex. Luc had added the talent of his tongue on her nipples and those clamps he was so fond of. Within minutes, they’d driven all thoughts from her head except the need for them inside her. Naturally, they’d obliged, taking her again to heights she could barely comprehend.
Now, in the early morning glow, Luc pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and rolled from the bed, toward the shower, leaving her alone with Deke. The big blond warrior held her against him, their damp skin pressing together, breathing in unison.
Kimber fought tears. She didn’t know if her father was going to make it, if her choices were going to estrange her from her oldest brother. If anything would ever come of her love for Deke. Here in the swamp, life was like a bubble. Not real. No going back or forward until something happened and they achieved some closure with her father’s health and the bomb-wielding asshole.
“Kimber?” Deke stroked a wide palm up and down her back. His way of asking if she was okay.
Do you love me? She was dying to ask. Kimber knew better. And maybe she didn’t want the answer. Deke wanted her. That would have to be enough for now. The men were always touching her, sitting her in their laps, kissing her…getting her between them two, three, four times a day. It was a miracle she wasn’t living in an orgasm-induced stupor. And she wasn’t complaining…except she had no idea how Deke felt about her. He’d never said a word, and she still knew nothing about the past that haunted him.
“I’m fine,” she lied. What else was there to say?
He shifted, rolled to his side and looked down into her face. God, the man was gorgeous. Not perfect. Not pretty. A slight bend in his nose told her it had been broken somewhere along the way. But those blue eyes of his jumped out of that golden face. Military short hair only accentuated the hard, Germanic features that all shouted male! What was she going to do if this was nothing more than a huge fuckfest to him?
“You’re too tense to be fine.” He smoothed a hand down her belly, toward her sex.