Page 31 of Nauti Siren (Nauti 7)

Dawg wouldn’t have left the city until Timothy had buried her attacker. If that attacker hadn’t been found, then Piper would have returned under such heavy guard she would have been smothered before ever reaching Kentucky again.

Silence descended between them, one that stretched until they had nearly reached the exit to Somerset.

“There’s no way to hide the bruises,” Piper stated, her voice low. “Dawg’s going to see them. ”

Yeah, he would; there was no way to hide the damage to her face, though thankfully, her left eye was no longer swollen shut.

“What are you going to tell him?” Taking the exit to Somerset off the interstate, he knew Piper’s time was definitely running out.

Dawg had all but haunted Mercedes and Timothy, demanding to know whether Piper had called her mother yet. Elijah, Jed’s partner, had called earlier in the afternoon to report Dawg had contacted several agents at the surrounding airports and had her name run for flights out.

He’d told her earlier about the conversation he’d overheard between Mercedes and Dawg, as well as the fact that Dawg was questioning everyone he could think to question about her whereabouts.

“You can’t hide this from him, Piper,” he warned her when she didn’t answer him.

“I know I can’t,” she answered wearily.

The tiredness in her tone coincided with that unfamiliar tightness in his chest—something he experienced only with Piper.

“He’s been beside himself with worry,” he told her. “Christa’s accused him of running headlong into a stroke as he attempts to protect all of you. ”

“If he would just wait until we need protecting. ” Frustration immediately tightened her body as she pushed both hands through her shoulder-length black hair before clenching them in the deep waves.

God, he would kill to feel all that lush, warm silk against his body. Against his thighs as her lips parted and his dick pierced the heated dampness beyond. That particular portion of his body throbbed in painful hunger as the need for her began to grow impossibly.

Impossibly, because he hadn’t believed he could hunger for her more than he already did.

Impossibly, because she was hurt, bruised, and no doubt the last thing on her mind was sex. She was definitely exhausted. She’d slept the whole of the flight, waking only as the plane taxied to the private hangar DHS leased.

“Why won’t he wait until we need him, Jed?” she questioned with hurt anger. “Why can’t he just let us live a little bit?”

“Because he’s seen the monsters. ” Jed knew exactly why. “He knows what’s out there, Piper, and the nightmares haunt him now—the fear of not protecting the four of you, of being off guard and missing a threat, gives him nightmares. That’s why he’s driving himself to a stroke. That’s why he has

trouble letting you live your life. Because he knows that in that one moment that you relax your guard, that’s when the monsters strike and attempt to steal everything you love in life. ”

“Did they steal something you love?” she asked.

How had she guessed there was more to his life than he’d allowed her to see so far?

“Not quite. ” Glancing at her, he saw the need in her eyes—not a sexual need or a physical hunger.

She needed to see more of him than he’d allowed so far.

Intimacy. That connection that had the ability to bind two people together or tear them apart.

“No one knows I have a sister. ” He had to force himself to share with her something that even Timothy Cranston was unaware of.

“You hide your family. ” She nodded as though it made sense.

“Well, my mother hid me from them first,” he admitted with a flicker of amused remembrance. “She didn’t want my father to know about me, didn’t want me to be threatened by his career in covert intelligence or his enemies. Father knew about me, though. When I was old enough, he found me, and drew me in like he does so many others and gave me one task: Protect my sister. ”

He could laugh about it now; at the time, it hadn’t been nearly so funny.

“You say that as though it were an impossible task,” she observed curiously.

“You would have to know Mary Elizabeth to be amused,” he said with a grunt. “She taught me a long time ago that you can’t surround those you love in bubble wrap and expect it to work. First they burst the bubbles; then they find an escape route. Once they escape, they don’t tell you where they’re going or why. ”

Piper watched as that crooked little smile she loved touched his hard lips and gleamed in his dark blue eyes.

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