Without Warning

by Reese Knightley

  Probably got those punching somebody’s face.

  Ryder smirked. “Oh, I think I’ll stay. It looks like the action is in here.”

  The cocky bastard folded arms that resembled those of a heavyweight lifter. Ryder’s arms were bigger than his own thigh, which probably made the guy good at what he did.

  He’d bet money that if the bodyguard had been with him in the parking garage, his attacker would probably be dead. Harrison tapped his fingers against his chin. Perhaps, and only since uncle Dean had already hired the guy, he might as well make use of the beast.

  As long as Ryder Freeman stayed out of his way when doing his job, he might just tolerate the intrusion into his life. That sounded reasonable.

  “You should be nicer to people.”

  Or maybe not.

  He squinted at the guy and fingered the white bandage wrapping his hand. The bodyguard’s dark brown eyes followed the movement.

  “Logan Cobalt was a friend of your father,” Ryder continued.

  He knew that. Harrison tipped his chin up and then froze when Ryder stalked over, crouched down, and took his bandaged hand in his own.

  So much for personal space!

  “Is it broken?” Ryder’s brown eyes held tiny flecks of caramel on closer inspection, almost like tiny bursts of sunlight filtering through the warm chocolate color.

  When the tips of Ryder’s fingers ghosted over his wrist, a twinge of electricity zipped over Harrison’s skin.

  Yanking his hand away, he squeaked.

  “It’s only a cut, I’m fine!” he yelped. Sounding like a teenaged girl, heat crept into his cheeks. Oh god, just kill me now.

  “So I see.” Ryder gave that damned smirk again before heading across the room to lean on the wall next to the closed door.

  “What are you doing?” Harrison warily eyed Ryder and rubbed at his tingling wrist.

  “I’m your bodyguard. I go where you go.”

  “Can’t you sit down or something?” He waved at the couch that sat against one office wall. “Or stand in the hallway?” His previous bodyguards had lounged in the lobby near the kitchen or Marty’s desk.

  “I prefer to stay right here.”

  Of course you do, because you know it annoys the hell out of me!

  “Let’s get something straight. I don’t want you here,” he spat.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Ryder eyed his injured hand, and those brown eyes traveled to his face. Harrison lifted a hand to touch the small scrape on his cheek and the throb in his temple.

  “See that you do and just…” He waved his good hand again. “Stay out of my way.”

  “Of course, your majesty,” Ryder said dryly.

  Was this guy for real? He gaped at the bodyguard, and snapped his teeth together so hard, the sound was heard in the room.

  Carefully easing to his feet, he turned and lifted his jacket and briefcase. Every muscle in his body ached from being slammed to the ground, but he had a job to do and no time for his own pity party. At least that’s something I do right.

  Most of the morning had been a waste, and now he’d need to work through an early lunch as a result of the delay.

  “You’re wobbling,” the bodyguard said abruptly.

  “He hit me on the head,” Harrison said sharply.

  “What did the doctor say? Concussion?” The guy looked concerned.

  Harrison softened his words. “It’s only a minor one.”

  Approaching the door, he waited for the bodyguard to step back before he moved through and into the hallway. He immediately felt the giant shadowing him. Reaching the elevator, Harrison stabbed a finger at the elevator button for the ground floor.

  It took them seconds to reach the lobby. Stepping off the elevator, he saw John pushing a mop across the entryway and waved.

  “Harrison!” The janitor dropped the mop and offered a big smile.

  “Good morning, John.” He smiled at the young man wearing a pair of the company’s overalls and sporting a buzzed haircut. “The floor looks great.”

  John bent to pick up the mop and gave him a big smile and thumbs up.

  “Thanks! I used extra soap,” John said happily and started mopping with more vigor. John had been with them for two years. The twenty something year old had been injured in a car accident during high school, and lived with his mother within walking distance of the building. John loved his job. Harrison loved the bright smile John always sported no matter what.

  “The floor sure looks wonderful.”

  “Thanks! Bye, Harrison.”

  “Bye, John.” He smiled and stepped past John as he moved across the lobby.

  “Harrison?”

  “Yes?” He paused and turned when Shelby called his name and hurried across the lobby toward him, careful to stay out of John’s mopped section of floor.

  “I was just coming to see how you’re feeling and if you want to get a bite to eat.” Shelby stepped closer.

  Harrison stepped back to put space between him and Shelby. Ryder must have been watching him very closely, because his one tiny step had the bodyguard moving forward.

  Ryder placed a hand against Shelby’s chest.

  “Please step back, Mr. Clark,” Ryder ordered.

  Harrison watched with fascination as Shelby gasped and stepped back, blinking with surprise at the bodyguard.

  “How do you know my name?” Shelby gaped.

  Ryder nodded to the man’s lanyard. Shelby closed his hand tightly around the plastic.

  “Shelby, this is Mr. Freeman. He’s my bodyguard,” he said. “Thank you for the lunch invitation, but I’m extremely busy today.”

  “Oh? Where are you going?”

  “A working lunch, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, maybe another time?” Shelby asked hopefully.

  “Let’s make it a unit lunch next week.” Harrison wouldn’t give Shelby any hope. “I’ll have food brought in and we can invite your team,” he murmured with a nod.

  “Oh yeah, sure.” Shelby took another quick look at Ryder and turned away.

  “Bye, Shelby!” John called.

  “Bye, John,” Shelby called back and disappeared through a far door.

  Harrison finally reached the front door, tugged out his hat and pulled the brim low over his face before he stepped forward.

  “Wait,” Ryder said.

  He waited a bit impatiently while Ryder checked the outside steps and held the door open for him.

  “Nobody knows it’s me. I walk to lunch every day,” he hissed in passing when the security guard gave them a strange look. Several more employees began exiting the building.

  “That might soon change,” the big man drawled and gave his soft wool hat a skeptical look.

  “Why? There’s a ton of people out here. Everyone knows there’s safety in numbers.”

  “And any one of them could be a threat if your flimsy hat disguise fails.”

  He froze, staring at Ryder, and swallowed.

  On the far side away from foot traffic, a few reporters stood near the bottom of the steps, but he tucked his head down and got away unnoticed.

  It was only the hand on his elbow that had him heading in the right direction. The return of the sudden tinge of awareness had him pulling free and marching down the sidewalk.

  Feeling a bit ridiculous, Harrison slowed his pace a bit and released the tight grip he had on his briefcase.

  The bodyguard prowled at his side. Careful not to fixate too much on the man, Harrison still drew comfort from his powerful presence.

  Just for a few days, he reasoned to himself. He would only need a bodyguard until they arrested this lunatic. And now that he’d given the police Edward’s name, he wouldn’t need to put up with the bodyguard for long.

  Ryder shadowed him silently the whole way to his favorite place. Moving through the upscale restaurant, he shrugged off his coat and hat before taking a seat at his usual window table that overlooked the lake.

  “Not here, please,
” Ryder’s deep voice rumbled.

  “What?” He glanced up and found Ryder speaking to a brightly blushing and smiling hostess.

  “Oh, of course,” she tittered and lifted Harrison’s menu. “Where would you like, sir?”

  “This is fine,” he said between his teeth, trying to keep a hold on the menu, but the girl tugged it free.

  “Perhaps the table at the back of the room?” Ryder’s smile flashed at the hostess and, for a moment, Harrison thought the woman was going to hyperventilate.

  “Oh, certainly, sir,” she said and hurried down the aisle.

  Ryder stood waiting for him to get up. That dark eyebrow was quirked.

  What the hell is with this guy?

  Harrison clenched his teeth. Rather than make a scene, he stood, snatched his briefcase, hat, and coat, and marched down the aisle.

  About to take the chair on the end, he found himself herded like a piece of prime beef into the chair with his back to the room. Ryder took the seat with his back to the wall.

  “That window seat is the best spot in this place. I hate sitting with my back to the room,” he complained as he lifted his menu.

  “I need this seat so I can watch your back, unless you’d rather I stand?” Ryder studied him with something akin to derision.

  Harrison flushed beneath the look and lifted his menu to block the man’s face. “No. That would be even more awkward.”

  The silence stretched as their orders were taken, and he buried himself in his laptop to avoid staring at the guy.

  He ate his meal when it came and opened up a spreadsheet he needed to get finished for a meeting at the end of the week.

  About an hour later, he glanced up and found Ryder studying the room behind him, like he’d been doing the entire time they’d been at the restaurant.

  “Do you know everything that happened?”

  Ryder’s eyes zeroed in on him. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Do you think this guy might kill me?” He hated to think Edward would harm him, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “I don’t know,” Ryder said quietly. “If it had only been the harassment, I would have said not likely. When he attacked you, he crossed the physical boundary. He could have hurt you badly or killed you.”

  Harrison looked away quickly, studying the stark white bandage. “I cut my own hand picking up the glass.”

  “It doesn’t matter, when he attacked you, he sealed his fate,” Ryder growled, eyes roaming the room.

  Harrison swallowed, blinking away the moisture that threatened at the protective words. Even if Ryder was only doing his job, the man’s deep and raspy voice made him feel safe.

  “Did anything seem familiar about the guy?”

  Harrison pulled at his bottom lip. The fear he’d felt during the attack had overshadowed everything. Harrison shook his head.

  “No.” He barely remembered anything past the hand fisting his hair and the hot breath on his neck. His stomach turned sour again and, rather than lose his lunch, he thought about the state of his car. “I need to have my car washed.”

  “Why don’t you have the service come to you,” Ryder suggested.

  He blinked. “I never thought of that.” He usually had his assistant take it to get washed.

  Ryder looked at him oddly. “You haven’t?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Was the guy judging him? Tossing his napkin down, he loaded up his laptop into the briefcase.

  “Harrison.”

  “What?” Suddenly riveted by deep brown eyes, his heart thumped.

  “The ‘come to you carwash’ was only a suggestion. Hell, we can take it and wash it ourselves if you’d like.”

  “We can?” Now, wasn’t that an intriguing idea.

  Ryder’s lips twitched in that mocking smirk. That made Harrison want to slug the guy. He was sure of it, the asshole was laughing at him.

  Harrison glared, yanked on his hat, and stalked down the aisle toward the restaurant doors.

  Ryder

  What a hell of a temper.

  The pretentious rich boy was easy to get a rise out of. He really shouldn’t do it, but he couldn’t stand the look of fear on Harrison’s face, and poking at him got a rise of temper that replaced the fear in those wide, blue eyes.

  And the fucking hat? That wasn’t going to do shit to keep his stalker away if it ended up being someone he knew. It might keep the reporters away once in a while, but he doubted it. He was surprised the reporters hadn’t already figured it out.

  Why the hell he’d stayed after telling himself to get out was a mystery. Maybe it was because of the vulnerable look on Harrison’s pretty face or the way the young man’s slim fingers trembled when he thought nobody was looking. Nobody should have to walk around fucking scared like that.

  Don’t forget, the guy’s a rich snob. Taking the best seat in the restaurant and ordering shrimp cocktail for lunch. It reminded him of Warren, which didn’t help his mood.

  “Wait.” He caught the younger man by the arm and pulled him abruptly to a stop.

  “What?” Harrison glanced up with that temper sparking in his expressive eyes, but at least he didn’t pull away.

  “I need to check outside.” He dropped his hand.

  “There’s a billion people out there. It’s a freaking city filled with people. What are you going to check?”

  “Just stay behind me,” he snarled at the smart mouth.

  Stepping outside, Ryder scanned the area and put Harrison between him and the building as they began the short walk back to the Trudel high rise.

  “You really think he’d try something out here?”

  “Stalkers react differently in each situation. I have no idea if he would try something out here in the open or not, but I won’t risk your life.”

  They reached the stoplight, and Ryder scanned the people and the surrounding area. When someone tried to step between him and Harrison, he blocked the move. The only thing he could do was hope he could put himself between Harrison and danger if the time came.

  Out here, they were sitting ducks.

  “From now on, we’re taking a vehicle,” he growled, his hand firm on the man’s elbow.

  “Aren’t you being a bit paranoid?”

  “Don’t you think you should be?” he snapped back.

  Harrison gasped and even in the noisy street, Ryder heard the catch in the man’s throat.

  “Look, in a car, I can control the environment,” he said bluntly.

  The light changed, and Ryder drew a suddenly quiet Harrison across the street with the rest of the crossing pedestrians. When they reached the opposite curb, Harrison yanked his arm away.

  Ryder angled his steps until Harrison was once again herded next to the building while walking. He doubted the man even knew he was doing it.

  “I can just hire a car,” Harrison argued several hours later.

  “There’s no need, I’m driving you.” Ryder tucked the argumentative man into the passenger side of his jeep he’d parked out front of the office building.

  The man worked late hours. That might change, but he’d bide his time. He didn’t like them leaving the office building this late at night.

  Reaching Harrison’s apartment building, he pulled into the entrance of the five story parking structure that sat to the right of it. Punching in the parking garage’s code Harrison gave him, he followed his directions and parked in a vacant spot on the top level of the structure.

  Ryder didn’t like the setup. The apartment building was separate from the parking garage. In order to get to the apartments, the residents had to take the parking garage elevators or stairs down to the ground floor lobby and walk along a hallway before they got to the apartment lobby. From there, an elevator or stairs took them up to the apartments. It was clear the parking garage had been added on after the apartments had been built.

  Entering the deserted lobby, they took the elevator up to the very to
p. With only one apartment door in the distance, it appeared Harrison’s apartment took up the whole upper floor.

  He noted the cameras positioned in the hallway. The building was older, but the security appeared top notch.

  “What kind of security do you have here?”

  “Trudel Industries. Nobody can get me here, you can relax.” Harrison rolled his eyes.

  “I would relax, but your system is being upgraded.”

  “True, but the attack and notes came to my office, not my home.”

  Ryder frowned. Ninety percent of the time, stalkers were someone the person knew, and a good majority of the time, attacks happened in the person’s own home. He held his tongue, not wanting to burst Harrison’s bubble.

  Shit. He clenched his jaw. Why the kid gloves? With his other clients, he’d immediately lay down the law so they’d know he meant business.

  “It might be better if I stay with you,” Ryder began, but Harrison shook his head.

  “No.”

  Harrison unlocked the door.

  “Stay here and let me check the place.”

  Harrison froze, and then nodded.

  Ryder did a quick sweep of the large apartment that did indeed cover the whole upper floor and returned to the hallway.

  “I should stay,” he said.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He studied the smaller man. Harrison’s chin tipped upward. Ryder let out an annoyed sigh and pulled out his business card that included all of his contact information.

  “Here’s my cell phone number.” He couldn’t force Harrison to take things seriously if the guy was set on treating everything casual.

  Harrison took the card and glanced at it.

  “What time do you leave for work in the morning?”

  “Seven a.m. Can’t you just meet me at the office?”

  “No, I’ll pick you up. Jaxon will be on guard tonight.” He hoped.

  “Good night.” Harrison huffed out a loud breath and snapped the door closed.

  Ryder stared at the closed door, irritated as all hell at being treated like the hired help. Okay, so maybe he was the hired help, but Harrison was big on giving orders. That sure the fuck wasn’t going to last when it came to the man’s safety.