by Cynthia Eden
She put her mouth on him. Those red lips. That soft tongue. She took his cock into her mouth, and Eric knew he was a goner. Lost. His hips arched against her, and he kissed his control good-bye.
He wanted her too much, and her mouth felt like the best paradise in the world. But he was about to come, and he damn well wanted her to come with him.
He pulled her up.
“Eric!”
He lifted her easily, holding her hips so that she straddled him. With one long, deep thrust, his cock pushed into her core—wet, tight, hot.
Perfect.
Her head tipped back. Her thighs squeezed his hips.
Using his hold on her, Eric raised her up and brought her down, over and over, sliding balls deep and retreating. Then his right hand moved to stroke her clit. He watched her because she was such a thing of beauty when she came. The most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen as—
“Eric!”
He was such a goner. He rolled her beneath him. Grabbed her legs, draped them over his shoulder, and pounded into her. Control was history. There was only her. The hot grip of her body and the sweet sound of her moans. The softness of her skin.
He erupted into her, coming on a wave of pleasure that wiped him out. Gutted him. And he held her close. He kissed her. Kept thrusting. Kept wanting and wanting even as he came. Kept wanting…her.
As he always had.
As he always would.
And after, he slowly lowered her legs. His fingers slid along her ankle, and he pressed a soft kiss to her sexy little half moon tat.
***
Piper cracked open one eyelid. “You’re carrying me.”
“Because you’re out cold.”
“No.” A yawn. “I’m awake.”
He just tightened his hold on her. He was carrying her up the stairs. That was all strong and romantic and sexy. She snuggled a little closer to him. “You make me feel safe.”
True.
“And you make me feel complete,” Eric told her in his low, deep voice.
His words caught her by surprise. Wait, had he really said that? She was in a heavy sleep fog and—
“Relax, Piper. I’ve got you.”
They were at the top of the stairs. He turned and took her into his room. Put her carefully down on the bed and eased her beneath the covers.
He climbed in beside her. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to turn toward him and slide closer. To put her hand over his beating heart. And as sleep pulled at her, she heard herself whisper, “I’ve got you.”
Chapter Seventeen
The gallery had a new alarm system. All fancy with bells and whistles. Was he supposed to be impressed? Intimidated?
Eric Wilde and his employees thought they were the only people in the world who could string up some tech.
Wrong.
He disabled the system, sure, it took a little longer than he would have liked, and there were a few moments when he started to sweat, but he got inside.
Thanks to Jessica, he knew a whole lot about the security there, and Eric’s team had been a little sloppy—they should have started fresh with a whole new system, not just done upgrades.
Their mistake.
Maybe they’d been rushed. He could give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, the cops had taken their time doing their crime scene BS. The Wilde Securities team had only been able to work their magic after the cops had finally cleared out.
Maybe they planned to do more at the gallery. Too bad they weren’t going to have that opportunity.
He slipped inside. Took a deep breath. Could have sworn that he smelled Piper in there. That sweet scent that she liked. Lavender.
He took out his knife. Slid his finger over the blade.
It was time for the final act. Time for the big show. No more waiting. Whistling, he stepped forward. And he brought along his surprise…
***
The sharp ringing woke Eric. He jerked upright, his heart racing, even as his hand flew toward his nightstand. His fingers closed around his phone, and he yanked it toward him.
Gallery breach. One of the sensors at Piper’s gallery had just gone off. The main security detail team on the gallery would be notified immediately, and the system would also send an automatic alert to the Atlanta PD. The sensor wasn’t connected to the main system at her place, but it had been a back-up that he’d ordered installed. Just in case the perp somehow got inside her gallery again…
And he had.
“What’s happening?” Piper’s worried voice.
“Someone is in your gallery.”
Someone who didn’t realize that he’d just been caught. The cops would go in fast and quietly, as would the security team. They’d trap the bastard. They’d—
A call came through on his phone. He frowned at the number even as he answered it. “Wilde—”
“It’s Mark Rogue. Someone is at the gallery!” Mark’s voice was frantic. “I see them, man! I see them! The lights are on and someone is on the second floor—up in Piper’s work area.”
“The cops are coming—so are my team members.” Eric had given his card and number to Mark after they’d talked at the gallery. He’d told Mark to call him if the guy ever saw anything suspicious. “You stay where you are, understand?”
“No, man, no. This is the bastard who’s been tormenting Piper! He’s not getting away! Not like the sonofabitch who killed my sister. It’s not gonna happen again, you understand me? I won’t let him get away again!”
“No, just listen, Mark—”
But the guy had hung up. So much for listening.
Piper jumped from the bed. “Someone is at my gallery?”
“The cops are on the way, so are my team members—”
“So are we! You’re not leaving me behind. We’re going—come on!”
***
“You sonofabitch!” Mark raised the gun he’d taken from his shop. The gun that he kept locked beneath the counter because a guy could never be too careful. The gun felt heavy and cold in his hand, and his fingers were shaking. “Why did you do this? Why did you do this to her?”
Dante Fallon looked up at him, eyes wide, and blood still coming from a wound on his chest. The guy had a knife gripped in his fingers, and he lunged—
Mark’s fingers squeezed the trigger. Just squeezed and squeezed, and Dante jerked back. It looked like he tried to speak, but if he said something, Mark couldn’t hear him over the thunder of the gunfire. He just kept squeezing, Dante kept jerking, and then…
Nothing.
Dante was on the floor. Blood was all around him. Blood had spread to some of the easels nearby. Dante’s chest rose and fell and a wheezing came from him—
Footsteps thundered up the stairs. “Freeze!” A woman’s voice yelled. Then, immediately, “Drop the gun!”
Was he supposed to freeze? Or drop the gun? For a moment, Mark wasn’t sure. He only knew that he’d…
He’d shot a man.
Dante stopped wheezing.
His chest stopped rising and falling.
I killed a man.
“Drop the gun, Mark!” The shout came from the woman. “Now!”
He dropped the gun and, in the next moment, hard hands grabbed him. His arms were pulled behind his back, and he felt metal snap around his wrists. Handcuffs.
Then he was staring into a woman’s dark, deep eyes. A woman he knew. Detective Lopez.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“He had a knife. He was going to stab me.” Mark licked his lips. “I couldn’t let him get away. Katie’s killer got away. Did you know that?” His voice was rising and falling. To him, it sounded a touch insane.
What must it sound like to the cops?
“Her killer got away.” His voice rose even more. “I couldn’t let it happen again. It couldn’t happen again. Tell Piper, tell her—” But he broke off because uniformed cops were shoving him toward the stairs.
He looked back and saw that the detecti
ve had dropped to her knees next to Dante.
“I’ve got a knife here!” Detective Lopez called out. “Bag it and tag it!”
As he strained to peer over his shoulder, Mark saw her put her fingers to Dante’s neck.
How many bullets had he fired into the guy? It had all passed in a blur. A terrible, thundering blur.
Dante was gone. Dead. And Mark had done it. At least the guy wouldn’t hurt Piper again. Or anyone. He was—
“Pulse!” Detective Lopez yelled. “Get an EMT in here, now!” She pointed at Mark. “Keep him secure!”
He struggled against the guards who held him. “He can’t hurt her! He can’t hurt her again!”
Sympathy flashed in the detective’s pretty eyes. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t. Don’t fight them, okay? We have procedures to follow.” Then, voice roughening, she ordered, “Get him outside!” It looked like she was applying pressure to Dante’s wounds. Blood was covering her fingers…
The uniforms hauled Mark downstairs. Cops were everywhere, and he saw that some of Eric’s security people were there, too. Two men and a woman—all in suits. The cops were keeping them back. Blue lights flashed in a sickening blur as Mark was led toward a patrol car.
“Am I being arrested?” His question was dazed.
“You have the right to remain silent…” One of the uniforms began.
Another car roared to the scene. A fancy Benz. He knew it was Eric even before the guy braked and jumped out of the car. And Piper was there, too. She tried to rush to Mark, but Eric caught her arms and pulled her against him.
The cops guided Mark toward a patrol car. “I shot him!” Mark yelled out.
Was he supposed to stay silent? The cops had said…
Eric and Piper came closer. Eric kept a tight hold on Piper.
Mark tried to smile at Piper, but he was honestly scared as shit. Was he being arrested? He’d just… “He came at me with a knife. I had to defend myself.”
But it wasn’t just about defending himself. He’d known, even before he went inside the gallery, that he was going to kill Dante.
Piper’s face was too pale. Eric looked pissed. Probably mad because he hadn’t been the one to save the day.
This time…this time…I saved the day.
The cops pushed him into the back seat of the patrol car. And he probably should have smiled at Piper, but Mark felt his shoulders hunch as the door slammed shut.
Is he dead?
Through the window, he saw an ambulance barrel down the road. Its screaming siren hurt his ears, and it barely seemed to come to a full stop before a man and woman jumped from the back of the vehicle and raced toward the gallery. He turned his head and watched them. Watched in silence as the siren kept screaming and the lights kept flashing.
Moments later, they were back. Dante was on the stretcher. The female EMT was pounding on his chest as she ran with him and then helped load the guy in the ambulance.
Doors slammed.
The ambulance roared away.
Alive or dead?
Did it matter? Mark had done his job. His gaze slid to the right. Piper was staring at him. She’d been watching him the whole time. Once more, he tried to smile, but he couldn’t.
Chapter Eighteen
Piper paced the hospital’s emergency room waiting area, the gleaming tile bright beneath her feet. The waiting room was packed—something she found crazy for two AM. To the right, a woman held a bloody cloth over a gash in her arm. An older man coughed hard into his fist as a nurse steered him to the back, and a young boy held his right arm carefully to his chest, tears trickling down his cheeks. There were plenty of other people there, hunched over as they filled out intake forms, and there were nervous relatives waiting in the lobby as they worried about—
Layla shoved open the doors to the OR. She marched toward Piper and Eric, and Piper could easily see the blood on the woman’s shirt. As Layla approached, Piper found herself holding her breath.
Layla gave a hard shake of her head. “He didn’t make it. Died on the table.”
A woman to the right flinched. The little boy cried harder.
Piper grabbed Layla’s arm and steered her away from the kid—and the people who were listening too intently. Eric was right beside them. Tension rolled off his body.
“I had questions for him,” Layla snapped. Her frustration was palpable. “I wanted to talk to the guy. He wasn’t supposed to get the easy way out.”
Death was easy? Since when?
They huddled in the corridor, and as the bright overhead light fell on Layla’s face, Piper could see the strain the other woman felt. It was obvious in her eyes and in the faint lines around her lips.
“What’s going to happen to Mark?” Piper asked quietly.
Layla sighed. “He’s being held at the station. I have plenty of questions for him, too. Like, why the hell did guy run into the gallery instead of calling the police?”
“He called me,” Eric replied quietly. “I told him to stand the fuck down, but I guess with his history, with his sister, he couldn’t just sit back.”
Piper frowned at Eric.
He exhaled slowly. “I learned all about her when I was running a background check on him. My team members said her death gutted him.”
“Mark couldn’t let another killer get away.” Layla straightened her shoulders. “I have to grill him. I have to learn every single thing that happened in the gallery.” Another hard exhale. “If it’s clear self-defense, no charges will be filed, but that’s not a decision that will be reached quickly. We’ll have to conduct a full investigation. I’ll need to get reports from the crime scene techs. I’ll need any security footage that’s available. Hell, I’ll need everything I can get my hands on.” Her phone gave a little ding and vibrated on her hip. She pulled it out and scanned the text. “Well, this is a start, and it certainly makes things easier.” She looked up at Piper. “From the Savannah PD. They just found a storage locker that belonged to Dante. Got lots of paintings inside—including several of you.” A pause. “They also found women’s underwear in there. Could be yours. Could be someone else’s. We’ll be finding out, though.”
God.
“Go home,” Layla urged her. “I’ve got one hell of a long night in front of me, but for you two…” Now her gaze darted to Eric, as well. “It could finally be over. Dante is dead, and he won’t be hurting anyone else. Mark made sure of that.”
Another brisk nod, and she walked away. Layla pulled out her phone and talked briskly to her contact. Her voice faded as she rounded the corridor.
Piper felt rooted to the spot. Was it over?
“What in the hell…?” Eric began.
Her gaze swung to him. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the elevator that had just opened. At the man—garbed in a paper hospital gown and rolling an IV stand with him—who was slowly shuffling out of the elevator even as a nurse tried to steady him.
“Ben?” Eric rushed toward him. “What in the hell are you doing?”
“Coming to see you.” Ben was a little pale. Correction, a lot pale. And he still had a big, white bandage across his nose. “Both of you.”
“He’s not following orders,” the nurse groused. “Trying to tear out stitches and get his dumb self hurt, that’s what he’s doing.”
Piper bit her lip, not wanting to get closer and feel the force of Ben’s fury again. Eric hurried to slide an arm around Ben and help steady him.
Ben inclined his head to the nurse. “She told me…you were down here. That there’d been a shooting…”
The nurse—the same pretty woman with the close-cropped, dark hair that they’d met the other day—glared at him. “I told you they were fine. That they hadn’t been injured. I never expected you to get all tornado crazy and fly out of your room after them!”
“We are fine,” Eric assured him quietly as he tried to steer Ben back to the elevator. “You’re the one down here with your ass hanging out.”
And
he was. When Ben turned, he completely flashed Piper.
“Is it…safe?” Ben asked haltingly. “Is Piper okay?” Now he glanced over his shoulder at her.
There wasn’t fury in his gaze. No hurt, either. Just worry.
She pressed her lips together. She was so sick of crying. Piper forced herself to give a strong nod. “Okay.”
Ben tried to pull away from Eric, but Eric just held him tighter. “I’m sorry, Piper,” Ben burst out. “I’m a jackass, and you know it. Hell, you know it better than others.”
“We all know it,” the nurse pointed out flatly.
He ignored her.
“I want my best friend,” Ben mumbled. “I want you to always be there for me, and I am a selfish bastard because I didn’t think about what you need. What you want.”
It wasn’t true. He did always encourage her to go after what she wanted.
Except in this particular instance…
“You want him.” His gaze swung to a glowering Eric. “Then take him. And he’d better be damn grateful for every single day that he gets to spend with you.”
“You think I don’t know that shit?” Eric demanded immediately. “Are you still high on the pain meds? Of course, I need to be fucking grateful. Piper is the best thing that ever happened to me, and, yes, I know it.”
“Good,” Ben threw back. “Because she’s my best friend, and you’d better treat her right.”
Piper stumbled forward. She threw her arms around them and wound up hugging both Ben and Eric and the IV line. “I love you,” the words just came from her.
But she wasn’t just talking to Ben.
I love you, Eric. She had to tell him. If the threat was gone, if they were free and clear, then maybe…maybe giving her heart to a lover wasn’t a risk, after all.
Maybe Eric could be the lover that she finally counted on.
“This is…interesting,” the nurse said. “Are you all a couple?”
Piper pulled back. She stared at the two men who meant so much to her—but in different ways.
“We’re family,” Ben said firmly.
Piper smiled. Yes, they were.