I knew who Ashley was. I knew he was a rock star, another client of Brody’s, and the lead singer in Summer’s new band, the Players.
I also knew he was an ex-boyfriend of hers.
I’d been up early this morning, after only a few hours of sleep, working. Finding out everything I could about my new client. For now, that meant whatever was public knowledge, and her relationship with Ashley Player was no secret.
I’d never met him before today. But he’d seemed genuinely concerned about her in the meeting.
He caught me studying him and nodded at me over Summer’s shoulder, alerting her that I was approaching. She immediately stopped talking.
“’Sup,” he said to me, as her back straightened. He took a drag off the joint that had been dangling from his mouth.
Summer half-turned, forcing out a smile in my direction. “I’m out. Have a day,” she said to Ashley. Then she kissed him on the cheek and strut away, heading down the driveway to her car.
“What, you’re not even gonna wish me a good day?” he called after her.
“I wish you whatever kind of day you dream of,” she tossed back over her shoulder.
He chuckled, and his eyes met mine as I walked past him. That look said, Good luck, buddy.
I tailed Summer right over to her bronze Mercedes-Benz and slipped my hand around hers, just as she tugged on the door handle.
She stiffened.
“Allow me,” I said.
“Thanks, but I can open a damn door.” Her hand slipped away as I opened the door anyway. Then she got into the driver’s seat.
I leaned over the open door. “I meant, I’ll drive you.”
She tossed her purse in back and fixed her gaze on me. “Uh, no, you won’t.”
“It’s my job, Summer.”
“That may be. But this is my car. I drive it.” And with that, she yanked the door shut.
I glanced at Ashley, who was still standing by, watching this play out. He smirked at me.
I walked around the Benz as she started the car, opened the passenger door and slid in.
“Excuse me?” Summer gaped at me as I shut the door and did up my seatbelt. “Did I miss the part where I offered you a ride somewhere?”
“No offer necessary.”
“So, you just let yourself into a woman’s car without asking?”
“If that woman is my client and I’m on duty, yes. I think Ashley is waiting for you to pull out.”
She glanced up. He was standing beside his truck; he flicked the remains of his joint into the grass and grinned at her.
She gave him the finger.
“Fine.” She started up and backed us out of the driveway, gunning it unnecessarily, which I assumed was for my benefit. “But don’t take this as an admission that I wanted to hire you. You saw what happened in there. I was strong-armed into it. The guys are in a panic about nothing.”
“How much did you smoke with him?”
She looked at me. “What?”
“How much pot did you just smoke?”
“Just one puff, Dad. And I promise, I didn’t inhale.”
She gunned it up the street, cranking the music she had playing. Some dance song about… dancing. And getting wasted.
And more dancing.
According to the display on her dash it was Lady Gaga.
Then she proceeded to ignore me as she drove us back into Vancouver. She hummed along to her incredibly loud music, pretty much giving her seat a lap dance while she drove, and not because she was in a fantastic mood. Nope. She was doing her best to send me the message that I was in her world now, we were doing things her way—and I’d better stay the fuck out of her way.
Because she still needed to believe she didn’t need me.
But she was wrong about that.
When the next song kicked in, she turned the volume up even more.
“Do you think you could turn it up any louder?” I said loudly.
“What?” she shouted exaggeratedly.
I reached for the volume and nudged it down.
She rolled her eyes, and I might’ve sworn she muttered something like Killjoy under her breath.
“So, where can I take you?” she asked me.
“Wherever you’re going.”
“I can drop you at home. Where do you live?”
“I’ll come with you.”
“I’m just going home.”
I said nothing. I figured we’d already established—when some lowlife tried to break into her house last night—that “home” wasn’t safe, as it was.
Summer kept glancing at me, throwing me annoyed, disbelieving looks as she drove. “What, you’re just gonna sit around my living room while I eat lunch and do yoga?”
Right. Because watching her bend over in yoga wear was a great idea.
I’d already had my theories about her body last night, when I saw her in that silk robe. The tight black pants she was wearing right now only confirmed it and then some: the woman was sexy as hell.
It was probably a better idea if I looked at her as little as humanly possible.
Anyway, I wasn’t being paid to to look at her. My job was to look at her surroundings.
“I’ll take a better look around the property,” I told her. “And Brody has some guys coming to scope out the house for your new alarm system later. I can let them in and take care of it.”
“For how long?”
“You don’t need to worry about it. I’ll make myself as invisible as I can.”
“I’ll be working in my studio all night.”
“That’s fine.”
“It’s gonna be boring as fuck,” she informed me.
“You’re not required to entertain me.”
“Mm-hmm. So you just literally follow me around now?”
“There’s a lot more to it than that. But essentially, from your point of view, yes.”
“From my point of you, you’ve just gotten hella annoying. Just so you know.”
She was checking me out, waiting for a reaction.
I didn’t give her one.
I was starting to get the feeling she didn’t actually dislike me as much as she was pretending to.
Her eyes said something else. Something a lot… flirtier.
But there was really no place for that here.
“I’ll do my best to remain unobtrusive and non-annoying,” I told her. “I don’t think I ever annoyed my clients before. You can ask them, if it makes you feel better.”
“Oh, clearly you come highly recommended. Brody and Jude were totally crushing on your skills back there.” She glanced at me, waiting for a reaction again. “I just don’t particularly want anyone breathing down my neck. It’s nothing personal.”
“No offense taken.”
“Ugh. Why do you have to be so cool about it?”
I glanced at her. “Excuse me?”
“Kind of makes me like you. Which is also annoying.”
Okay. She was definitely flirting with me.
And what was even more annoying was that I was kind of enjoying it.
But I told her, point-blank, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t flirt with me anymore.”
She gaped at me for a moment, but recovered quickly.
“Yeah… that’s a no-can-do situation,” she said. “If your keen observational skills haven’t picked up on it yet, I flirt with everyone.”
“Everyone?”
She sighed. “Not everyone. Almost everyone. Either way, do not think you’re getting special treatment.”
I said nothing. But Christ, this job was getting… interesting.
How long had it been since I’d been laid?
Suddenly, inconveniently, stupidly, that was the only thought in my head. And my dick was pretty keen to remind me it had been a while. A long while.
Couple of months…
Okay, several months. Half a year, maybe. Who was counting?
Wasn’t my fault I hadn’t met anyone who’d blown my
doors off in a while.
Or maybe it was.
I looked at my new client, trying not to make it obvious. She had her hair and makeup done, and she looked just as good as she did without makeup. Just more… glamorous. Dangerous. She looked damn good driving her car, in her weird but probably fashion forward muppet-fur-looking electric-blue jacket.
I wouldn’t even let myself look at those black pants or the boots again. Fully clothed from neck to toe, the woman was walking sex.
She knew it, too.
I tried to shift gears, focus on what was important here—her safety.
“Maybe you want to slow down,” I cautioned her. She had a bit of a lead foot on the gas pedal. We were merging into heavy traffic on the Lions Gate Bridge into downtown, and I’d already clocked that her driving style was a bit… reckless.
“Or maybe I don’t,” she said.
I stifled a sigh.
I was plenty accustomed to clients giving me push-back. Especially the ones who were used to getting their own way in life, on their own terms. Trying to convince them that they needed me was both a frustrating and mind-numbingly boring recurring struggle—and one of the main reasons I’d planned to retire my bodyguard services.
So I could focus instead on consulting and co-running my company with my two partners.
Our specialty at Sentinel Security Group was VIP protection, and my last ongoing close protection detail had been for a trust fund kid—fully grown—with the personality traits of a spoiled toddler. By the end of it, I’d become so tired and so fucking bored of being in constant friction with a spoiled princess that I’d sworn it would be my last assignment.
When Summer gave me static, though… it was far from boring.
It was oddly electrifying.
Sitting next to her, I felt the intense energy of her presence… It was coming off of her like a static charge, and it crackled in the air between us. I could feel my whole body wanting to tune in to it, even as I remained outwardly calm. In control.
I never lost control.
And I did not like my body betraying me this way.
My dress pants felt too fucking tight. I definitely needed to swing by my place at some point, change into something more comfortable.
And maybe jack off in the shower.
Maybe Andre was right. I should’ve screwed Tamara’s friend with the long legs last night.
Of course, if I’d done that… I may never have picked up that call from Brody and I wouldn’t even be here right now. Some other asshole would be in my place, one of my colleagues or one of my competitors, and that would not fucking do.
“So…” Summer kept throwing me glances as she drove, probably wondering why I’d gone conspicuously mute. “Who’s coming to my house to do the alarm thing? Maddox?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Maddox. He’ll be bringing another guy with him. They’ll be prepping to put in the new alarm system tomorrow.”
“Which I didn’t actually approve of,” she pointed out. “How much is that gonna cost me?”
Totally not in my job description to answer that. Maddox didn’t work for me, and his services didn’t go on my bill. But I’d advised her that she needed the alarm system, and I wanted to put her at ease. “Maddox owes Brody a favor. It’s a currency with these guys.”
“These guys?”
“The Kings. You know, bikers.” Surely I didn’t have to explain to her who or what the West Coast Kings were. She seemed to know Jude well enough. “Anything that’s going to actually cost you, I’m sure Brody will keep you informed.”
“Right. Well, just so we’re clear. I don’t think owing bikers anything is a great strategy, longevity wise.”
I totally agreed with her on that point. But I assured her, “It’s not like that. You don’t owe anything to anyone, and you’re not going to.”
“Uh-huh. And how do I know some angry biker isn’t gonna show up at my door in the middle of the night demanding money, and threatening to yank my new alarm system out?”
“If he does, he can yank it out of my spleen first.”
She eyed me. “So, that’s it? Brody hired you to protect me and now you’re willing to bleed out on my living room floor? Just like that?”
“That’s the job.”
“Maybe you should get yourself a new job. This one doesn’t seem conducive to that longevity thing we just talked about.”
“It’s not that bad. Most of my time is spent looking for threats that don’t actually exist.”
“Okay. So when you establish there’s no threat at my place, how do you get home? You left your car at Brody’s.”
“I’ll have one of my guys drop it at your place for me.”
“And will you be having your mail forwarded there, too?”
I let that one go by.
“When will this car delivery take place?” she pressed.
“When someone has time.”
“And… when are you planning to leave my place?”
“Whenever you do.”
“And if I don’t leave?”
“Then I’ll stay there, as necessary.”
“What do you mean, as necessary? When is it necessary?”
“Whenever Brody, Jude and I feel you need twenty-four-hour protection. Right now, that’s the case.”
She kept staring at me, in-between glimpses at the road, and I kept tensing when she applied the brakes too late for comfort. I was really gonna have to convince her to let me do the driving.
“Okay…” she said, sounding frustrated. “Since you guys don’t seem to be getting this, the police arrested Blair Sanchuk. They took him to jail.”
“For now. And the Attorney General’s office will be asked to charge him with a crime. They’ll decide if he should be charged, and if not, he’ll be released faster than you can say jurisprudence.”
Summer gaped at me. “But he tried to break into my house.”
“Allegedly.”
“I was there. He climbed onto my balcony like a psycho.”
“He didn’t break anything.”
“He didn’t exactly knock on the front door like a sane person either.”
“Yeah, well, that’s how it goes. Unless you request that restraining order.” I gave it to her straight, because she was a big girl.
And for my efforts, she glared at me, like I’d personally invented the Canadian legal system.
“It’s your best means of protecting yourself,” I added.
Besides having me glued to your side.
“A restraining order? Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
I’d spent some time this morning brushing up on the ins and outs of restraining orders in this province. The one that applied to Summer’s situation was called a peace bond, and having one in place would ensure that the consequences would be severe if Sanchuk came near her again. My partner, Naveen, had already called in to our contacts inside the Vancouver Police Department to check on Sanchuk’s status. Brody had talked to his lawyers this morning, and I’d been on a conference call with him and Jude for like an hour before Summer came down from her bedroom.
After gathering all the information I could, so far, I definitely wasn’t under any illusions that Blair Sanchuk was safely out of the picture, never to be seen again.
A restraining order wouldn’t necessarily keep him away, either. But it would insure a quick response from police and criminal charges if he defied the order.
“You really think that’s necessary?” Summer pressed. She seemed to be turning it over in her head, but at least she sounded concerned now, like she was taking this conversation seriously.
“You don’t have much control over what happens to him in the system if they charge him with, what, attempted break and enter? He didn’t have a weapon on him or verbally threaten to harm you. Right?”
“Right,” she said quietly.
“So, a restraining order can do more for you than some minor charges that could get dropped, e
specially if he can swing a good lawyer.”
“You think he’ll show up at my house again?”
“If he does, and you’ve got the restraining order, the police will arrest him again and this time he’ll be charged in criminal court.”
Or maybe I’ll accidentally stab him.
“And in the meantime… your plan is to just move in with me?” She was looking at me again. She seemed to be paying more attention to me than the road. “You’re gonna bring your jammies over and everything?”
I nodded toward the front of the car. “Summer.” She hit the brakes as someone cut her off. We were jammed up in traffic on West Georgia, pretty bumper-to-bumper. “Keep your eyes on the road. Do you want to turn the music down?”
“No, I don’t.” She turned it up a bit.
Fuck. Electricity.
My dick actually throbbed when she defied me like that.
What the fuck was going on here?
I tried to tell myself it was the dress pants. They were just too damn tight.
“I don’t wear jammies,” I muttered.
“What?” She looked at me and the car swerved a little; she just about sideswiped another car. I reached and grabbed the wheel.
“Park,” I ordered.
She brought us to the curb, actually listening to me for once, and I released the steering wheel. She’d parked us in a no-stopping zone, so I told her, “Put your hazards on.”
She flicked them on and looked at me, her pale-blue eyes alert and charged like electric sockets.
I looked away. “You shouldn’t drive when you’re distracted,” I told her, pretending to watch traffic.
“I’m not distracted,” she insisted. “I’m not scared of Blair Sanchuk.”
That was a lie. She was scared, and she had reason to be.
I met her eyes again. “That’s not the distraction I meant,” I added bluntly.
Her sexy lips parted as her mouth drifted open.
Yeah. So now she knew that I knew she was getting flustered—over me—and it was affecting her driving. And yes, I was calling her on it.
Maybe I’d be flustered too, if I wasn’t so dead inside.
But flirting with her wasn’t my objective. I was here to insure her safety. I didn’t need any distractions.
Her face and her ass were distractions enough.
Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3) Page 8
