Brogan chuckled, a low, sensual sound that sent heat skipping up her spine.
Stepping from the truck, Eve stared around the small clearing before turning to the cabin and staring up at it.
She’d thought the fence surrounded all four sides of the large cabin until she stepped from the truck. To the side, instead, the waters of the lake lapped at the sandy ground, while a dock extended out into the water.
Lights had flipped on from the front porch as the truck pulled up to it, revealing the elegant wilderness retreat.
She’d heard the cabin hidden in the wide canyon above the lake was a luxurious retreat often used by government officials, senators, governors, and megarich hunters with the right political ties.
From the back of the truck Brogan pulled two overnight bags free. Eve’s brows lifted in disbelief as she recognized her own bag.
“You packed my clothes?” Propping her hands on her hips, she stared back at him incredulously. “Before or after you stole the truck?”
“Let’s just say I had help.” He growled.
“You had no right to go through my things, Brogan,” she informed him, furious that he’d taken such liberties. It was one thing to practically kidnap her, but packing her clothes? Going through her drawers? That was uncalled-for.
“You weren’t there,” he stated, as though that made it just fine.
“So? That doesn’t give you the right to paw through my clothes.” Or anything else she kept in her drawers.
“Don’t worry, sweetie; your little toys didn’t offend me in the least,” he promised good-naturedly as he stepped up on the porch, set the bags on the wide bench beside the door, and pulled the key card from his shirt pocket before swiping it through the reader.
“I can’t believe you,” she bit out furiously as she followed him into the cabin. “Brogan, what gives you the right to do any of this? First you barge in on my date—”
He turned on her so fast she stepped back, startled that he was facing her so quickly, no more than inches from her where less than a second before he had been a good three feet away.
“Eve, sweetheart, don’t make me tell you again not to call that farce of a dinner you were having with that jackass a date,” he ordered fiercely rather than furiously. “My patience is wearing thin with the people who seem to be standing between us. I can deal with your brother, your sisters, your cousins. Hell, I can even deal with your mother if she decides to protest. But if you dare to put a date between us, then I might not hold on to my patience much longer.”
Her arms lifted, her hands propping on her hips as she lifted her chin defiantly. “Are you threatening me, Brogan Campbell?”
“No, Eve, I’m not threatening you.” He was closer, his head lowering, his gaze holding hers as the blue-gray appeared more a steel gray now than the light blue it sometimes seemed. “I’m telling you: My dick is harder than titanium, my control is all but shot, and I’m so damned hungry for you I’m about to lose my fucking mind. So please, for both our sakes, don’t refer to that man as your date again.”
Her lips thinned.
She could feel her nostrils flaring as she drew in air, fighting to control the racing, adrenaline-laced blood surging and thundering through her. That small movement was her first warning that her own control was thin. That her ability to access her common sense was endangered.
“Now, I’m going to take our clothes to the bedroom,” he stated as he stepped back from her. “If you want something to drink, there’s a bar in the living area and one in the kitchen. The fridge should have drinks, as well as the walk-in pantry. I’ll be right back.”
She nodded silently, her gaze still narrowed on him, her fingers so tight on the purse she expected her nails to pierce the soft leather.
Her cell phone was in her purse; she should call her mother—no, she should call Dawg. She should show Brogan he didn’t have the option of ordering her around.
There was a part of her—the independent fighter who used to worry her mother to distraction—that assured her she didn’t need Dawg’s help. If he showed up he’d drag her from the house and probably camp on her doorstep to ensure Brogan didn’t come around her again.
She could handle this.
Besides, if Dawg dragged her off, then there was no way she would end up in Brogan’s bed. And Brogan’s bed was exactly where she wanted to be.
Well, that was where she wanted to be once she and Brogan set a few ground rules, that was.
Nothing strenuous for him, just a few concerning free will, her own choices, and dates.
TEN
Brogan stared around the bedroom, making a mental note to himself to thank Timothy for everything he’d managed to arrange in a few short hours.
If the DHS agent survived his little chat with Dawg, that was.
The bedroom was exactly as he had requested.
The huge custom-made, larger than a king-and-a-half bed was surrounded by ivory netting that hung from the ceiling and draped around the thick, ultracomfortable mattress situated on the platform beneath it.
Candles by the dozen, from thick pillars to slender tapers and everything in between, were positioned around the large room. The property’s caretaker had slipped in and lit them just before Brogan and Eve arrived.
The hot tub just outside the glass patio doors steamed invitingly, while candles were positioned around the deck that surrounded it, flickering with warmth.
Opening Eve’s overnight bag he’d had Piper pack for him, he grinned as he pulled free the white lace-and-chiffon gown he knew would fall to Eve’s pretty toes, and the matching robe. She did love her chiffon.
Beneath that were jeans, camis, socks, and sneakers. He’d told Piper to pack for her sister enough clothes to last the weekend. Piper had been more than happy to do so. It was high time Brogan decided to finally do something about all the sexual tension burning between him and Eve, Piper had laughed.
He stared around the room again.
Hell, he’d never taken a virgin before, but he knew his sister had once claimed her girlfriend would forgive her anything if she treated her like a virgin and put some effort into seducing her. Brogan had snorted in amusement at the claim, while Samantha had stared back at him with a confident smile.
Picking up his own overnight bag, he moved to the shower in the next room. The damned thing was the size of two of his bathroom at the inn, let alone the shower. It was much too large for one person.
If Eve was there with him, though . . . The bench on the other side of the shower was easily six feet long and nearly as wide. Hell, the things he could do to her luscious little body on that bench as the rain showerhead poured down on them.
Showering quickly, all he could think about was the fact that she was still a virgin. Twenty-four years old, beautiful, social, yet she had saved herself for some reason—until now.
Drying quickly, he dressed in clean jeans and a white shirt.
Buttoning the shirt, then tucking it into his jeans before securing a belt around his hips, Brogan moved back into the living room, his gaze searching the room before he found her curled up on the wide hanging chair on the screened-in patio outside.
Padding barefoot to the open patio doors, Brogan stepped out on the stone flooring and leaned against the teak bar just outside the doors.
“You look like a teenager curled up in that chair like that,” he told her with a soft smile.
“Oh, really.” The sassiness and defiance in her voice had his balls throbbing, his dick threatening to swell impossibly wider. “Well, that just makes you a dirty old man then. Feeling the guilt yet?”
He wanted to laugh. Damn her, she could have the sharpest tongue.
“I picked out my bedroom while you were freshening up,” she told him with a little arch of her brow. “It’s not nearly as nice as yours, of course, but it’s still pretty swanky.”
She’d obviously explored the house some while he had been showering.
Lifting a glass to her lips, she sipped at the white wine she’d obviously found in the large walk-in refrigerator. The house had an actual walk-in refrigerator, which had amazed Brogan the first time he had been there.
Propping one arm on the bar, he just watched her, biding his time. She was sitting over there trying to convince herself she could control what was going to happen this weekend and how it was going to happen. And he would give anything to allow her the opportunity to see whether she could use all those very perceptive instincts and feminine wiles to control him. Unfortunately, in the middle of an operation with the potential to turn nasty fast was no place to allow himself to be that distracted.
“Are you ready to tell me who owns this place yet?” she asked when he said nothing more.
“I’ll tell you everything before we leave Sunday,” he promised her. “Hold your questions until then.”
“How very ominous,” she murmured as she brought the wineglass to her lips once again. “Let me guess: You’re waiting until Sunday because you know once you explain everything, I’m going to be either so pissed, so brokenhearted, or both that you won’t have a chance in hell of getting me into your bed.”
She was good; he had to give her that.
He merely grinned back at her, and kept his opinion to himself. His opinion and his confessions. It was the confessions that were going to get him in trouble. Or might piss her off for a while.
Of course, sometimes she was so much like her brother she might actually shoot him.
“I’m going to bed; I’m tired.” Sliding from the chair, still wearing those strappy four-inch peep-toe heels and carrying her glass of wine, she strolled toward him with such sensual grace and sleepy-eyed arousal, he had to clench his teeth, grinding off yet more enamel, to keep from throwing her to the couch and taking her with all the finesse of a callow, inexperienced teen.
He waited until she was ready to pass him. Until he was confident she actually thought she was going to get past him.
Then he stepped in front of her.
“You haven’t seen all the rooms yet,” he told her softly. “How can you be certain you’ve chosen the right one if you’ve missed any?”
Her heart was pounding. He could see the proof of it at her throat, where her vein pulsed at a rapid pace beneath her flesh. It was there in the hard, quick rise and fall of her breasts and the fine trembling of her body.
“The room I chose is fine, I’m sure.”
God help him, her nipples were as tight and hard beneath the material of her dress as little pebbles.
He lifted his hand and stroked the backs of his fingers down her cheek as her breath caught before she exhaled with a rough little sigh.
“You know what’s going to happen,” he told her as her lips parted to facilitate her breathing.
“That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen right now,” she informed him. He let her lift the wineglass and take a healthy sip before he spoke.
“I don’t heel worth shit,” he told her then. “You won’t control me, Eve, you won’t tame me, and you won’t dominate me. Now, that’s a warning I’ve never given another woman, and I won’t waste my time telling you again. So if that’s what you think you’re going to do, then I highly suggest you reconsider your options.”
Eve stared back at him silently, careful to keep her mouth firmly shut until she was certain she had a handle on the anger ready to burst past her lips.
When she felt she could speak civilly she smiled back at him with cool disdain.
“Brogan. Number one.” She held her forefinger up to him imperiously. “I am not now, nor have I ever been, some bitch who needs to be warned how arrogant, controlling, dominant, and manipulative men such as you can be until you realize just how it can potentially damage a relationship you decide you don’t want to lose.”
“Eve—”
“I listened to the bullshit spilling from your lips, Brogan; you can take a few precious minutes of your time to listen to common sense now.”