“I want both of you to start being more diligent until I catch whoever is causing this trouble. You,” he pointed at Haley, “call my office if you hear or see anything suspicious and wait for one of us to get here. And you,” he turned that finger and stern look on Piper. “Don’t go anywhere without someone with you. Got it?”
That’s just what she needed, Piper thought sourly, another damn body guard. “Yes sir.” She reluctantly agreed because, as she walked over to the corner where her designs lay in tattered shreds, it looked like someone did indeed have something against her.
“I’m sorry,” Haley said again. “There’s nothing salvageable, I already looked. I came downstairs as soon as I heard something, thinking it was someone just wanting me to open early. But I had taken a sleeping pill last night and you know how those knock me out and leave me a little slow the next morn
ing. If had awoken sooner, maybe….”
“Maybe nothing,” Piper snapped at her, concern for her friend overruling any worry for the loss of business. “These can be replaced, you can’t.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Piper, this place was tossed, but only your items were shredded with viciousness,” Gary pointed out just in time for Brody and Ian to hear as they entered.
Brody’s irritation with Piper had only increased when he had gotten a lecture from the elderly postmaster on taking better care of ‘their girl’ and now it escalated to anger when he saw the sheriff and heard his comment. One quick look and it was obvious the little shop had been tossed with the intent of making as much of a destructive mess as possible, but it was when he spotted the torn remnants of Piper’s work that it took a turn towards deliberate evil intentions.
Ignoring Piper, he asked the sheriff, “Care to fill us in?”
“Haley came downstairs this morning to find this mess. From the looks of it, someone jimmied the lock on the back door, which wasn’t hard to do since it’s a piece of crap.” Gary leveled an accusatory look at Haley, a silent reminder that he had mentioned its inadequacy before. “The door leads to the back alley, so no one would have seen anything in the dark. A lot of ransacking but the deliberate destruction seems to be focused on Piper’s inventory.”
All three men looked from the cut up bits of satin and lace to her, and for the first time since she started sewing lingerie, Piper felt herself blushing. It was obvious they would much rather have seen the garments on someone rather than piles of scraps. “You don’t know this was aimed at me,” she said defensively, waving her arm at the room in general. “It could’ve been…”
“Did I or did I not tell you not to leave this morning without one of us going with you?” Brody interrupted her in a deceptively soft voice. This incident just reinforced the need for her to do as they said, whether she liked it or not.
Piper’s own anger was fueled by the worry over the potential harm that could have befallen Haley last night as well as the need to give up her independence until they caught whoever was harassing her. Stalking over to Brody, she poked her finger at his rock hard chest while glaring up at him. “And I told you I had to get to town before ten. Neither of you were ready, so I left, and I am perfectly fine.”
Brody ignored Ian’s smirk as he glared down at the minx jabbing him with her finger. If he wasn’t so pissed, he would be amused that a woman who was a foot shorter and a hundred and twenty pounds lighter than him had the gall to lecture and berate him, especially when he was here to look out for her. Torn between the urge to either grab that finger and haul her up until their mouths were fused together or tossing her over his lap again, he took a step back in a visible effort to refrain from acting on either impulse. He was quickly discovering that his attraction to the new, feisty, independent Piper was just as strong, if not stronger, than his attraction to the shier, meeker young woman he had walked away from five years earlier. Unfortunately, nothing had changed in the ensuing years and he was just as fated now to walk away to go after Charles as he was back then.
“Remember what happened yesterday when you defied us, Piper,” he warned.
Piper remembered all too clearly the unfulfilled arousal he had left her with and his rejection of her. Was that why she had deliberately taunted him by defying him again today? There was no denying she wanted him. Her pussy literally ached with the desire to feel him filling her again, fucking her with such ruthless intensity that nothing mattered except reaching that pinnacle that she had only been able to achieve that one time with him. But she wasn’t that pathetic, needy girl anymore, striving for the attention and caring she had fought for and lost in seeking the love of a substitute father.
Suppressing the arousal his presence had wrought, she turned from his knowing, hard eyed gaze. “I’ll help you get cleaned up, Haley.”
“We’ll all help out, then I’m getting a big, fat barbequed beef sandwich I saw advertised down at the diner,” Ian stated, sending a look to Piper as if daring her to say something.
Piper smiled, liking the way she could get his goat over her eating habits. “They’re your arteries.”
Haley turned from them wishing she could banter with a man like that. Correct that, she thought as she righted a toppled over rack of blouses, she wished she could be that teasing with that man. Why Ian was the first man in almost six years to get her interest, to have her dried up libido suddenly springing back to life was beyond her. He was polar opposite from the men she used to be attracted to, from the man she had married at twenty-two and finally rid herself of two years later. She had met Tim when she clerked in his law office her senior year of college and had fallen instantly for his smooth manner and suave demeanor. He had courted her with candle lit dinners, flowers and flattery until she agreed to marry him just two short months after they had met. Tim’s true colors had emerged so slowly, that the first time he slapped her, she had been so shocked she had accepted his explanation of dealing with a stressful case and his apology without thought. By the time their second anniversary was approaching, his verbal abuse was being met more and more often with a slap across the face or a bruising of her arms from his tight grip. Each incident was followed with flowers and excuses and apologies until she had finally had enough.
Hanging the tops back on the rack, Haley tried to forget what happened when she had told him she had filed for divorce, had tried over the past six years to bury the memory of how his fists felt as they pummeled her face, the excruciating pain from his foot kicking her, snapping her ribs, the sound of his leering, taunting voice telling her she was never going to leave him. Now, looking at the shambles of the shop that had been not only her lifeline, but her pride and joy, she felt violated all over again. Even knowing this time the attack wasn’t aimed at her, she still couldn’t stop the fear of losing everything again to someone stronger and meaner.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice Ian next to her, handing her some blouses he had put back on hangers. His hand barely touched her arm, but she was so startled she couldn’t stop a small gasp from escaping, her body automatically taking a step away from him, a move in direct contrast to the image in her mind of the two of them naked together. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
Ian’s brows lowered in a frown, anger churning through him as her wide blue eyes stared up at him warily. Reining in the urge to snap at her, he managed to drawl, “Try to remember we’re the good guys, would you? I’m going to pick up lunch. What do you want?”
He was big, hard and abrupt and damn, but if that combination didn’t have her aching from her nipples down to her long neglected pussy, she thought with a combination of pleasure and bafflement. “I’ll have the barbeque, same as you.”
“Thank God,” Ian sighed. “I don’t think I could take dealing with two women who didn’t know the pleasures of good old fashioned red meat. Be right back.” Ian quickly left the shop, as eager for what he considered real food as he was to escape the combined look of fear and determination on Haley’s face. He wasn’t a fucking white knight here to slay her demons, he thought irritably, and he sure as hell wasn’t here for a brief fling with the local shopkeeper, no matter how much his cock was aiming in that direction. “Suck it up buddy,” he told his semi-aroused appendage. “It’s the hand or nothing until we get home.”
“Are you going to attempt to put the fear of Agent Pearce into her again?” Ian asked Brody as they followed Piper back to her cabin an hour later.
“I doubt if another round over my lap will do anything except turn us both on again,” Brody answered derisively. The more they cleaned up Haley’s shop, the longer he thought about someone bent on causing Piper harm, the madder Brody got until he knew the erotic punishment he was itching to give her was no longer an option. Even though he was confident of his ability to control himself, he had never touched a woman in anger and wasn’t about to start now. Besides, he’d probably end up fucking her instead of punishing her and that was still not an option he was willing to choose at this time.
“Then you better think of something to get through to her,” Ian said as they turned into her drive, “because I doubt if she’s going to just roll over and let us take over regardless of the scare I think today gave her.”
It was the reminder of the fear and uncertainty clouding Piper’s green eyes all afternoon that hardened Brody’s resolve to deal with her in the best way he saw fit. She got off on him spanking her, got turned on and responded to that erotic stimulation in a way any man with a penchant for spanking would love to exploit. But it might be an altogether different matter and response if it was delivered by someone else.
“She’d enjoy retribution from me too much, but she might not be so amendable if you gave her a lesson.”
“Well, hell,” Ian grumbled as they parked behind her jeep and he opened his door. “You sure don’t ask for much, do you?”