“You ass,” she cried out, but she stilled her struggles.

Well, she stilled them for a few seconds. The feel of her hand smacking at the back of his jeans had his lips curling in amusement as he stalked out the front door.

“Hey, Graham, you have a wildcat on your hands!” Elijah Grant laughed as he moved to Graham’s side.

Although the other man carried a beer for effect, he was as sober as a judge on Sunday. Dark hazel eyes watched the area carefully beneath lowered lids, and if Graham knew Elijah, there was a weapon hidden somewhere beneath the sweatshirt, jeans, and boots he wore.

Probably several.

“Elijah Grant, I’ll just have Zoey kick your damned ass,” Lyrica threatened him furiously.

Elijah grimaced, then a grin touched his lips as they entered the parking lot. “Tell her I like my doms in black leather instead of baggy sweats. If she dresses the part, I might let her try.”

A furious snarl tore from Graham’s burden as Elijah chuckled at her response.

“Why didn’t a Mackay collect her?” the other man asked then. “She doesn’t give her brother or cousins near that much trouble.”

“Hell if I know,” Graham muttered. He was still trying to figure out what the purpose of it was himself.

“So what’s your count at now?” Elijah asked.

His count. After this, how many favors did he still owe the Mackays?

“Hell if I know,” he repeated with an edge of anger. “I wasn’t aware I had a count until recently.” Until the Mackays had needed someone to follow Lyrica and her sister Zoey when they took an overnight shopping trip to Louisville just before summer ended the year before.

“Yeah, they get a man like that.” Elijah sighed.

“Graham Brock, let me down this minute,” Lyrica ordered. “I swear if you don’t let me go I’ll tell Kye how to run those damned bimbos of yours out of the house within hours. I know how to do it. Ask Declan. I swear I’ll do it.”

Graham glanced toward the heavens, praying for patience. If she didn’t stop, he was going to end up doing something neither of them would appreciate once they came back up for air.

“Poor Declan,” Elijah murmured. “Really, Lyrica, you and Zoey should leave the man alone long enough to get him some. Let him enjoy his freedom.”

Declan Mackay, Natches’s adopted son, had been fighting a war with his cousins almost since the day they’d arrived. It wasn’t a cruel war. It wasn’t one of dislike, not really. But it was an amusing one.

Reaching the Viper, Graham nodded to the door and waited as Elijah hurriedly opened it.

“Your chariot awaits, princess.” Graham snickered as he bent, turned, and expertly maneuvered her into the passenger seat. He’d perfected the move during those years when he’d had to collect his baby sister from parties. Though she’d been about fifteen at the time, he thought in disgust, not twenty-four.

What the hell was Dawg Mackay thinking? Kye would shoot him with his own gun if he attempted something like this now.

At least Lyrica didn’t attempt to jump from the car.

Crossing her arms over her breasts, she stared straight ahead, silent and furious.

“Think she’ll consider the fact that this is Dawg’s fault, not yours?” Elijah asked, the laughter waiting just below the surface more than evident in his tone.

“No.” Closing the door, Graham raked his fingers through his hair in resignation, his gaze meeting the other man’s. “Why do you think Dawg likes to cash in his favors this way? It’s so much easier than facing the music himself.”

The music being his sister’s fury. Lyrica was widely known to be the one sister who had no reservations when it came to getting even with her brother. She’d spent two months living in his home when she was twenty, making his life hell with such simple teenage maneuvers that Dawg had sworn to her that he wouldn’t interfere in her life as he did with her older sisters.

He didn’t keep that promise when it came to certain parties though.

“Good luck, buddy.” Elijah chuckled as he backed away from the car, watching as Graham opened the driver’s-side door.

“I’ll need it,” Graham called back as he slid into the low seat and started the motor.

“Can we put the top down?” Lyrica asked, her fingers moving immediately for the radio and flipping it on as she pushed the volume up.

Way up.

He blinked over at her, completely taken aback by the cheerful smile and steady regard. He was so surprised that she was able to find and press the hardtop control before he realized what she was doing. Glancing up to see the top halfway folded back, he wondered if there was any way in hell he was going to survive the night.

As the roof settled into place, she sat back in her seat, buckled her seat belt, and threw him another smile. “I told Dawg if he sent you after me then I was staying the night with you. Did he mention that?”

God love her brother’s heart. Maybe the man knew what the hell he was doing after all.

“He mentioned something about staying with Kye,” he admitted.

“Hmm.” Lifting one hand, she studied her nails for a second. “Did you mention Kye wasn’t home this weekend?”

“Did I mention I wasn’t staying after I dropped you off?” he asked. An empty threat. He’d never leave her at his home alone. He rather liked his house standing just as it was.

“Awesome!” She threw out a perfectly modulated teenage exclamation of pleasure. “The house to myself. Tell me, how hard will you spank me when you come home to find guests in your bed?”

Like hell. “Guests?” he growled.

The smile she gave him was pure intended retribution. “Guests, love. Old man Henner’s bluetick hound dogs. All twelve of them. I’m certain they’ll just love that big bed bimbo number six couldn’t say enough about.”

Training was an amazing thing. It kept him from wincing at the insulting disgust in her voice.

Vindictive little wretch.

He was damned glad he’d worn his jacket as he turned on the seat heater and amped the temperature higher to compensate for the open top.

Pulling out of the parking spot, he continued to ignore the threat next to him, gave in to the hard throb of the vehicle’s motor, and accelerated quickly.

She was silent as he drove along the narrow lane, fiddling with the satellite radio stations before settling on a channel belting out R&B music. As he turned the volume down to a seductive level, he was aware of her turning in her seat so she could watch him assessingly.

“Kye should have been home by now,” she stated as he pulled onto the main road.

“She’ll be there sometime tonight. She didn’t say when.”

Kye had spent the past three weeks in California with their aunt and uncle, under duress. Her aunt pulled the guilt trip from hell to get her there. She’d flown home the second she was able to get away. Her mother’s sister, as Kye called her, was a manipulating pain in the ass.

“I’ll call her when she gets home. You can drop me off at my apartment instead of Dawg’s tonight. I’ll harass him in the morning.”

The statement had him glancing at her. “What apartment? I thought you moved back in with your mother.”

“My, aren’t you out of the loop,” she drawled in a voice that some men would mistake as a promise.

Graham knew better. He knew her well enough to detect the anger in her tone.

“It would seem so,” he grunted. “Dawg didn’t mention an apartment. He just said you were threatening to spend the night with Kye if he sent me after you.”

“Actually, the exact wording was, ‘Send him and I’ll sleep with him.’ Evidently he didn’t take the warning to heart. Does he not know you’re looking for the next flavor of the month?”

Lifting his arm to rest on the edge of the open window, Graham rubbed at the side of his face, the rasp of the short beard covering his jaw reminding him of more than the fact that he hadn’t shaved.