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She peeked over her shoulder surreptitiously to check on Ian’s progress.

A trashy blonde was hanging all over him and practically crawling into his pants on the dance floor.

Ian didn’t look exactly head-over-heels with Slut-cheeks, but he didn’t look entirely miserable, either. That hadn’t taken long.

“You like him?” T-Bone asked.

Cripes. When did the slab of meat get so bloody observant? “He’s okay,” she replied, deliberately misunderstanding the question. “Decent to work with.”

“He’s the best in the business when it comes to a shootin’ match. An idiot about women, though, I’m tellin’ ya.”

The guy was hinting at something. She just had no idea what. “He got a past with a lady I should know about?”

“Nah. He’s been a confirmed bachelor all along.” Then T-Bone asked cryptically, “You wanna know fast whether or not he likes you back?”

She frowned. “What are you talking about?” She hadn’t admitted to liking Ian, let alone to wondering about his feelings for her.

The big man ignored her pretense of not knowing precisely was he was talking about, and instead, reached over and planted his hand on her rear end.

“Hey!” She bumped his arm away with her elbow.

In a millisecond or so, the huge man had wrapped her in a bear hug she couldn’t breathe in, let alone move in, and planted a sloppy, beer-flavored kiss on her mouth.

She pounded at his sides with her fists, but with her elbows trapped under his arms, she ended up flapping at him more like a chicken than striking like a real field operator.

The more she tried to fight, the tighter he gripped her. He was going to start breaking bones if he didn’t loosen up pretty soon. Or maybe she would just pass out from lack of oxygen.

T-Bone laughed. “Aww, c’mon, honey. I’m more of man than that Navy jack?—“

Without warning, the big man let go of her and spun away as if he’d been grabbed by a tornado and torn away from her by the force of the wind. She bent over gasping for breath. The guy had been squeezing her like a danged python. A solid thwap of knuckles on flesh made her look up, startled.

A low, enraged voice drew her the rest of the way upright. “Get your hams off the lady, Bosworth. I’d hate to have to kill you in a nice place like this.”

The Marine grinned over at her beneath the stream of blood pouring from his broken nose. He reached up casually to straighten it with a sickening sound of crunching bone. “There’s your answer, ma’am.”

“What the fuck are you trying to pull, T-Bone?” Ian looked back and forth between her and the big marine.

She stared back at T-Bone in shock. Slowly, she turned to stare at Ian.

“What?” he demanded, irritated. “What the hell’s going on?”

Busty blonde chick from the dance floor chose that moment to mince up on her six-inch heels and wrap herself bodily around Ian’s left leg and arm. “Hey, handsome. You’re with me. Let the big guy have that skinny bitch. She looks frigid, anyway.”

Piper whirled to face the drunk bubbette and pitched her voice low, packing it with as much warning as she could muster. “The skinny bitch can kick your ass into last week and is inviting you to stay out of this. And while you’re at it, you can peel your slutty self off my partner.”

The blonde took an aggressive step forward, inch-long fake fingernails outstretched.

T-Bone, wads of paper napkin stuffed in his nose, stepped in front of her with surprising speed. “The skinny bitch isn’t kidding, sweetheart. She’s an operator like the boys. She’ll kill you and mop the floor with you for good measure. Leave her be.”

The blonde threw a few phrases of invective over T-Bone’s shoulder as he ushered her out to the dance floor, but in about ten seconds, the ex-Marine had her totally distracted and starting to smile up at him.

Piper let out a slow breath. Holy crap. She really had been prepared to hurt that blonde if she didn’t get away from Ian. “Let’s get out of here,” she mumbled at him.

“But I haven’t had sex, yet.”

She threw him a dirty look. “Take me back to the hotel and you can have all the sex you’d like, there.”

“Hoo, baby!” he exclaimed. He swept her up in his arms and planted a sound kiss on her lips. Like T-Bone’s, it was beer-flavored. But unlike T-Bone’s, it made her knees go weak and her insides turn to jelly.

“How ‘bout you and me take a stroll down the hall, Pipes? The bathrooms lock. We can get as frisky as we want and no one would bother us.”

“Up till the part where T-Bone decides he wants to take the door off its hinges,” she retorted. “I’m serious. I want to get out of here.”

He shrugged over at his old comrade and threw a couple of bills down on the counter in front of the bartender. “Drinks for the big guy are on me.” The bartender scooped up the bills and nodded, grinning.

She pulled free of Ian’s tugging hand so she could move to the edge of the dance floor and lay a hand on the big man’s forearm. The blonde threw her a bitchy look, which she ignored as she leaned close enough to murmur, “You’re a prince among men, Mr. Bosworth. I owe you one.”

He mock saluted her with a touch of his fingertips to his eyebrow. “Any time, ma’am. Take care of our boy, y’hear?”

“Will do, T-Bone. I’ve got his back.”

Ian, who had moved up beside her, chuckled, “And I’ve got yours, baby.

” He passed his palm lightly over the back of her jeans and thrust his fingers in the far pocket.

The gesture was casual and familiar and melted her into giant puddle of mushy feelings.

She let Ian turn her and guide her out the front door onto the street.

“Can you walk or should I get us a cab?” she asked him. She couldn’t tell how drunk he was, or whether a walk would help clear his head or just make him sick.

He glanced over at her and grinned. “I’m fine. Are you too tired to walk back to the hotel?”

His diction was abruptly perfect and his movements coordinated and controlled. She frowned at him as they started walking down the block. “You’re not drunk at all, are you?”

“It takes a whole lot more than a couple of beers to knock me off my horse, darlin’.”

“What was all of that back there, then?” she demanded.

“All of what?” he asked innocently.

“The blonde bimbo hanging all over you. Slugging T-Bone.”

“You seemed to want the full wingman experience. I was giving it to you.”

She punched him in the upper arm, and she put some muscle behind it. “You are such a jerk!”

“You’re the one who bet me I couldn’t get laid in there. I hate to disappoint you, but you were going to lose that bet. Times at least three.”

She would’ve liked to punch him again, but she had to admit that he was undoubtedly right. It had been stupid to dare him to pick up a woman like that. She’d been stupid. And she’d reacted out of all proportion to that bimbo clinging to Ian like she owned him.

“Are we okay?” he asked.

She was pretty sure she was not okay. She had never before in her life been hit by jealousy like that. And she really, really didn’t like what it said about her feelings for Ian McCloud. She was not falling for him. She was not that stupid. She wasn’t.