She nodded slowly. She had argued this with Cranston, warning him to bring Natches and his cousins in on this phase of the investigation, but he had refused. Now she knew why.

“What are you doing now?” she asked.

“Letting blood tell.” He shrugged. “Dayle’s going to think about this. He’s going go think about that picture, think about what I could know, then he’s going to call me. The break he’s been waiting for. A sign of loyalty to him rather than to my cousins or my uncle.”

“Or your country.”

“Or my country,” he agreed. “We’ll set up the meet. Alex will cover me; he’s a hell of a sniper. Dawg and Rowdy will back me up from a safe distance, and I’ll get the information DHS needs.”

She shook her head. “That’s not going to work. Any defense lawyer in the nation will blow you off the stand if you testify against him. With your family history, it will never work.”

“It’s the only chance we have,” he told her.

“You go in wired . . .”

“Won’t work; he’ll check me for a wire, Chay. He’s not incompetent, he’s proved that already.”

“A different sort of wire.” She leaned forward intently. “A cell phone, Natches, the receiver inside it will stay activated whether the cell phone is turned on or off. It’s new. Something he won’t suspect. You carry it right on your belt, in clear view. He’ll never know.”

He stared back at her silently.

“It’s not even something our agents know about. Cranston had a friend of his working on it. It works; we’ve tried it out several times. Reception is perfect. We could get the meeting recorded, get our evidence, and fry him and Nadine and all his friends.”

“Do the agents working with you know about it?” That was the risk, Natches thought. If this was something the other agents had known of, or discussed, then Dayle could already know about it and suspect.

But Chaya shook her head quickly. “I’m telling you, only three of us know about it. Cranston, me, and the electronics expert Cranston works with on the side. He’s not even agency. And I know Cranston has it with him. He’s just been waiting for a chance to test it.”

It could work. He narrowed his eyes, watching her silently for long moments. If it didn’t work, if reception didn’t go through, if the electronics failed, then what the hell. Nothing lost. Except blood. If DHS couldn’t make the charges stick on Dayle, then Natches, as much as he was finding he hated the thought of it, would take care of things himself.

His home had been torn apart in the past year because of Johnny and Dayle’s crimes. Once news had leaked of the activities some of their citizens had been involved in, the town had been left in a state of shock. It was time for it to end, one way or the other.

“This could work, Natches,” Chaya urged him softly. “We can have the van in town before daylight if I contact Timothy now. I’ll call Alex; he’ll be able to get to Timothy without anyone else knowing. Everything can be ready and waiting before Dayle ever calls you.”

What was there left to lose? If it worked, then he wouldn’t have to face Chaya after shedding more blood. Despite what he had told Sheriff Mayes—that killing Johnny was better than sex— he admitted now it had put a mark on his soul. Not a regret, but a knowledge that he sometimes found himself shying away from.

If he killed the man who sired him, what example then was he laying for his children? Children who would grow one day to no doubt hear the tale. Some secrets you just didn’t keep when everyone pretty much knew everyone else.

“Call Alex.” He finally nodded. “I’ll get a message to Dawg and Rowdy. They can slip over without the eyes watching ever suspecting a thing. We’ll get things ready to go.”

Chaya felt her heart almost explode in joy. He wasn’t dismissing the idea, he was embracing it. He didn’t want her involved, but he was willing to allow her to back him, and that concession, she knew, hadn’t been easy for him.

Being with Natches wasn’t always going to be easy, she had found that out. When he decided something, he could obviously get incredibly stubborn about it, even with her. But he could listen to reason. That was all she asked of him, to listen to reason.

“Look at your face.” His lips quirked with a hint of amusement as he reached out and touched her cheek. “You’d think I just gave you diamonds.”

Chaya shook her head slowly. “Something better than diamonds, Natches.”

“What could be better than diamonds?”

“Your trust.”

Natches stared back at her now, almost confused. Chaya’s eyes were shining, the golden brown a rich honey color, filled with warmth and some strange glow of happiness. Hell, a man would think he had just given her the crown jewels or something.

“Chay.” He shook his head, letting his fingers trail down her cheek before pulling back and continuing to stare at that strange sight. “Baby, you’ve always had my trust.”

“Not all of it, Natches.” She shook her head. “Not when it came to being here for you, with you. It’s something you don’t even fully allow Dawg and Rowdy.”

He frowned at that. “I discussed this with them. We made up the plan together.”

“And then you sent them away,” she told him. “You gave them just enough to satisfy them, just enough to make them feel as though they were a part of it, but you were still going in alone.”

“I’m still going in alone,” he warned her, making certain she understood that. “You’re not going in with me, Chay.”

“But I’ll be there with you,” she whispered. “And I’ll be close. I’ll know you’re safe, and you’re willing to allow that risk, so I can make certain you’re safe.”

“Hell.” He rubbed at his jaw roughly. “Like you’d back down.” He glowered back at her. “You’d give me a run for stubborn any day, do you think I don’t know it? You just came up with a solution I wasn’t aware of. I’d have figured something out before the meeting.”

It wasn’t that big of a deal, he kept trying to tell himself. He’d walk into the meeting, see what the hell was going on, get some information then hand Dayle Mackay over to Timothy Cranston and DHS. It was that simple. But he didn’t intend to take any chances with Chaya’s life.

“And let me tell you something now,” she said then. “Earlier, you said he created you. Dayle Mackay didn’t create you. You made yourself. That’s all any of us do.”

Natches shook his head at that before reaching out and dragging her from the chair to his arms.

“You’re a dangerous woman,” he told her as he held her against him. “And maybe you’re right. Either way, I’ll be the one to bring him down. Now make that call to Alex and get your plan set up. I don’t want Dayle calling before you have everything ready.”

He let her go and watched as she moved across the room to retrieve the wireless earpiece to her laptop.

“Just in case the cells aren’t secure enough at the moment.” She frowned as she sat down in front of the laptop. “I prefer not to take chances.”

She sent the encrypted e-mail quickly. A short, terse request for a new cell phone and accompanying accessories. Cranston would know what she was talking about.

Within minutes, his reply came through. An affirmative and already in place. As usual, Cranston was moving ahead of everyone else, she thought with a smile as Natches read the message over her shoulder.

“Bastard,” he muttered, but there was that vein of amusement again.

“What time are Dawg and Rowdy supposed to be here?” she asked as she rose to her feet and moved to him, eager, almost desperate to touch him now.

She needed him, a part of her was so hungry for him, to be held by him, that she wondered if she could bear to wait even as long as it would take to undress.

He caught her immediately, his arms, so strong and sure, wrappingaround her, lifting her to him. “We have plenty of time,” he promised. “God, Chay, I’d steal time if I had to for this.”

He tumbled her to the couch, coming over her as his hands pushed at the cotton leggings she wore and stripped them from her.

His lips came over hers, his tongue delving deep, tangling with hers as her hands tore at his belt, at the fastening and zipper of his jeans.

It was always like this with Chaya. Wild and explosive, so searing that sometimes he wondered if he would survive it. And always desperate. As though a part of him couldn’t believe she was actually here, in his arms, a part of his life.

He’d let her run from him for too many years. Trying to let her have the time and the space she needed to come to grips with everything that had happened in her life. And he wondered if that hadn’t been a mistake. For both of them. The years they had lost could never be returned. But they would ensure that he cherished every moment he had with her.

As he stripped off her clothes, then tore his own off, he stilled, staring down at her, naked and aroused, her body flushed and heated as he spread her thighs and moved slowly between them.

Her breasts were swollen, her little nipples peaked and hard, reaching out to him, eager for his hungry mouth. He took first one, then the other, sucking at the sweetness of her flesh and the tight warmth of the tender peaks. He kissed the curve of her breast, then her shoulder, as he rose over her.

“I love you, Chaya,” he whispered in her ear as he began to press his cock inside her.

Instant, silken heat began to enclose his sensitive cock head. Liquid fire tightened around it and sucked him inside, inch by inch until he was gritting his teeth against the pleasure consuming him as he buried himself full length inside her.

It was like living in ecstasy, the moments that he was a part of her. The way she took him, so freely, without hesitation, giving every part of herself to him whether she realized it or not.

He had always known it. Whether it was one of the kisses he stole, or now, buried so deep inside her that he didn’t know where he ended and she began, he could feel her soul clasping him. Just as surely as the depths of her pussy encased him, her soul encased him as well.

Natches sheltered her beneath him, held her to him and began to move, to thrust slow and easy inside her. Each penetration dragged a hard breath from his chest and caused her to breathe in roughly. She trembled beneath him, shuddered with the pleasure he gave her. She made him feel stronger than he knew he was, more powerful than he had ever imagined he could be.

“Oh God, Natches. It’s so good.” Her breathless cry sent a surge of pleasure racing up his spine.

“Hold on to me, Chay.” Her arms were already wrapped tight around his shoulders, her nails digging into his flesh. He carried her marks every time he took her, and he gloried in it.

His head lifted so he could watch her face as he took her. Watch the flush that washed over her expression, the perspiration that gleamed against her flesh.

Nothing in his life had ever been so beautiful as Chaya in her passion. And nothing, no one, could strip his control from him as she did.

He moved against her, harder, deeper. He groaned out at the tight clasp, the feel of her pussy tightening around him, trying to hold him inside her each time he withdrew. The feel of her pleasure mounting, the convulsive clench of silken muscles around him, her rising cries, the demand in the return thrust of her hips.

He was losing control. He could feel it. His muscles tightened as he fought to hold back just a little bit longer, to feel just a little bit more of her pleasure.

Then she melted beneath him, around him. Her hips slammed into his and her cry filled his ears, and holding on was impossible.

Her name was on his lips as he thrust inside her again, again, lost in the release rising inside him until he buried inside her one last time and felt the hard, forceful jets of his release throbbing from his cock.