Raw Power

by Jackie Ashenden

  Another quiver ran through her, and he wasn’t speaking, and the complicated tangle of emotions was building and building, and she couldn’t seem to shut herself up.

  “We don’t need to go somewhere else to talk,” she said, the words coming out fast. “We can do it right here. You’re fired, okay? I don’t want you. I don’t want you anywhere near me. I don’t care what my father says, I don’t want a bodyguard and I’m not having one.” Callie clenched her hands in fists at her sides and took a step forward, nearly stumbling against the low table that stood between them. But she didn’t look down. She kept her gaze locked to his. “And even if I did want a bodyguard, I wouldn’t choose someone like you. All those scars don’t exactly inspire confidence. I’d want someone who at least looked like they knew what they were doing.”

  It was a cruel thing to say and she knew it, but she was too high on the strength of her own emotions to care.

  She wanted to be cruel. She wanted to hurt him. Because she was sick of being hurt herself. Sick of having to put up with it. Sick of having to be silent.

  He was another one of her father’s arrogant employees whose job was to narrow the confines of her life even further, to take away the only thing she had left in her life that gave her pleasure. And if that hurt him, then too bad.

  She was fighting a war and in war there were casualties.

  A bright flash of emotion crossed his face and she had a second’s regret at what she’d said, but then the atmosphere around him began to gather with a thick, dense, electrical kind of heat. A fury to answer her own.

  It should have terrified her, because a man’s anger was a dangerous thing, as well she knew. But she wasn’t terrified, not in the slightest. No, the quivering thing that sat low in her stomach definitely wasn’t fear. Neither was the sparking intensity in her bloodstream. It felt like . . . anticipation.

  Like the rush you got on a roller coaster, just before it plunged.

  For a second nothing happened, that atmosphere getting thicker, denser. The look on his face now was granite hard and absolutely forbidding, the scars making him look even more dangerous than she suspected he already was.

  And she was still shaking, a kind of wildness burning through her. An unfamiliar need to reach out and touch him, trace those scars, see whether they felt as hot as his chest had. See what he would do if she did.

  A ridiculous urge. Like wanting to touch the fire before it burned you.

  Callie forced herself to hold his dark green gaze, every muscle braced for the explosion of male anger, something deep inside her longing for it.

  And then it came, as she knew it would.

  The man moved, powerful and fluid, around the table, reaching out for her and wrapping long fingers around her arm, and before she could make a sound, she was being forcibly walked down the stairs from the balcony and into the crowds heaving on the dance floor.

  Adrenaline rushed through her, swamping her, making her instinctively want to jerk away and fight him, but he was moving so fast that it was all she could do to stay upright and walking, and not stumble, because she had no doubt at all that if she did, he’d end up dragging her ignominiously along after him.

  Heads turned, watching them, and she hoped like hell no one recognized her.

  So much for keeping a low profile.

  Her face burned, but she didn’t look down to hide it. Too bad if anyone saw her. Too bad if she was recognized. She wasn’t going to cower, not tonight. And if there was a journalist in the crowd somewhere? And a headline tomorrow about Senator Hawthorne’s daughter being discovered at The Globe nightclub and having to be dragged home? Well, screw it. Her father would be so angry, but she’d deal with it like she always dealt with it.

  It would be worth it purely for the joy of saying “no” to this bastard in front of her.

  The man steered her into a darker, quieter corner underneath the stairs, then let her go. He stood right in front of her, blocking the exit with his tall, rangy body, the darkness shadowing his features and making everything feel even more dangerous.

  And Callie gave in to the adrenaline rush that was filling her.

  She lifted her hands and shoved him. His chest was as hard as she remembered from when she’d run her finger down it and just as hot. And he absolutely did not move. Not one iota.

  So she did it again, because it felt good. Because she wanted to fight something and he was it.

  Again, he didn’t move. Like he was a mountain she was trying to push.

  She lifted her hands a third time, but strong, calloused fingers closed around her wrists, holding her absolutely still.

  “Don’t,” he said, the word dark and full of warning.

  Callie opened her mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with that, but he was already talking over the top of her. “I get that you don’t want me around. I get that you’re angry. But shoving me isn’t going to work.” His eyes glittered black in the shadows. “What the fuck is your deal? You know you’ve had death threats, right? I’ve been paid a lot of money to protect your pretty little ass or would you really prefer being shot in the head?”

  His fingers were like manacles around her wrists and she wanted to jerk her hands away, pull at him, fight him. The emotions careening around inside her were so intense and so confusing, she didn’t know what to do with them.

  “Right now?” she snapped, hating how unsteady her voice sounded. “I think that would be preferable. Let me go, dammit!”

  He released her immediately, stepping back, but the heat of his fingers lingered on her skin like a burn, making the quivering feeling inside her worse.

  The initial surge of adrenaline was fading, leaving her cold and a little shaky, and bizarrely, even though she’d told him to let her go, she kind of wanted to step closer to him, grab some of his heat.

  Instead she rubbed at her wrists, trying to get rid of the feeling. “Asshole,” she muttered, just so he knew.

  Once again he said nothing, the uncomfortable silence between them broken only by the beat of the music.

  He was watching her again, relentless and searching, and she opened her mouth to tell him to stop doing that, but before she could speak, he said, “Don’t be afraid. You don’t need to be. Not while I’m here.”

  Shocked, Callie stared at him. God, had she really been that obvious?

  You were shaking and he saw it. Of course it’s obvious.

  But that hadn’t been fear. It had been anger and excitement and all those other weird emotions.

  You’re still afraid, though.

  She swallowed as a horrible sense of exposure swept over her, like she’d charged into battle only to realize that she’d left her armor behind.

  And she had left her armor behind. The armor of the good, quiet, biddable girl that she always made sure she wore whenever her father was around. And to make matters worse, it was too late to put it back on again now.

  This man had seen her without the armor. He’d seen the rebellious little devil inside her, the one she tried to keep crushed down tight so no one would ever know it was there. He’d seen it, he knew. And he was probably going to tell her father how difficult she’d been, how resistant. And there would be consequences from that.

  But still. She’d told herself this evening was hers and if it was too late to go back to being good and quiet and biddable, then it was too late.

  Nothing she did now would make any difference.

  Callie straightened her spine and folded her arms, looked him in the eye. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Uh-huh.” His straight dark brows flicked down, that stare of his becoming even more focused. “And I’m goddamned Elvis Presley.”

  “In that case you’re the worst Elvis impersonator I’ve ever seen.” She looked down her nose at him—difficult when he was taller than she was but not impossible. “Have you finished being an asshole and ruining my evening? Because I’m here to listen to the music and dance, not to waste time arguing with dicks.”
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  He said nothing. Again.

  A beam of colored light strobed, momentarily illuminating his face, making the scars that raked it seem stark and terrible and frightening, turning his green eyes into chips of deep emerald. Glittering and sharp.

  And she found herself held completely motionless, staring into his scarred face and intense gaze, the complicated tangle of emotion pulling tighter and tighter inside her.

  “You’re not supposed to be here, are you?” he murmured. “You’re supposed to be at that charity thing.”

  She swallowed yet again, her hands clenching. “How did you find me?”

  “I tracked your phone.”

  Shit. She hadn’t thought of that. “Dad doesn’t know where I am?”

  “No.” Impossibly, his gaze sharpened on her even more. “You don’t want him to know?”

  The complicated tangle of emotion in the center of her chest began to grow sharp edges, fear digging in.

  Oh God. She was giving too much away. Far too much. This man was her father’s spy; that’s exactly why he’d been hired, she had no doubt. And he’d tracked her here and spotted her fear, he’d guessed she didn’t want her father to know that she’d snuck away to a nightclub. Which meant the first thing he’d do was call the senator and tell him exactly what his daughter was doing....

  Don’t panic. This night is yours, remember?

  Yes. By God, it was. So screw her father. Screw the fucking consequences. And screw whoever this asshole bodyguard was.

  For tonight the music was hers and no one was going to take it away from her.

  Callie moved, trying to brush past him, heading for the dance floor.

  But he moved too and suddenly there was a wall of hard-muscled male standing right in front of her. Blocking her exit.

  She stopped, jerking her head up to look at him, the breath locking in her throat, anger flaring like a fire inside her once more. “Get the fuck out of my way.”

  He didn’t. “You’re shaking.” His dark voice was rough and very matter-of-fact. “You think I’m going to hurt you?”

  “Try it, asshole.” She bared her teeth at him, holding tight to her anger and determination. “Move, damn you.”

  “No.” His tone was calm. “I haven’t finished introducing myself. My name’s Jack King.”

  She wanted to shove at him again, but since that hadn’t worked before, she tried to keep her hands to herself. “I don’t give a shit who you are. You’re in my way. So get out of it.”

  “You can call me Jack.”

  The calm note in his voice infuriated her. “I won’t call you Jack. I won’t call you anything at all if I can help it. And if I can’t help it, your name will be ‘asshole,’ understand?” She took a step toward him, staring up at him. “Now get. The. Hell. Out. Of. My. Way.”

  He said nothing yet again, his dark green gaze clashing with hers. And she was conscious once more of his height. Of the broad expanse of his muscled chest and the width of his powerful shoulders. Her palms itched, the urge to shove at him becoming more intense. And maybe this time she’d leave her hands there on the cotton of his T-shirt, feel again the hardness beneath it. Have his heat seep into her . . .

  Her pulse was spiking again and her breathing was getting short.

  God, why was this happening to her? Why did she keep wanting to touch him? Fight him? And why the hell wasn’t she scared of him when everything in her was telling her she should be?

  He was so still, holding her gaze, and the space between them was suddenly full of a subtle tension, drawing tighter and tighter. And she realized she was almost shaking again from the nearly unstoppable urge she had to reach up and touch his scarred, fascinating mouth.

  “Princess,” Jack said, mercifully before she lost the battle not to touch him. “You can call me whatever the hell you like; I don’t care. But here’s what’s going to happen.”

  “I don’t—”

  “First, you’re going to stop being so stubborn. Second, you’re going to do as you’re told. Third . . .” He nodded his head toward the stairs to the balcony. “You need to go tell your friends you’re going home.”

  Callie blinked, her brain still struggling with the need to touch him to process what he’d said. “What?”

  “I can’t do my job in an area I haven’t secured first. And since I haven’t secured this fucking club, it means it’s time for you to leave.”

  * * *

  She didn’t like that, as he knew she wouldn’t. Her big blue eyes were dark in the shadowed area he’d taken her to, and the feeling he’d had ever since he’d first seen her, that intense protectiveness, kicked him even harder.

  She was afraid.

  He’d suspected it upstairs, the moment she’d turned her back on him and walked away. And when he’d followed her and she’d started sassing back at him, he’d known for certain. That kind of anger and resistance was the product of fear, something he’d had a lot of experience with while he’d been on deployment.

  It was a fucking problem.

  He didn’t know what her goddamn issue was, but he couldn’t have her resisting him. It was going to make protecting her difficult, because he needed to know she’d do what he said if he had to give her orders for her safety.

  And it was doubly fucking annoying because he knew—he could goddamned see it in those expressive blue eyes of hers—that she was a woman who was desperate for some protection.

  Desperate and yet denying it.

  It was straight-up a fucking awful mix.

  Of course, it made sense for her to be afraid. She had a death threat hanging over her head, so what civilian wouldn’t be scared shitless? Especially a pretty socialite whose closest brush with pain and death was likely to have been a paper cut. Then there was the fact that it looked like she was worried her father would find out she was here, which meant the good senator didn’t know his daughter was currently living it up at a club. An interesting fact he’d file away to study later.

  Right now, though, he would have thought her fear would have made her more inclined to do what he said, not less, but that didn’t seem to be the case, which complicated things.

  Unfortunately, though, this wasn’t the place to figure out exactly what her issue was. For her own safety he had to get her out of here ASAP. Fuck knew who was in this club, and since security checks in these places always had holes in them a mile wide, there was a good chance that if someone was here to harm her, they’d probably brought in the means to do so with them.

  And as he hadn’t had the opportunity to check the place out himself before she got here, it meant his ability to protect her was compromised.

  He couldn’t allow that. The mission goal was to keep her safe and he never let anything get in the way of a mission goal. And if she didn’t like that, then that was too bad. Resistance or not, she’d have to suck it up.

  Life was shit and then you died.

  He waited for her to say something, but that lovely mouth of hers remained closed. She was standing very near. Near enough that he could see the pulse beating fast in her throat, and he had the oddest urge to put his fingers on it, feel her heartbeat, soothe her. Tell her everything was going to be okay.

  What the fuck are you thinking that for?

  Christ only knew, because he sure as hell didn’t. In fact, he didn’t know what the fuck was with this tension between them, period.

  It was a real fucking worry. He could handle the protectiveness because that was simple. She was a small, vulnerable woman and he was a man who’d been built to protect people like her. But the need to touch her, see if he could make her eyes spark blue the way they had when she’d talked back to him upstairs, push her to get her to push him back . . . yeah, shit, he didn’t know why he wanted to do that and he certainly didn’t want it complicating things.

  She was just a pretty little rich girl and he had no time for pretty little rich girls who had no idea of the way the world worked. Who’d never watched their friends die
in front of them, torn to pieces by mortar shells. Who’d never seen children shot by “friendly fire.” Who’d never looked down to see the bones of their own leg protruding from their flesh after a grenade had exploded right in front of them.

  Yeah, she had no fucking idea. But that’s what he’d fought for, wasn’t it? So she’d never have to know.

  Callie continued to say nothing, the light from the strobes catching in the gold of her eyelashes. Then, abruptly, he caught a gleam of deeper blue in her eyes. A stubborn, determined spark.

  He stiffened, but she was already pushing past him, plunging into the heaving crowds on the dance floor before he could stop her.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Instantly he went after her, pushing into the dancers, not caring about the curses and filthy looks that came his way. Someone took exception to his shove and tried to shove back, but Jack just looked at the asshole and the guy lost his nerve, settling for a vicious mutter instead.

  But Jack was already moving on, pushing his way deeper into the crowd, his gaze fixed on the flash of white that was Callie as she wriggled her way through the mass of dancers like an eel. She was so small it was easy for her to get through, while he, being much bigger, had to settle for an elbow here, a shoulder there.

  His patience, already whisper thin, began to fray even further.

  The crowd was thick and there were a hundred different ways someone could take her out right here on the dance floor, without anyone even being aware. And it didn’t matter that she was apparently playing hooky from some charity bullshit and no one knew she was here. Whoever wanted to do her and the senator harm would be able to track her phone just like he’d done. They’d know where she was and Christ, she was here all by herself, with no protection....

  It was the perfect place and the perfect time for some prick to get a shot at her.

  Determination hardened like steel inside him as he swept aside a group of giggling young people, quelling them with a look when they tried to signal their displeasure. Then he jerked aside some guy who was blocking his vision and . . . shit, there she was. Dancing like she didn’t give one single fuck about anything, about the fact that she was currently in danger and that he was chasing her. Her hands were in the air and she was moving so gracefully, pliantly, like a candle flame in a breeze.