Piper was under her covers with her phone. The Great British Baking Show was on television and she kept having to look up the names of the foods to figure out what the heck they were talking about.

“Huh, a Victoria Sandwich is just a cake. Good to know,” she mumbled to herself.

During the drive home last night, Anson hadn’t said much. She didn’t really know what to say to him either. The tension in the car had a taste. The small space filled with sweetness and anger. His words yesterday confused her just from the fact that he was Kindred and she was a human that wasn’t his mate. There were rules about that. Most Kindred didn’t even date humans on a casual basis.

Piper had roomed with a Kindred girl in college. She had let her in on the details of things she’d already known. Most humans knew not to question the Kindred on the minutiae of their world. It wasn’t taboo, it was just respectful to allow them their culture. If a Kindred had a child with a human that wasn’t their mate, it could be good for a while, though the looming potential of a true mate always hovered over their lives. Most humans couldn’t live with that uncertainty. Even if that Kindred was in love with their child’s parent at the time, mates superseded everything. Marrying a human that wasn’t your mate hardly ever happened anymore. Producing a child and having to share that child with a mate that could come along at any time never made for a happy ending.

Piper could tell that she hardly had any heart left to give. Her family was the part she kept strong. It was the sense of self that kept her moving. Anson needed a whole heart. He deserved to have someone that had never been broken or scarred by the pain that she had been through. He would make a great mate. She could see that about him. His mate would never want for anything. Anson was the kind of guy that would bend over backwards to keep his mate protected.

With nothing but lounging on the couch as her plan for the day, Piper hadn’t even bothered to dress. It was ten in the morning and she had only been up for coffee and to use the bathroom. When he dropped her off and secured her in her home, she’d told Anson she wasn’t stepping foot out of her house on Sunday so KSI could be off duty.

He’d gritted his teeth, the muscle in his jaw twitching under the short beard that had filled in over the week. Piper wondered if she was the reason he wasn’t keeping up with his personal grooming. Yesterday at her parents his hair had been a bit messy like he’d run his hands through it too many times. It gave him a wild appearance. She couldn’t help watching him yesterday as he’d wandered the property around the house. He’d been dressed in a pair of jeans and a tight dark blue shirt that he said he normally wore backpacking but kept in his truck as a backup. It did nothing to offset his appearance of a badass.

A few of her cousins had popped by to sit with her to grill her about him. She lied and said he was new in town covering a bank client and he didn’t know anyone. She was just being friendly. Luckily for her, they had no clue about things and thought it sounded intriguing and dangerous. When they really should have thought that it was completely insane and there was no such thing as bodyguards for bank clients.

Piper’s parents had stuck close too. When she’d told them what had happened, her mom had cried. Her dad broke a vase. That made her mom mad. Piper would rather have her mom mad than crying so it worked out. They were terrified for her, and rightly so. They also took the opportunity to express an outrage against her exes that they must have been holding back for a very long time. Knowing that both men had known about her stalker and still left her made their crimes so much worse in their minds.

For the first time, Piper let her sadness slip a little. She was angry at them too. The hurt had been so crushing that being angry wasn’t in the cards. Now that the sadness had faded enough, she could be angry. In fact, she was fucking pissed. She’d all but pushed Anson out the door and after he left she’d set herself up in the studio.

She’d wasted two canvases and ruined one of her favorite brushes venting her anger in red and yellow on the blank space. Piper had cried and let out silent screams that made her head hurt. She knew better than to make noise. There was a chance that Anson was within earshot and she couldn’t resist his advances in her current state. His strength would be so easy to sink into. But that was the fear. Sinking into anyone else, ever again.

When she’d exhausted herself, she’d curled up on the couch dressed in a lilac camisole set with cute shorts. Now she was lacking any kind of motivation to leave her cave. There was no one looking for her. She was low on groceries, but instead of having a huge Kindred following her around Safeway, she decided to place an order. She spent a half hour ordering too much food and too much junk food for sure. She set the delivery for Monday late afternoon around the time someone would be dropping her off. Something told her Anson wouldn’t like her opening the door to delivery people alone.

Settling back into the couch, she pulled the covers up around her head so just her eyes and nose were peeking out. Watching cooking contestants sitting in front of ovens on the floor watching their puff pastry seemed like something she would do. She’d lost that ability to trust people, there was no way she’d trust an appliance to not burn her plum pudding or mini pear pies when a contest was on the line. During the next episode, there was a simultaneous knock on the door as her phone chimed.

Checking her phone first, she saw a text from Anson saying he was on his way. She frowned at that. There was no reason for him to come over. Pulling the blinds aside, she could see his hulking frame on her doorstep.

“Ah, come on, man,” she moaned. Dragging herself off the couch she went to the door, punched in her code to turn the alarm off, and opened the door, leaving the security chain on.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Her plans for the day were sounding better as she looked him up and down. He was wearing jeans that looked worn and clung to him in all the right places. His shirt said KSI which didn’t surprise her other than the fact it was dark blue and not black. His hair was slicked back and he was looking oddly casual.

“I’m here to pick you up.”

“I’m not leaving the house today. I told you that.”

“Yes, you did. You’re afraid.”

“What the hell? Like that’s a bad thing? Of course, I’m afraid. I was afraid before then you and Luca terrified me. Mission accomplished, I’m a hermit.”

“You’re afraid for the wrong reason,” he said roughly.

Piper leaned over and pounded her head against the doorframe.

“Are you shitting me? I’m afraid for the wrong reason?”

“Yes. You should be afraid of the asshole. But you’re confusing that with being afraid of life.”

That straightened her right up. “Fuck you, Anson! I don’t need a fucking psychologist. You’re my bodyguard. That’s it. Guard, body, me not dead. Real simple.”

“I realized last night that even when we get this asshole you’re not going to move on. You’ve stopped living.”

“For fuck’s sake, what are you, a Kindred yogi?”

“I am very in tune with the universe, thank you. You need to reconnect.”

“Okay, I’ll join Pilates.”

“No, nature, not hot yoga.”

“Totally different things,” she corrected him.

“Piper, I’m taking you out today.”

“I don’t want to go out. I want to sit on my couch and watch The Great British Baking Show, this is my version of Zen.”

His eyebrow raised at that. “Zen?”

“You don’t know. Besides, you’re off duty. Take a day off. Go do… badass stuff.”

“I’m sorry, badass?”

“Yeah, whatever you do in your free time. Build bombs, target practice, work on how to kill a man with your thumb. That kind of shit.”

“I don’t need a thumb, I have claws and teeth, babe.”

“Did you just call me babe?”

Piper was quickly losing control of the situation. Not that she ever really had it under control.

“It’s an endearment. It feels good to say it to you. I do things that feel good. Since that feels good, I’m going to keep doing it, just so you know.”

Piper wasn’t sure if it was worth fighting him over that so she tabled it until later. “I’m really not up for going out. I’m in my pajamas, I was about to find myself some cereal, and then get back under the covers.”

“I have donuts in the car.”

Shit, Piper really liked those maple bars with bacon from Donuts or Die. No, she needed to be strong and not swayed by sugar.

“Don’t you need a day off from me?” Opting for another tactic because she knew she didn’t want to work on the weekends. It was mind-numbing and usually very little work got accomplished.

“No.”

Piper waited for a moment to see if anything else was following that no. Of course there wasn’t.

“If you’re so jazzed to be around me. Why can’t you sit and watch TV with me?”

“Because that isn’t healthy.”

“Hah, you have no idea how good it is for me. It’s pleasant and warm. And you never know, I may become a master baker someday.”

“Master baker?” he said with a chuckle.

Piper glared at him. Leave it to a man to make that sound dirty.

“Come on, Piper. Let me show you a good time,” he said, throwing in a smile that was way too much for a fragile woman to take. It made her knees weak and her pussy start to tingle. That was never a good thing around a Kindred. Not wanting him to know how that smile affected her, she closed the door and unlocked the chain before reopening it.

She didn’t let him in yet. “Where did you want to go?”

“For a drive.”

“A drive?”

“Yes, you go and drive. It’s fun. There’s snow up on the passes. Just a dusting, but I bet it’s pretty.”

Piper gaped at him. “You want to go look at the pretty snow?”

“I want you to put your hands in the snow, breathe in some air that smells of nothing but pine and dirt. I want you to listen to the quiet and let it sink in.”

Pier hadn’t been in the mountains for a few years. Her ex Tristan hadn’t been a big skier, which had suited her fine. Her skis had been in mothballs for a while.

“Am I going to be billed for this?” Piper knew that it was a dig. But maybe if she reminded him that she was a job, he’d stop looking for something that couldn’t be.

“Nope. I’m off today. If you had wanted to go out today, Zion was on call.”

Piper really didn’t believe him. He seemed almost happy saying it. He probably would have shown up if she’d called for an escort.

“What are the chances I can make you get off my porch and leave me to my shows?” She didn’t need to hear the real answer before she unlocked the chain.

“Zero. Get dressed. I’ll make us coffee to go.” Anson stepped through the door and Piper had no choice but to move out of his way.

“Oh, no, please help yourself to my kitchen and my coffee. Root around in my cupboards. I have no privacy,” she said sarcastically at his back as he made his way to her kitchen.

“Thanks, babe. Get dressed.”

Damn. He was smiling; she could hear it in his voice. He wasn’t taking her seriously at all. Closing the door, she calculated whether or not she could get out of this either with reasoning with him or brute force. Both came up as hilariously impossible. Sighing, she trudged up the stairs and got dressed.

Digging into her warmer clothes at the back of the closet, she found her fleece-lined leggings. Pulling them on, she threw on a thin silk long-sleeved shirt she used for skiing. She pulled on a zip-up fleece over top. Her warmest socks and her waterproof boots followed. She also managed to find her favorite hat with the ear flaps and the matching mittens. If he wanted to drag her to the mountains then he had to go with her goofy self.

She made a show of stomping back down the stairs. But Anson wasn’t waiting in the kitchen. She found him in her living room folding her blankets on the couch. The sight stopped her short. He was tidying up after her, neatly placing her nesting materials at the end of the couch to be used another day. She watched in shock as he tried to fluff her cushions by smacking them with his hand. What the hell was he doing?

“You know that’s just a couch, right? Not a bed?” she asked.

“Do you know that?” he asked, not looking back at her, intent on his task.

“Of course. But nobody gets up and makes their couch.”

“Clearly,” he retorted.

Crossing her arms she waited for him to finish his housekeeping. When he finally turned back to her, he looked her up and down and grunted. She took that as approval of her outfit.

“Let’s go,” he ordered.

“You know you could ask me.”

“I could, but you seem to always want to debate things. This way is easier. Either you come or you don’t. Still your choice.”

Piper was already dressed to go, so there wasn’t a good reason to put her foot down now.

“Fine, but you better really have donuts.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”

Piper glared at him. She was up and dressed on a Sunday. Sugar was the least she expected.