Nautier and Wilder

by Lora Leigh

  She gave herself over to it, reaching ever harder for it, poised on the edge of an abyss she wanted nothing more than to fly into.

  “Jed, please.” She forced the cry past her lips. “Harder. Please. Please fuck me harder.”

  She wanted that release.

  She wanted it now.

  God, if she had to wait she might not survive it.

  Fingers curling into the sheets beneath her, she held on tightly. She thrust back to him, panting for air, as flames burned through her system, licking across her flesh and attacking the rapidly rising sensitivity of her clit and the aching depths of her overstretched vagina.

  As she fought to break the bonds holding her to reality and to jump headlong into the flames, she felt Jed above her. His lips were at her neck, stinging nips and heated kisses attacking the bend of her shoulder a second before he caught the tender flesh between his lips and delivered a heated kiss that became a catalyst to pure ecstasy.

  The explosion tore through her.

  Rapture ripped her from her place in reality and threw her headlong into the cataclysm of flames awaiting her. Destructive, the tidal wave of pure ecstasy overwhelmed her; as she flew through that place of searing sensation, she found the man who had taken her there.

  Piper felt him inside her, covering her, not just taking her body, but sinking inside her soul.

  His groan echoed around her.

  His cock buried deep one last time, pulsed and throbbed; then her muscles clenched around him further as he found his own release.

  Crying out his name, locked in a world of blinding color and overwhelming rapture, she could do nothing but trust him to hold her, to keep her secure as the pleasure pounded through her, tore past the deepest reaches of her heart and invaded the very depths of her soul.

  She was his.

  There was no denying it. There was no fighting it.

  She belonged to him.

  But as she felt him sinking inside the abyss with her, Piper knew he belonged to her as well.

  He was hers.

  There was no denying her, just as she knew there was no longer any chance of denying him.

  For the first time in her life, she knew exactly what it meant to belong.

  Now if she could just live long enough to enjoy it.

  TWELVE

  “What now?” With a towel wrapped around her, her damp hair lying along her shoulders, Piper stepped from the bathroom after showering, the reality of the danger facing her threatening to overwhelm her optimism.

  The chest-tightening panic was returning, waiting, preparing her for Jed to walk away. . . .

  Like her father had walked away and left her, her mother, and her sisters unprotected and alone. Just as she was afraid Tim and Dawg would walk away.

  Was that why everything inside her shut down whenever she and Dawg moved toward a confrontation? To prepare her heart, to steel herself against the abandonment?

  “We wait and see,” he answered, the towel he’d wrapped around his waist earlier still in place.

  He hadn’t dressed.

  Heated need for his touch was threatening to weaken her need for answers as she watched him toss their dirty clothes into the hamper next to the bathroom door.

  “Since when do you sit around and wait on anyone or anything, Jed?” she asked, frowning at the feeling that there was much more going on than simply waiting. “What are you and my brother up to?”

  Tightening in response to some imperceptible feeling of dread, her heart began to beat at a sluggish pace.

  The impending panic was a result of the look on his face, the darkening of his navy gaze that made his eyes appear almost black.

  “We’re not just waiting; we’re watching,” he finally stated, his expression hardening just enough to warn her that she was going to hear something she didn’t want to hear.

  “What are you watching?”

  “Your room.” Jed paced to the television, retrieved the remote, and hit the power button.

  Watching the screen, she was surprised as he reached behind the unit, and a second later, the split view of the screen showed both her bedroom as well as her sitting room.

  “Brogan had the cameras installed just after he started sleeping with Eve,” he revealed. “He was afraid his or Dawg’s enemies would attempt to strike out at her, or take her from him. There were cameras in her room, and GPS on her car and her cell phone.”

  The cameras had been there since before Brogan and Eve moved from the inn? And they were still there?

  “I was supposed to move them,” he told her. “And I was going to until I learned you were taking her room after she moved in with Brogan.”

  “So you’ve watched me when I didn’t know you were?”

  Controlling her? Maneuvering her?

  Was he so much different than she had begun to believe he was?

  “Only once or twice.” Broad shoulders shrugged as he watched her carefully. “The night you were packing to leave for New York.”

  Holding the towel close to her breasts, she sat up, watching the view on the television, wondering what she should feel.

  Was the need to deny that he would do such a thing to control her normal? Was she simply trying to make excuses for him?

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why were you watching me?”

  He rubbed at the back of his neck, frustration tightening his face. “I worried about you. I wanted to see you. Hell, Piper, you’ve made me fucking crazy since I’ve moved in here, as you’ve tempted me, then run from me. There were days I wasn’t certain I could keep from playing the caveman I knew you were waiting for me to reveal lurking inside me.”

  Biting her lip, she glanced to the screen again.

  “So why show me now?”

  “Because I don’t want any secrets at all between us any longer,” he stated. “Not secrets like this.” Flipping his hand toward the screen, he moved to the dresser and pulled his clothes from the chair next to the bed as she watched, then began dressing angrily.

  “I don’t want to take your fucking freedom,” he growled at her as he shoved the white-and-gray-striped shirt into the waistband of his jeans and quickly buckled his belt. “I don’t want to control what you think or feel or what you do.” Glaring at her, he sat down in the chair next to the bed and pulled on dark leather boots. “I just want you.”

  He just wanted her?

  “And now you’ve had me,” she said, feeling kind of hollow inside. “Did you change your mind about wanting to control me and my life?”

  Had she made a mistake? The one mistake she had sworn she would never make—had she fallen in love with a man unable to resist the urge to completely take her life over?

  The look he shot her was one of such scorn that anger immediately flared inside her.

  What the hell did he expect her to think?

  Stomping to the end of the bed, where he’d laid the clothes he’d collected from her room earlier, Piper pulled on her own jeans, soft cotton tank camisole, socks, and sneakers.

  “Maybe I should just return to my room.” She felt a bit hollow inside now, as though some part of her had just been cruelly ripped from her chest.

  He wasn’t saying he loved her. He wasn’t mentioning caring for her. There was no hint of commitment or anything other than the fact that he had been watching her and she had driven him crazy.

  “What the hell do you want from me?” she asked as she finished dressing and turned back to him, aching inside with the knowledge that she could be losing what she hadn’t even known she’d so desperately needed.

  “I want you to stop being frightened of me, to start with,” he demanded.

  “Then don’t pull this crap on me.”
Turning on him fully, her arms propped on her hips, Piper confronted him as she had never confronted her brother. “For God’s sake, Jed, I never knew what the hell you’ve wanted from me. You flirted, you smiled, yet you never asked me out or gave me so much as a hint that you wanted more than a one-night stand. Or is that all you wanted?”

  Heated anger was brewing inside her, rising to the surface and threatening to break free of the shield she normally kept surrounding it.

  “What do you think I wanted?” Dark emotion filled his expression and his eyes, warning her of the thin ice she might be stepping onto.

  She’d never heeded the warnings from Jed, though, so why start now?

  Why should she even attempt to make excuses to herself, let alone to him, Dawg, or anyone else? she thought furiously as she watched him hit the remote, turning the television off before throwing the remote to the bed.

  “You think I’ve driven myself insane trying to hold back, trying to ensure you have the space you need to deal with your brother and decide what you want with me, just to stop with a fucking one-night stand?” Jed growled.

  He moved so fast there was no avoiding him.

  His hands were on her shoulders first, jerking her to him before one arm wrapped around her waist to hold her against his hard body while his free hand slid into her hair, clenched, and pulled her head back.

  “You make me feel like a fucking caveman,” he rasped. Power, hunger, and something much deeper echoed in his voice and gleamed in his eyes. “Son of a bitch, Piper, you make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and I have no idea how to fucking deal with them.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “What do I make you feel, Jed?”

  His lips parted, but what he would have said, she didn’t know.

  “How very sweet.”

  That voice.

  Grating. Harsh.

  She knew it. It echoed in her head and slammed through her memories with the force of a sledgehammer.

  Jed’s eyes narrowed as he released her, turning as he used one arm to keep her behind him.

  It was the nightmare she’d had nightly since the attack in New York. The face she could never remember. The vision of horror and pain she hadn’t been able to escape.

  The man was pockmarked, a scar running through the left side of his upper lip and bisecting a weak chin. Thinning dark brown hair and muscular shoulders combined with mean, cold hazel eyes and a gun leveled at Jed’s chest.

  “You’re a stupid man.” Jed seemed to sigh, but she could feel the dangerous fury building in his body.

  “How do you figure that?” Thin lips curled into a sneer as bulky shoulders shifted beneath a light jacket that strained across them. “I slipped in on you, didn’t I?”

  “Did you?” Was that amusement in Jed’s voice?

  The other man chuckled. “Why don’t you just move away from the little girlie there,” he suggested. “She can run over to the next room and collect all those jewels she got in New York and bring them back to me. I might let you live if she hurries. And if she brings them all.”

  Jed was slowly shaking his head. Piper gripped his waist with one hand as the other balled into a fist and pressed against his back. Fear rose inside her and threatened to steal her breath. An ugly flash of life without Jed slammed through her imagination and left her fighting back tears.

  “How do I know you don’t have someone waiting in her room?” Jed asked, as though he hadn’t just been watching the complete emptiness of her suite.

  “Doesn’t matter; we’ll both want the same thing,” the man stated, his voice harsh as he advanced another step. “Now, does she go after those jewels or do I kill you? Then her.” A smile twisted his lips as the mocking question passed them. “Or I could just hurt you a little bit to show her I mean business.” He aimed the gun at Jed’s kneecap.

  “No need to go that far,” Jed drawled, as though it were all a game. “She can just do as you ask.”

  She knew Jed’s voice. She knew the passion-rich sound of hunger in it as well as the icy slide of a warning. And the warning in his tone was unmistakable.

  “I thought that might be the case.” The intruder’s smile was a terrifying grimace as he glanced to Jed’s side to peek around at her.

  He chuckled with a grating rasp. “It’s nice to see you’ve healed from our last meeting. I’ve always thought it a rather wasted effort to add more damage before the old bruises have healed.”

  And he appeared to enjoy the thought of adding those bruises.

  He had every intention of killing them. Piper could see it in the pure anticipation in his gaze. Cruelty was inherent in the man’s face, and in her memory of his heavy blows landing against her undefended body.

  “Go on, Ms. Mackay,” he ordered her softly, waving the gun toward the door between Jed’s room and her own. “Collect all the jewels now. Miss any and he’ll die.”

  “How would I know?” Licking her dry lips, she didn’t have to pretend pure terror; it was there, slapping her in the face. “They’re mixed in with the rest of the stones.”

  Evil hazel eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Mixed in with the other stones?”

  “The stones I bought at the craft store.” Forcing the words past her lips, she tried to hold back the quaver in her voice. “I thought they were the fake stones I’d bought.”

  For the briefest second surprised disbelief filled the man’s gaze before a cackle of laughter left his lips.

  “Son of a bitch.” The laughter was almost a wheeze. “Why am I even surprised? You look about that stupid, bitch.”

  Stupid?

  The gun still aimed at Jed’s knee was all that kept her mouth shut as she stared back at him.

  He might think she was stupid, but she knew he was fucking ugly. She could fake smart if that were true, but there was no way in hell he could fake pretty, she thought mockingly, fighting to hold back her fear.

  She wasn’t stupid, though. What she was, was doing everything she could to buy enough time for Jed to figure their way out of this one.

  “Well, I suggest you learn how to identify the real stuff and separate it from the fakes really fast,” he suggested, his voice lowering and echoing with cruelty. “You have about four minutes to get that cute little ass back in here before I start putting holes in your man.” He waved the gun at Jed’s knee before lifting it to Jed’s heart and smiling back at her.

  Everything inside her was shaking, trembling in fear now, while Jed’s complete stillness had wariness growing inside her.

  He was up to something; she could feel it.

  She knew Jed. He wasn’t moving; nor was he taunting.

  “I’ll just get them all.”

  “Make sure you turn the lights out,” Jed suddenly advised her.

  Piper paused.

  “What fucking lights?” Fury echoed in the gunman’s voice. The lights went out and the darkness exploded around her.

  Piper found herself thrown to the floor a breath before the explosive report of a weapon echoed through the room.

  Riding close on the sound of the gun’s discharge, shattering glass from the mirror above the dresser began raining down on her, biting sharply against the bare flesh of her arms.

  She covered her head until the stinging storm ceased, then scrambled across the room on her hands and knees, glass pricking into her palms and knees as the sound of an enraged fight could be heard ahead of her.

  She had to find Jed.

  “Stay in place, Piper,” Jed yelled out a second before a hard grunt was heard. “Stay where you are, dammit.”

  She pushed herself against the wall as she glared into the darkness, her hand pressing against a large shard of the glass on the floor. Curling her fingers around
it, she lifted it, holding it against her just in case she might need it.

  A second later a shadow hurled itself toward her as though propelled by some unseen force.

  Or Jed’s fist.

  The wide body of her assailant—or her would-be killer—slammed into the wall beside her.

  Fury surged through Piper at the knowledge of who it was bouncing against the wall. Gripping the glass tighter in her hand, she struck out and buried the arrowed point of the glass into the brute’s back. Or maybe it was his shoulder?

  She wasn’t certain which.

  The second she slammed it home she tried to move out of his way. The fist was faster than her self-preservation instincts, though. A hard fist in her direction slammed into her shoulder, throwing her off balance and sending her pitching to the floor, her hands scraping against the glass that covered the carpet.

  “Dammit, Piper.” Affectionate frustration filled Jed’s voice and covered that underlying well of complete fury she sensed.

  She couldn’t see a damned thing, but suddenly Jed was picking her up and throwing them both to the side as the report of the weapon blasted through the room once again.

  An animalistic growl left Jed’s throat as he pushed her halfway beneath the bed, then jumped across it.

  The gun went off again as raised voices outside the room could be heard. A high-pitched male scream sounded, and then for the space of a few short seconds, there was unbearable silence.

  Piper stared across the bed, desperate to see Jed’s shadow moving, to see some kind of movement that she could attribute to him.

  Without him, she was lost.

  She felt lost.

  Terror squeezed her heart like a furious vise and left her breathless as she glared over the bed, determined to see him alive. She had to see him alive.

  Her lips parted to call out to him at the same moment the lights flipped on, shocking her senses.

  Piper dropped down and beneath the bed, rolling to peep from beneath the bed skirt at the overly large feet suddenly rushing around the room.

  “Dammit, Piper.” Hard hands shoved beneath the bed and gripped her wrists, and she glimpsed Jed’s bruised face as he pulled her from beneath the bed and dragged her against the hard width of his chest.