Keeping his speed just a mile or two above the limit, the driver’s-side window down halfway, country music loud enough to assure anyone who cared to be nosy that he didn’t give a damn who saw him, Graham continued toward the interstate.

The tags showing on the car were Lexington tags. The direction he would take would make it appear he was heading that way. And he’d make damned sure no one but Elijah was anywhere around when the tags flipped and he made the turn toward Pulaski County and Somerset.

“This is crazy.” Lyrica shuddered as they neared the entrance ramp and Graham flipped his turn signal on again. “Why would anyone follow me like this? Why would they try to shoot me, Graham? It’s been over a year since Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches helped Brogan take down the rest of that homeland terrorist group. Besides, that was Brogan’s deal. Why come after me?”

Because the Mackays had far too many enemies?

“Hell if I know, baby, but we’ll figure it out.”

“Stop calling me ‘baby,’” she snapped, her ire clear in the sharp retort. “I’m not your latest flavor of the month.”

He snorted at the title. “Lucky for you. If you were, instead of snapping at me like a little brat you’d be putting that pretty mouth to a much better use. Sure you don’t want to reconsider the position?”

She was still, silent. He realized he was holding his breath as he awaited her answer. Damn, her lips were so close to the throbbing, steel-hard shaft that he could barely hold back the demand that she release him, that she show him the sweet heat of her hungry little mouth.

He was crazy.

Evidently he had a death wish, because there was no doubt Dawg Mackay would kill his ass if he ever found out Graham had touched his sister. Or that he’d encouraged—hell, begged—her to touch him in such a way. And that didn’t even count what Natches Mackay, her cousin, would do. Natches’s daughter, Bliss, was a Mini Me replica of Lyrica, so Lyrica gave the other man a hint of what his daughter would look like as she grew older.

Lyrica was Natches’s favorite among Dawg’s sisters, it was said. And it was rumored Natches had threatened to take his very elite, well-blooded sniper rifle out of retirement for any man stupid enough to hurt her.

And she would be hurt, Graham admitted. He was the wrong man for her. And this was the wrong time for him.

“Can I please sit up?” Querulous and tense, her impatient voice almost had him grinning as he sped up, the Viper cutting through the night with smooth power.

“For now,” he relented. “But try to keep your head lower than the headrest, just in case.”

She came up immediately, the jacket flipping from her head and pulling forward to rest on her lap.

“I need water.”

From the corner of his eye he watched as she licked her lips, as much from nerves as thirst, he guessed.

“In the bag at your feet.” Glancing at the rearview mirror, he watched Elijah’s lights pulling closer.

“Incoming call. Secured. Encrypted,” the computer announced.

Lyrica’s head jerked around to him as she tore off the plastic surrounding the water bottle’s lid.

“Accept,” he commanded.

“Hey there, buddy.” Elijah’s voice was friendly, relaxed. “It’s getting lonely out here.”

The other man was alone with no apparent tails.

“How about pancakes?” Graham drawled.

“Sounds great. Same place as before?”

“Meet you there,” Graham agreed before disconnecting the call.

Elijah would shadow their retreat and meet them back at his house. Increasing his speed, Graham drove comfortably, all too aware of every move Lyrica made beside him as she lifted the water to her lips, drank, then stared into the night silently.

She was thinking.

A writer, a thinker, Lyrica was the quiet one of the four sisters Dawg had found six years before. At twenty-four, she spread her work between her cousins’ various established businesses but hadn’t settled on any one vocation.

She wasn’t content. Graham had seen the restlessness just beneath the surface over the years. He’d ached to help her relieve it, and though he knew better than to touch her, he couldn’t seem to release the need to do just that.

“Dawg picked the wrong time to go on vacation.” She sighed, lifting a still-trembling hand to brush back the long fall of heavy, inky black hair that fell over her brow.

“Or was someone just waiting for Dawg to be absent long enough to get to you?” Graham asked softly.

That thought had been bothering him since he’d headed out after her. Why would someone strike now? Was it coincidence? Like the Mackays, he didn’t believe in coincidences. Someone had known that Dawg, Rowdy, Natches, and their families would be gone, and they had waited, believing that getting to Lyrica would be easy.

But they hadn’t counted on Graham. They’d jammed her phone, but nothing could have jammed the secured satellite and cell encryption on the stealth phone he used.

“Why would anyone want to get to me, though?” Her voice was firm—the trembling fear that had been in it when he talked to her on the phone wasn’t there now. “What would be the point?”

“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.”