Wild Revenge: The Dangerous Jacob Wilde / The Ruthless Caleb Wilde / The Merciless Travis Wilde

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, you both vanished.”

“Pretty much at the same time,” Em added.

“Except, she didn’t exactly vanish.” Jaimie stole a strip of bacon from Jake’s plate. “Ellen Boorman said she made a scene and stalked out in a huff. Anybody know what happened?”

“No,” Travis and Caleb said, with one voice.

“Ellen said you were part of the scene and then you disappeared, too. So we thought you might have gone after her.”

His three sisters fixed him with laserlike stares. Jake coughed.

“Piece of biscuit,” he gasped. “Caught in my throat.”

Em rose, went to the sink, returned with a tall glass of water. Jake nodded and gulped down half.

“So, what happened?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly.

“You’re not going to do an assessment for her?”

Jake narrowed his eyes at his brothers, who looked at each other then gave their complete attention to their mugs of coffee.

“Where’d you hear that?”

Lissa shrugged. “Around,” she said airily. “Are you?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Because?”

“Because,” he said, putting down his knife and fork, “because I’m not—I’m not—”

“Not what?” Em asked, and that was when he remembered he’d still not told his sisters he wasn’t staying.

“Because he won’t have the time,” Jaimie said blithely, “once he’s taken up his duties here.”

Silence fell over the room.

“Jeez, Jaimie,” Caleb said.

Jaimie held up her hands. “What’d I do?”

“What duties?” Jake said carefully.

Travis sighed.

“Well, running El Sueño. Taking it over. You know.”

Jake narrowed his gaze.

“No, I don’t know. You want to tell me what you’re talking about?”

Caleb gave an elaborate shrug.

“Tom Sloane is retiring. Remember?”

“Of course I remember. What does this have to do with me?”

“Well, the General thinks—”

“The General thinks,” Jake repeated slowly.

“So do we. All of us. We hoped you’d step into Tom’s shoes. More than that, actually. We’re all part owners of The Dream, of course, but we want you to be its CEO.”

“The paperwork is all drawn up,” Lissa said.

Caleb and Travis groaned.

“Paperwork?” Jake said carefully.

“Legal documents. Changes to the trust that holds El Sueño, that will reflect you taking over operations.”

Jake looked at his brothers.

“You went ahead and did this even though I told you that I’m not staying.”

“Oh, Jake,” Em said. Her sisters shushed her.

“Well, we were hoping you changed your mind.”

“Didn’t it occur to you to consult me?”

“Sure. But—”

Jake was angry. Angrier than the situation demanded. He knew that—but knowing it didn’t change a thing.

He shoved back his chair, tossed his napkin on the table and got to his feet.

“How nice of you all to plan out my life.”

“Hey, man, we aren’t—”

“Yeah. You are.”

“Look, El Sueño needs you. And you need El Sueño.”

And there it was. The cause of his anger. Jake leaned over, slapped his palms flat against the tabletop.

“What am I, the family rehab project?”

“Jake,” Travis said, “we love you.”

“Then don’t play at being my therapists,” he said, and he ignored his sisters’ voices calling after him and got out of the house before he said something he’d truly regret.

His car was where he’d left it last night.

Enough of this, he thought as he got behind the wheel. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life but one thing was certain.

He wasn’t going to let anyone make his decisions for him.

Not anymore, he told himself grimly as he started the car and got moving.

He should have taken off first thing that morning.

He hadn’t wanted to hurt his sisters. And, dammit, that was exactly what he’d do, if he left now.

He thought about seeking out Travis and Caleb and telling them it was time they learned to mind their own business but he knew what they’d said was true.

They loved him.

And they were worried about him. That was why they’d come up with the half-baked idea of him running the ranch.

The entire Wilde clan had decided he was depressed or suffering from PTSD when, in truth, post-traumatic stress disorder was not the problem.

The problem was, he was a failure.

It started to rain as he turned onto the county highway.

Great. Rain certainly suited his mood.

Had Caleb or Travis told Addison McDowell he needed a reason to feel useful?

Had they asked her to take pity on him?

His jaw tightened.

Was pity at the heart of what had happened last night?

The possibility made him sick. And angry.

There was only one way to get an answer.

Jake pulled onto the shoulder of the road, made a U-turn and headed for the Chambers ranch.

He drove fast and hard, and reached the ranch in half the time it normally would have taken.

His anger was still boiling when he pulled up outside the house.

The rain beat down on him as he got out of the car and slammed the door shut. Scowling, he turned up the collar of his jacket, stalked up the sagging wooden steps to the porch and jabbed at the bell.

Silence.

“Dammit,” he muttered, and banged his fist against the door.

Nothing.

She had to be inside.

Her car—he could see that it was a plain vanilla rental Chevy—was parked where he’d seen her leave it. In the glow of his headlights, he’d seen her get out of it and rush inside the house as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.

Had she been afraid of him?

Was she tucked away inside, afraid of him now?

Jake stuck his hands in his pockets, looked down at his boots.

He wouldn’t blame her if she were. He’d behaved like a crazy man and here he was this morning, stomping across her porch, banging on her door….

And why in hell would he think she’d made love with him out of pity? Had sex with him, whatever she wanted to call it?

She’d been as carried away as he’d been.

No matter how things had ended, she deserved better than those cold and ugly thoughts.

Enough, he thought, and he trotted down the steps, got back into his car and drove away.

Addison watched from an upstairs window as Jacob Wilde drove off.

Good. In fact, excellent.

The last thing she wanted was to deal with him this morning.

She was busy getting things in order inside this—this catastrophe of a house.

Despite her best intentions, she wasn’t going to be able to leave today. There wasn’t a seat on a New York-bound flight out of Dallas until the end of the week.

Not a problem.

She wasn’t fleeing Wilde’s Crossing, she was simply heading home.

There was plenty to keep her occupied for a few days.

Like what she was about to tackle. Emptying a hall closet on the second floor.

“Yuck,” she muttered.

It wouldn’t be fun, but it had to be done.

Over the weeks, she’d cleaned all the rooms, scrubbed the kitchen and ancient bathroom. She’d even done some touch-ups—polished the floor, painted the walls, bought some odds and ends for the biggest bedroom, which was the one she slept in.

She’d done the closet there but nowhere else, and she had not even looked at the attic.

She could put the house on the market as it was, but for all she knew, there was a treasure trove of interesting old stuff right here, under her nose.

Checking would be fun—

Okay.

Addison stepped away from the closet, sighed and sank down, cross-legged, on the floor.

Maybe not.

She’d probably find nothing but spiders and dust. Still, it would give her something to do instead of thinking about last night.

Thinking about it was pretty much all she’d managed this morning.

That man. Jake Wilde.

“Such arrogance,” she told the empty room.

Indeed.

Arrogance. Audacity. Ego.

The nerve of him to show up here today.

Why had he come?

She couldn’t think of a reason, unless he thought he could talk her into a repeat performance.

No. That hadn’t been it.

A man hoping to take a woman to bed wouldn’t have looked so damned angry.

As if he had anything to be angry about when she was the one who—

Addison froze.

What was that? A car?

Frowning, she rose, went into the closest bedroom and drew back a corner of the curtain.

Jake Wilde’s car.

He was back.

The man was persistent, if nothing else.

Jake stood on the porch and rang the bell.

Knocked on the door. Knocked, not banged. No answer, so he switched to ringing the bell again.

Eventually, he heard a window slide open somewhere above him. He took a step back, looked up, saw Addison, her face half-obscured by a flapping lace curtain the color of old gym socks.

He took a breath, let it out, cleared his throat.

“Ms. McDowell.” Did you address a woman so formally after you’d slept with her? But he hadn’t slept with her. He’d all but screwed out his brains and hers against a truck … and, hell, that kind of image didn’t belong in his head right now. “Addison,” he said pleasantly, “good—”

“You have ten seconds to turn around and get off my land, Captain. After that, I call the police.”

So much for being pleasant.

“Take it easy, okay? You don’t need the police.”

“I’ll decide what I need. The police, the FBI, the National Guard. How about the cavalry?”

“Look, I just want to talk to you.”

“You have nothing to say that I want to hear.”

“How do you know until I say it?”

“When I was in college, I took a class in Platonic dialectic. I’m not going to get dragged into this discussion.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “I took a class in contract negotiation. Does that make us even?”

It was difficult not to laugh. He was quick, and he was funny.

As if either thing mattered.

“Here’s the bottom line,” Addison said. “We have nothing to talk about.”

“What about last night?”

“What about it?”

“We need to talk about that.”

“We already did.”

She was right; they had. And the excuse he’d given himself when he’d been here fifteen minutes ago wasn’t valid, either.

He hadn’t come to confront her.

He’d come because he just plain wanted to see her.

What if he told her that?

“Captain?”

Jake nodded. Looked up. “I’m still here.”

“And I’ve just proved that there’s no purpose to your visit. So do us both a favor. Go away.”

“I probably should.”

“There’s no ‘probably’ about it.”

“I would, if I were smart.”

“Yay,” she said, and he tried not to laugh when he heard her clapping her hands together.

“But I’m not smart. If I were, I’d have done the right thing last night.”

“What did I say? I do not want to talk about—”

“I’d have told you,” he said gruffly, “that I wasn’t sorry we’d made love—”

“Goodbye, Captain.”

“—because,” he said quickly, before she could close the window, “because the truth is, I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted a woman. And what we did …” His smile was slow and intimate and she could feel it, straight into the marrow of her bones. “What we did,” he said, “was fantastic.”

Addison stared at the man looking up at her from the porch.

What did she say to that blunt admission?

That blunt, incredibly sexy admission?

The man was a puzzle. He confused the hell out of her.

Just looking at him was confusing.

No uniform today. Instead, he was dressed like a, well, a cowboy. Faded shirt. Faded jeans. Boots that she could tell had nothing to do with style. Even here, in the heart of ranching country, she’d seen a lot of that. Style, no substance.

And, of course, he was wearing that eye patch, hiding what the war had done to him from the world.

He looked—there was that word again—beautiful. And so masculine she was finding it difficult to remember how much she despised him.

It was quite a combination. Arrogance and vulnerability in one gorgeous package …

She’d never known a man like him. And the sex—the sex, she thought, almost hearing the italics in her head—as for that …

Why lie to herself?

It had been … there had to be a better word than fantastic.

Sex was okay. But it wasn’t mind-blowing.

Until last night. Until he’d taken her in his arms. Was that why she’d heaped all the blame on him? Because it was less embarrassing than the truth?

Those moments when he’d been inside her, when their mouths and bodies had been fused …

“Okay.”

Addison came back to reality. Jake was still looking at her but he’d gone down the steps, even backed up a couple of feet.

Now that he had, she could see that he had a bouquet of flowers in his arms.

“You don’t want to talk to me,” he said, “I guess I can’t blame—”

The window sash fell into place. The dishwater-gray curtain swung back to cover the glass.

He put the bouquet down on the porch. Then he tucked his hands into his back pockets and headed for his car.

And felt a moment of ineffable loss, and wasn’t that ridiculous? He’d apologized. She’d refused the apology. End of—

“Hey.”

Her voice was soft but it stopped him in his tracks. He turned and saw her in the open doorway.

His gaze swept over her.

No black silk dress.

No stilettos.

She wore oversize gray sweats. Her feet were bare. Her hair hung loose around her face, a shining curve of darkness.

Something seemed to turn over inside him.

As beautiful as she’d been last night, she was even more beautiful now.

The sight of her made him wish they could start over, even though all they’d have was today.

She cleared her throat.

“I was just going to make some fresh coffee. Would you … would like some, Captain?”

Jake looked at her for what seemed forever.

“It’s Jake,” he said gruffly. “And coffee sounds … it sounds great. Thanks.”

He retrieved the bouquet. She took a step back as he climbed the porch steps. When he reached her, she felt her pulse leap.

“Actually,” she said, “actually, it really won’t be great. The coffee, I mean. The pot I found in the kitchen is—is just about as—as antiquated as the rest of the—the rest of the—”

“Addison.”

The way he spoke her name, the way he was looking at her, told her everything she wanted to know, including the fact that coffee was the last thing on his mind.

Or hers.

“Jacob,” she whispered, and he dropped the flowers as she stepped into his arms.

CHAPTER EIGHT

JAKE KICKED the door shut behind him.

The interior of the house was dark and cool; the silence of the empty rooms was all around them. There was a scent in the air—her scent. The scent of flowers he hadn’t been able to define.

“Addison,” he said softly.

She turned her face up to his. Her eyes filled with him, and a rush of something primitive and possessive swept through him.

“Be sure,” he said in a rough whisper as he tunneled his fingers into the silken darkness of her hair. “Because once we start—”

She rose to him and pressed her lips to his.

“Make love to me, Jacob,” she said.

Jake groaned, drew her hard against him and claimed her mouth with a deep, possessive kiss.

Just that quickly, last night’s hunger blazed inside him again. His big body shuddered; his blood beat hot and heavy in his ears. The driving need to make Addison his was all that mattered….

No.

She was all that mattered.

He wanted more than her body.

He wanted her.

In bed. Naked. Her dark hair spread over the pillows.

He wanted her needing his touch, pleading for it, as desperate for him as he was for her.

Teeth gritted, fighting hard for control, he caught her up in his arms.

“Hold on to me,” he whispered.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. Buried her face against his throat. He could feel her heart thundering against his, her breath on his skin.

The stairs were just ahead. Another couple of minutes, he told himself as he climbed them.

He could last that long.

Only one door was open on the second floor. Jake shouldered his way past it. He knew this old house, its gray rooms and dark walls, but this room—Addison’s room, without question—had been transformed.

Polished wood floor. Shiny brass bed. Brick fireplace, neatly stacked with wood. White walls, white curtains, white bed linens and duvet—and the faintly mingled scent of flowers and fresh paint.

The room was a reflection of her.

Honest. Elegant. Beautiful.

He lowered her to her feet beside the bed, did it slowly so she could feel how hard and ready he was, so he could feel all her lovely, soft curves.

She was trembling.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a gruff whisper. “This will be different, I swear it.”

Her eyes, pools of liquid silver, lifted to his.

“I’m not afraid. Not of you, Jacob, never of—”

He kissed her. Parted her lips with his. Feasted on the exquisite taste of her.

She caught his collar in her hands, lifted herself to him, sucked the tip of his tongue into the heat of her mouth.

He groaned with pleasure.

His hands cupped her breasts. He could feel her nipples tightening, lifting even through the heavy cotton of her shirt. Groaning, he slipped his hands under it.

Ah, God!

She was naked. No bra. Nothing between his calloused fingers and the silk and satin of her skin.

“Jacob,” she whispered. “Jacob, please …”

The one word, so filled with need, almost took him to his knees. He pushed up the sweatshirt, bent to her, sucked at her nipples, pressed them against the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

She tasted of cream and honey.

“You are so beautiful,” he said thickly. “So very beautiful …”

His thumbs rolled over her nipples. She moaned; he watched her face as he caressed her, saw her eyes go dark with pleasure.

Sweat beaded his forehead as he tugged her sweatshirt over her head and tossed it aside.

He could see her breasts more clearly now. They were high, rounded, just right for his mouth and his hands.

He kissed them. The curves, the slopes, the apricot nipples. He couldn’t get enough of their silky feel, their delicate flavor; he couldn’t get enough of watching her face as he brought her closer and closer to orgasm from this, just from this.

She began undoing the buttons of his shirt. He helped her. Then he swore softly and the remaining buttons went flying.

His shirt landed on the floor, and she went into his arms.

Skin against skin. Heat against heat.

He knew he couldn’t last much longer.

He drew back. Hooked his thumbs into the sides of her sweatpants, pushed them down …

And went still.

She was wearing panties.

White cotton this time, not lace. They were simple, innocent, dotted with tiny blue flowers.

An equally tiny blue bow rode just below each hip bone.

Jake went to his knees.

Kissed her belly. Her navel. The little blue bows.

And drew the panties down, down, down.

They pooled at her ankles. He cupped her hips with his hands. Brought his face closer.

She gasped.

“Wait,” she said in a shaky whisper. “Really, I don’t think—”

He put his mouth against her, at the apex of her thighs. Her dark curls were silken against his lips.

“Open for me,” he said thickly, and she shifted her legs, shifted again …

And screamed in ecstasy when he found her with his mouth and tongue.

She tasted of passion and of woman, and when he licked at her, her cries rose into the stillness of the morning.

Jake got to his feet, kicked off his boots and jeans and took her down onto the bed with him.

He caught a fistful of her hair. Bent to her. Kissed her. He couldn’t stop kissing her, couldn’t get enough of that soft, sweet mouth.

Her hands were on him.

Cool. Soft. They swept over his back, his chest; they framed his face as she lifted herself to him and kissed him.

“Addison,” he said, and she said yes, oh, yes, and he moved over her, knelt between her thighs, slid his hands under her …

“Look at me,” he demanded.

Her eyes went to his face.

And he entered her.

She moaned.

His breath caught.

She was wet and hot, tight as a silk fist closing around him as he went deeper, deeper …

She cried out his name. He was shaking.

But, somehow, he held himself still.

Waited until her muscles took all of him in.

Then, slowly, he drew back. Not all the way. Just enough. The sensation, so exquisite, so exciting, made him shudder.

She went wild beneath him.

He caught hold of her hands, brought them to her sides, moved faster, faster …

“Jacob.”

Her voice was low. Breathless. She said his name again and lifted to his thrusts, her body an arcing bow of pleasure as his arrowed into her.

The world blurred.

Sweat glistened on his skin.

“Now,” he said, and she came, sobbing his name, her legs locked around him, her hands clutching his shoulders.

He gave one long, rough groan.

Then he flew with her into a rainbow of color and light.

He lay sprawled over her.

His body was solid. Hard. He outweighed her by who knew how many dozen pounds.

His weight pinned her to the mattress….

And, oh, it was a lovely feeling.

When he moved, she gave a little mmm of protest.

“I’m too heavy for you,” he whispered.

“No,” she whispered back. “You’re not.”

She felt his lips curve against her throat.

“I am,” he said.

She sighed. “I don’t care.”

No. Neither did he. He could stay exactly where he was, forever.

Still, after a minute or two, he rolled off her, wrapped her in his arms, drew her against him so that her head was on his shoulder and kissed her.

A pleased sigh eased from her lips. She felt his mouth curve against hers in response.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice low, a little hoarse. “I think so, too.”

Was sex supposed to be like this?

She couldn’t ask him; no way would she expose her ignorance but the truth was that even though she had a reputation that would have given Salome a run for her money, this was all new.

She’d had only three prior lovers. One had been a virgin, like her. It had happened in college. The other two had been when she was in law school.

Nice guys, all of them.

But the sex …

It hadn’t been memorable.

This—this experience with Jacob … Okay. Both experiences with Jacob …

Memorable.

Incredibly memorable.

Although today might even have been better, Addison thought, repressing a little shiver of delight.

For one thing, the rain had stopped. Daylight was streaming through the windows.

She could see Jacob.

He could see her.

She tried not to blush at the thought.

Plus, last night, escaping his arms, putting space between them, had been what she’d longed for.

Not today.

She wanted to lie here forever. Just like this. Her head pillowed on his shoulder. With his hand stroking the length of her body.

He was doing it in a way that sent just the tips of his fingers over her breast, over her nipple …

She was blushing now. She could feel the rise of heat in her face.