Bodyguards Boxed Set

by Julianne MacLean

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “What went wrong?”

  She sat up, cross-legged. “It was when you touched my face. I wasn’t expecting it. It... kind of broke the spell, I guess.”

  He plucked a tissue from the box on her night table and handed it to her. “A spell? Is that what it was like?”

  She nodded, wiping her face. “It was... magical. But tenuous. Fragile. I kept worrying it would end.” She let out a giant breath and shook her head. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it really happened. You touched me—you actually touched me, with your hand.”

  “For about three or four seconds.”

  “Is that all it was? It felt longer. It was... extraordinary. The most extraordinary thing that’s happened to me, well, since the lightning.” She laughed as fresh tears filled her eyes. “I can’t believe it! You touched me! And that’s all I felt. No vibes, no thoughts, no pictures. I didn’t think it was possible.”

  Jamie grinned broadly, looking very pleased with himself. “Never underestimate the power of a feather.” He rose from the bed and stood over her, the bit of delicate white fluff poised in the palm on his hand. He still wore the shoulder holster, from which the blue steel grip of his gun emerged, India was struck by the incongruous image of this big, burly, well-armed guy contemplating a feather—the feather he had wielded with such patient and sensual skill. He’d used that skill to coax her into a state of physical awareness so intense that she’d actually been able, for the first time in four years, to be touched by another human being without reading his thoughts.

  No, Detective Lieutenant James Keegan was anything but an Irish cop from central casting. He was an enigma, a man who could face down a raving, stiletto-wielding crack-head, but was scared to death of cats. A man who was strong, passionate, sexy... and achingly tender.

  Careful, India... You could end up really falling for this guy.

  “Tomorrow night we’ll do it again.” Jamie lifted his palm to his mouth and blew on the little feather, which drifted toward India. She reached out and caught it in her hand.

  “Only,” he added as he turned toward the door, “without the feather.”

  * * *

  JAMIE STOOD IN the predawn darkness outside India’s bedroom door, wondering if he should knock. If she was still sleeping, he didn’t want to wake her. But if she was awake, he didn’t want to catch her in her underwear again. Correction: shouldn’t catch her in her underwear again. What he wanted was a different matter entirely, and something he’d better try to keep a lid on.

  Finally he eased the door open and stepped inside. A faint hint of dawn glowed through the curtains, barely illuminating the room. Jamie came to stand over the big bed and the woman who lay soundly asleep beneath the white comforter.

  Or mostly beneath it. It had been tossed back, leaving her uncovered from the waist up. She lay faceup, her head tilted in his direction, a swath of inky hair obscuring her face. Her nightgown was a gleaming little slip of champagne-colored satin with spaghetti straps. One of the straps had slid off her shoulder, exposing the creamy upper slope of a breast, and giving her a sweetly wanton air.

  He would never think of her as The Lady in Black again. Beneath the grim black outfits and the shades and the gloves, she was all silk and satin and crimson toenails, hinting at a profoundly sensual nature held in check. He remembered how she’d reacted, with tears of disbelieving joy, when he’d finally brushed his fingertips against hers. In truth, she was as needful of human touch as anyone else—more so, perhaps, since she’d denied it to herself for so long.

  Fast asleep, with her hair and gown all mussed and her perfect lips half-open, she struck him as both vulnerable and incredibly sexy, arousing his protective instinct, and another, more primal urge. He wanted to brush her hair back off her face. He also wanted to straighten that unruly spaghetti strap—or perhaps to take hold of it, and the other, and draw them down—

  He shook his head to dispel the image of India lying soft and warm and naked in the pale dawn semi-darkness... India looking at him with her mysterious golden eyes, wrapping her arms around him, saying his name... and he did not move to straighten that strap. But he did reach out to gently smooth the wayward lock of hair off of her face. Her cheek was incredibly soft; her skin radiated heat.

  She moaned softly and shifted, her arms moving slightly, as if embracing the air. Then she murmured something that sounded like “Jamie...”

  Her eyes remained closed, and after a moment her breathing regained its steady rhythm. Was she dreaming about him? Was it possible that, when his fingers brushed her face, she sensed that it was he who touched her? Could she even have absorbed his thoughts, his fantasy of her taking him in her arms and saying his name...?

  No. She couldn’t have. He must be more tired than he’d thought, after his long night of guard duty, to entertain such a notion. Shaking his head, he remembered why he’d come to her room in the first place—his sneakers. He scooped them off the floor next to her bed and crossed to the door. As he started to close it behind him, he heard his name again and paused, then looked back toward the bed.

  She was sitting up, adjusting the strap of the gown. Her hair was all askew, and she blinked drowsily. Jamie didn’t think he’d ever seen a prettier sight.

  “Sorry to wake you.” He held up the sneakers. “I came for these.”

  “Oh.” She nodded and yawned, then stretched her arms, quivering like a cat. Through a profound effort of will, Jamie kept from dropping the sneakers.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  He checked his watch. “Almost six-thirty. I’ve got to run back to my place to shower and change if I’m going to get to the station on time.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, which only further disheveled it. “You could... I guess you could bring a change of clothes and shower here in the mornings. If it would save you time.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take you up on that. Do you like Chinese?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Chinese food. Thought I’d bring some tonight. Szechuan okay with you?”

  “Mmm...” She yawned again, arching her back and unconsciously thrusting her satin-clad breasts forward. “The hotter, the better.”

  Both sneakers fell to the floor with a thump. Jamie retrieved them and fumbled for the doorknob. “Good. Great. Go back to sleep. See you tonight.”

  * * *

  “FORTUNE COOKIE?”

  “Sure.” India opened her palm. Jamie reached across the coffee table, littered with the remains of their meal, to drop the cookie in her hand. She snapped it open and slid out the little slip of paper.

  “What does it say?” he asked, stacking empty take-out containers and gathering up chopsticks and packets of soy sauce.

  India squinted to read her fortune, the only light in the living room coming from the fireplace: “You have met your true love.”

  “Well?” He dropped the trash into the brown paper bag from the Chinese restaurant and folded the top.

  India popped the cookie into her mouth and thought fast while she chewed and swallowed it. “It says, ‘Your dearest wish will come true.’” She enclosed the little paper in her fist, rose from the sofa, and walked over to the fireplace. Kneeling, she parted the screen and tossed the slip into the flames.

  “Wait,” he said as she started to close the screen. Squatting next to her on the thick rug, he pulled a folded sheet of paper from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to her. “You can feed this to the fire, too.”

  India unfolded the paper, swearing under her breath when she saw what it was. “This week something big goes up” read the photocopied cut-and-paste message. “Get ready. The Firefly.”

  “When did this come?” she asked.

  “This afternoon. Burn it. I don’t even want to feel it in my pocket. I just want to forget about this whole case tonight and enjoy being with you.”

  Enjoy being with you.. . India liked the way that sounded, as if he had come he
re, not to stand guard over her, but for the simple pleasure of her company. Almost as if this were a date, and not police business.

  India wadded the note into a ball and threw it into the fire. She watched the flames consume it, reliving in her mind the strange dream she’d awakened from this morning. She’d been looking down on herself in bed, seeing herself as a lover might see her, her eyes dreamily seductive, her embrace warm and irresistible. Jamie, she’d murmured, only to open her eyes and find him in her room.

  After he’d left, sleep had reclaimed her, ambushing her with the most deeply erotic dream she’d ever had. She woke in a sweat, breathless, overwhelmed, and half convinced it had really happened—that Jamie had come to her, had taken her in his arms and claimed her with an almost savage intensity. She’d lain in bed for some time afterward, shaken and dazed. This was more than desire. This was need.

  “So what is your dearest wish?” Jamie asked as she pulled the screen closed.

  She blinked at him.

  “Your fortune said your dearest wish would come true,” he reminded her. “I wondered what that might be.”

  Firelight danced in his eyes—eyes that seemed to look right through her, into her heart and mind. How much did they see? Returning her gaze to the flames, she said, “I don’t know. To be able to... be touched, I guess.”

  “We’re working on that. We’ll try it again tonight.”

  Without the feather.. . India cleared her throat. “What’s your fortune?”

  “I don’t believe in that stuff, remember?” He stood, taking the brown bag in one hand and a pile of dishes in the other.

  “I’m a terrible hostess. Let me help you with those things.”

  She started to rise, but he said, “I’m a bodyguard, not a guest. Relax.”

  He returned from the kitchen with two cups of black coffee, sat back down next to her on the rug, and handed her one. Cradling the hot mug in her hands, she said, “You don’t believe in any of it? Any kind of paranormal phenomena?”

  He shook his head and blew on his coffee. “I think people tend to be very gullible. Unfortunately, there are plenty of scam artists out there who are more than willing to take advantage of that gullibility for their own gain. And then there are those, like yourself, who truly believe themselves to be possessed of special powers, but...” He paused, clearly uneasy. “India, perhaps we’d best not talk about this.”

  “I can take it. I’m curious. How do you explain all the amazing revelations and predictions psychics come up with?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Partly tricks, and partly deductive reasoning. A smart cold reader can play a mark—”

  “Cold reader?”

  Jamie hesitated, looking vaguely uncomfortable. He sipped his coffee pensively. “Cold reading is when a phony psychic sits down with someone he’s never met before and tells him all about himself, to establish credibility. The good ones are eerily accurate—you’d be amazed. But it’s really all highly refined deductive reasoning, plus, as I said, a few tricks of the trade.”

  “You seem to have made quite a study of the subject.” She swallowed some coffee.

  He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I knew someone once who did it for a living. She’d pick a mark, one with money, and set up a cold read. She was brilliant at it, too—really knew what she was doing.” A cheerless little laugh. “By the end of the session, she’d be telling the poor son of a bitch the name of the cocker spaniel he had when he was three. She was very observant, very charismatic, and she had about a thousand clever little tricks up her sleeve. Once she’d established the guy’s trust, she could milk him dry.”

  “How? They’d give her money?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite a bit of money. Sometimes it was just fees for the readings, but she’d charge whatever the market could bear, and con the marks into coming to her two or three times a week. She’d give them advice, tell them how to invest their money, how to conduct their love lives... They’d grow dependent on her to the point where they couldn’t make a move without consulting her. She’d string a bunch of them along that way, but that wasn’t enough for her. If there was a way to squeeze an extra buck out of a mark, she’d squeeze it. She sold love potions, healing potions, tarot readings, hypnosis sessions, astrological charts...”

  “Sounds as if you knew her pretty well.”

  He hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. “She was my aunt. Her name was Bridey. I lived with her.”

  Surprise flickered across India’s features. “In Ireland, or...”

  He shook his head. “My parents died in an auto accident when I was ten. That’s when I came to Brooklyn and lived with Aunt Bridey.”

  “I’m sorry about your parents. It must have been an interesting experience, though, living with a...”

  “Con artist,” he said clearly, then added grimly, “Yeah, I guess you could call it interesting.”

  India nodded slowly. “So that’s why you think all psychics are phony?”

  He shrugged. “I grew up having it drummed into my head by Aunt Bridey that it was all a scam, that there was no such thing as true ESP. You just had to learn the tricks. One of them was using the police to help establish your credibility. Make it look like you’d solved a case—” he shrugged “—and the suckers would come running, waving fistfuls of cash.”

  “Jamie, I’m not denying that phony psychics exist, but that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as ESP. You’ve got some yourself.”

  His brows drew together momentarily, and then he laughed. “My ‘blue sense’? Don’t believe everything Sam tells you, darlin’.”

  Darlin’. The word sounded very earthy, very Irish, coming from him. Darlin’. It felt like a big hand caressing her heart, leaving her weak and breathless. Ridiculous. He didn’t mean anything by it. He called Sylvie the same thing, for heaven’s sake. Still...

  “I’m not psychic,” Jamie insisted, “just a good detective. I’m observant, and I can put two and two together in my sleep. I see things I’m not even aware I’m seeing, hear things that don’t register. Then suddenly all the pieces snap into place and I... know things. I get feelings about things. I try not to pay too much attention to them. I’d go crazy if I did.”

  “Sam’s right, you do protest too much. You refuse to believe the obvious—that you have a little bit of psychic power. I’ll tell you what’s dangerous, Jamie. It’s dangerous to have a power and not believe in it. Because if you fight it too hard, you’ll end up ignoring things you should pay attention to. Like when you passed that 7-Eleven store and got the feeling something was wrong and stopped a robbery. What if you’d ignored that feeling and not gone in?”

  Jamie sighed heavily and set his cup down on the coffee table, then took India’s out of her hand and did the same with it. He grabbed a throw pillow and positioned it on the rug in front of the fire. “Put your head here and lie down.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Are you always so authoritarian?”

  “Only when I know what’s best for someone. Now, lie down.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant.” She lay on her back, smoothing down her big white T-shirt and crossing her legs, clad in black leggings. The rug, heated from the fireplace, felt delicious beneath her.

  He lay on his side next to her, his head propped in his hand. “Close your eyes,” he said quietly.

  She looked up at him.

  He met her gaze with a look of reassurance. “It’ll be okay.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

  “That’s good,” he said. “Keep doing that. Clear your mind. Let your body float...”

  Jamie’s voice surrounded her, deep and soothing and unhurried. His words, underscored by the crackling of the fire, gradually drew the tension from her body, easing her little by little into a state of almost hypnotic relaxation. She lost all track of time. All she knew for sure was that she felt infinitely warm and weightless and tranquil.

  “Feel the warmth...” he mur
mured. “It’s so warm in front of the fire. The warmth surrounds you. It sinks into you. It becomes part of you, fills you up...” She felt as if she were lying on hot sand beneath a blazing sun.

  “Your skin feels hot... hot to the touch.” A trail of sensation made its way slowly up her left arm, from wrist to elbow, then down again. India didn’t move, although she felt her breath quicken. It was like being under the influence of nitrous oxide at the dentist’s. You knew you were being drilled—you could feel it—but you didn’t care. India knew she was being touched, but he’d brought her to such a state of altered consciousness that she could disassociate herself from that touch, could accept it, could feel it, without absorbing his thoughts.

  “It’s amazing,” she whispered.

  “Shh.”

  She felt it on her throat now, warm rivers of feeling as his fingers traced a path from her sternum to her chin, then up along her jaw on one side, and across one cheek.

  A log popped loudly in the fireplace, and she started, groaning as she felt something reverse itself inside her, felt the TV in her mind flick on.

  “No...”

  “India—”

  She swatted at him reflexively as the image of her own face snapped into focus for a moment, not black-and-white this time, but sepia-tinted with reflected firelight. Her eyes were closed, her mouth parted; she was exquisite.

  “India, open your eyes,” Jamie commanded as she covered her face with her hands.

  The image began to dissolve. “Don’t touch me!”

  “I won’t. Open your eyes. Come on.” She took a deep, shaky breath and uncovered her face. Jamie was staring at her, his eyes filled with concern. “You okay?”

  She nodded and sat up. “Yeah. It just kind of threw me, hearing that log pop. Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, darlin’.”

  India laughed wearily and shook her head.

  “What is it?” Jamie asked.

  She bit her lip. “When you call me that, I feel like Sylvie.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Ah. Well. There are darlin’s, and then there are darlin’s.”