Protecting Piper

by Cynthia Eden

  “I’m not lying to you,” Piper added quickly. “I didn’t reach out to Grady. Though, God, I wish I had right now. I wish I had been talking to him so he would have known that wasn’t me asking him to come here. I didn’t lure him to this city, and I never, never would have wanted him to be hurt or killed!”

  He spared her a quick glance. Shit, she was crying. He saw her swipe away a tear on her cheek.

  “I hate this. I hate the bastard doing this. Grady and Jessica. Jessica is dead? She was my friend!” Another hard swipe on her cheek. “Who is going to be next? And why? Dammit, why? I haven’t led anyone on. I haven’t played games or—”

  “None of this is on you.” His voice was low and hard. “Understand that, Piper. You didn’t do anything to cause this shit. It’s all on the SOB out there. He’s doing this. He’s hurting people. He’s the one that has to be stopped and punished. People like this—they could be crazy. They could be sick. They could be cold-blooded killers. But their actions have nothing to do with their victims. What he is doing has nothing to do with you or anything you’ve done.” The last thing that Eric would let her do was blame herself.

  The light changed. He pushed down on the gas.

  He heard Piper pull in a ragged breath.

  “The detective seemed to blame me,” she mumbled.

  His hold tightened on the wheel. Tread carefully. “She’s hunting a killer. We can count on her to do her job. She isn’t going to stop until she finds him. Layla is very determined. And she isn’t going to be misled by false information. She was pushing you—” Harder than he fucking liked. “But she will see the truth. Her vic is Grady, and she’s focusing on him. Her investigation into his murder is going to lead her back to the perp that we’re after.”

  “There’s…something between you.”

  Tread—

  “Or there was, right? I could see it, when she looked at you. The two of you were involved.”

  He couldn’t read the emotion in those words. “A long time ago—and briefly. We realized we were far better as friends than we’d be as lovers.” Mostly because he hadn’t let her or any other woman close. His attention had always been elsewhere, and that sure as shit hadn’t been fair to Layla.

  “You didn’t seem like good friends today.”

  A rough laugh escaped him. “Yeah, she was furious because I hadn’t called her before I went to confront Grady. The fact that I went into an active crime scene had her seeing red.” She wouldn’t forgive that one anytime soon. “But I had to go inside. I had to make sure the perp wasn’t there—or that a live victim wasn’t in the place, too.”

  “He was tortured. That’s what she said.”

  Dammit. “Yes.”

  “The guy who did this…do you think he’ll hurt me, too?”

  They’d left the busy roads and were heading toward his house. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. A sad, husky laugh. “I know that you like to think you control the world, but you don’t.”

  “I control more than you think.” Eric glanced into his rear-view mirror, spotting the car tailing them. Julia and Rick were following his orders. Level six protection meant that eyes were going to be watching her as closely as possible. Julia and Rick would be staying nearby, looking for trouble, and when their shift was over, another team would be replacing them.

  Grady had been tortured, and, no, the same fate was not going to happen to Piper. No way, not any freaking day.

  Simon had stayed at the station, the better to keep an eye on Layla’s investigation. Simon also had an in with the ME, so he’d be reporting to Eric as soon as he got the official report on Grady’s murder.

  Ben had gone back to his house—after Eric ordered the guy to head home. His brother had been looking dead on his feet. Murder wasn’t exactly Ben’s specialty. The guy was the charmer, the schmoozer. He never got his hands dirty, and truth be told, Eric didn’t want his little brother even encountering any kind of violence. Sure as hell, he didn’t want Ben at a scene like the one he’d witnessed that day.

  “You try to protect everyone,” Piper said, as if she’d just read his mind. “But who protects you?”

  “I don’t need protecting.”

  “You just told me that you ran in that house today because you thought the perp might still be there. A murderer. What if he’d turned on you?”

  “I was armed. And I had Simon as a back-up.”

  “I don’t want anything happening to you. Not because of me.”

  They were nearing his gate. He slowed the car. Turned to glance at her. “Keep talking like that, Piper, and I’ll start to think that you care.” The words were meant to be mocking, teasing. He wanted to take away a little of her fear and pain.

  After a small pause, Piper said, “Of course, I care. I always have. Maybe that’s been the problem.”

  “What?” He was gaping. Dammit. Eric managed to get out of his stupor and open the gate. It swung open, and he stomped down on the gas, braking right in the middle of the rounded drive that led to the main entrance of his home. He killed the engine and whirled toward her. “Say that again.”

  She unhooked her seatbelt. Angled toward him. “I care about you, Eric. You’re not some stranger. I’ve always cared, even when you made me madder than hell. You hurt me, and I still cared. You enraged me, and I still cared.”

  That was promising. Very, very promising.

  “I can’t remember my life without you being in it. You’ve been there, whether in the shadows or in big, bright, infuriating color for as long as I can remember.” She swallowed. “So, yes, I care, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. I don’t want to go to some crime scene and see yellow police tape and hear that you were the one inside. That you were tortured or that you were killed. Because…I need you in my life. I want you there.”

  He shook his head. An instinctive movement because there was no way Piper was telling this stuff to him. She couldn’t be saying that she really, truly needed him.

  But it was the wrong gesture. So wrong. So typical of him when he tried to communicate with Piper. She sucked in a sharp breath and her hand flew out toward the door. She shoved it open and ran for the house.

  Oh, the hell, no. “Piper!” He tried to lunge after her, but, shit, he still had on his seatbelt, and the damn thing jerked him back. Cursing and snarling, he freed himself and hurried after her. He caught her just as she was heading up the steps. He spun her back around to face him.

  “Just stop, Eric! Let me go! I’m trying to not make an ass of myself again by saying—”

  “Say any fucking thing you want to me, baby. But listen to me first, okay? Please? I was shaking my head because I couldn’t believe you were saying that shit to me. That you actually—hell, I care about you, too.” Care, such a tame word. A ridiculously easy, tame word. One that didn’t come close to explaining how he actually felt about her. “I…care.” The word jammed in his throat. “I want you in my life. I need you there. And if something were to happen and you left my world, dammit, nothing would be same.” He wouldn’t be the same. Without her, Eric was pretty sure he’d crash and burn.

  ***

  Ben unlocked his door, shuffled inside, and threw his coat onto the nearest chair. It had been one hell of a day. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he headed for the kitchen. His head was pounding, and he kept thinking about the fear he’d seen in Piper’s eyes.

  Grady was dead. Piper had covered for him, she hadn’t told the detective that the last time they’d encountered Grady, Ben had been the one punching the guy. He was sure that little detail would have put him high up on the detective’s suspect list.

  He grabbed a water from the fridge, lifted it to his mouth and—

  Why was the light on in his bedroom?

  He froze. The bottle of water was cold in his hand. Slowly, Ben turned his head toward the bedroom. The door was partially shut, and light streamed from the opening.

  He was sure he’
d turned off the light in there.

  But…

  He shoved the water back into the fridge. Shut the door, moving as quietly as he could. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe he’d left the light on when he’d hurried out that morning. He’d been worried about Piper, and he’d hauled ass out of the place.

  Maybe he had…

  Or…maybe he hadn’t.

  Ben grabbed a long knife from the kitchen block, and he crept to his bedroom. His breath came quickly, in and out, as he advanced. He couldn’t move as quietly as Eric, but he was a pretty close second. And while he might not have all of Eric’s fighting skills, he was a second degree black belt. Their father had insisted they both learn Taekwondo when they’d been younger.

  His father had thought self-defense was a necessary part of life. Eric had gone on to take all sorts of classes, but Ben had kept his focus on the style he loved the most.

  “I don’t want you to ever be the one to start something, but if someone comes at you, you have to be able to defend yourself.” His father’s words swept through his mind as Ben closed in on the bedroom door.

  He pushed it open. The door gave a low creak.

  And—

  The room was empty. The bed still unmade, the light shining from overhead. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing appeared to have been moved in any way.

  The tension slid from his shoulders. He was just jumpy. The whole nightmare with Piper had gotten into his head. He had a security system. If someone had gotten inside, he would have known about it.

  But Piper’s system hadn’t gone off.

  The thought sent a surge of adrenaline pumping through him—right before he felt the rush of movement at his back. Something slammed into the back of his head, and Ben hurtled toward the floor. The knife slipped from his fingers.

  “You don’t fucking deserve her!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Piper stood in Eric’s study. The same study where they’d made love on the desk. Wait, no, that hadn’t been making love. It had just been fucking. Wild sex. Eric wasn’t in love with her.

  Her arms locked around her stomach. Eric paced just a few feet away from her. He seemed uncharacteristically unnerved. Eric never got unnerved. Did he?

  But he had been at a murder scene that day. He’d seen her ex, found her ex’s body.

  And now he was probably trying to figure out what words he should give to her. Her breath sighed out. “You don’t need to think about how to handle me.”

  He stopped pacing. Frowned at her.

  “I’m not expecting you to make some grand declaration to me.” Jumping out of the car could have been an overreaction. Sue her. She was a wee bit stressed. She’d found out Grady had been tortured and that Jessica was dead. Being rational wasn’t exactly possible every second. So, she’d flipped out. Piper had her control back, for the moment. “I was just trying to explain that…I like you, okay? You’re not the big, bad jerk that I thought you were.”

  “Good to know.” A rough growl. And he strode toward her.

  Her shoulders stiffened. “Eric?”

  “I am not trying to figure out how to handle you. I will never figure out how to handle you. Because you never say or do what I expect. Just one of the things I enjoy about you.”

  “You have…other things?”

  His smile came, moving slowly across his face, making that sexy slash appear in his cheek. Who needed dimples? She was all about the slash. “I have a list,” Eric assured her.

  She wanted to know what was on that list. She wanted to keep talking to him. She wanted to do anything to keep her mind off the fact that a killer was out there.

  I’m sorry, Grady. And Jessica—God, Jess!

  Eric’s head tilted as he studied her. “And you probably have a list, too. A list of the things I’ve always done to make you insane.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t make lists.” That would require more organization. She tended to wing it.

  His hand lifted and slid over her cheek. “I’m glad that you need me. I’m fucking grateful as hell that you want me.”

  Her heart jerked. When he touched her, she could count on that quick leap. Maybe she should have been making a list all this time.

  “I want you, Piper, and that desire didn’t lessen because I had you in my bed. It just got stronger.”

  She felt the same way.

  She just wished all of this had happened under different circumstances. Circumstances that didn’t involve death and some psycho stalker.

  “I need you, too, Piper.”

  She was inching toward him.

  “I need you because you make me smile. You keep me on my toes. You make me laugh when I just want to be pissed at the world.”

  Her head tipped back and she wet her lips.

  His gaze immediately settled on her mouth. That hadn’t been her intention. Honestly. She was just nervous and her lips had gone dry.

  “I’m a jealous bastard, Piper. You need to realize that. Especially when it comes to you, my emotions can be primitive.”

  Now she laughed. “And you think I don’t get jealous?” What, was that supposed to be an emotion magically limited to men? Uh, no. “When I saw the way the detective was looking at you, when I realized that the two of you had been involved, I pretty much wanted to attack.” But attacking a detective who was interrogating her? Bad plan. Very bad. She’d managed to keep her cool…and only lost her shit in the car. “I can be jealous and possessive, too. You should understand that, right now. I’m not the kind of lover who shares. It’s me and only me.”

  “Why would I want anyone else?”

  Okay, sometimes, he could say the most perfect, sweetest things. Sometimes.

  Both of his hands cupped her jaw. He stared down at her, and she could see the desire in his eyes. Handsome, fierce Eric.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Her words were husky and soft.

  “My job is protection. It’s what I do.”

  He was supposed to sit behind his fancy desk and come up with tech inventions to save the world. She didn’t want him running into crime scenes, looking for perps. “What if you’d been the man who was wheeled out of that house? What if you’d been put in the body bag?” Piper had to blink because tears tried to fill her eyes again. “I can’t have that. I won’t. I—”

  His phone rang. The loud, high-pitched peal filled the room.

  “It’s Ben,” he muttered. “Give me just a second.” Eric backed away as he pulled out his phone.

  She sucked in a deep breath. She had almost crossed a major line there. Said something that she’d kept secret for a very long time.

  He put the phone to his ear. “Hey, look, we’re okay here. I got Piper home safe and sound and—”

  His face changed. Went dark and lethal in a flash. It was almost as if she stared at a stranger.

  “Who the fuck is this?” Eric demanded.

  Piper took a step toward him as fear rushed through her blood.

  “Where is my brother?” he snarled. “What the hell do you—” His gaze flew to Piper. “Ben’s not the one fucking her.”

  The echo of her heartbeat pounded in Piper’s ears like a drum.

  “I’m the one doing that. I’m the one fucking Piper. You hunting her lover? You want her lover to pay? It’s me. Me. Not Ben. He’s never been her lover, so you stay the fuck away from him, you stay—” Eric’s words ended in a snarl as he yanked the phone from his ear. “Bastard hung up!”

  “Eric?”

  He was already calling someone else. “Simon, you at the station? Hell, yes, I need you. I need you to get to my brother’s place, now. The perp just called. He’s got Ben. Get Layla and more cops and come in with guns freaking blazing because that is exactly what I’ll be doing.”

  ***

  “Is it true?” The low hiss filled Ben’s ears as he fought to stay conscious. The piece of shit had attacked him from behind. He’d slammed something big and heavy into the back of Ben’s head, and
when Ben had fallen, the guy had grabbed Ben’s head and rammed his face into the floor over and over.

  Ben suspected his nose was broken. He didn’t much fucking care.

  What he cared about was stopping the bastard behind him.

  Ben had blacked out once. His head burned and bled, but he knew if he passed out again, it was over.

  “Are you Piper’s lover?”

  He’d known her stalker had attacked him. There was even something about the guy’s voice that was familiar to him. “N-no.” He was her best friend. Her family.

  “Were you?” Something sharp pressed against his back. The guy had a knife.

  Wait. So do I. But he’d lost his knife when he first hit the floor. His fingers scrambled out, scraping across the wooden floor as he searched for his weapon. “No…”

  The knife sliced into him, a white-hot pain that had him gasping.

  “One.”

  One? One what?

  “Is your brother her lover?”

  Ben shook his head and his fingers touched—

  The handle of my steak knife.

  “Your brother said he was her lover.” The attacker’s blade bit into him again. This time, it sliced into his side. “Two.”

  Ben clenched his teeth.

  “Why would he lie? Why would he—”

  Ben used his last bit of strength to roll toward his attacker. He felt pain blaze across his side, but he ignored it. “He’d lie to fuck with you! To protect me!” Ben tried to yell those words even as he shoved up with his knife, aiming for the guy’s chest.

  The bastard had on a ski mask. A bulky black shirt and some kind of thick vest. Black pants. What did he think? He was some freaking ninja?

  The guy let out a scream when Ben’s knife flew at his chest, and the attacker jumped back.

  Guess you don’t like being the one who gets stabbed.

  The fellow turned and ran, rushing though Ben’s home. Ben shoved onto his knees, intending to go after the piece of crap. He even made it up to his feet. A full-on stand, even as blood dripped into his eyes. He lunged forward. “Stop!”