Nautier and Wilder (9 page)

He sure as hell didn’t need Dawg around right now, or Timothy Cranston. He’d talk
to them both in the morning instead. Dawg and his cousins were going to have to step
back a pace or two, regardless of whether or not they liked it. If they wanted to
know the trouble—or potential trouble—his sisters got into or were headed for, then
the girls couldn’t be afraid to let him know what they were doing.

Her fear of being smothered during what she believed was an important event had almost
cost Piper her life; he wouldn’t allow it to harm her more in the future.

“I’m scared for him, Jed,” she whispered as he cut the engine, then turned back to
her, confused.

“Scared for whom, honey?”

“For Dawg.” He could see the tears in her eyes, the faint tremble of her lips in the
dim light of the moon.

“Dawg and his cousins take care of themselves and one another just fine, Piper,” he
promised her.

She shook her head at his statement. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going to be very alone,” she told him softly. “He’s becoming out of control,
Jed. He makes me frightened of him when he starts standing over us like guard dogs.
He can’t keep telling us what to do or how to live. I know Lyrica and Zoey, too. If
he doesn’t stop, I swear, we’ll all end up leaving. We talk about it more and more
often. He may well be headed for a stroke, but Lyrica, Zoey, and I are headed out
of town if it keeps up.”

“He worries, Piper.” His hands clenched on the steering wheel in an instinctive protest
at the thought of her leaving.

“I would have been in your bed a year ago if he hadn’t been watching us all like hawks.
I’m terrified to show any interest in a man, and God forbid I should actually consider
taking a lover after the grief he gave Eve.” The words were out of her mouth before
she could hold them back.

A wave of heat flushed through her at the sudden, brilliant gleam of lust that lit
his gaze.

He may not have tightened with the information she’d given him about Eldon’s attack,
but the moment she mentioned being in his bed, his entire body seemed to jerk in abrupt
interest.

Or perhaps “interest” was far too tame a word. It was as though every thought, every
emotion, every particle of his being was suddenly intently, greedily focused on her.

“Did Dawg order you to stay away from me, Piper?” he asked her calmly, but what she
saw in his gaze was anything but calm.

She shook her head slowly. “No, but who I sleep with isn’t up for debate, Jed. And
I won’t let it become a family point of interest that I’m fighting my brother over
the man I want for a lover because he disapproves of him as he did with Eve. It shouldn’t
be like that, and I can’t stand the thought that Dawg would turn it into such a battle.”

He’d nearly broken Eve’s heart.

Her sister had finally told her of the fight she’d had with Dawg when she had taken
Brogan as her lover. Dawg had gone so far as to use the worst sort of emotional blackmail
to keep her from giving in to the man she’d been fascinated with for years.

Piper had been terrified he would try the same tactics with her. If he had tried such
a guilt trip with her, she would have gone ballistic. Eve had had far more patience
than Piper could have ever found in the same situation.

“I was beginning to wonder if you even wanted to find yourself in my bed.” He reached
out, his palm cupping the uninjured side of her face.

“I didn’t say you wouldn’t have to seduce me now,” she informed him tartly, despite
the heat rushing through her body at his touch. “I simply said I may have ended up
there sooner.”

“You call that little tease a month ago being in my bed?” He came closer, his gaze
focused on her lips as Piper brushed her tongue over them, wishing her attacker had
kept the back of his hand away from them.

“You call that a little tease?” she whispered roughly. “I’m going to have to show
you a real tease, Jedediah Booker, so you’ll know the difference.”

“And exactly what would
you
call a little tease, Piper?” he asked, his lips moving close, oh, so close to hers.

“What you’re doing right now, maybe?”

She could barely breathe.

Okay, she was sore, swollen, but her lips weren’t really that swollen. Most of the
blows had actually been against the side of her head, according to the doctor. Not
that she remembered a whole lot after she had been slammed into the dresser, due to
the concussion.

“This is a tease?” His lips were only a whisper against hers.

“Please, Jed,” she sighed his name roughly. “Don’t tease this time.”

Don’t tease this time.

Jed stared down at her, seeing the shadow of bruises against one side of her face,
the faint swelling of her eye and her lower lip.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Piper.” He sighed, drawing back. “And I don’t want you
coming to me out of fear. When the bruises have healed, then we’ll talk.”

Before he could change his mind, Jed forced himself from the truck and strode to the
passenger side of the pickup. Pulling her door open, he did as he had at the hospital:
Rather than allowing her to walk to the inn, he simply scooped her from the seat and
carried her to the front porch.

Turning from the front door, he was heading for the side of the house when a shadow
detached itself from the corner and the front door opened.

“God, no.” Piper buried her head against his shoulder as he recognized the height
and breadth of the shadow before he actually glimpsed the hard lines of the savagely
hewn male features in the dim light of the moon.

“Well, at least they’re not trying to run,” Natches drawled as he moved to Dawg’s
side.

“I don’t know; I think I’d rather he’d run.” Amusement filled Rowdy’s voice as Jed
let his gaze lock with Dawg’s.

“Now’s not the time, Dawg,” he warned the other man. “Let her rest first. Morning’s
soon enough.”

Piper grunted against his shoulder. “Good luck with that one,” she muttered, her voice
so low it barely reached his ear.

“Yeah, Jed, good luck with that one.” The low, slow cadence of Dawg’s voice had the
hairs at the back of Jed’s neck lifting in warning.

Dawg was pissed, and he was suspicious. His gaze slid to Jed’s hold on her slight
body, narrowed and intent, his look taking in the protective hold and Piper’s determination
to hide her face.

“Put her down, Booker,” Dawg ordered, his voice dark and warning.

“Don’t do this, Dawg.” There was no weakness in Piper’s voice as her head lifted quickly,
her obvious sense of security with the darkness surrounding them apparent.

Jed could have told her the mistake she was making, if he had had a chance.

What he saw instead was Dawg’s face.

The widening of his eyes, the paling of his flesh, the immediate awareness that one
side of his sister’s face wasn’t shadow, but swollen and obviously bruised.

Just as quickly, Piper saw the reaction as well, if her sharply indrawn breath and
the tension invading her body was any indication.

“No.” The harsh order that left her lips as Dawg stepped forward surprisingly had
him stopping in his tracks. “It’s none of your business, Dawg.”

Rowdy and Natches were quick to move around them, their reactions no less as shocked
as Dawg’s.

“None of my business?” Dawg all but wheezed, his expression tortured, as his cousins,
positioned for a much better view, stared at her in horror as the sensors on the motion
lights caught the movement and flipped on overhead.

“Oh, my God, Piper . . .” Agonized, Dawg’s voice roughed to a harsh, gut-clenching
rasp.

Anguish filled the three men’s gazes and tightened their expressions as they stared
down at her, obviously fighting to process the bruised condition of her face.

As though in one movement, their heads jerked to Jed, their gazes piercing as they
stared at him.

Hell, his face was likely to take the brunt of six fists pounding on it before the
night was over, because he was damned if he could give them what he knew they were
silently demanding.

An explanation.

Now.

“She’s your sister,” he told Dawg, his gaze connecting with the other man’s, knowing
he could make an enemy of him in this second. “You want answers, you’ll have to get
them from her.”

“Let me down.” Piper struggled in his arms.

Put her down? Was she insane? The second Dawg saw her limping, he’d go damned ballistic.

“Fuck! I’ll be damned if I will.” Tightening his hold on her, he moved forward, more
than surprised as the Mackays parted and allowed him to pass.

Pulling her keys from where he’d tucked them into his jeans at the hospital, he called
back to the three men following them, “Her bags are in the truck, if you want to make
yourselves useful and bring them in.”

At least one set of footsteps paused behind them.

“Like hell,” Dawg growled. “She can have them later.”

Jed shrugged.

“I should have stayed where I was,” she whispered. “Why didn’t I stay where I was?”

“They would have found out,” he warned her. “Want me to tell you how many contacts
Timothy has on the police force there?”

“Where?” Dawg snapped behind him. “I thought you were just the fucking chauffeur?”

Holding her securely as he unlocked her door, Jed glimpsed her expression from the
corner of his eye and restrained a sigh. She was shutting down fast. He could feel
it, and he hated it. When Piper shut down, her rational and logic went out the fucking
window, especially if she was dealing with her brother. She didn’t do confrontations
well, though he knew she would never admit to it. She buried her fear instead and
faced the world with a brutal ice that sliced her deeper than it did those she was
facing, once she had time to think and consider what she said during those moments.

Stepping into her bedroom, he strode to the bed in the center of the small suite,
laid her on it, then watched in resignation as she jumped from the mattress to face
the three men entering the room behind them, the moment he placed her on it.

“Go home, Dawg.”

The lights flipped on, and for the first time Dawg had a full, unobstructed view of
her face.

“God, Piper.” It was Natches who breathed out the protest. “Sweetheart, what the hell
happened to you?”

Dawg looked like he had taken a blow to the balls and was having trouble catching
enough breath to even fold to the floor.

“Don’t the three of you have wives and children of your own to torment?” She questioned
them harshly as she tugged at the soft cotton material of the blouse she had worn
home.

The light, neutral tone of the gray blouse did nothing to hide the damage done to
her fragile face, or where it extended along her shoulder and into the scooped neckline
of the garment.

It was one of her creations, he knew—one she was exceptionally proud of. Unfortunately,
the light color only emphasized the darkness of the bruises.

“Who did this?” Dawg grated, his voice harsh.

Piper drew herself up, the last hint of any emotion leaving her face.

“I said leave.” The demand in her voice was impossible to miss.

Just as arrogant, just as condescending as Dawg could be himself, she faced him with
icy refusal, her gaze never flickering beneath the fury in his.

“Dawg, let her rest.” Jed placed himself between them. “Ordering her isn’t going to
get you anywhere.”

Dawg’s fists clenched at his sides, the need to strike out, to take vengeance, clear
in his expression and the tension in his large body.

“Get out of my way, Jed.”

“Get out of her room!” Jed countered, determination hardening his voice. “You’re not
going to yell at her, and you’re sure as hell not going to attempt to force answers
from her. Just go home and see if you can’t ask nicely next time.”

Who was more surprised, he wondered, when the three Mackays did just as he ordered—turned
and left without another word—himself or Piper?

“This isn’t good,” Piper muttered, suddenly aware that she could have pushed her brother
right over an invisible line none of them had known existed. “Dawg never just leaves.”

Jed turned back to her. “I think you should have told him, baby. But we’ll see what
hardheadedness gets you first.”

The smile he gave her was as chilly and polite as her tone was to her brother, but
far more mocking.

She stood there staring back at him, the vulnerability he could see her fighting—and
the need and the hurt hiding behind the chilly facade—breaking his heart.

He turned and left, just as the Mackays had. He had no other choice. Because as pissed
as her brother and cousins were, she had no idea he was even more so.

She had left without him, faced danger without him, and been determined to handle
it all on her own—without him. And now, even knowing he would have to face the full
force of the Mackay fallout, she wasn’t volunteering enough information to her brother
and cousins to even give him hope that Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches wouldn’t try to kick
his ass to hell and back.

And he still couldn’t imagine betraying the trust she had placed in him. Even knowing
the enemies he could make, the budding friendships that could be destroyed. The Mackays
were strong friends to have, but they could be brutal enemies, too. But, Jed had realized
the second he had walked into that fucking hospital room that nothing mattered more
to him than being with Piper. Protecting her, touching her, having her.

Nothing else mattered.

No matter what.

EIGHT

D
awg stood next to the pickup, his wrists hanging over the edge, his head bowed, and
he had no idea how to unknot the burning fist growing in his chest.

Where was Christa? God, why hadn’t he brought Christa with him? She could have talked
to Piper, could have made her understand that he had—he
had
—to make certain whoever hurt her never—fucking never—hurt her again.

He felt as though every breath he was trying to take was restricted.

“Fuck, hurts to breathe,” he muttered.

“No shit,” Rowdy was hoarse.

Natches wasn’t speaking.

As he wiped his hand over his face, car lights sliced into the parking lot, drawing
his gaze as he found himself staring at the little car he’d bought Christa several
months before.

As it pulled to a stop behind the truck, it wasn’t just Christa who stepped from the
car. Rowdy’s wife, Kelly, and Natches’s wife, Chaya, moved slowly toward them.

It was Natches who moved first.

Two steps and Natches was pulling Chaya into his arms, burying his face against her
neck and holding on tight as Christa moved slowly to Dawg.

“Jed called,” she told him. “He told us everyone was safe, but you might need us?”

Her hand, so delicate and fragile, settled against his arm.

“What’s wrong, Dawg?”

His throat was so fucking tight. Hell, he hadn’t felt like this since the night he
learned Christa had lost their child so long ago. Like tears were burning in his gut
and refused to be shed.

“Someone beat her.” His voice was grating, so rough he barely recognized it as he
turned to her and pulled her to his chest. “Christa, someone beat her face and she
won’t let me help.”

He couldn’t understand it.

It was tearing him apart. His guts were being ripped straight out of him and he couldn’t
make it stop.

“Who? Who, Dawg?”

“God. Piper,” he snarled, so furious with her, so broken inside he had no idea how
to find all the pieces. “Piper, Christa. She just fucking disappears, then comes back,
her face swollen and bruised, and she won’t let me help.”

“Did you offer to help, baby?” she asked gently, her expression understanding, knowing.
“Or did you demand?”

He had asked. Hadn’t he?

“You demanded, didn’t you, Dawg?” she guessed. “All ready to charge ahead and exact
vengeance.”

“Someone hurt her.” It didn’t make sense that she wouldn’t want vengeance.

“Come on, Dawg. Let’s go home.”

He shook his head fiercely. “You have to make her tell me—”

“Dawg, you can’t make Piper do anything.” She sighed. “She’s home; you know she’s
safe. Give her time to come to you.”

He shook his head.

“You’re just going to piss her off,” Chaya stated as Natches lifted his head from
her shoulder and moved away several paces. “She’s too strong to break down and cry,
or let herself be treated like a child. You’ve hassled her for a year; now it’s time
to go home.”

“She won’t stay safe.” He shook his head; it didn’t make sense to him.

“And here she’s a Mackay. Go figure,” Christa murmured.

“We’ll find him.” This time it was levelheaded, “think about it first” Rowdy. “We’ll
find him, Dawg, and when we do, he won’t be able to hit another woman.”

Natches, Rowdy, Chaya, and Kelly moved to the truck Dawg had driven to the inn as
Dawg moved to the car with his wife. For the first time, Christa noticed, she didn’t
have to fight over driving.

Dawg moved to the passenger seat as she slid under the wheel.

“I need to go home.” He breathed roughly. “I need my girls.”

Her and his daughter.

She held back the secret she’d learned earlier. The news that their daughter would
have a brother or sister. News that she feared would only make Dawg more protective,
even as it made him more loving.

The drawback?

His feared inability to protect those he loved was breaking his heart, and that was
breaking her heart. Because there was nothing she could do to ease his pain or to
make those he loved, besides herself, understand the demons that tormented him.

Perhaps it was time she, Kelly, and Chaya had a talk with the stubborn and just as
determined Mackay sisters.

ONE WEEK LATER

“Good morning, Mr. Samson; I hope you enjoyed your breakfast?” Piper met Guido Samson
in the hall outside his room and gave him a warm smile.

The new lodger was a bit portly, his black hair thick, with a slight wave in the shortened
length that was brushed back from his face to reveal a hint of gray at the temples.
Dark, swarthy, just showing the lines of advancing age, he looked to be in his late
fifties, though Piper bet he was in his early sixties.

He’d been at the inn four days and was already making his presence known, mostly by
pissing Tim off. It seemed Guido couldn’t help but flirt outrageously with Mercedes
Mackay.

“Ah, Miss Mackay.” He stopped, holding his hand out to her.

As Piper extended hers he took it, raised it to his lips, and pressed a light kiss
to it with charming ease before releasing it.

“And here is your young man.” He looked over her shoulder, a broad smile pulling at
his lips as Piper swore she could feel Jed coming up behind her.

“Morning, Mr. Samson.” The deep, controlled drawl—controlled hunger, anger, and determination—sent
a shiver racing down her spine.

That tone had only intensified over the past days, just as the gleam of determination
in the navy blue gaze had only hardened and, at certain times, intensified.

“Ah, Mr. Booker, good morning,” Guido greeted him. “I am out for a day of sightseeing.
I believe my son, Rhylan, is arriving this evening and hopes to find the best spots
for a few days of fishing.”

“The fishing here is excellent, Mr. Samson; I’m certain your son will find plenty
of excellent spots.” Edging around Guido’s portly frame, Jed curled his fingers around
Piper’s upper arm. “Excuse us, please. Piper and I need to talk.”

“Of course,” Guido murmured, amused. “Young people have many things to discuss privately.”

His soft chuckle followed them up the hall as Jed led her to her room. Opening the
room and stepping in, Piper quickly pulled her arm from his grip.

“Since when do we have things to discuss?” Piper asked roughly as the door closed
behind them, very well aware of the fact that he let her go. She wasn’t free because
she wanted to be; she was free because he let her be.

Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, she glared at him, wishing she could push back
anger, guilt, or any of the other emotions tearing through her, as she could with
her family.

She could stare back at Dawg and freeze any response to the knowledge that he was
frightened for her, hurting for her, worried about her, or just plain pissed off at
her.

Her sister Eve had always been so thankful to be accepted and loved by her brother
and cousins that she would have done just about anything—anything but deny the man
she loved.

Lyrica, a year younger than Piper, had such a guilt complex that she worried constantly
that she would never be good enough, act properly enough, or be strong enough to be
part of the Somerset Mackays. God only knew what their youngest sister, Zoey, felt.
She rarely talked about it, and if asked would just laugh and say she was where she
belonged. But Piper had always felt there was so much more beneath that statement.

Of the four of them their eldest sister, Eve, had handled Dawg best. They all loved
him, but each of them had different ways of dealing with him.

Him, or any other man.

Unfortunately, the defenses Piper had built over the years didn’t work with Jed.

“Have you talked to Dawg yet?” he asked.

Piper looked away and shrugged. “He hasn’t been around for a while.”

Guilt was lashing at her now.

God, she remembered the look on his face when he’d seen the bruises on hers. He looked
as though someone had died. Or something inside him had died. She hadn’t seen him
since.

“I’m going to talk to him,” she promised.

What the hell was it with Jed Booker?

He was just staring at her. There was no force, no guilt-inducing comments, just those
dark, dark blue eyes watching her with that silent, deep curiosity.

“Are you?” Jed asked.

It was a simple question. No mockery, no sarcasm, nothing offensive, but Piper could
feel the guilt growing inside her.

“You don’t understand what he’s like, Jed,” she burst out, pushing her fingers through
her hair in frustration as she turned and stomped to the other side of the room before
turning back. “This is how he gets you. He knows how to work every damned one of us.”

“Does he, Piper?” he asked her quietly. “Or is he just struggling with his inability
to protect four girls he loves nearly as much as he does his own daughter? Four girls
whose abandonment and hardships as children torment him?”

She shook her head fiercely. “That wasn’t his fault.”

“Fault doesn’t matter, Piper,” he said calmly, moving to her, making her all too aware
of the sudden sensitivity of her body whenever he was around.

His voice was steady, every movement deliberate, but his eyes were like deep pools
of sexual heat. His gaze licked over her as his hands curved against her bare shoulders.
They slid down along her arms, then back up, the rasp of the calluses against her
softer flesh so erotic she was forced to bite back a moan.

“What does matter, Jed?” she asked, unable to break her gaze from his. “Should I give
in to him as Eve tried to do, and refuse to end up in your bed? Should I promise not
to live or have a life so Dawg can sleep at night?”

Tears filled her eyes at the thought. “Don’t you think I’ve learned how I have to
handle him by now? If I don’t defy him, then I won’t have a chance at having a life
myself.”

“And there are those times you could defy him and lose your life, Piper.”

“Then he has to learn to talk to us.” Frustrated anger hoarsened her voice as it tore
through her emotions. “Why do we have to automatically give in and bury our heads
against life or risk dying? Jed, I can’t do that. If I’m in danger then I have to
know, and I have to know why. Just as you would.”

His gaze flickered and she knew he understood that.

“If I go to Dawg, then he’ll see it as a weakness; don’t you understand that? I’ll
be giving in and he’ll take full advantage of it. Not out of cruelty.” She held her
hand up to delay whatever argument she could see brewing in his expression. “Not out
of manipulation. That’s his instinct,” she argued. “Just as it’s yours.”

It was the way they were, the type of men they were. If Dawg didn’t come to her first,
seeking answers, then he wouldn’t be in a frame of mind to discuss what had happened
to her while she was away. He would dictate her security instead and try to lock her
so far out of sight she would have a hard time finding herself, let alone anyone else
finding her.

“You forget: I came for you.” His head lowered as he voiced the reminder, his lips
brushing against her ear and causing her eyes to close at the pleasure of the touch.
“No questions, no demands. I came for you, Piper, and I’m the one forced to field
questions from your friends and family. If I have to take Rowdy or Natches Mackay’s
fist for you, because I keep refusing to answer their questions, then you are going
to owe me. Big-time.”

The words were a breath of warning against her neck as Piper felt her knees weaken.

Lifting her hands from where they hung at her sides, she tentatively gripped his upper
arms, feeling the play of his biceps beneath her fingers.

“They won’t hit you.” She knew her brother and her cousins. They were hard men, but
they weren’t unfair.

“Perhaps I should have a taste now.” His lips brushed against her jaw. “Show me what
I’m going to take that punch for, Piper.”

Her head turned; her lips parted.

She’d dreamed of his kiss since that first one six weeks before. Each day, each time
he spoke to her, teased her, silently rebuked her, had built the need for it.

She needed his kiss.

She needed his touch.

Her lips accepted his, parted, and Piper found herself dragged into a chaotic storm
of pure heat.

Pleasure raced across her flesh like ribbons of electric sensation. From her lips
to the tip of her toes and back to the crown of her head, his lips against hers created
a reaction she couldn’t have expected.

She should have expected. She’d felt it before. But how was she to know that the first
time hadn’t been just a fluke? She had never predicted the intensity of the pleasure
to repeat itself or—incredibly—to begin building higher, stronger.

Faster.

* * *

Jed barely controlled the gut-deep groan of instant, overwhelming hunger.

Son of a bitch, it couldn’t be this good. There was no way this unusual depth of pleasure
was real.

He’d convinced himself it had been a figment of his imagination, but as he lifted
Piper against his chest and bore her to the bed, he knew the pleasure was doing just
that.

It was burning brighter, hotter, and deeper than anything he’d ever known.

She wasn’t doing anything different. It wasn’t that experience filled each tentative
lick of her tongue against his or each heated brush of her body against his.

Piper was anything and everything but experienced, and he knew it. He’d made it his
job to know everything about her that a man could dig up.

But he hadn’t known the effect she’d have on him.

A low moan slipped past his lips. Her knees were hugging his hips, the thin material
of her panties beneath the ankle-length silky skirt she wore rubbing against the denim
of his jeans as it covered the tormented length of his dick.

God, he was hard.

So hard he felt as though his cock were seconds away from becoming pure steel, throbbing
furiously, his testicles drawn tight beneath it. He knew he wouldn’t last long. Hell,
he’d be lucky if he got inside her before he embarrassed himself and spilled his release
into his jeans.