Undercover Obsession (25 page)

Haley was taken completely off guard by a
hard arm wrapping around her throat when she entered her apartment.
Instant fear enveloped her as her breath was choked off, but
hearing Tim’s voice snarling in her ear had her fear turning to
bone melting terror.

“I tried warning you, bitch, but you just
wouldn’t listen. I got rid of those slutty clothes in your shop,
but you went and replaced them. I thought your friend would stay
away from you once she realized how dangerous being around you was,
but she doesn’t take a hint any better than you do.”

Suddenly, Tim loosened his arm and Haley bent
over gasping for air, her mind reeling not only with his presence
here in the town she considered her sanctuary but with the
revelations that this had all been about her and not Piper, the
danger she had inadvertently put her friend in this past week. Tim
didn’t give her time to recover her breath though, let alone her
thoughts as he spun her around and backhanded her so hard she
landed in a heap on the floor, a position she swore she’d never
find herself in again. Humiliation, fear and determination not to
be his victim again brought out her anger and she found herself
rolling to her feet and facing him head on despite the throbbing in
her cheek and her shortness of breath.

“You son of a bitch. You will not touch me
again.” Her bravado took him by surprise and she used that split
second to try to dash by him to the door. She made it to the top of
the stairs before he grabbed her by the hair, making her cry out.
Spinning her around, she prepared to duck at the last minute in an
attempt to avoid the next blow when the sound of someone pounding
up the stairs and roaring out in fury kept them both immobile in
surprise.

Ian saw Haley’s swelling face first, the
tight grip Carlisle had on her hair second and the calm look of
trust she gave him third. “Move, Haley,” was all he said as he
charged the other man, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and
literally threw him against the wall. Keeping the future in mind,
he let the idiot charge him and willingly took a solid jab to his
chin and a weak one to his gut before taking him down easily and
giving free rein to his rage as he landed a fist in his face, the
sound of crunching bone when his nose broke not nearly satisfying
enough. Another blow dislocated his jaw, but before he could land a
third, Gary pulled him off with a stern warning. “Back off, now, or
you’ll be sharing a cell with him.”

“Works for me.” Ian knew he had crossed a
line, one he hadn’t ever crossed in his fifteen years of taking out
the bad guys. At thirty seven, he should have better control, but
hearing Haley cry out in pain and fear and then seeing her stoic
countenance despite the bruising around her neck already forming
and the swelling of her cheek that had to hurt, he had simply seen
red and reacted.

“Well it doesn’t work for me,” Gary argued as
he handcuffed Haley’s ex and hauled him cursing to his feet. “Save
it,” he told Carlisle coldly. “When assaulting a federal agent is
added to your parole violations, you’ll be an old man before you
get out again.”

Carlisle couldn’t speak due to his fractured
jaw, but the look he sent Haley was filled with venom. Stepping up
to him, she stated quietly, “You don’t scare me anymore, Tim. Only
a weak man needs to skulk around in the dark. You never did have
the balls to hold on to me.”

“Well done,” Ian told her when Gary escorted
Tim out after asking him to call Brody and fill him in.

“Except I lied. He did scare me, a lot.”

“Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid when
confronted with a madman, Haley, and you’ve proven you’re not a
fool. Where’s your kitchen. We need to get some ice on that cheek.”
While she wrapped ice in a towel, Ian called Brody and filled him
in, noting the edge to his tone didn’t let up at learning they had
caught their stalker. “We can question him in the morning about
Piper’s disappearance, but I’m guessing we have two separate cases
here.”

“Yeah, I think so too, which means we’re back
to square one on the mystery surrounding those missing days and the
condition we found her in. But for tonight, I think I’ll settle
another matter with Piper that is long overdue. Later.”

Ian hung up the phone thinking he’d take his
time getting back to the cabin tonight. In the mood he was in, he
sure as hell didn’t need to see or even hear those two going at it.
“Here, sit down and let me do that.” Ian stood next to her as she
sat at the small kitchen table, took the ice pack and held it
against her cheek, his hand automatically stroking her hair when
she winced. A comfortable silence settled between them and he took
a moment to look around her small, homey apartment. Like Piper’s
cabin, the kitchen, eating area and living room were all open and
he could see Haley’s little touches everywhere. There were a lot of
seashell knickknacks, a sofa and chair in soft blue with beach
scenic pillows in the corners. If Gary hadn’t mentioned that
Carlisle was imprisoned in Florida, deducing she was from there
also, he would have guessed she had lived near a beach at one
time.

“I think that’ll help,” Haley said, feeling
suddenly tired. Curling up in bed with a book even though it was
still early sounded good to her, but being alone didn’t. She had
passed a huge hurdle in admitting she wanted sex again, and she
wanted her first time in six years to be with Ian, just not
tonight. Tonight, she just needed to know she wasn’t alone. She
knew she could ask Piper, but that meant going to her place because
she was sure, after Brody’s possessive behavior all day, that he
wasn’t going to let her go anywhere, including here, without him.
But she wanted her place tonight, wanted to be in the home she had
made for herself after fleeing Florida in shame. A home she had
felt safe in until tonight. Before she lost her nerve, she
tentatively asked, “Ian?”

“What do you need, Haley?” Ian tossed the ice
in the sink and draped the damp towel over a rack before turning
back to her and seeing the indecision on her face and a touch of
uncertainty in her blue eyes. “Are you hurting? Do you want to go
to the hospital?”

“God, no! I hate hospitals. It’s just, well,
I hate to ask this of you, but I was wondering…”

“For God’s sake, Haley, just ask! You know
damn good and well I won’t refuse you.”

Haley almost smiled at his frustrated
outburst and look. There’s the man she had come to know this week,
the one who said it like it is and you were either on board with
him or you weren’t. She liked that about him, a lot. At least with
him, she knew where she stood.

“Would you stay here tonight?” she blurted
out then quickly amended, “I mean just to sleep. Not, you know, for
sex or anything. At least not tonight.” She didn’t want him
thinking she didn’t want sex with him at all.

Ian took a moment while he willed his little
head to cooperate with his big head. Even if she had been willing,
he couldn’t, in good conscience, fuck a woman who had just been
bruised and traumatized. And if that didn’t sound like a page right
out of Brody’s book, he didn’t know what would. Still, as much as
he’d thought about fucking Haley, he knew before she had emphasized
it that sex was off the table. He had taken if off before it ever
got there and didn’t have any intentions of putting it on. Wrong
woman, wrong place, definitely wrong time and those reasonings
would have to suffice despite their obvious mutual attraction.

“Go get comfortable in your bed and I’ll sit
with you until you fall asleep then I’ll bunk on your couch. I’m
going downstairs to secure the front door to your shop that I
busted. Do you know how Carlisle got in here?”

“My fault,” she admitted. “I always leave my
bedroom window open so I can make a quick exit in case of a fire.
All he had to do was park in the back, stand on his car and he
could’ve reached the sill. I know, I’m an idiot, but I thought I
was safe, especially from him.”

“You are now, but lock it anyway.” Ian went
downstairs, mentally preparing himself for a long night.

Chapter Twelve

Brody snapped his phone shut, the relief he
felt at hearing about Haley’s ex from Ian at odds with the battle
he had been waging with both Piper and himself ever since he met
her. Watching her with Cole, flirting, dancing and laughing in an
attempt to take back control of her life, had his cock pressing
painfully against his zipper and his good intentions being shoved
aside in his need to take control of her. She was wearing a two
piece swimsuit under a sundress, a swimsuit that had still been wet
from swimming in the lake when she had slipped the dress back on.
Now that bright green fabric clung damply to her breasts and ass,
drawing his and several other male eyes to those softly rounded,
swaying body parts and he had spent the better part of the last
thirty minutes trying to refrain from pulling her away from Cole,
tossing her over his shoulder and carting her off.

He knew he would have to leave soon. The
stalker had been caught, and even though he had been after Haley
instead of Piper, those missing two days were still unaccounted
for.

Unfortunately, as worried as he was over
that, it wasn’t enough to justify them putting off going to
Atlantic City to back up Carlos. If she was taken to draw out
Sandoval, then the plan backfired because they were the ones to
come to her rescue, not Sandoval. As it stood now, the evidence he
and Ian had managed to get against her adopted father was all
circumstantial, enough to charge him with but not enough to ensure
a conviction. However, they weren’t above fudging that evidence in
order to coerce Sandoval into testifying against Pasquino, even
knowing that would keep the contract the drug lord had put on his
former bookkeeper active.

Despite knowing all that, Brody found himself
caving in to his body’s demands and saying to hell with his good
intentions. He had felt a fondness as well as a lustful tug towards
Piper when he knew her as an overweight, shy college kid, only to
discover that fondness had grown stronger despite the years that
separated them and that the tug had turned into a hard yank this
past week. A yank he was tired of struggling against. She had
taunted him too far tonight, she could damn well suffer the
consequences, even if that meant the consequences were him doing
his job successfully by ruining Charles’s life in order to put away
a very bad man.

Piper glared up at Brody when he took hold of
her hand and pulled her away from Cole. For the past hour she had
tried putting all her concentration and efforts into simply having
fun with Cole, enjoying his easy going persona and fantasizing
about getting naked with his well- muscled body again. Her body
responded to him like it always did, with anticipation warming her
blood and softening her pussy. Her breasts swelled as she rubbed
against his chest, her nipples taut peaks she knew he felt by the
grin he gave her accompanied with a brief ass squeeze.
Unfortunately, she had taken that moment to glance at Brody’s
thunderous face, and that was all it took for her arousal to go
from tepid to boiling. She had been more aware of the man she was
trying to do without than she had been of the one she was trying to
replace him with despite enjoying the familiar feel of Cole’s body
moving sensuously against hers. She refused to give in to her
body’s betrayal, however, and risk being rejected yet again by
Brody.

“What do you want? As you can see, I’m not in
any danger.” Piper had explained the targeted harassments she had
experienced in the past few days to Cole, but she omitted those two
missing days and the state she was in when Brody and Ian had
arrived. As open as they were with each other, she wasn’t
comfortable sharing that with him, and even though she knew he
suspected there was more between her and the agents that she wasn’t
telling, he didn’t say anything. They cared about each other, but
they weren’t exclusive despite the fact Cole was the only man she
had been with in the last five years until Brody showed up.

“Something’s come up,” Brody stated evenly,
not adding that the something was his cock. “You need to leave with
me. Now.”

Letting go of Cole, she faced him squarely,
her heart in her throat as she asked, “Is it Haley? Is she all
right? What’s happened?”

“She’s fine, now, but we need to go.” Turning
to Cole he extended his free hand, apologizing as sincerely as
possible considering he wasn’t sorry in the least. “Sorry. Maybe
you two can hook up later when we’ve got this situation under
control.”

“Let me know if I can help.” Cole bent down
and kissed Piper, long and deep, giving his competition something
to think about. It was obvious these two had issues to work out
that included more than whoever seemed to be after Piper. He cared
enough about her to want to stick around and make sure she was safe
as well as make sure this man was who she wanted. If so, he
wouldn’t stand in the way, but he would miss their satisfying,
uncomplicated get-togethers. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow,
hon.”

Piper tried pulling her hand from Brody’s
iron grip but he refused to let her go as he led her through the
park and back to his car. “What do you mean ‘she’s fine now’? What
happened? And, damn it, let me go!”

“I’ll explain on the way back to your place.
Get in.” Holding the door for her, he tried reining in his lust and
his temper, but wasn’t having much luck. That kiss Cole had leveled
on her was a blatant red flag, one that had him more determined
than ever to give her exactly what she had been asking for.

“It was Tim Carlisle, Haley’s ex, who was
behind the vandalism, the tires and the dead rabbit. Apparently,
the state of Florida didn’t think he posed a threat to anyone and
released him early. I won’t lie, according to Ian he got a good hit
in as well as a strangle hold, but she’s okay and Ian will be
staying the night with her to help set her mind at ease,” he
explained to her as he headed back to the cabin. Brody knew Ian
wouldn’t cross any lines Haley wasn’t ready for, just as he knew
Ian wanted Piper’s friend more than he was willing to admit. Brody
knew just how he felt.