“How far is Hope from here?”
“I don’t know for sure since I cut through the woods. About two miles.” Looking at Ian, she decided it was time she asked the questions. “You said something about last night, something I said. What were you talking about?” The two men exchanged a look she couldn’t decipher then Brody gave a very minute shake of his head before turning to her.
“We’ll discuss the condition we found you in later. Right now, you need to tell us your routine, where you go and when so we make sure one of us is with you. There’ll be no more trekking through the woods alone until we find out what’s going on.” Brody knew he had phrased that badly when sparks practically flew at him out of angry green eyes.
“Think again Brody Pearce. I’ve gotten along just fine for five years without you around, and I’ll continue to do so. I’m sure as hell not going to have one of you dodging my heels every time I need to go somewhere.” Piper didn’t know what angered, or scared her more, the thought of how attracted and vulnerable she still was to this man or why it was necessary for him to make such an outrageous statement. She wasn’t stupid, something had happened to cause her to forget over two days, but since she was unharmed, the fear of what had occurred during that lost time wasn’t enough to give up her hard earned independence and wasn’t as strong as the urge to give in to her lust again, setting herself up for another rejection. Of course, now she was also no longer fifty pounds overweight and was no longer a potential risk to whatever investigation he had been undercover for, so maybe he wouldn’t be so quick to reject her.
“This ought to be good,” Ian stated with a smile as he rose and took his plate to the sink. Bending down, he kissed her cheek, grinned at the startled, wary look she gave him then turned to Brody. “I’m going to scout around while you two hash this out.”
After Ian went out the kitchen door, Brody glared at Piper, wondering where the quiet, malleable young woman he had left in Geneva had gone. “You’ve changed, Piper.” His eyes took a leisurely slow look of her body from her black, silky head to her small, bare feet and then just as slowly back up again. He had touched every inch of that body last night, felt her arch against his hands and mouth as she came apart over and over, her soft, sweat-slick skin enough to drive him crazy. His cock stirred at the memory and his mouth practically watered with the need to feel those nipples hardening on his tongue, feel the soft, bare flesh of her pussy under his fingers, her juices dampening them, easing his way in.
His look had her nipples peaking, her pussy swelling, dampening even more. Cynically Piper raised her brow, recognizing that look. “And now that I’ve changed, as you so succinctly put it, you want me.”
“I always wanted you.”
“Yeah right,” she snorted. “I had to practically force myself on you, go down on you until, being a guy, I got you to the point you didn’t care what I looked like or who I was.”
Brody came around the counter so fast Piper didn’t have time to do anything but back up and face the storm she saw brewing in those pewter eyes. When he braced his arms on either side of her, she couldn’t help but notice, and react to the strength in those arms, the corded muscles bulging tautly as he leaned down into her face so close it took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to pull herself up against him and urge his head down far enough for her to feel those soft lips ravaging hers again. Despite the satisfying sex she had with Cole whenever his job as a wilderness guide brought him to Hope, she had never achieved the heights she had that one time with Brody and had never forgotten the feel of him, the taste of him. Which just pissed her off more.
“If you’ll recall,” Brody said in a deceptively soft voice, “I was hard long before I got into bed with you, long before I woke to feel that incredible mouth around my dick and I have never, ever, been controlled by my cock. I could have said no to you, turned you down, if I had wanted to. I didn’t. Remember that before you accuse me again of wanting you now simply because you’ve lost weight.” Brody grabbed her and hauled her against him, lifting her until her mouth was level with his, her startled eyes on his as he swallowed her gasp with his mouth.
Just that quickly, Piper was sunk. The feel of his mouth taking hers was both familiar and new, just as carnally arousing as she remembered, yet it was as if she had never been this close to him before. She opened willingly for his tongue, matched him stroke for stroke, invited him to explore her teeth, gums, lips, anywhere he wanted as long as those lips were on hers. Their mouths never parted as he lifted her onto the counter, spread her thighs and settled between them, never let up contact when he pushed her shirt up and closed those large, hard hands over her bare breasts. Piper couldn’t help the whimper of pleasure that escaped her throat when he grasped her nipples, didn’t try to suppress the moan he drew from her when he rolled those taut buds between his fingers then pinched them just to the point of pain. Upon his release, blood rushed back into the tortured peaks, making her lightheaded with the pleasure, aching for more, craving that which only he seemed to be able to give her. When she remembered Ian, when she was able to process the possibility that he could return at any moment and see Brody kneading her bare breasts, her arousal rose even higher, shocking and exciting her at the same time.
When Brody pulled his mouth from hers, she bemoaned the loss then, when he closed those same lips over a turgid tip and suckled, she embraced it. Even though her nipples were still sore and she had no idea what from, the discomfort only seemed to enhance her pleasure. Her hands clasped his dark head, her fingers sinking into his thick hair as the bristles from his beard scraped her sensitive flesh, the added pleasure from that sensation just as good as she remembered. Her imagination conjured up the image of both men’s heads bent over her breasts, of feeling both their mouths suckling her nipples, the dual sensations sending her to an unbelievable height of ecstasy. When Brody switched to her other nipple and drew it into his mouth with deep suction, she could no longer hold back a plea for more. “Brody, please.”
Her soft voice pleading with him worked as effectively as a douse of ice water. Five years ago she had pleaded with him in just that tone, softly vulnerable as well as huskily aroused, and he had b
een unable, or rather, unwilling to ignore it. But he refused to do that to her again, take her only to leave with the intention of imprisoning the one person in her life she considered family. She had been hurt enough by both Charles and him. She didn’t deserve to go through that again. If they discovered Charles was alive, and the odds were he was, she was going to have enough betrayal to deal with. Believing he was dead was a self-defense mechanism she was using to spare herself from being hurt anymore by the man she thought of as her father. She may have had her rose colored glasses yanked off at that party five years ago, but, despite her independence from Charles now, she didn’t seem to have any trouble slipping them back on when she needed to.
“I can’t do this again,” Brody said as he reluctantly released her breast. Very softly, he ran his tongue in a caress meant to be soothing instead of arousing over each reddened tip before raising his head to her flushed face and large, pleading eyes. “Damn it, Piper, I am not going to fuck you again only to turn around and leave to betray you. If Charles is still alive, it’s my job to find him and bring him in. He’s a material witness against the man we really want and that hasn’t changed.”
Piper yanked down her shirt and was grateful he stepped back and allowed her the dignity of hopping off the counter unaided. “When will I learn,” she muttered as she turned away from him.
“What was that?” Brody asked as he tried to ignore the way her ass moved under those loose gym shorts even while he was vividly recalling the feel of that soft ass under his hands last night, how those globes, firmer than they were five years ago, were still plump and round, still soft enough to have him fantasizing about reddening them before sinking his cock between them, riding her crack until his white come splashed over the redness.
Piper turned her head and glared at him. “Charles is dead. There’s nothing you can say to convince me otherwise. I have work to do. If you’re going to insist on hanging around here, clean up after yourselves.”
Brody watched her walk down the hall, winced when she slammed the door to her workroom then breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t arguing about them sticking around for a while. At least she was smart enough to know she had a problem and they were here to help solve it and protect her if need be. He could only hope they figured out what was going on soon, because if he had to be in such close proximity to her for any extended period of time, he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping out of her bed, even if he knew it would be better for her if he did.
Piper adjusted her back pack on her shoulders again as her angry stride through the oak hickory and pine tree filled woods kept making it slip off her shoulders. She didn’t know who she was madder at, herself for falling so easily for him again, or Brody, for making her fall so easily for him again. Okay, that wasn’t fair, but who cared about being fair at a time like this? She had tried repeatedly over the past five years to rid herself of Brody’s memory, to shove aside his betrayal of Charles and to forget the pleasure he had shown her she had unknowingly been missing out on. But nothing she had done, not even the satisfying sex she had with Cole, had been able to erase that man from her memory. Not even during those first months, when she had worried obsessively about Charles’s fate as she struggled to take control of her life by moving back to Missouri, using the money she had hoarded from Charles’s generous monthly allowance all those years to buy her cabin and jeep and, for the first time in her life, working to support herself.
Now here she was again, as if no time had passed at all, as if she hadn’t witnessed the brutal attempt on Charles’s life followed by the revelation that Brody had been working to send the man she loved so dearly to prison and he had only befriended her as part of that job. “I’m a fucking idiot,” she berated herself, still smarting over the way she had succumbed so easily, the way she had once again pleaded with him to take her only to be turned down. Her nipples still throbbed from the deep suckling of his mouth, her pussy still wept with unfulfilled frustration and she still ached from head to toe for some inexplicable reason. “Bastard.”
It was a struggle to blame him for rejecting her since his reason, this time, was honorable, but she was determined to do so nonetheless because she simply would not believe Charles was alive, that he would keep her in the dark, make her suffer his abrupt absence from her life, unless he was dead. It was the only explanation. To this day she wasn’t sure what the FBI had been investigating him for, she only had a few facts from first Ian, and then Brody, delivered quickly and in Reader’s Digest format that night. She still didn’t believe Charles would do business with a drug lord, refused to believe the man who was no blood relation to her, or even a relation by marriage, who had nonetheless saw to her upbringing and had been generous with his money as well as his visits would embroil himself with such a nefarious person as this Pasquino was reputed to be.
Piper waved to the elderly couple who had been her closest neighbors since she bought her cabin as she passed theirs. She imagined both Brody and Ian were going to be royally pissed when they found her sewing room empty, but she needed to let them know up front she wasn’t about to allow them, or anybody else dictate her life again. She freely acknowledged, and worried, that she had a problem on her hands, which was why she hadn’t insisted they leave again. Having them there was a comfortable safety net, one she wasn’t above using, but she knew these woods and this well hiked trail into town like the back of her hand and there were enough cabins and friendly faces on the way to ensure her safety. If those jerks had bothered asking her, she could have have told them that, reassured them, but she was piqued enough and perverse enough to let them suffer and stew as to her whereabouts until she got back from delivering these items to Haley’s shop. It had been surprisingly easy to slip out the window and enter the woods without them catching her, but maybe this little lesson would show both of them she wasn’t a meek college kid any longer and she wouldn’t be dictated to. She valued her freedom and independence and she wasn’t going to give them up unless her safety absolutely demanded it.
The trail came out at the small marina at the edge of town and it was just a short walk up Main Street to Haley’s small boutique. Piper had met Haley when she applied for the part-time position in her shop. It only took a few weeks for them to become close, both of them recognizing a kindred spirit, and when she had shown Haley some of her sketches and told her about starting up a mail order business, Haley had quickly begged to carry some of her items in her shop. Even though Piper’s business had grown and become successful enough that she no longer had the time to help out in Haley’s shop, they still saw each other several times a week. Picking up her stride, Piper hoped Haley hadn’t been too stressed over her no show the other day, she had enough emotional trauma to deal with on a daily basis, she didn’t need Piper adding any more.
Chapter Six
The bell over the door tinkled when Piper walked into Haley’s small boutique that carried a wide range of women’s clothing, including a lingerie section Haley had added after seeing some of Piper’s designs. Displaying and selling some of her items in the small shop had proven profitable for both of them as Hope was only a short distance from Branson and benefitted from a steady stream of tourist income almost year round.
“Better late than never,” Piper beamed when Haley saw her, squealed and ran over to greet her with a hug.
“Damn you, Piper. I was worried sick. What happened to you?”
Her friends’ blue eyes were swimming with unshed tears and Piper felt bad for worrying her even though she hadn’t done it on purpose. “Hell if I know. Here, let’s get these hung while we talk. I have a feeling I don’t have much time.”