Nautier and Wilder (12 page)

“What do we do?” Panic was beginning to edge through her senses as fear began to build.

“We’ll take care of it, Piper.” Jed’s arms tightened around her as Piper felt the
fear beginning to overflow her tenuous control.

What had she managed to get herself into? Why had she allowed this to happen? She
could have just told Dawg, Jed, and Tim what had happened and they would have figured
this out a week ago. Before someone had attempted to break into her room.

“Don’t worry, Piper. We have the contacts to fix this,” Dawg promised her as he turned
back to her. “You stay with Jed; Timothy and I will take care of things.”

This wasn’t what she wanted.

“I didn’t want you to have to risk yourself,” she whispered. “None of you. I just
wanted to be able to take this meeting without everyone breathing down my neck.”

“You were being protected for a reason, Piper,” Jed stated as Dawg and Tim began to
move toward the patio door, where Dawg was pointing out where the lock had been picked.

“For a reason I was never allowed to understand.” Turning, she faced him, her gaze
meeting his, irritation flooding her as fear and confusion fueled the panic tightening
her stomach. “Maybe, Jed, if something—anything—had been explained to me, then I would
have been more prone to listen a little more closely.”

“Now you’re sounding like a child.” He sighed.

“Why shouldn’t I?” she mocked him. “That’s how I’m treated. Treat me like an adult
and see if I don’t try to act like one.”

ELEVEN

N
othing could possibly be easy, Piper thought as midnight rolled around before she
was able to extricate herself from her mother, sisters, cousins, and various family
members.

“Dawg couldn’t just keep his mouth shut?” she muttered as Jed escorted her into his
room. “He could have kept all this to himself for a little while longer.”

“Dawg usually knows what he’s doing,” Jed assured her, locking the door behind them
before turning and striding through the living area. “Stay here; I want to check out
the bedroom again.”

Crossing her arms over her breasts, she watched as he disappeared into the bedroom,
closing the door behind him.

So Dawg usually knew what he was doing, did he?

“You are aware that Dawg is the one whom Tim accuses of constantly living by the seat
of his pants, right?”

She didn’t quite catch Jed’s response, but it was something along the lines of, “That’s
when Dawg is at his best.”

At his best, her ass.

It was when he was most dangerous.

She was still standing there glaring at the door when it opened and Jed walked through,
his chest gloriously bare, his shirt conspicuously absent.

She didn’t need this right now.

Hell.

Tightening her thighs, Piper fought to hold back the ache beginning there. The swelling
of her clit, the throb of her pussy. The fiery, desperate need to be filled by the
hard thrust of his cock.

Dark blond hair fell over his brow, while the navy blue of his gaze seemed to deepen
and gleam with heated hunger as he stared back at her.

“He didn’t have to tell the whole damned family,” she muttered, her mouth drying out
as he paced closer.

“Would you want to know if one of your sisters were in danger?” he asked softly.

Dark, thick lashes lowered over the gleam in his eyes as predatory awareness filled
them.

He knew she wanted him.

It wasn’t as though she could hide the hardness of her nipples as they pressed into
the thin material of the blouse she wore. Or the heavy pulse of blood in her throat.

His gaze, heavy with latent lust and intent, flicked to the throbbing of the vein
at the side of her neck, then back to the hard tips of her nipples.

Sensation raced over her flesh as heat built in her womb and fired a need she still
had no idea how to handle. Hell, she didn’t even know how he managed to do this to
her. What she did know was that resisting him wasn’t going to happen.

“You didn’t answer me, Piper.” He stopped just in front of her, his wide chest separated
from the hard tips of her nipples by no more than a breath of space.

“What was the question again?” Oh, Lord, she was supposed to keep up with the conversation?

With him walking around with his broad naked chest? Oh, dear Lord, she didn’t think
so.

“Would you want to know if your sisters were in danger?” he asked again.

“I remember the question.” She glared back at him, determined to bluff her way through
having not heard it the first time. “That’s not the point, so why answer?”

A knowing smile curled his lips.

“Really?” Settling his hands on her hips, he brought her body flush against his.

Broad, fiercely erect, the length of his cock pressed against her belly behind the
denim covering it.

“Really.” Trying not to appear too greedy to touch him, she let her fluttering fingers
press against his chest.

“Beside the point, huh?” he asked.

Piper closed her eyes, hoping to find some measure of control against the hunger flooding
her system.

“It really is.”

Closing her eyes didn’t help.

Oh, God, it only made it worse.

Jerking them open, she fought to catch her breath as his lips settled against the
side of her neck for a heated kiss.

“Jed, what do you do to me?” she whispered, needing to know, to understand why she
couldn’t deny the fire raging between them.

“The same thing you do to me, sweetheart, maybe?” His teeth raked against her neck
as he finished the question, bringing a low, keening moan from her throat as she arched
her neck.

“Do I make the world burn for you, too?”

Jed lifted his head, staring down at her, amazed by the question.

God, was that what he did for her? Did he make the world burn down around her? Because
he swore that was exactly what it felt like to him as well.

It felt as though the world were burning down around him, and nothing mattered but
the flames edging closer toward them.

“Baby, the world doesn’t even exist for me when I’m touching you.” Were those words
really falling from his lips?

What the hell was she doing to him?

Moving his hands from her waist, he lowered them to the belt that cinched her waist
loosely and released it. He dropped it to the floor, and his fingers moved to the
buttons of her blouse.

Was that him actually fumbling with a button as his lips touched hers?

But, hell, her kiss was fire itself. It was the flame burning the world around him
and searing him with pleasure. It was the fuel feeding it, and the only hope he had
of surviving the effect on his senses.

Parting her lips further, tasting the teasing heat of her tongue against his, Jed
had to force his fingers to work. To remove each button from the exquisite softness
of the blouse she’d made with her own delicate fingers.

Fingers that were curling against his chest, blunt little nails rasping against his
flesh as she dragged them to the jeans riding low at his hips.

Hell. She was tugging at his belt, releasing it, dragging it apart slowly as he deepened
the kiss and drew in the rich essence of her feminine need.

The last button parted, the material separating and slowly drifting from her shoulders
as he pushed it back from the rapid rise and fall of her breasts.

Soft, silken lace encased her breasts in a bra as light as air. Sliding the clip between
her breasts open and pulling the fabric from the swollen weight of the firm curves,
he was forced to pull his lips back from hers, to drag in air as the button of his
jeans released.

His self-control was going to hell in a handbasket.

“Come here, baby.” Swinging her up into his arms, he strode quickly through the sitting
room to the bedroom door.

Opening it and pushing through, he moved to the bed he’d turned back when he’d entered
the room earlier to check the doors. Laying her against the cool white sheets, he
moved his hands to her delicate legs, where the skirt she wore had fallen back above
her knees.

The midcalf length of the full skirt shouldn’t have been so damned sexy, but it had
tormented him all day with the knowledge that it covered flesh softer than the material
over it.

Stroking his hand down one leg to her fragile feet, he removed the sandals covering
one before moving to the next.

“Beautiful.” Running his hands back up the inside of her legs, he parted them gently,
watching as the paisley print of the skirt fell back to her thighs. “Do you know how
hard it was to keep from dragging you to this bedroom today? To keep from pushing
my hands beneath this skirt to find all the sweet, hot flesh beneath?”

Piper arched beneath him, watching through lashes that refused to open fully, fighting
to breathe through the incredible pleasure pouring through her.

Pushing his hands beneath the skirt, he curled his fingers beneath the elastic of
the low-rise bikini underwear she wore and began pulling them down with exquisite
slowness.

“Jed, you’re teasing me,” she accused him, her body tortured with the need for his
possession.

“I’m teasing me.” Hot, rich lust echoed in his voice, filled the dark sound with wicked
hunger as he pulled her panties free and tossed them to the floor.

Pulling back, he rose quickly beside the bed, and before she could do more than draw
a sharp breath, he’d shed the denim and snug boxer underwear containing the fierce
width of his straining erection.

Heavy veins throbbed forcefully along the shaft as he came to her, while the wide
crest, flushed and dark with lust, gleamed with a layer of precome.

Rather than pushing her legs immediately apart and coming into her, as she’d expected,
he lowered himself carefully over her. Rough with an overnight shadow of a beard,
his cheek brushed against the side of her breast.

“So pretty,” he whispered as her hands gripped his shoulders, her legs parting to
encase the muscular strength of his thighs.

Arching to him, Piper bit back a demanding moan. She needed to feel his lips against
her breasts. Needed to feel the heavy draw of his mouth and the flick of his wicked
tongue.

“You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?” she demanded, a moan slipping into her
voice as his lips brushed against the tight, sensitive point.

“Never.”

She would have, if he would just—

“Oh, God! Oh, Jed. Yes. Please.” Her hands lifted to his head, her fingers fisting
in his hair as she strained against him, arching into the heated possession of his
mouth as it wrapped around the sensitive peak of her breast.

The tender bud of her nipple throbbed in agonizing pleasure as he drew on it. Fierce,
pleasure-sharp spikes of sensation raced to her clit and the depths of her vagina
as the feel of silken warmth eased from the clenched portal.

Drawing on the tender flesh, he flicked his tongue against it with lashing warmth.
Pleasure struck repeatedly at her womb, clenching her pussy and pounding through her
clit with exquisite sensation.

“Oh, God, Jed, it’s so good.” She arched closer, desperate to feel his touch between
her thighs. Piper’s senses became focused on nothing else but each fiery, rapturous
tug of his lips and each suckling motion of his hot mouth as his fingers eased slowly,
teasingly up her thigh.

“Jed, please.” Begging was so not beneath her as his fingers brushed against the silken
folds of her pussy.

He parted the intimate lips, his touch too slow, almost taunting as she arched and
ached for more.

The pad of his finger rubbed against the clenched entrance; he ignored the desperate
motion of her hips as she fought to force his finger inside her.

“Greedy, baby,” he whispered, the tips of two fingers now rubbing against the entrance
to her pussy.

“Greedy?” She panted. “More like tormented. You’re tormenting me, Jed.”

“I’m loving you.” The words were whispered against her midriff as his lips moved lower
and one hand pushed her skirt higher. “I’m loving you, Piper.”

Before she could counter his declaration, his lips lowered and covered the straining,
tortured bud of her clitoris.

“Oh, God, yes.” Twisting against the sudden grip he had on her hips, Piper’s hips
jerked in reaction. “Jed. Oh, Jed, yes, please.”

Lavish licks surrounded the straining bundle of nerves as Piper cried out, pleading,
begging, desperate for release now.

Nudging at the little bud, licking at it, suckling it into the heat of his mouth,
he pushed her toward an abyss of ecstasy that threatened her sanity.

As he stroked and laved the sensitive bundle of nerve endings, the fingertips stroking
at her entrance began to slip inside, stretching her flesh and opening the little
portal. Swift, heated flares of sensation raged through her flesh, striking at her
womb, at her clit, and stealing her breath.

The feel of his fingers pressing inside her, separating the tender tissue and caressing
hidden nerve endings, had muted cries escaping her throat as she fought for release.

She didn’t want to wait.

She’d waited long enough.

She’d waited twenty-four years for this man, for this pleasure, and waiting one second
longer for her release seemed entirely uncalled-for.

“Jed, please.” Her fingers kneaded his scalp as her hips lifted, her thighs spreading
wider as his fingers fucked slow and easy inside her. “Please don’t make me wait.”

A muted groan of male pleasure was her only answer as his tongue rolled over her clit,
pressed against it, and threatened to ignite the explosion she was reaching so desperately
for.

God. She couldn’t wait much longer. She was going to melt into a mass of pure sensation
at any second. Waiting was only intensifying the painful eagerness now building inside
her.

“More.” Lifting to him, rolling her hips against the invasion of his fingers inside
her vagina, against the probing, wicked tongue and suckling lips at her clit, Piper
fought to hold on to her sanity as the need became a driving, desperate ache to fly
into the heated rapture she could feel awaiting her.

“Please. Jed . . .” She couldn’t take much more.

Oh, God, he was going to pay for this. She was going to make certain he paid for this.

His lips lifted; his fingers eased back.

Forcing her lashes open, Piper watched as he dragged himself to his knees before bending
to the side of the bed and reaching for a condom.

The heavy length of his cock jutted out from his body, flushed and eager and tempting
a hunger she’d never had the chance to give in to.

She had the chance now.

Her body was humming for the penetration she knew he was preparing for.

But she wanted . . .

As he straightened before her, Piper pushed herself into a sitting position.

“Not yet.” Her fingers curled around his wrist as he moved to roll the condom over
the throbbing, flared crest of the fiercely erect shaft.

“Piper, baby.” The warning in his voice was clear. “I don’t know if I have the control
for this.”

“Sure you do.” She breathed out, one hand curling around his erection, marveling at
the fact that her fingers couldn’t encircle it, yet her body could accept each hard
thrust made into it by the fierce shaft. “Just like I did.”

Leaning forward, she tasted him.

A hard, primal groan sounded above her as her tongue licked over the engorged crest.

Parting her lips, she covered the width of his cock head, taking him into her mouth
as her lips hugged the hard flesh and drew on it with pleasure.