Under Daddy's Protection

by Serafine Laveaux

  Tokyo? He’d been thinking more along the lines of Los Angeles or maybe Costa Rica. There were always lots of jobs coming out of Central America. Then again, Tokyo would be the perfect place to hide Nikki and a week would be plenty of time to track down the bastard who put a hit on her. The only issue now was clearing a travel companion. The agency would see the travel receipts and know he hadn’t gone alone. When the client was footing the bill approval was required, and he knew he would get it, but it would be yet another curiosity for Eleanor to consider. Other than using freelancers for research, Gage always worked alone. “I will be traveling with a pet. Will that be an issue?”

  More silence. Gage closed his eyes as he awaited her response. In his business, pet could mean anything from a goldfish to a hostage. Eleanor had been around during the dog fiasco and knew he’d sworn off furry friends. “A pet,” she repeated. “Interesting. Did you just get it?” Gage didn’t reply, and hoped she wouldn’t press. “I don’t suppose it’s another dog?” she pried.

  “A kitten,” he hedged, “too young to be left alone that long.”

  This time the silence was deafening. A guilty voice in Gage’s head began to shrilly scream that she knew, and suddenly he remembered the photo from the contract posting. Nikki wearing one of her usual crazy outfits and equally over the top wigs, and her signature kitten ears. Had Eleanor looked at the posting and seen them? He’d be a fool to believe she hadn’t but would she make the connection?

  “How sweet,” she said at last. “I hope she won’t cause you as much trouble as the dog did.” She’d definitely made the connection. Even if she hadn’t called the kitten ‘she,’ the warning in her voice was unmistakable. Gage held his breath but she didn’t press further. After confirming the Tokyo job she assured him he would get a vacation package brochure in his inbox within the hour, then hung up.

  It arrived in less than five minutes and he skimmed it quickly. The contract was for a single hit, the style of which was left entirely to his discretion although the client requested the target be left where it could be found. One hundred thousand to be wired to his account upon acceptance of the job, another one hundred thousand upon completion. All travel expenses would be fully reimbursed upon completion. Delivery was expected within seven days of hire, any additional time required would need client approval. The timeline was tight. They would need to fly out no later than Tuesday and the flight itself was almost twenty-four hours. That left him less than forty-eight hours to get new identities, passports, tickets, as well as pick up necessities for Nikki. He’d only grabbed a few changes of clothing from her place. Hopefully she could order what she needed online and have it shipped overnight.

  The reality of what he was going to do sank in. There was a reason he lived and worked alone. Taking Nikki along on a job was utter madness. She would be a huge distraction that could cause him to make mistakes. Even worse, if something went wrong on his end, she might be in even greater danger than she already was. Much of the time would require leaving her alone at their hotel, causing his attention to be divided between the job and her. Already she’d broken the first rule of staying out of sight by trying to sneak out for snacks. From what he’d seen of her so far she was barely an adult in her own world. In his she might as well have been a blind child. The blame lay squarely on his own shoulders for not explaining the rules to her, but he would rectify that mistake now. Failure to do so could be disastrous.

  Gage found her still watching TV. He shut it off, ignoring her squeals of protest, and stepped in front of it. “We need to get a few things straight,” he began. “I need to set some ground rules and you need to obey them. Is that understood?”

  She gave a sulky nod, clearly still miffed about her earlier scolding.

  “The best thing for you right now is to be off the radar. That means no contact with anyone you know, for any reason, until I say it’s ok. Nod if you agree.”

  This time the nod came with a dramatic eye roll and heavy sigh.

  Gage couldn’t believe how she’d gone from panic crying and near catatonia to bratty eye rolling and back talking in such a short amount of time. He’d had contracts try patience less than her. “Good,” he continued. “Second, do not use plastic. No debit cards, no credit cards, no prepaid cards, no plastic financial transactions of any kind until I say it’s ok.”

  Another nod followed by another eye roll. This had to stop.

  “If you roll your eyes at me one more time, I am going to spank you. Hard.”

  “You wouldn’t!” she squeaked in disbelief.

  “Try me,” he retorted, pleased to see she looked suitably mortified at the idea. Not that he would mind bending her over his knee and spanking her pretty backside until both cheeks glowed red. If their situation were less dire, he would welcome another eye roll just to have the excuse. “I’m risking my life to keep you safe. I need you to obey me and I won’t have you disrespecting me, especially not in my own home.”

  “I’m sorry, Gage,” she said softly. “I know I owe you my life right now. I promise I’ll behave.” She came over and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head against his chest. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Her unexpected about-face caught him off guard and he hugged her back without even thinking. Just when he was ready to spank her into the next week, she turned around and melted his heart. “Well,” he said as he stroked her hair and wondered how they were going to get everything taken care of in time to fly out. “I don’t suppose you speak Japanese?”

  Chapter Eight

  When Nikki was little, her mother would ask if she had ants in her pants. Quietly sitting still had never been one of her talents and getting older had done little to settle her down. The roller coaster ride she’d been on since Friday night had her quivering with pent-up energy and she didn’t think she’d sat still for a single minute. The last couple of days had been especially exciting as they’d gotten ready for their trip to Japan. She’d had a passport but Gage told her they couldn’t use it for the trip. Instead he’d taken her to visit a guy who lived in his building, just three floors down. Gage had made her promise she wouldn’t speak unless spoken to because the man there was very nervous and easy to upset.

  She had kept her word and said nothing, but it had been difficult. Every square inch of the residence was crammed full of interesting things to look at. In the center of the main living area was a massive cage, and inside that were dozens of computers and screens as well as tons of electronic equipment she didn’t recognize. Overhead she spied surveillance cameras around almost every corner, all of them tracking her every movement. Up until now she’d thought people like this only existed in crime shows on TV. If Gage hadn’t made her swear to keep her hands to herself, she would have been poking and prying through every nook and cranny to see what she could find.

  The visit turned out to be more fun than she’d expected. The man they’d came to meet turned out to be a skinny guy barely out of his teens, with gangly arms and a well chewed pencil hanging out of his mouth. After conferring with Gage about what was needed, he had Nikki pose for photos in front of an enormous green screen for nearly an hour, having her change her clothing and hairstyle numerous times. Gage explained he needed lots of different photos in order to create a believable online presence to go with her new identity. That way if someone asked her what her name was, they could do a quick look online and see a social media profile that matched. He did the same for Gage, though with considerably fewer outfit changes. When he was satisfied he had enough to work with, he shooed them out the door, assuring them everything would be completed by the next day.

  By Monday morning it was all taken care of, and Nikita Koshka, the twenty-four-year-old bartender from Miami, was no more. Now she was Carolyn Fairbanks, a fifteen-year-old girl from Houston, Texas, traveling with her father, an insurance salesman named George Fairbanks. Although Gage had plenty of alternate identities, he told her they would blend in better if they posed as a father a
nd daughter so he’d picked up a new one as well. Above all, he made sure she knew how important it was for her to not get mixed up about who she was. If anyone asked, she had to be able to answer without thinking or hesitating. To help her remember, Gage played the ‘Who Am I’ game with her at random intervals.

  “Who are you?” he asked her.

  “Carolyn Fairbanks.”

  “Where are you from, Miss Fairbanks?”

  After the eighth time Nikki had started rolling her eyes at the questions. “I’m fifteen. I’m a freshman at Seven Lakes High School in Houston, Texas. I hate school, it sucks. I live with my daddy, George Fairbanks. He’s an insurance salesman who asks me stupid questions all the time.”

  That response earned her a raised eyebrow but it didn’t deter Gage from the game. “What about your mom?”

  Nikki tried to look sad. “I never met her. She left when I was little.”

  “Who am I?”

  That question always made her giggle. “You’re Daddy!”

  Calling him Daddy came surprisingly easy for her. She barely knew Gage and thought she should have felt at least a little weird calling him that but after a few times it felt right. Not that he looked like any daddy she’d ever seen. Even when he was relaxing with a cup of coffee Nikki thought he looked like the most dangerous man alive. Lucky for her, he was on her side.

  The first leg of the flight was a short hop from Fort Lauderdale to New York’s JFK terminal, and that was the one that Gage seemed most concerned about, but they’d gotten through airport security without a hitch. The only hiccup came when she tried to take her bottle of water through TSA. Nikki liked that bottle because it had the flip-top cap, but the TSA agent said she had to throw it away. She was about to whine that it was only water and no one ever blew up a plane with that, but a sideways glance from Gage warned her to let it go. Reluctantly she handed it over, but after they got through and Gage was looking the other way, she turned and stuck her tongue out at the agent who took it.

  The flight to JFK allowed her the perfect opportunity to study Gage up close. If she’d found him sexy brooding in his dark corner at the club, now he was positively drool-worthy. The shadows at the club had kept his face hidden to the point she’d only imagined the finer details, like the color of his eyes or the cut of his hair. The time she’d spent at his place had given her a much more delicious view. His habit of walking bare-chested around the penthouse had left her squirming in her seat more than once, but now it was his face she found fascinating, particularly his eyes. She’d always imagined he’d had dark brown eyes but in fact they were a light gray framed by thick black lashes that would make any girl envious. Cyla called men like him ‘panty wetters,’ and when he turned to look into her eyes Nikki understood exactly what her friend had meant.

  It wasn’t just his looks that made her weak in the knees either, though they certainly had a hand in it. He had flaws that would relegate him to supporting roles of bad guys if he’d been an actor but somehow they made him that much more irresistible to her. A long, faded scar ran down the side of his jaw, and he had what she always called designer stubble, that carefully trimmed facial hair that wasn’t a beard but wasn’t just a five o’clock shadow any longer either. Normally she hated it, but on him it worked. She’d never thought of the bad boy as her type, but she couldn’t think of any other way to describe him. Even now with him fully dressed and the two of them on a plane surrounded by other travelers, she couldn’t ignore her attraction to him.

  Nikki had only flown once before, an impromptu trip to Vegas with some of the dancers where the destination had been far more important than how they got there. She remembered the flight being uncomfortably cramped and crowded, and irritatingly full of unhappy infants. By the time they’d arrived she’d decided she hated flying, and the crowded, bumpy flight to JFK did little to change her opinion of air travel. When Gage told her the next leg would take twelve hours she wanted to scream. Twelve hours crammed into a steel tube full of coughing people and only one bathroom, and that was just that flight. There was another one after that. She didn’t even want to know how long it would be.

  “I hate flying,” she grumbled, holding his hand as he led her quickly through the airport toward their next flight. “It’s going to take forever to get to Tokyo. If we’d just gone to New York we’d already be here.”

  “Stop whining,” Gage hissed in a low voice, giving her hand a sharp jerk as he marched her past the Starbucks and Hudson Books, an Irish pub and a small vending machine selling Benefit Cosmetics. She would have liked to have looked at the makeup but he wasn’t slowing down. “And don’t think I didn’t see you stick your tongue out back at security,” he added as he picked up the pace. “Keep it up and you’ll find yourself getting a spanking.”

  Nikki’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “You wouldn’t,” she hissed as she struggled to keep up with him. “Not in front of all these people!”

  Gage stopped abruptly, grabbed her shoulders, and turned her to look where he pointed. It was a family restroom, designed for parents to go in with small children. “I would. I would take you in there and bend you over the sink counter and spank your ass.” Quickly turning her back to face him, he glared down at her. “And if anyone said anything I would tell them that you’re my fifteen-year-old daughter and you’re mad because this morning I said you couldn’t date a nineteen-year-old boy and just now you told the TSA agent I had a knife in my backpack as a way of getting back at me.” He leaned down until his face was just inches from hers. “And no one will feel sorry for you then.”

  Nikki’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “You’re good at this,” she admitted.

  “Yes, I am.” He squeezed her hand and gave her a knowing wink as they resumed their walk through the airport.

  She followed in silence the rest of the distance to their gate, and it was there she realized she’d been complaining for no reason. For the majority of the trip Gage had booked them first class tickets on Emirates Airlines, which would take them first to Dubai and then to their final destination of Tokyo. The plane was luxurious beyond anything she could have imagined and she didn’t dare think about how much the tickets must have cost. Each seat was its own cabin complete with a mini bar and a private television with thousands of channels to choose from. The comfy recliner laid out completely flat for sleeping, and Nikki was given her own set of pajamas to wear. There was even showers available for first class passengers. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was large enough for two people. If ever she were to join the mile high club, this would be the perfect opportunity. Closing her eyes, she pictured him under the water spray, his naked body glistening and wet with soapy foam in all the most interesting places. She would pick up the soap and begin to seductively scrub him. First his back, trailing down to massage the lather into his firm buttocks, then...

  “I loved watching you work,” Gage said, pulling her out of her fantasy just as it was starting to get good. She didn’t mind though. It never occurred to her that he might have been watching her from his table in the corner. Blushing, she wondered how many times he’d caught her checking him out. She’d tried to be sneaky about it, but Gage was the sort of man who noticed everything. Giggling nervously, she hid her red face behind Mr. Pink, the stuffed poodle she’d managed to grab from home before Gage whisked her away.

  “No matter how crazy it got, no matter how many drink orders you got at once, you never stressed out and you were always happy,” he continued. “I don’t mean the fake happy that everyone in the service industry has. You were really happy. I loved seeing that.”

  “I love my job,” she sighed. “It was fun and exciting. While it lasted, anyway.”

  “This is just temporary,” he assured her, reaching across the partition to squeeze her shoulder.

  “You really noticed me?” she asked, still keeping her eyes on the poodle. “I never even saw you order a drink. No one did. I called you the Shadow Man,” she giggled, and saw the corners of
his mouth tug upward slightly.

  “You weren’t supposed to notice me. No one was. No one does. That’s why I went there. Clean. Quiet. Well maybe not quiet,” he rolled his eyes and corrected himself. “The club was always noisy, but there was never any problems. No fights, no drunks, nothing to attract attention to anything but whatever girl was on stage. I could just relax and have a drink, watch the people. Watch you.”

  Nikki didn’t think her face could get any hotter. It was hard to believe he’d even known she existed in a club full of gorgeous, practically naked women. “I can’t imagine anyone would watch me with such beautiful girls on stage,” she said shyly.

  Gage fixed his eyes on hers. “You were always the most beautiful woman in the room.”

  Hot shivers ran across every inch of her already flushed skin. D.C. Gage thought she was beautiful. No one had ever called her that before, not even her ex-boyfriend. Cute, sure, sometimes pretty, but beautiful? Never. Now the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on was saying she was more beautiful than women who got paid for looking gorgeous.

  “And you don’t even know it,” he marveled. “There’s this... this innocence about you, something all those other women have lost but you still have.” He leaned his head back against his seat and stared at the ceiling. “You don’t know how many times I wanted to go up to the bar and talk to you.”

  “Why didn’t you?” she asked.

  “Guys like me...” he said, shrugging as if that was all that needed to be said. She supposed it was. Guys who killed people for a living probably didn’t date a lot. This time she was the one who reached across to squeeze a shoulder. Briefly his eyes closed, then he shifted position in his chair to move himself slightly out of her reach. Nikki realized he was uncomfortable being touched, and wondered how long it had been since he’d had someone who cared about him. The idea made her want to sit in his lap, snuggled up against his strong chest with her arms wrapped around his neck.