For Her Protection: An Alpha Romance

by Amber Bardan

He stretched his legs out in front of him. “I could always stand behind you if you’d prefer.”

  Heat exploded over her. Behind her, like he’d been before when he’d demanded she ask for what she wanted.

  What was his game?

  Who knew what Frank had asked him to do to get to her. A high-pitched shriek came from the other side of the door.

  Connor flew to his feet, and yanked open her office before she could catch a breath.

  She followed him to the small reception outside her office.

  “I’m so sorry.” Lia dropped her handbag onto her desk, a squirming bundle of curls in her arms. “I didn’t know what to do with him.” She set down her son Xavier. “My mom is in the hospital and I didn’t have anyone else to ask to take him.”

  “Is she okay?” Charlie approached the reception.

  “She will be.” Lia ran a hand over her own curls, which were far more unruly than usual. “Kidney stones.”

  “What is this?” The voice came out of nowhere.

  Charlie groaned inwardly as Frank came into view. “It’s fine. Nothing that concerns you.”

  Frank stepped closer to the three-year-old, who chose that unfortunate moment to tip over a container from the desk.

  Paper clips scattered across the floor.

  “Children are only permitted to attend work on parent days.”

  “M-my, mother is unwell. “Lia’s gaze darted after her son who’d crawled under the desk.

  He eyed the mess. “Then you’ll need to take a leave day.”

  An unpaid leave day.

  She’d used up all her paid leave. Single parenting could do that.

  Charlie bit her cheek.

  Lia couldn’t afford to be taking unpaid leave.

  “Then I guess Benjamin and Lily are no longer coming by tomorrow?” Charlie stared at her uncle. “Since children are only permitted on parent days.”

  Frank’s gaze snapped to hers.

  She hadn’t wanted to drag her cousin’s children into this. They may be Frank’s grandkids but she loved having them stop by as much as he did. Even if they did tend to linger for hours.

  But what’s good for the goose and all of that.

  “Thought so,” she said.

  Truth was, Lia was a capable multi-tasker. As long as Xavier had a contained space to play in she’d manage just fine until she figured something else out.

  “Respectfully, this is my office and my PA.” She turned to Lia. “When we’re done take my office. Xavy can play in there, just make sure to use the headset today for noise reduction. Miranda at the front desk has coloring books.”

  Charlie turned back to her office opened the door and held out her hand. Frank stood for a moment, resistant, then smoothed his tie and went through. Connor strode through next.

  She pushed the door closed.

  “I’ve come for your answer.” Frank said, his back to her.

  Charlie almost laughed. “Answer implies a choice.”

  “You could always take some leave yourself.” He turned to her.

  He was so freaking evil. How were they from the same gene pool?

  Her dad’s face flashed in her mind and she sobered. Dad hadn’t been so different before his stroke.

  All consuming ambition.

  He’d had his good points. He’d done his best when Mom left with her fitness instructor and started family number two. It broke his heart but that can happen when you don’t speak to a spouse other than to issue an order. She’d witnessed her mother’s despair every time she’d tried to get his attention and failed.

  “That won’t be necessary.” She glanced at Connor. “I can handle one bodyguard.”

  Connor shifted subtly. Had he actually worried she’d refuse?

  “Glad you came around.” His smile flattened and he left her office. He’d won but he’d lost too.

  She looked at Connor. “Thanks for not telling him about last night.”

  His expression remained impassive. “He’ll hear about it on Monday.”

  Her eyes stretched. Was he kidding? He’d still be reporting on her. “What happened to those guys anyway? Won’t I need to make a statement?”

  “Mark will come by this morning to take a statement from you.”

  “Mark?”

  “The cop.” His gaze twitched away. “Detective.”

  Hmm. Interesting. “You used to be a cop didn’t you?”

  He refocused on her. “Detective.”

  “And you worked with Mark?”

  His face turned slightly to the side, eyeing her, and she saw right there in that movement the cop he’d been before. So suspicious. “I did.”

  A squeal rang out. Xavier. They’d better give him the room before someone in the adjoining offices complained. Charlie collected her laptop and headed out.

  She set her things on Lia’s desk in the open reception between her office and others. Connor made himself comfortable leaning on a wall opposite her.

  Upside of handing over her office was having an open space. Public space where people walked by to their desks. Where she wasn’t going to have to be alone with brooding barbarian.

  She’d accepted this bargain but how long she could handle having him so close?

  His attention pinned on her. Making her feel like that’s what he wanted, and not simply his job.

  As though he enjoyed the way she looked more than he liked to spy.

  Even though that’s what he was—a dirty, dirty spy.

  ***

  He watched Charlie arrange her things on her PA’s desk.

  “You’re going to work here all day?” He studied her. When she’d made the offer she’d been shooting venomous barbs at Frank with her eyes.

  He’d assumed she’d been making a statement in front of him.

  “Yes.” She punched numbers into the phone, redirecting it. Then her gaze washed back to him. “But that doesn’t mean you have to stand against the wall all day, get yourself a chair for goodness sake.”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “I will stand.”

  She gave a subtle but un-mistakable eye roll.

  What was she up to?

  Charlie didn’t trust him. She didn’t want him around. Why’d she care if he was comfortable or not? His muscles tightened. Yes, he’d watched her. Except, the longer he had the less it’d been about his job.

  That truth would do little to put her at ease.

  Yet, he wanted to her to know. Wanted her to look at him as she had when she’d spotted him in the bar.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  She set down the handset. “Doing what?”

  “Giving up your office and letting your assistant have her child here.” He hadn’t meant to snap, but his words amplified.

  “She’s a single mom.” She said that like the statement was completely self-explanatory. Against reason, it made the agitation gather tighter under his skin.

  “If you don’t like the draft, why don’t you go play in the security room.” She shot him a sassy little smile.

  “You won’t be rid of me so easy.” He pushed back from the wall and stalked to her desk. “You won’t be rid of me at all. Think I care about a draft?” He planted his fists on the desk and leaned in. “I’ve stood outside in the rain for hours to watch you.”

  She rocked back in her chair, her eyes wide. Then she blinked, and cleared her throat. “Then why do you care which room I work in or whether my P.A brings her kid to work?”

  “My mom was a single mother.” He leaned deeper on his knuckles. “No one ever cut her a break.” His chest thundered. “She was fired one time when I got sick.”

  She shifted, leaning closer, gaze glued on him.

  He vaulted back. Why the hell had he said that?

  “How many siblings do you have?” Her expression flickered taking him in.

  His breaths didn’t fill him with enough air. Why did she ask this? “One sister.”

  “Ah, I see.” Her gaze brightened on hi
m.

  What the hell did she think she knew? “What do you see?”

  “Man of the house.” She flattened her palms on the desk. “Bet you never let on you were sick again after that one time.” She leaned up out of her chair. “Bet you didn’t cry when you got hurt. Bet you got a job as soon as you were old enough so you could take care of them.”

  His chest filled with pressure. The more she spoke the harder he became transfixed. Those weren’t questions she asked, but statements. Correct statements. He’d been mowing lawns for change when most kids were signing nursery rhymes.

  “Because that’s your job isn’t it?” Her voice lowered, and the foot he’d moved away wasn’t enough to stop her whispered voice from cracking him between his ribs. “To take care of everyone. Protect everyone.”

  It wasn’t pity in her expression. He’d be damned if he knew what the hell it was. For a month he'd been obsessed with this woman. A shallow, one-dimensional fantasy of something only ever glimpsed from a distance. Elusive. Fleshed out by whatever he'd wanted to pretend in the moment.

  He'd imagined her sweet. But he was seeing a fuck-load of difference between sweet and kind. He'd imagined her as some repressed nice girl and thought about bending her over in her proper librarian outfit, teaching her bad girls have more fun. But having her stand there with her shrewd, compassionate gaze on him, he wasn't thinking about how soft she'd be underneath him, or how her big gorgeous tits would press against his chest. He was thinking about what she'd be like to sit next to late at night when he was usually alone. When guilt plagued him. When his own thoughts turned on him. How she'd draw out those insidious doubts, and something told him when she did he'd never be alone in the same way again.

  “I need to go to the security room.” He backed away. That pretty, soft looking girl—nothing had ever terrified him like she did then. “Try anything while I’m gone, and I will hunt you down and drag you back.”

  “I know,” she whispered. Almost like she couldn’t resist.

  ***

  Connor strolled back into her office about the same time most staff members were heading home. Lia and Xavier had left an hour before. She’d fled back to her office, aware of every move she made at Lia’s desk, where security camera’s reached.

  He shut the door behind him and leaned against it. She hadn’t seen him since his detective friend turned up to take her statement.

  She continued with her phone conversation, her pulse turning to a rush. “Thanks, Anthony, if you can recover the information, I’d be most grateful.”

  The head of the IT department issued a guarantee that he’d do his best to find the information that had seemingly disappeared since the last time she’d looked at it.

  Her skin prickled. Connor continued to stare. She probably shouldn’t have said what she had to him.

  His past wasn’t her business. He worked for her. He was on the job.

  She should try to be professional. Except when he’s asked about Lia, when he’d told her about his single mom, he’d been Connor Crowe and not Conan-The-Silent-And-Impenetrable.

  But the way he looked at her now, wary, she doubted he’d ever be so unguarded around her again.

  She pushed back from her desk. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, I am.” He leaned off the door and the was no doubt with way he moved now, what he was hungry for. “Are you hungry?”

  Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t look away, her attention hooked on his every move. “Starving.”

  She couldn’t lie either. That kiss had done something to her. Opened a door she hadn’t bothered opening since the last time her heart got broken.

  Why bother taking a risk when she could focus on work?

  Except he was at her work. There was no place to hide.

  He stalked toward her.

  Charlie backed away from her desk. Her heart spurted frantic energy through her system. He reached her but she didn’t give him a chance to do whatever he planned to do. She leaped back until she hit the wall. He slowed, watching her. Did he think she didn’t want him to keep coming? She froze and looked at him. A muscle pulled under the skin of his temple. Did he know how frightening is was to let him know she wanted him? He might not like her the same way. This could all be a game. A ploy from Frank.

  She ran her gaze over his face, the deep blue of his eyes, the strong bridge of his nose, his wide lips.

  Lips that made her want to run her tongue over them, see how deep the sliver of softness she’d glimpsed ran in this hard man. He reached her, but just stood there, a whisper away.

  She reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt, then dragged him in.

  His stillness dissolved. He kissed her. His mouth opened, capturing her tongue and sucking deeply before pushing his own between her lips. Her body hummed, the need she’d suffered since meeting him, wracked her. He moved, his body crushing hers against the wall. He grabbed her hands, pressing them back to the wall and sank his tongue farther into her mouth, leaving no crevice untasted.

  She opened to him—melting—arching—desperate. He squeezed closer, his body grinding against her.

  Then, in one sudden movement, the heat and hardness against her were gone. He moved away from her.

  She scrambled to regain control of herself. Her head swam, words escaped her. She wasn’t sure what just happened. He still looked at her as if he were about to eat her alive. His gaze stalked her, stripping her, penetrating through her skin.

  A sound pierced her raging thoughts. Her phone. Her fucking phone was ringing. She grabbed the handset, and listened to Anthony’s update. “Sure, well thanks for trying.”

  She slammed her receiver down, then flopped into her chair, unable to meet his gaze again.

  “Hey, doll—”

  She glanced up.

  Melanie stood in the door, mouth half opened, gaze fixed on Connor who stood two feet from Charlie’s desk. “Hope I’m not interrupting?”

  “Not at all.” She took a steadying breath. “Melanie, this is Connor Crowe from Crowe Security. He’s my bodyguard.”

  Melanie smiled, and seemed to grow in size like a bird fluffing it’s feathers. Her steps went slinky, and she glided closer, all her confident, sensual, attention fixed on Connor.

  Charlie’s heart made a thumping decent into her belly. “You’re the DUFF that’s what happened.” If Melanie hadn’t have left the bar would Connor have looked twice at her?

  She extended her hand to Connor, and her smile broadened. “You know, I’m not feeling all that safe at the moment. I might be in mortal peril—”

  Charlie’s stomach churned up her heart. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She stood without looking back to them. “Need to use the restroom.”

  She made it to the door before jogging as much as she could in her heels to the bathrooms, and locked herself in a stall.

  What had she been thinking kissing him?

  At work?

  She turned around twice. Hadn’t she been just fine in the last year and three and a half months she’d been single?

  She gulped, and leaned on the stall wall. Her job should be enough. Who says you need sex or relationships to be fulfilled?

  Her last relationship left her not only unfulfilled but shattered.

  She ran a hand over her cheek, trying to catch a breath and not throw up. Why the fuck was that stupid comment at the bar, and that jerk she never really liked anyway, making her feel as delicate as a thirteen year old rejected for the first time?

  “What did you expect, Charlie? You don’t go to an effort anymore. You’ve let yourself go.”

  Her eyes burned. This was not the time to start reminiscing about Simon, her ex-boyfriend, who’d blamed cheating on her with her own cousin, on her having new priorities.

  But Simon hadn’t lied had he?

  When Dad had his stroke, she’d stepped up. Didn’t have time for team sports, or working out the way she used to. Stopped expending the effort she had before.

  Simon
moved on with Joyce.

  Charlie iced it out under an avalanche of work.

  She pulled herself together and returned to her office. If it were safe to enter…

  Connor faced away from her—completely alone.

  “Where did Melanie go?”

  Connor glanced over his shoulder. “She left a file for you and went.”

  Did she?

  What else did she leave behind?

  Her number?

  Her address?

  Her panties?

  “If you want to go you should.” She rounded her desk, circling wide away from him. “Surely you’re entitled to time off, since you’ve already been stalking me for a month.”

  “That’s not how this works.” His voice bristled. “What the fuck is up?”

  “You don’t have to pretend to be into me.” She yanked her handbag open and shoved things inside. Heat flamed in her face. “You sure as hell don’t have to kiss me.”

  His footsteps made fast, hard thuds on the carpet. “Who’s pretending?”

  “I don’t know what game Frank is having you play here, but you won’t win.”

  He grabbed the other side of her handbag and tugged. She gripped it tighter for a moment, but he yanked again and it pulled free. He dumped it on the floor by the desk.

  She raised her gaze slowly to him. Her fingertips twitched.

  Damn, Frank. Damn, him.

  Did they think she was a toy to be wound up and played with?

  He cornered her against her desk, his eyes darker than she’d ever seen them.

  “I don’t play cat and mouse and I sure as shit don’t kiss women who don’t want it.”

  Heat spread hotter over her skin. “I don’t want anything from you anymore.”

  Connor’s eyes slit. “Liar.”

  “Why do you keep kissing me?” Her voice rang through the room like a slap.

  “You keep asking me that.” He inched closer. “Because I fucking want to.”

  Her back arched against the press of the desk. “Now who’s the liar?”

  “Do you need me to prove myself?” He leaned closer so his lower body pressed to hers. His cock dug between them, air hissed from his lips. “Just say the word and I’ll prove I want to do a hell of a lot more than kiss you, Charlie.”

  Did he—could he?

  She should order him to go. They shouldn’t be doing this. She shouldn’t want to. Her body flooded with arousal.