“And here is your young man.” He looked over her shoulder, a broad smile pulling at his lips as Piper swore she could feel Jed coming up behind her.

“Morning, Mr. Samson.” The deep, controlled drawl—controlled hunger, anger, and determination—sent a shiver racing down her spine.

That tone had only intensified over the past days, just as the gleam of determination in the navy blue gaze had only hardened and, at certain times, intensified.

“Ah, Mr. Booker, good morning,” Guido greeted him. “I am out for a day of sightseeing. I believe my son, Rhylan, is arriving this evening and hopes to find the best spots for a few days of fishing.”

“The fishing here is excellent, Mr. Samson; I’m certain your son will find plenty of excellent spots.” Edging around Guido’s portly frame, Jed curled his fingers around Piper’s upper arm. “Excuse us, please. Piper and I need to talk.”

“Of course,” Guido murmured, amused. “Young people have many things to discuss privately.”

His soft chuckle followed them up the hall as Jed led her to her room. Opening the room and stepping in, Piper quickly pulled her arm from his grip.

“Since when do we have things to discuss?” Piper asked roughly as the door closed behind them, very well aware of the fact that he let her go. She wasn’t free because she wanted to be; she was free because he let her be.

Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, she glared at him, wishing she could push back anger, guilt, or any of the other emotions tearing through her, as she could with her family.

She could stare back at Dawg and freeze any response to the knowledge that he was frightened for her, hurting for her, worried about her, or just plain pissed off at her.

Her sister Eve had always been so thankful to be accepted and loved by her brother and cousins that she would have done just about anything—anything but deny the man she loved.

Lyrica, a year younger than Piper, had such a guilt complex that she worried constantly that she would never be good enough, act properly enough, or be strong enough to be part of the Somerset Mackays. God only knew what their youngest sister, Zoey, felt. She rarely talked about it, and if asked would just laugh and say she was where she belonged. But Piper had always felt there was so much more beneath that statement.

Of the four of them their eldest sister, Eve, had handled Dawg best. They all loved him, but each of them had different ways of dealing with him.

Him, or any other man.

Unfortunately, the defenses Piper had built over the years didn’t work with Jed.

“Have you talked to Dawg yet?” he asked.

Piper looked away and shrugged. “He hasn’t been around for a while.”

Guilt was lashing at her now.

God, she remembered the look on his face when he’d seen the bruises on hers. He looked as though someone had died. Or something inside him had died. She hadn’t seen him since.

“I’m going to talk to him,” she promised.

What the hell was it with Jed Booker?

He was just staring at her. There was no force, no guilt-inducing comments, just those dark, dark blue eyes watching her with that silent, deep curiosity.

“Are you?” Jed asked.

It was a simple question. No mockery, no sarcasm, nothing offensive, but Piper could feel the guilt growing inside her.

“You don’t understand what he’s like, Jed,” she burst out, pushing her fingers through her hair in frustration as she turned and stomped to the other side of the room before turning back. “This is how he gets you. He knows how to work every damned one of us.”

“Does he, Piper?” he asked her quietly. “Or is he just struggling with his inability to protect four girls he loves nearly as much as he does his own daughter? Four girls whose abandonment and hardships as children torment him?”

She shook her head fiercely. “That wasn’t his fault.”

“Fault doesn’t matter, Piper,” he said calmly, moving to her, making her all too aware of the sudden sensitivity of her body whenever he was around.

His voice was steady, every movement deliberate, but his eyes were like deep pools of sexual heat. His gaze licked over her as his hands curved against her bare shoulders. They slid down along her arms, then back up, the rasp of the calluses against her softer flesh so erotic she was forced to bite back a moan.

“What does matter, Jed?” she asked, unable to break her gaze from his. “Should I give in to him as Eve tried to do, and refuse to end up in your bed? Should I promise not to live or have a life so Dawg can sleep at night?”

Tears filled her eyes at the thought. “Don’t you think I’ve learned how I have to handle him by now? If I don’t defy him, then I won’t have a chance at having a life myself.”

“And there are those times you could defy him and lose your life, Piper.”

“Then he has to learn to talk to us.” Frustrated anger hoarsened her voice as it tore through her emotions. “Why do we have to automatically give in and bury our heads against life or risk dying? Jed, I can’t do that. If I’m in danger then I have to know, and I have to know why. Just as you would.”

His gaze flickered and she knew he understood that.

“If I go to Dawg, then he’ll see it as a weakness; don’t you understand that? I’ll be giving in and he’ll take full advantage of it. Not out of cruelty.” She held her hand up to delay whatever argument she could see brewing in his expression. “Not out of manipulation. That’s his instinct,” she argued. “Just as it’s yours.”

It was the way they were, the type of men they were. If Dawg didn’t come to her first, seeking answers, then he wouldn’t be in a frame of mind to discuss what had happened to her while she was away. He would dictate her security instead and try to lock her so far out of sight she would have a hard time finding herself, let alone anyone else finding her.

“You forget: I came for you.” His head lowered as he voiced the reminder, his lips brushing against her ear and causing her eyes to close at the pleasure of the touch. “No questions, no demands. I came for you, Piper, and I’m the one forced to field questions from your friends and family. If I have to take Rowdy or Natches Mackay’s fist for you, because I keep refusing to answer their questions, then you are going to owe me. Big-time.”

The words were a breath of warning against her neck as Piper felt her knees weaken.

Lifting her hands from where they hung at her sides, she tentatively gripped his upper arms, feeling the play of his biceps beneath her fingers.

“They won’t hit you.” She knew her brother and her cousins. They were hard men, but they weren’t unfair.

“Perhaps I should have a taste now.” His lips brushed against her jaw. “Show me what I’m going to take that punch for, Piper.”

Her head turned; her lips parted.

She’d dreamed of his kiss since that first one six weeks before. Each day, each time he spoke to her, teased her, silently rebuked her, had built the need for it.

She needed his kiss.

She needed his touch.

Her lips accepted his, parted, and Piper found herself dragged into a chaotic storm of pure heat.

Pleasure raced across her flesh like ribbons of electric sensation. From her lips to the tip of her toes and back to the crown of her head, his lips against hers created a reaction she couldn’t have expected.

She should have expected. She’d felt it before. But how was she to know that the first time hadn’t been just a fluke? She had never predicted the intensity of the pleasure to repeat itself or—incredibly—to begin building higher, stronger.

Faster.

* * *

Jed barely controlled the gut-deep groan of instant, overwhelming hunger.

Son of a bitch, it couldn’t be this good. There was no way this unusual depth of pleasure was real.

He’d convinced himself it had been a figment of his imagination, but as he lifted Piper against his chest and bore her to the bed, he knew the pleasure was doing just that.

It was burning brighter, hotter, and deeper than anything he’d ever known.

She wasn’t doing anything different. It wasn’t that experience filled each tentative lick of her tongue against his or each heated brush of her body against his.

Piper was anything and everything but experienced, and he knew it. He’d made it his job to know everything about her that a man could dig up.

But he hadn’t known the effect she’d have on him.

A low moan slipped past his lips. Her knees were hugging his hips, the thin material of her panties beneath the ankle-length silky skirt she wore rubbing against the denim of his jeans as it covered the tormented length of his dick.

God, he was hard.

So hard he felt as though his cock were seconds away from becoming pure steel, throbbing furiously, his testicles drawn tight beneath it. He knew he wouldn’t last long. Hell, he’d be lucky if he got inside her before he embarrassed himself and spilled his release into his jeans.

Laying her back on the bed, Jed couldn’t force himself to break from the kiss that seemed to be feeding the flaming lust burning between them.

Fuck, it was good.

She was good.

She was as sweet as sunrise and as hot as the Texas heat waves he remembered from his childhood.

Rolling his hips against hers, the hardened length of his cock pressing against the tender mound of her pussy, Jed worried at his lack of self-control.

She wasn’t experienced. Hell, it would surprise the hell out of him if he learned she wasn’t a virgin. But she had the power to strip him down to the core of who and what he was. A male animal. A sexually hungry, sexually determined, sexually intent male animal, and he couldn’t seem to pull himself back.

That powerlessness was so alien to his character, to his very nature, that shock resounded to the depths of his senses.

Yet it wasn’t enough to stop him.

One hand pushed beneath the loose, sleeveless top she wore. One of her own creations yet again: a soft white silk with a handkerchief hem that perfectly matched the hem of the skirt.

Tiny, tiny mother-of-pearl buttons held the material over her rapidly rising and falling breasts as his hand slid beneath the top, his palm cupping the underside of one breast perfectly.

The excuse for a bra was little more than silky lace, easily pushed aside by his fingers as his thumb searched out the hardened little point of her nipple.

It was swollen tight and hard, and the caress he gave it had Piper arching to him, a muted cry falling from her lips as pleasure arced between them like a live electrical connection.

With his free hand Jed struggled to undress her. The tiny buttons were instruments of torture as his fingers fumbled and slipped on them. It seemed to take forever, but finally he released the captive tip of her nipple to lift her to him and push the blouse from her shoulders.

Reaching behind his neck, he gripped her wrists, pulling them free of the hold she had on him and dragging them down to allow him to remove the blouse and lacy bra.

Hard, sipping kisses kept them connected as he hurried to undress first Piper’s lush, heated body, then his own harder, fiercer one.

If he didn’t have her, if he didn’t sink his cock inside her soon, then he was going to die of the hunger clawing inside him.

“So fucking pretty,” he growled against her lips as he finally had her naked beneath him, had himself naked and ready to take her.

But the silken peaches-and-cream flesh distracted him.

He meant to spread her thighs and sink inside her while he still had the control to take her slow and easy.

He made the mistake of lifting himself from her, releasing her lips to rise above her, his gaze lowering to the full, tempting globes of her breasts.

Tiny hardened cherry red nipples topped the firm flesh, and the temptation to taste them was too much to resist.

“You’re killing me,” he groaned. “God help us both, Piper; I’m dying for you.”