A man answered the door. Maybe late-twenties. Messy dark hair, partly shaved on one side. Fairly built, though not as built as me. Dark, casual clothes and an air of fuck off about him.
He immediately looked me over, head-to-toe. My dress pants and button-up shirt were dark, too, but looked a lot less like I’d just picked them up off a semi-clean floor and raced here on a motorcycle.
“Ronan Sterling,” I said, introducing myself and offering my right hand. He took it. “Brody Mason called me in. This is Andre.” I nodded toward Andre.
“Maddox,” the man said, then extended his hand to Andre. They shook, and Maddox stepped aside to let us in. “That’s Summer,” he said, indicating the only other person in the room.
It was an open living space, living room/dining area/kitchen, and she leaned against the kitchen counter, talking on her phone in a hushed voice. Dark-haired woman in a silk robe. I couldn’t see her face.
“Homeowner?” I asked.
“Yup.” Maddox shut the door behind us and locked it. He got points for that, but I looked him over carefully.
His motorcycle boots had been discarded inside the door. I’d glimpsed the image on the back of his hoodie, the distinctive black-on-black king of spades design, featuring a skeletal king, that was the insignia of the West Coast Kings motorcycle club. Matched the one that was painted on the gas tank of the Harley outside. Which meant that this guy was a patched member of the outlaw motorcycle club that Jude Grayson, Brody’s head of security, also belonged to.
Boyfriend of the homeowner? Or maybe her bodyguard? I knew Jude often hired his MC brothers to work his security crew.
But Maddox didn’t offer up that information.
“Did VPD make an arrest?” I asked him.
“Oh, yeah. Summer said the police dog tore a real strip off the guy. They hauled him out of here pretty quick.”
“Did he get into the house?”
“Nope. Tried, I guess…” He lowered his voice as Summer headed over.
She was off her phone, and I extended my hand to her. “Ronan Sterling. I’m an associate of Brody Mason.”
She slipped her soft hand into mine as our eyes locked. She was a beautiful woman, but it wasn’t even her features, exactly, that I noticed first. It was the way she walked, or something.
Then I really saw her face.
No makeup… tired, pale-blue eyes. Amazing cheekbones. And the world’s sexiest pair of lips smiled softly at me. The smile didn’t reach her eyes, though.
“Summer Sorensen,” she said softy.
I shook her hand firmly but gently. Then she folded her arms at her waist.
“Brody called me in,” I informed her, in case she hadn’t caught any of my brief conversation with Maddox. She seemed tense, guarded, which wasn’t surprising. She’d just experienced a security violation, and Andre and I were large, male strangers now standing in her home in the middle of the night. So I spoke to her in my most soothing and non-intimidating tone of voice, the one I generally saved for old ladies when I helped them load groceries into their car. “I’m a private security professional with Sentinel Security Group. This is one of my employees, Andre.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Andre said, doing his best impression of a sober version of himself, as Summer shook his hand.
“I spoke with Brody just a few minutes ago,” I told her. “He’s driving here right now. I’ll wait with you until he arrives, if that’s alright with you.”
“Sure,” she said. But she just stood there.
“I was just gonna take a look around the house,” Maddox said. “Make sure the doors and windows are secure.”
Summer nodded distractedly. “Thank you.”
Maddox headed off down a hall.
“Why don’t we sit down,” I offered, when Summer just looked at me.
“Right,” she said. “How about in the kitchen? I was just going to make some tea.” She turned to lead the way… and my eyes drifted down, over her curves in the silk robe.
So sue me, she was gorgeous. And it was my job to notice… well, everything.
“Dibs,” Andre muttered behind me.
I turned and leveled him with a hard look. “Inappropriate.”
He tore his gaze from Summer’s ass and met my eyes. And whatever he saw on my face made him smirk.
“Go check out the yard,” I growled, quietly. “Make sure everything looks secure out there.”
“Right. Sorry, it’s the whiskey.” He reached for the door.
“And, Andre? If you don’t find anything… just stay out there until I say otherwise.”
The smirk spread. “Sure, boss.” He pulled up the flashlight app on his phone and beamed it out into the dark as he went outside.
I locked the door behind him.
I wasn’t totally sure if he wanted dibs on the woman or on the job. Or both.
But either way, he could fuck right off.
Chapter Four
Ronan
Summer was getting things out of her cupboards as I slipped off my leather jacket and crossed the living room toward her.
The remnants of a party were scattered throughout the room.
Half-empty cocktail glasses, beer bottles, a feather boa on the floor. The counter that partially separated the living room from the kitchen, which would’ve maybe been a breakfast bar, had been converted into an actual bar, the lower cabinets stocked with liquor bottles.
I pulled out a stool at the bar, draping my jacket over the back and sitting down to face her. If I didn’t hover, maybe a little less chance I’d come across as intimidating. Or annoying.
Summer glanced at me as I sat down, but didn’t seem to really see me.
“So,” I asked her gently, “you alright?”
“Getting there. Would you like some tea?”
“Thank you, but it’s not necessary. Really.”
“I’m making some either way. Decaf. Do you like mint? Lemon ginger? Vanilla?” She tried to smile but it felt forced.
Obviously, she’d been woken up by the attempted break-in and she was shaken. Who wouldn’t be? But she was definitely trying to treat me like a guest rather than a security professional.
I’d been treated this way before.
My presence often made people uncomfortable. Usually the people who needed my services the most were the ones who didn’t want to need me.
Or who hadn’t yet accepted that they did need me.
She seemed determined to serve me something, so I said, “Mint sounds fine.”
She filled the kettle with water, filled the little mesh basket in the glass teapot with tea leaves. The dark robe she was wearing had a pale pattern of pink flowers on it. Looked expensive. It ended mid-thigh… She had fantastic, toned legs, bare feet.
She wasn’t wearing any jewelry. No wedding ring.
Not that I was looking. I just noticed things.
“Would you like something to eat?” she offered.
“No, thank you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Really, it’s too late for me. Thank you.”
“Sugar?” She looked directly at me, her pale-blue eyes holding mine.
“Please.”
I watched as she got out the sugar and brought it over to the bar where I was sitting. Then she looked at me again. She smoothed her hands over her hair, then tightened the sash of her robe. Now that she was waiting for the water to boil, she didn’t seem to know what to do with herself.
She exhaled. “I’m trying not to freak out. Is it obvious?”
I chose my words carefully, aware that she was possibly looking to me, a stranger, to make her feel safe in her own home. It was a difficult, uncomfortable position for anyone to be in. But beyond that… something told me this woman wasn’t accustomed to being victimized. Or asking for help just to get through the night.
“It’s normal to feel like you don’t know what to feel when this kind of thing happens,” I said. “It can take a while to process. It
’s also normal to feel a whole lot of things at once. Scared. Angry. Confused.”
“Is that obvious, too?” Again, she tried to smile, but fell short.
“Professional observation.”
“Well, it definitely feels like the universe ripped its cosmic rug out from under my feet. My night ended with a nice little party with friends, a hot shower… a creep climbing onto my balcony…”
“What did the police have to say about it?” I asked, trying to steer her away from that, to the action that had been taken.
“Not much. They mostly asked questions.”
“And if you’re tired of questions right now, I understand.” Brody had mentioned a possible ongoing situation, which meant he was thinking about hiring one of my guys to beef up her security; that meant the more information I had for a security assessment, the better. But it definitely wouldn’t hurt right now to sit back and not press. Put her in a position of control. Give her the choice. “If you want to talk about what happened… Sometimes it helps to go over it while it’s still fresh.”
The water boiled in the kettle. Summer went to fill the teapot. She seemed to be considering what I’d said.
“Okay,” she said, bringing the teapot over to the bar. Then she took a deep breath. “I was sleeping and something woke me up. I wasn’t sure what it was. I thought someone was in the house. A friend of mine, I mean. I’d had friends over tonight, and I was kind of half-asleep. I thought maybe one of them had stayed over. But I guess I knew that wasn’t true. I just had a weird feeling.” She met my eyes briefly. “I can’t explain it. It was just a feeling that something was wrong.”
“Sometimes feelings are there to tell you things you can’t otherwise know. Instincts.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “So I came downstairs and looked around. And then I saw him out there, through the window.” She pointed into the glass sunroom off the back of the living room.
I could see right into it from my seat at the bar; it was walled in windows on three sides, looking out into her dark backyard.
“He grabbed onto the wall, there,” she said, pointing at the side wall of the sunroom. “He started climbing the wall, holding onto the edges of the windows. He wasn’t all that quiet about it.” Her eyes met mine again. “I don’t know what he was thinking.”
Unfortunately… I had some idea what he was thinking.
I’d been working as a security professional for almost two decades. Not only as a bodyguard, but I’d managed security teams for a lot of high-profile clients, from rock stars to politicians. I’d worked alongside everyone from city police to the RCMP to CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I’d worked private investigations and testified in court. And I could confidently say that I had at least some understanding of the criminal mind.
Anyway, it really didn’t take a degree in forensic psychology to know that a man climbing the wall of a woman’s house to break into her bedroom in the middle of the night wasn’t delivering roses.
But I was hardly gonna say that to her right now.
“While I was on the phone with 911,” she went on, “I watched him through the windows. He was climbing up onto the balcony. The one off my bedroom. That’s where they caught him.”
“The police got here fast?”
“It didn’t feel fast, but it was. I really need to make a donation to their dog unit.” She poured me some tea and slid the mug in front of me. “They were amazing.”
“I’m not surprised. One of the top priorities for the canine unit is responding to crimes in progress, like break and enters. I’ve seen them in action, too. They don’t mess around.”
“No kidding.” She’d poured herself a tea, and came to sit on a stool two over from mine. She glanced into the sunroom. “They scared the shit out of him. The dog attacked him, pinned him against the wall. I saw the whole thing.”
“God bless the police dogs of the world.”
She smiled for the first time, genuinely, and laughed uneasily. “It was pretty badass. I think I was still too terrified to fully appreciate it.” She studied me. “Do you see this kind of thing a lot?”
“Unfortunately, it’s pretty common. One of my partners is an ex-cop.”
She listened intently, and I wondered what I could say to put her at ease. She’d remained calm, collected while relaying the event, but I couldn’t be sure what she was feeling. I definitely didn’t want to add to her trauma in any way.
“There’s no reason to think he would’ve harmed you,” I told her carefully, “even if he found you in the house. More likely, he would’ve done exactly what he did when the cops arrived. Run like hell. He probably didn’t expect anyone to be home. What they do is smash the window and walk away, wait for a moment to see if anyone comes, and if no one appears, then they enter. Grab a laptop or jewelry… Usually they’re just looking for whatever they can trade in for quick cash.”
That was true enough. If all this was was a standard break and enter. I wasn’t so sure.
But until we knew more, there was no reason to alarm her.
My gaze drifted down to her lips. She was chewing a little on the bottom one.
“It likely wasn’t personal,” I added, gently. Maybe that wasn’t true. I really didn’t know yet. But right now, my main objective was to make sure she was safe, and making her feel safe was part of that.
I reached for the sugar bowl, and she watched as I stirred a shitload of it into my tea; I liked it sweet. When I set down my spoon, she was staring at me.
Since she held my gaze, I held hers.
“This is so rude of me,” she said, “but I’ve forgotten your name.”
“It’s Ronan.”
“So, this is what you do, Ronan? Drive around the city at night, waiting for calls from damsels in distress and rushing to the rescue?”
“Believe it or not, I’ve never rescued a damsel in my off hours before.”
“You got here pretty fast.”
“When Brody Mason calls, I answer.”
“Oh. Right,” she said, like she’d forgotten Brody had sent me. She was probably halfway in shock.
The adrenaline dump from fight, flight or faint would be fading off. Calling 911 and dealing with all the people in her house was her fight, and at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if all she really wanted was a glass of wine and to sleep for a couple of days.
I eased back in my seat, tearing my gaze away from her blue eyes. I took a sip of my tea and tried to focus. I realized I’d been staring at her a lot.
“Did he trip the alarm when he was climbing on the windows?” I asked her, wondering when Brody was getting here.
“You mean the house alarm? I don’t have one.”
Okay… That struck me as odd.
Brody said she was a musician, and she must’ve been a high-profile one, if she was one of his clients. Brody Mason only managed seriously famous rock stars. But she didn’t have a locked gate on her property, or a home alarm system?
“What about your personal security? Is Maddox your bodyguard?”
“Maddox?” she said, like she was confused by that. Or like she wasn’t even sure who I was talking about. Then she glanced off, down a hallway where I could faintly hear him moving around. “Oh. No. I just met him. I mean, I think I’ve met him at a few events. He works for Brody, and Jude Grayson. Do you know Jude?”
“I do. Brody and Jude often consult with me, and they contract my guys for Dirty events.”
“Right. You said you run a security firm? I’m sorry, I’m a little out of it tonight.”
“No apology necessary.”
I sipped my tea, trying to look unconcerned, to give her the feeling that everything was under control here. I wasn’t gonna drill her with questions right now, and I definitely didn’t want to raise her concerns any more than they were already raised. But something wasn’t adding up.
Didn’t she have a bodyguard?
Who was this woman?
“How long have yo
u worked with Brody?” I asked her, trying to connect the dots without outright admitting I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t want to insult her if she really was famous.
“I signed with him just a couple of months ago, actually. But I’ve known him for years. And I work a lot of Dirty events, too. Maybe we’ve crossed paths somewhere?” She studied me as I studied her.
And then it hit me.
“Are you, by any chance, DJ Summer?”
She smiled a little. “I am.”
And it all fell into place. I knew of her, by her stage name, but I didn’t know her.
“We’ve never met,” I told her. “I’ve actually hired out guys to events you’ve played. But I’ve never been at those events myself.”
“Oh. Cool.” She gazed at me, looking… impressed? “So, you’ve been protecting me all this time? And I just didn’t know it?”
“Well—”
I was cut off by a knock at the front door, and Summer jumped to her feet. I put up a hand to stop her.
“Shit,” she breathed. “I’m jumpy.”
“Allow me.” I crossed to the door and took a look through the frosted window alongside. I let Brody in, and shook his hand.
“Ronan. Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Anytime.”
He toed off his shoes and went straight over to Summer, who gratefully accepted the hug he offered.
“Jesus, why didn’t you just call everyone,” she teased, but I could tell she was relieved to have him here. “Did you get a hold of Ash?”
“He didn’t answer his phone.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed, and as I watched her cling to Brody, it became brutally obvious how shaken she really was.
Brody said something in her ear I couldn’t hear, and I caught his eye. I pointed over my shoulder in the direction of a hallway and he nodded.
I slipped away to take a look through the house.
The main floor sprawled in two directions off the living room. One hall led along the front of the house, to three guest bedrooms and a washroom. On the other side of the house, the other hall led behind the garage, to a music room that was probably originally a bedroom but was now dominated by a set of massive speakers. Beyond that was the door to the basement and a flight of stairs leading upstairs.
Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3) Page 4
