There was the faintest memory of a demand. A demand for what, she wasn’t certain. It wasn’t even a memory, not really. It was a confusing collage of something, amid a blast of pain, fear, and her own screams.

“Did you remember the people next door who rushed in to help you?”

She didn’t remember the rescue at all.

“I remember meeting them at the hospital after I woke up.” She answered him, wishing she could hold on to whatever it was her attacker had said in those chaotic moments. She had a feeling if she could just remember . . .

“They were good boys,” he told her gently. “A lot of young men would have waited, or been too wary of poking their noses in where they weren’t wanted.”

“Oh, they were wanted.” She breathed out roughly.

God, what would she have done if they hadn’t poked their noses in?

Watching the landscape roll by, Piper realized they were only miles from the inn now.

“Do you think Dawg will be there?”

He was going to be so hurt, and she knew it. He wouldn’t understand her need to breathe, to have done this alone, even though it hadn’t been the chance she had believed it was.

“Why were you in New York, Piper?”

She’d wondered how long it would take him to get to the one question she knew he wanted to ask.

Forcing back tears of disappointment and humiliation, she let a bitter smile pull at her lips. “I thought I was going to get an offer for a showing of some of my designs,” she finally admitted.

“Thought you were?”

“It didn’t work out.” Staring down at her hands, she wondered whether he would consider it no more than she had deserved for the childishness she had displayed in the deceptive way she left.

“What happened, baby?”

The gentleness in his voice and the fact that he hadn’t told Dawg when the hospital had called him had her raising her eyes as she shifted in her seat to look at him.

Thank God it was dark. The last thing she wanted was for him to see the tears she had to blink back.

“There’s this famous designer sponsor,” she told him, clearing her throat to hide the hoarseness of the hurt she fought to hide. “He showcases several designers a year, helps them put on a show, and he’s never had one who didn’t become successful. I received a letter from him last week that he wanted to meet with me after seeing some of my designs that I sent in.”

He nodded, showing he was listening as they moved ever closer to the inn.

“I could have had the show and sponsorship if I’d agreed to be his little sex toy until he got tired of me.”

As though revealing that much opened a floodgate, Piper told him about Eldon Vessante, and the fact that his pants and his opinion of himself were overstuffed.

His expression never changed; the tension in his body didn’t visibly increase. None of the signs of vengeful anger that Dawg and her cousins were known to display were present.

“Two attacks in one day then.” He breathed out heavily, the concern in his voice easing something inside her she hadn’t known had been knotted with tension.

Piper nodded. “Fortunately, his butler or whoever he was, was there. Some guy named Broken or something. A hell of a name for a person. He kept Eldon from actually hitting me and helped me get away.”

“Do you think this Vessante guy was behind the attack at the hotel?”

Piper shook her head. “I don’t remember what was said, but he wanted something.” She wished she could remember, wished the harshly grated demand would come into focus within her memories. “I can’t remember what he said, Jed, or what he wanted, but it didn’t have anything to do with Eldon Vessante.”

Broecun.

Fuck.

The security field was a close-knit one, especially for those agents of John Broecun’s caliber. Jed knew Piper had taken the sound of the name literally, but Jed knew the other man, as well as the spelling of his name. And he knew if Broecun was with this Eldon Vessante, either the man was important to some very influential government types, or he was under investigation by them.

At least he had a place to start, and a face to shove his fist into. Eldon Vessante may not have been behind Piper’s beating, but the only reason he hadn’t been was because Broecun would have stopped him.

Broecun wouldn’t stop Jed from teaching the other man how to treat a woman. And blackmailing Piper with her dream of a big-time fashion show and an exclusive sponsorship was something Jed would exact a little atonement for.

“Well, you’re home now.” He pulled into the Mackay Inn’s lot, parked the truck, then shut it off. “Let’s see if I can sneak you into the house and get you settled before Dawg gets his first report that you’re home.”

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.