Undercover Obsession (14 page)

“Piper,” Brody called to her as she headed
down the hall. “If you want to go out, do it by the front door and
with one of us.”

And just that quickly, Piper found her ire up
over this situation. Turning from him without comment, she shut
herself inside her workroom and refused to think about either man
for the rest of the night.

“You sure know how to get her dander up.”

Brody sent Ian a look that matched the one
Piper had just given him. “She’ll adjust. It’s only temporary.”
Piling the dishes she had left on the counter into the dishwasher,
Brody resigned himself to another long, frustrating night under her
roof.

After staying up late finishing up some
online orders, Piper woke early to get them boxed up and to the
Post Office in time for their only pick up today at ten. The spare
bedroom door was closed and the shower was running in the bathroom
when she came downstairs. Settling for a granola bar for breakfast,
she loaded the six mail orders into her jeep then went back inside
to tell the guys she was leaving. Unfortunately, her timing sucked
because she spotted Brody heading into the woods and assumed it was
now Ian in the shower as the bedroom door was open to reveal it was
empty. Frustrated at the delay, she paced and muttered until she
stopped in midstride as she realized that once again she was
catering to a man’s dictates, putting her needs and wants on hold
for theirs, just like she had done for years for Charles.

“Damn it,” she growled under her breath as
she made a concession and pulled out a note pad. “I cannot miss
that pickup.” The orders should have gone out two days ago, but due
to the fact she had gone missing, she thought sarcastically, she
was going to have some disgruntled customers as it was. Missing the
pickup this morning would mean waiting until Monday, which was
unacceptable. She justified her leaving without one of them by
telling them she was in a hurry and would be fine on the short ten
minute drive on a main road into Hope. God knows, Main Street on a
Saturday would be busy and no one would dare accost her in broad
daylight on a busy street.

Piper pulled up in front of the Post Office
just in time to stamp and hand over her packages then watch them go
right into the truck. “Cutting it close today, missy,” Fred, the
postmaster teased her. “Frankly, I didn’t think I’d see you this
week. You sure had us worried. You okay?”

“I’m fine, Fred, thank you.” Everybody
knowing every one’s business was both the charm and the curse of
small town living. Piper loved it.

“Good, and I’m sure those agents are going to
get to the bottom of what happened. Don’t you worry none.”

One of them definitely got to her bottom, she
thought with a smile as she left the Post Office and walked down to
visit with Haley until she could break for lunch. Entering Haley’s
boutique, she was surprised to find her friend in tears, the shop
in disarray and Sheriff Nolan scowling at the mess. “Haley, what on
earth happened?”

“Oh, Piper, I’m so sorry.” Haley tried to
stop the fresh flow of tears, but couldn’t seem to help herself.
Not only did she feel violated in a way all too similar to how she
felt the first time her husband had backhanded her, but she felt
awful that the worst of the vandalism had been the total ruination
of Piper’s new additions. “I didn’t hear a thing until it was too
late.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Piper, saves me a trip
out to your place,” Gary Nolan said. Crime was rare in this small
town, and when it was aimed at one of theirs everyone took it
personally. “Where’re Agents Pearce and MacGregor?”

“I’m sure they’ll be along soon,” Piper told
him. In his mid-fifties, the sheriff was a stocky man with greying
hair and friendly blue eyes. He had been both kind and supportive
of her when she had first moved to Hope, as over protective of his
young new citizen as he was of the older, long-time residents.

“I want both of you to start being more
diligent until I catch whoever is causing this trouble. You,” he
pointed at Haley, “call my office if you hear or see anything
suspicious and wait for one of us to get here. And you,” he turned
that finger and stern look on Piper. “Don’t go anywhere without
someone with you. Got it?”

That’s just what she needed, Piper thought
sourly, another damn body guard. “Yes sir.” She reluctantly agreed
because, as she walked over to the corner where her designs lay in
tattered shreds, it looked like someone did indeed have something
against her.

“I’m sorry,” Haley said again. “There’s
nothing salvageable, I already looked. I came downstairs as soon as
I heard something, thinking it was someone just wanting me to open
early. But I had taken a sleeping pill last night and you know how
those knock me out and leave me a little slow the next morning. If
had awoken sooner, maybe….”

“Maybe nothing,” Piper snapped at her,
concern for her friend overruling any worry for the loss of
business. “These can be replaced, you can’t.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Piper, this
place was tossed, but only your items were shredded with
viciousness,” Gary pointed out just in time for Brody and Ian to
hear as they entered.

Brody’s irritation with Piper had only
increased when he had gotten a lecture from the elderly postmaster
on taking better care of ‘their girl’ and now it escalated to anger
when he saw the sheriff and heard his comment. One quick look and
it was obvious the little shop had been tossed with the intent of
making as much of a destructive mess as possible, but it was when
he spotted the torn remnants of Piper’s work that it took a turn
towards deliberate evil intentions.

Ignoring Piper, he asked the sheriff, “Care
to fill us in?”

“Haley came downstairs this morning to find
this mess. From the looks of it, someone jimmied the lock on the
back door, which wasn’t hard to do since it’s a piece of crap.”
Gary leveled an accusatory look at Haley, a silent reminder that he
had mentioned its inadequacy before. “The door leads to the back
alley, so no one would have seen anything in the dark. A lot of
ransacking but the deliberate destruction seems to be focused on
Piper’s inventory.”

All three men looked from the cut up bits of
satin and lace to her, and for the first time since she started
sewing lingerie, Piper felt herself blushing. It was obvious they
would much rather have seen the garments on someone rather than
piles of scraps. “You don’t know this was aimed at me,” she said
defensively, waving her arm at the room in general. “It could’ve
been…”

“Did I or did I not tell you not to leave
this morning without one of us going with you?” Brody interrupted
her in a deceptively soft voice. This incident just reinforced the
need for her to do as they said, whether she liked it or not.

Piper’s own anger was fueled by the worry
over the potential harm that could have befallen Haley last night
as well as the need to give up her independence until they caught
whoever was harassing her. Stalking over to Brody, she poked her
finger at his rock hard chest while glaring up at him. “And I told
you I had to get to town before ten. Neither of you were ready, so
I left, and I am perfectly fine.”

Brody ignored Ian’s smirk as he glared down
at the minx jabbing him with her finger. If he wasn’t so pissed, he
would be amused that a woman who was a foot shorter and a hundred
and twenty pounds lighter than him had the gall to lecture and
berate him, especially when he was here to look out for her. Torn
between the urge to either grab that finger and haul her up until
their mouths were fused together or tossing her over his lap again,
he took a step back in a visible effort to refrain from acting on
either impulse. He was quickly discovering that his attraction to
the new, feisty, independent Piper was just as strong, if not
stronger, than his attraction to the shier, meeker young woman he
had walked away from five years earlier. Unfortunately, nothing had
changed in the ensuing years and he was just as fated now to walk
away to go after Charles as he was back then.

“Remember what happened yesterday when you
defied us, Piper,” he warned.

Piper remembered all too clearly the
unfulfilled arousal he had left her with and his rejection of her.
Was that why she had deliberately taunted him by defying him again
today? There was no denying she wanted him. Her pussy literally
ached with the desire to feel him filling her again, fucking her
with such ruthless intensity that nothing mattered except reaching
that pinnacle that she had only been able to achieve that one time
with him. But she wasn’t that pathetic, needy girl anymore,
striving for the attention and caring she had fought for and lost
in seeking the love of a substitute father.

Suppressing the arousal his presence had
wrought, she turned from his knowing, hard eyed gaze. “I’ll help
you get cleaned up, Haley.”

“We’ll all help out, then I’m getting a big,
fat barbequed beef sandwich I saw advertised down at the diner,”
Ian stated, sending a look to Piper as if daring her to say
something.

Piper smiled, liking the way she could get
his goat over her eating habits. “They’re your arteries.”

Haley turned from them wishing she could
banter with a man like that. Correct that, she thought as she
righted a toppled over rack of blouses, she wished she could be
that teasing with that man. Why Ian was the first man in almost six
years to get her interest, to have her dried up libido suddenly
springing back to life was beyond her. He was polar opposite from
the men she used to be attracted to, from the man she had married
at twenty-two and finally rid herself of two years later. She had
met Tim when she clerked in his law office her senior year of
college and had fallen instantly for his smooth manner and suave
demeanor. He had courted her with candle lit dinners, flowers and
flattery until she agreed to marry him just two short months after
they had met. Tim’s true colors had emerged so slowly, that the
first time he slapped her, she had been so shocked she had accepted
his explanation of dealing with a stressful case and his apology
without thought. By the time their second anniversary was
approaching, his verbal abuse was being met more and more often
with a slap across the face or a bruising of her arms from his
tight grip. Each incident was followed with flowers and excuses and
apologies until she had finally had enough.

Hanging the tops back on the rack, Haley
tried to forget what happened when she had told him she had filed
for divorce, had tried over the past six years to bury the memory
of how his fists felt as they pummeled her face, the excruciating
pain from his foot kicking her, snapping her ribs, the sound of his
leering, taunting voice telling her she was never going to leave
him. Now, looking at the shambles of the shop that had been not
only her lifeline, but her pride and joy, she felt violated all
over again. Even knowing this time the attack wasn’t aimed at her,
she still couldn’t stop the fear of losing everything again to
someone stronger and meaner.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice Ian
next to her, handing her some blouses he had put back on hangers.
His hand barely touched her arm, but she was so startled she
couldn’t stop a small gasp from escaping, her body automatically
taking a step away from him, a move in direct contrast to the image
in her mind of the two of them naked together. “Sorry, I wasn’t
paying attention.”

Ian’s brows lowered in a frown, anger
churning through him as her wide blue eyes stared up at him warily.
Reining in the urge to snap at her, he managed to drawl, “Try to
remember we’re the good guys, would you? I’m going to pick up
lunch. What do you want?”

He was big, hard and abrupt and damn, but if
that combination didn’t have her aching from her nipples down to
her long neglected pussy, she thought with a combination of
pleasure and bafflement. “I’ll have the barbeque, same as you.”

“Thank God,” Ian sighed. “I don’t think I
could take dealing with two women who didn’t know the pleasures of
good old fashioned red meat. Be right back.” Ian quickly left the
shop, as eager for what he considered real food as he was to escape
the combined look of fear and determination on Haley’s face. He
wasn’t a fucking white knight here to slay her demons, he thought
irritably, and he sure as hell wasn’t here for a brief fling with
the local shopkeeper, no matter how much his cock was aiming in
that direction. “Suck it up buddy,” he told his semi-aroused
appendage. “It’s the hand or nothing until we get home.”

“Are you going to attempt to put the fear of
Agent Pearce into her again?” Ian asked Brody as they followed
Piper back to her cabin an hour later.

“I doubt if another round over my lap will do
anything except turn us both on again,” Brody answered derisively.
The more they cleaned up Haley’s shop, the longer he thought about
someone bent on causing Piper harm, the madder Brody got until he
knew the erotic punishment he was itching to give her was no longer
an option. Even though he was confident of his ability to control
himself, he had never touched a woman in anger and wasn’t about to
start now. Besides, he’d probably end up fucking her instead of
punishing her and that was still not an option he was willing to
choose at this time.

“Then you better think of something to get
through to her,” Ian said as they turned into her drive, “because I
doubt if she’s going to just roll over and let us take over
regardless of the scare I think today gave her.”

It was the reminder of the fear and
uncertainty clouding Piper’s green eyes all afternoon that hardened
Brody’s resolve to deal with her in the best way he saw fit. She
got off on him spanking her, got turned on and responded to that
erotic stimulation in a way any man with a penchant for spanking
would love to exploit. But it might be an altogether different
matter and response if it was delivered by someone else.