Sometimes Slade was far too intimidated by his delicate wife. And far too tightly wrapped around her little finger.

“Fuck you,” Jazz growled. “Go take care of that little busybody you married and leave Annie—or whoever the hell she is—to me. That way, you and I don’t end up pissed at each other again.”

They’d spent the past year glaring at each other the way it was. Jazz would do something that would worry or upset Jessie, then Slade would rip into Jazz’s ass. Hell, he was starting to feel like he’d acquired fucking parents. Something he sure as hell didn’t need at this late date.

“Don’t go off half-cocked, Jazz…”

He flashed his friend a confident, reckless smile.

“Hell, I’m always fully cocked when I go off, Slade, you know that,” he drawled as he hid the tension building inside him from his friend. “Now get off my ass about it.”

He had known too many things were off with Annie and he’d ignored the internal knowledge and warnings. Instead, he’d let her think she was fooling him, let her think she was watching him while he was slowly trying to draw her in, and she could have been in danger the whole time.

Bolting the door after Slade and Zack left, Jazz moved to the laptop he kept locked in a drawer and drew it free. Sliding into the leather recliner Cord had vacated earlier, he powered it up and signed into his email account.

Cord and Slade had their contacts; well, Jazz had his, too. Jazz knew a lot of women. Not all of them had been in his bed; a few of them he’d be wary of in a dark alley. There were a couple, though that he knew he could trust with his back at any time. Two of those ladies were damned dangerous in their own right. And if he was a betting man, they could acquire more information on Annie than Cord or Slade could dig up in twice the time.

Women, he’d learned over the years, were a hell of a lot smarter and most of the time more dangerous, than men ever gave them credit for.

It was because they were so damned pretty, and soft and sweet. Because they had such silken lips and delicate fingers that could bring such pleasure. They weren’t hard and powerful like a man, so a man just didn’t expect the wallop they could pack.

Jazz liked to think he was a bit smarter than most men. He never assumed a gently curved woman with a winsome face and painted nails couldn’t throw a punch or pull a trigger. He damned well knew they could. And there were a few who killed the bad guys and felt good about it when they went to sleep at night.

Kate and Lara Blanchard were just such women. He’d covered their backs and saved their asses. More than once, actually. Now he was calling in the markers. He needed information. And he just might need them to cover Annie’s ass for a bit while they were at it.

As he sent the emails Jazz could feel his gut roiling. Learning part of Annie’s secrets had finally eased that nagging itch he hadn’t been able to locate.

The itch was Annie.

It was hazel eyes that he knew weren’t really hazel. Soft, light-brown hair that he knew was dyed. It was the way she stayed in the shadows when he could sense the hunger to come out and play. It was the way she moved, always ready to run. She was always ready to fight.

Whoever she was, she wasn’t the quiet, soft-spoken teacher everyone had gotten to know in the past two years. She wasn’t anything like the women who had shared his bed in the past, either. He’d known that Annie was different. And it was a difference he was going to figure out whether she wanted it figured out or not.

CHAPTER 3

In the two years since Kenni’s return to Loudoun, she’d seen Jazz in a variety of moods. Being Jessie’s best friend had allowed her to see him more often than she would have otherwise, though learning his connections to the Kin wasn’t nearly as easy. Being part of Jessie’s small, tight-knit circle of friends had ensured she and Jazz socialized fairly often. Kenni made certain they didn’t share small talk as a consequence though. Sometimes, she simply forgot to keep her guard up where he was concerned, and that could be far too dangerous.

Not that it had been hard to avoid him for the first year or so. It hadn’t. Jazz had been a lot busier while helping Zack run the small construction firm the three of them owned before Slade’s return. After Slade and Jessie married, that had changed. Suddenly Jazz seemed to realize she was there and that she was female.

A female whose bed he hadn’t been in yet.

Loudoun’s playboy had pursued her off and on since, alternately teasing, arrogant, and just plain infuriating. The one constant had been that curious, almost puzzled look at odd moments. As though he was trying to figure her out. As though he was trying to take what he knew and use it to explain what he didn’t.

As he was doing two nights later at Slade and Jessie’s.

His brilliant-blue eyes were trained on her, narrowed and intense behind that lush veil of black lashes.

His conversation with Slade was sporadic at best as they stood next to the gas grill on the back patio of Slade and Jessie’s home. Jazz was leaning lazily against the deck railing, holding a bottle of beer in one hand. He sipped at it with absent movements, his expression brooding, the gleam of curiosity and suspicion in his eyes making her distinctly wary.

“Jessie, didn’t you tell Jazz to stop trying to seduce me?” she asked her friend as Jessie moved around the kitchen behind her.

“That’s rather like telling a leopard to change its spots,” Jessie stated with a hint of laughter in her voice. “But I did try.”

Jessie didn’t seem too offended by the fact that her alley-cat friend wouldn’t stop trying to seduce her other friend.

“Did you do it without laughing?” she sniffed at the carefully contained laughter in her friend’s voice.

Jessie did laugh then. The sound was affectionate, cheerful, but not in the least concerned that Jazz was ignoring her request.

“Well, tell him to stop dissecting me with his eyes now,” she muttered as she tore lettuce into a large bowl for salad. He was making her nervous. It was distinctly uncomfortable.

“Jazz,” Jessie called out, much to Kenni’s chagrin. “Stop dissecting Annie with your eyes, please.”

The curiosity on his face turned to amused disappointment as he shook his head at her. Kenni could only roll her eyes at the complete uselessness of the attempt. Evidently Jessie had pretty much given up trying to convince Jazz to leave Kenni alone. That, or her friend was secretly cheering the lecherous man. She didn’t doubt that one, either.

“He’s not very well trained.” Jessie’s laughter spilled into her voice as she made the observation. “I’m sure he just needs a firm, feminine hand and he’ll tame right down.”

Kenni turned her head slowly to shoot the other woman a glare. “Stop trying to encourage him, then?”

Jessie only spread her hands and gave Kenni a helpless look. “I just did as you asked, right?”

“Yeah, right,” she muttered, turning back to the salad ingredients she was prepping as Jessie finished making sweet tea and filling a pitcher with ice.

Setting the lettuce aside, she pulled the celery and carrots into its place and began dicing them. She had to force herself to focus on the job because her eyes kept straying to Jazz. The feel of him watching her, his gaze piercing, demanding the answers to whatever questions gleamed in his eyes, was distinctly unsettling. Hell, he was even making her hands tremble in nervous reaction. No one had ever …

A sudden sharp, slicing pain jerked her attention back to the knife and the blood spilling from her upper palm where the blade had somehow sliced her flesh.

Blinking, she stared at the scarlet fluid spilling from her hand in confusion. How had she done that?

“Oh my God, Annie…!” Jessie cried out behind her as both Slade and Jazz rushed into the kitchen.