“That’s what I have to find out,” he murmured as he took the exit without warning, slowing only enough to make the turn that would take them to the lake and the house he owned there.
“We should call Dawg.” Turning to look at him, the brilliant emerald green of her eyes was filled with worry and concern for her brother and cousins and their families. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Every number on your contact list has been compromised,” he warned her. “If you even reinsert your battery into your phone, whoever tried to kill you will have your location instantly, Lyrica. Don’t worry. Dawg’s not stupid. And I have no doubt he’s already been informed that no one has been able to reach you. By now, he’s well aware that something’s wrong.”
But did that mean he would be there in time to help her? Graham wasn’t betting on it, but he was there. He had her. And he intended to keep her for a while.
—
She was exhausted.
Leaning her head against the back of the seat, Lyrica breathed out a weary sigh.
Her heart was still racing, but as much from arousal now as from fear. Having her face less than an inch from that impressive bulge in his jeans wasn’t exactly a calming experience.
For a second she was lying on his couch again, staring up at him, her body still trembling from the need for release as betrayal raced through her.
Hating him.
Realizing he had come from his lover and dared to touch her, to make her body burn, riot with such need that she couldn’t resist it, destroyed her.
Staring through the windshield all she wanted to do was find another hole to curl up in and sleep.
“We’re almost to the house,” Graham promised.
The back roads he was taking were unfamiliar to her. Hell, she thought she’d traveled all the back roads into and out of Somerset and the Lake Cumberland area in the past six years. Yet Graham was showing her routes she had no idea existed.
“You’ll endanger Kye,” she whispered.
“Kye’s not home. I’ve already ensured her protection.”
Turning her head to look at him, she frowned, remembering a time that Kye had disappeared once before.
“This has happened before, hasn’t it?” she said. “You’ve had to do something where you had to send Kye away.”
“I have safeguards in place,” he stated rather than answering her. “She’s my sister. Just like Dawg has safeguards in place. Unfortunately, a man is only human. None of us foresaw you leaving the county without letting anyone know where or when you were going.”
Should she feel guilty?
She didn’t think so.
“I wanted to go shopping.” A bitter smile crossed her lips as she held the bottle of water in a desperate grip. “Dawg didn’t tell me he had a guard dog watching over me while he was gone.”
But she should have known. She should have thought.
“Not a guard dog, Lyrica.” Graham shook his head as he made another turn onto a more familiar road. “He left others to protect you. But I guess someone just wasn’t watching when you left town, because no one called me to let me know you couldn’t be reached until Kye asked to borrow my phone.”
Lyrica sat up then, turning sideways in the seat, her eyes narrowing on him suspiciously. “Dawg would not have left you to watch out for me while he was out of town, Graham. That’s not the same as some damned party,” she informed him with amused mockery. “You’re not family.”
“No, I’m your last defense.” His expression was hard, cold. “I’m the only person Dawg trusts who still has the contacts and the equipment needed if the unthinkable happened. I’ll get you back to the house, get you out of sight, then I’ll find out why no one contacted me and if anyone has contacted Dawg, why he didn’t call me. And he would have. Give me a few hours and we’ll know where we stand. Then we’ll know where to go from there.”
Know where to go from there?
“Twilight zone,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I’m in the freakin’ twilight zone.”
“Hell, twilight zone beats a casket any day of the week, don’t you think?”
Yeah, it beat a casket, but Lyrica was wondering at the cost. She knew herself and she knew that being alone with Graham wasn’t going to be a good idea.
Weary, her gaze blurry with exhaustion, she watched as he pulled the car around to the back of the house, then into the little-used garage. He stored the Viper there in the winter, but other than that, Kye had mentioned once, the garage wasn’t often used.
“Here we go. Hungry?” Shutting off the motor, he turned to look at her, concern filling the golden, almost amber color of his gaze.
“I need a shower.” She sighed. “I wasn’t exactly sitting in a bed of roses.”
“No, baby, you weren’t.” She didn’t pull back when he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Come on, let’s get you into a shower and I’ll fix you a bite to eat so you can sleep.”
Graham had to force himself out of the car. Moving quickly around the vehicle, he was there as she pushed the door open. He reached in and helped her easily from the low-slung little sports car, her delicacy amazing him even when it shouldn’t.
He couldn’t help pulling her against him as he watched her stumble just a bit. Dammit, she was exhausted, frightened, and living on sheer nervous energy at the moment.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, though she didn’t move, didn’t attempt to push out of his arms. Instead, she leaned against him, her head pressed against his chest, her weight settling against his naturally.
He was in trouble here, he admitted. But hell, he’d admitted that six months ago when she lay beneath him, giving herself to him so sweetly.
“Come on, little bit.” Swinging her into his arms, he almost grinned at the little sigh she breathed out. Her arms went around his neck, her head settling comfortably against his shoulder.
Damn her.
He was going to break her heart and he knew it. Knew it, and had no idea how to stop it.
What was worse, he’d end up breaking his own heart if he wasn’t damned careful.
—
“What do you mean she got away?” The voice rasped across the line as hard, icy brown eyes looked down from the apartment window to the alley below.
“I mean she wasn’t quite as weak as you led me to believe,” he informed his employer. “She’s cautious, resourceful, and damned fast. We lost her in a back alley.”
Hell, she was a fucking Mackay—did this bastard think it was going to be easy? He’d done his research before he’d taken the job. Enough so that he’d initially declined, only to have to reconsider after additional intel had come through.
“One woman,” his employer mused, “against a well-aimed projectile, should not have been resourceful enough, nor fast enough, to outrun it.”
“Turn the girl sideways and there’s a hell of a margin for error. She’s a skinny little bitch,” he snorted, knowing better. The woman was sweet curves and slender muscle.
“Was her phone used?” The man asked as though he were speaking to a moron.
He let himself grin. He’d make the bastard pay for that one later. In spades.
“She made countless attempts; none went through.”
“Check the report for the program I gave you. Look for encrypted numbers. Timothy Cranston, the bastard her whore mother’s sleeping with, is retired Homeland Security. Make sure he didn’t get through. Start running the tag numbers you should have taken of any vehicle coming into or out of the alleys you were watching. You did that, right?”
His gaze flicked over the bare windows of the deserted building across from him. “Taken care of. Nothing blipped even close to Somerset, or the names you listed.”
Silence filled the line for long seconds.
“Send me the tag numbers and vehicle descriptions, as well as any surveillance you should have taken,” he was ordered. “However she managed to get away, there’s no doubt she’s headed home
, possibly back to her mother’s inn and Cranston’s protection. Do you have someone there?”
“There, at the lumber store, the garage, the marina, and the restaurant,” he replied, naming off each business she worked at.
“Well, at least you did something right,” the other man snorted.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the reflection of his second in command behind him, listening in on the call.
“I tried,” he drawled.
The answering snort was pure insult. “Try harder. Get to Somerset and find that bitch. When I arrive there, I want a pretty new toy to play with, and I won’t be happy if I don’t have it.”
The call disconnected.
“Yeah, I’m real concerned with his pretty new toy,” he growled as his second leaned back against the wall thoughtfully and waited.
“Are we ready to head to Somerset?” Pulling his weapon, he checked the clip, reinserted it, then began packing the meager supplies they’d stocked the tiny, deserted apartment with.
“The van’s packed and your Vette’s ready.”
His brows arched. “New engine doing good?”
“Excellent.” The answer was delivered with cool precision and a light shrug. “Grog says it vrooms.”
He grinned, zipped up the pack, and gave a brief nod. “Let’s go hear it vroom, then.”
“You’re not going to match that Viper.” The comment had a grimace pulling at his lips as he opened the door and stepped out of the apartment.
“How the hell do you know? The fucker won’t tell anyone what he did to the bitch. If Jed did as I asked and put everything in that motor I wanted, then we’ll have a fighting chance,” he argued.
A snort sounded behind him. No comment, no argument. But that sound of disbelief made his ass itch.
Dammit.
He was supposed to be on vacation right now, not fucking around with some damned op in Mackay territory. If they caught him there then he was dead fucking meat. They didn’t like him much; he didn’t like them much. It was a mutual little dislike party and he made damned certain he stayed out of their line of sight, and out of sight of Natches Mackay’s rifle.
They may be getting on in age a little bit, but those men were still some mean fuckers. It didn’t pay to cross them.
He appeared to be doing more than crossing them, though—he had accepted the contract on a Mackay sister’s life.
Yep, he was going to have to be damned careful.
FIVE
What now?
Stepping from the shower, Lyrica gave in to a yawn as she hurriedly dried. Wrapping the towel around her body, she quickly used the blow dryer, taking the worst of the dampness from her hair before brushing the nearly straight black mass back from her face. It trailed to the middle of her shoulders, not quite as neat as she liked it but dry enough to be comfortable.
She dropped the towel and pulled a large T-shirt with a U.S. Marines emblem on the front over her head. As it fell past her thighs, she smoothed her hands down her sides, staring down at the gray material with a sense of regret. At one time, she would have been excited to be wearing one of Graham’s shirts. Now she was too nervous, the fear that followed her still too fresh.
The shirt was something to sleep in, and she needed to sleep. Desperately.
She couldn’t think yet. Exhaustion weighed on her mind, and the memory of that bullet firing in her direction was still too recent.
She was safe.
Graham had told her that a dozen times since he’d locked the doors behind them. No one knew she was there; no one knew who had come for her.
She was safe.
For this moment.
But she couldn’t hide at Graham’s forever. And hiding wasn’t going to draw out those who had decided she no longer deserved to live.
If she wasn’t certain she was being used to draw Dawg out, then she would insist Graham call him. At the moment, she didn’t know what to do. Anyone she called could be placed in danger, and she refused to do that to her family. She wasn’t hiding behind a Dumpster anymore. She had to figure out what to do without endangering anyone else she loved.
Breathing out roughly, she stepped from the luxurious bathroom and back into Graham’s bedroom.
God, how had she let him talk her into this?
Oh, yeah—he hadn’t asked. He’d simply followed her up the stairs when she’d been heading to the guest room and pushed her into his room.
Now, standing just inside the bedroom with the safety of the bathroom behind her and the sensually, sexually dangerous appeal of Graham in front of her, she swore she was going to lose her breath completely.
“Your little bunny isn’t going to appreciate me sleeping in your bed,” she told him as he turned from the television and the news he’d been watching.
Something flared in the rich, golden brown of his eyes in that second. Quickly hidden, but not unseen.
Her heart seemed to pause for one broken second before it raced out of control. Her entire body seemed to ignite, heat pouring through her, need assailing her.
“She hasn’t slept in this bed.” Tight, a deep, brooding rasp, his voice darkened as his expression tensed.
She glimpsed the hunger he’d quickly hidden in his expression. The fierce, savage angles, the way his gaze seemed to lick over her, pausing at her unbound breasts, the hem of his T-shirt, then flicking up again.
“She sleeps on the floor, then?” she asked, knowing she hadn’t hidden the breathlessness his look caused.
Damn him. She didn’t want to need him like this. She didn’t want to ache for him like this. She wanted to look over him as easily as she did other men, rather than dreaming of him, fantasizing about him, every chance she had.
“She doesn’t sleep on the floor.” He shrugged. “The connecting room.” He gestured to a closed door but didn’t finish the thought even as she watched him expectantly.
“So you don’t play in your own bed?” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I want to sleep in my regular bed. I like it fine. I’m not sleeping wherever your latest fuck sleeps.”
His jaw bunched almost violently, the muscles there jumping for several long seconds as he obviously ground his teeth over whatever he found offensive in her statement. And she really didn’t give a damn what he found offensive. She’d stopped caring when she’d realized how little taking her would mean to him.
“You’ll sleep right here, in my bed.” The snap in his voice had a surge of nervousness racing up her spine. “This is the most secure room in the house, the only one I’m one hundred percent certain can’t be bugged or accessed without my knowledge. That means this is where you will stay until I can figure out what the hell is going on.”
Her eyes widened.
“What about the kitchen?” He’d fixed breakfast, though they hadn’t talked much, she remembered.
“I took precautions. For the short time we were there, the precautions were enough. Over time, they’re not foolproof. And by god, I want foolproof,” he informed her, his tone deadly now.
Moving to the bed and jerking down the blankets on the left side, he then turned back to her, his expression still tense, his gaze fierce. “Sleep on this side. It’s the safest.”
“Why is it the safest?” She wondered if that was a question she should have asked at the moment. “Maybe I like sleeping on the right side of the bed.”
Did she really want the answer?
“Because I’m right-handed,” he drawled, the lazy response spoiled by the pure anticipation that flickered in his gaze. “I keep my weapon in easy access and I don’t want to be hindered by reaching for it with my left. And, baby, I’ve checked on you when you’ve stayed the night here. You sleep firmly on the left side of the bed and rarely move.”
Nope, she shouldn’t have asked. And she sure as hell didn’t need to know he’d watched her sleep.
“Perv.” She threw the accusation at him with a quick, disgusted narrowing of her eyes. “Really, Graham, I’m sure I
should be surprised. But I guess I’m really not.”
The look that came over his face was one that had her stomach tightening, her nipples swelling, and the sensitive flesh of her clit pulsing with heated need.
Dammit, masturbating hadn’t been on her agenda before going to sleep, but at this rate . . .
“Perv?” he asked softly. “I can show you perv, sugar.”
Oh, yeah, she just bet he could. She had no doubts in her mind.
“Really?” Disbelief colored the short, mocking laugh that fell from her lips, though the question was weakened by the breathlessness that attacked her once again. “Sorry, stud, I never was much into being part of a crowd. I’m rather unique, you know.”
“Definitely unique.” The agreement was made with the air of a man who was most definitely considering the uniqueness of what she wasn’t offering.
The key word? Wasn’t.
But still, her knees were weak, her flesh too sensitive, the exhaustion that had been pulling at her suddenly dissipating, though a far too sensual drowsiness pulled at her as he began moving slowly toward her.
“I’m not sleeping with you, Graham. Forget it,” she snapped.
“The Chinese say if you save a life, then it’s forever your responsibility,” he informed her softly, completely ignoring the warning in her statement.
“Since we’re not in China—” she began, trying to speak over the rapid-fire beat of her heart.
“Doesn’t matter.” He was in front of her before she could take more than a few steps back. “I saved your life. You’re mine now, Lyrica.”
His chest brushed against the material of the shirt covering her breasts, exciting her already hardened nipples as she took another step away from him, her back meeting the wall.
She’d tried to ignore the fact that his chest was bare, that the light sprinkling of dark hair over its broad plane appeared far too warm. Just as she’d tried to ignore the fact that he, too, had showered. His hair was still damp, the fleece pants he wore loose. But they could never be loose enough to hide the erection rising hard and impressive beneath the material.