A Steamy Bodyguard Romance Anthology

by Joanne Rock

  Buster barked. Donata ran for water. How in the hell had he ended up in the middle of Tabitha’s nightmare? But as he held her in his arms, feeling lush curves even through the barrier of her long wool coat as he lowered them both to the floor, he couldn’t find it in himself to be sorry.

  Melinda hadn’t needed him for anything. A fact she made clear many times during their marriage and finally hammered home by her affair that was the breaking point for him. Warren’s remaining family might need him, but they didn’t know enough to realize it since they thrived on dysfunction. Hell, even the police force didn’t need him as a detective lately. His skills in ballistics were too valuable in-house to put him in the field most days, so he sat under fluorescent lights, connecting the dots in other detectives’ cases while they collected all the field time and the glory that went with it.

  But he could help Tabitha if he didn’t let Red get the jump on him again. This woman needed him and he didn’t plan to shuffle her off to anyone else in the department so he could stare at ballistics evidence all day.

  This one case—one woman—he planned to handle himself.

  “Please say I didn’t just faint.” Tabitha’s voice drifted up from his lap and he realized she’d come around. Her cheek rested on his thigh, a visual that suddenly hit home for him now that she was conscious. And holy hell, wasn’t that a sight?

  Donata’s shoes tapped their way across the floor with the water, but Warren noticed she left it at a discreet distance on a nearby table before tapping her way into the backroom again.

  “You didn’t just faint. You were clearly having an episode of extreme sexual need for me and you just fell in my arms.” He squeezed her for emphasis, or maybe just because he could. She felt damn good to him and he thought a little distraction would be a good thing.

  “I’ve never fainted once in my entire life.” She lifted herself up, her breast brushing his arm for one incredible moment before she stood. “But then again, no one ever suggested a murderer was stalking me before.”

  She gave him a weak smile.

  “I don’t know anything for certain.” He swiped away the memories of their couch encounter with an effort because focusing on her safety was more important than indulging a need for her that grew more insistent by the hour. “I need to study the slugs in the lab and see what comes up. But it pays to be cautious now that you’re receiving questionable e-mail and you already had a connection to de Milo.”

  “I just said I knew him. Not well. I mean, I wouldn’t call it a connection, necessarily.” Her forehead wrinkled in earnest hope.

  As if his believing her would make the threat go away.

  “You travel in similar circles. Your paths have crossed.” He rose, ready to get her out of here. “Either way, the danger exists and you need to be careful. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that your watcher is signing things with a nickname that bares striking resemblance to your husband’s last name. No one ever calls him Red?”

  “No. And wouldn’t that be sort of foolish if he wanted to remain anonymous?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t care if you know it’s him.”

  “It’s not.” She shook her head, mouth pulled into a tight frown.

  “Okay, how about we get out of here and talk about this someplace else?”

  He patted his jacket pocket to make sure the bullet was still there. He’d drop it off with the crime scene unit on the way out.

  “It’s late. I have an early call tomorrow.” She sipped from the paper cup of water while Warren steered her toward the exit.

  He tossed the bullet to one of the lab guys and watched while he stowed the bag with the rest of the evidence.

  “I can go with you back to your apartment and make sure it’s safe so you can pick up some clothes or whatever else you need for a few days. Do you have a friend you can stay with?”

  She buttoned her coat and waited until he’d said good-night to a few patrol cops before she answered. The wind whipped down the street in the tunnel effect created by New York’s tall buildings. The scent of take-out pizza and a nearby alley full of garbage bins carried on the gusty March breeze.

  “I lost all my so-called friends in the divorce. Not that I blame them. Manny Redding can do more for an aspiring actress’s career than I could, especially once he threatened to blackball me in the politest possible terms.”

  Warren slowed his step as they approached the corner to hail a cab. Buster stuck close to Tabitha even though Warren held the leash.

  “A hotel?” He didn’t want to push his own agenda, so he figured he’d offer all the polite venues first.

  “Actually, I’m wading through a couple of lean months lately. I managed the hotel last night, but more than that is going to keep me from paying my rent.”

  She was short of options while a stalker watched her from the shadows. A stalker and possible murderer, for all he knew. This was definitely a bad time to convince her to come home with him.

  Logically, he knew he should keep his distance even if he didn’t get assigned to her case. And damn it, she sure as hell had one now.

  But what choice did he have?

  “You can’t stay at your place.” He thought he’d hit home that point again.

  “I bought a dead bolt.” She reached out to call over a taxi even though they hadn’t come close to finishing this discussion. “And maybe you could loan me Buster for a few days.”

  She couldn’t be serious.

  “I’ve got a better idea. How about I loan you Buster and me while you stay at my place until we sort it all out?”

  He opened the cab door for her and the dog jumped in first.

  “So I can stay with you?” Tabitha grinned.

  Damn but he was wading in deep with this woman.

  “It’s the best idea I’ve got.”

  “Thank you. I thought you’d never ask.”

  * * *

  MAYBE THAT WAS terribly tacky to take a man up on an offer for shelter without so much as a polite protest. But Tabitha had seen enough horror movies to know the dumb chick who insisted on sleeping alone while a killer was on the loose was always the first to get whacked.

  And Tabitha might have been naive when she married Manny, but she was definitely not a dumb chick. She’d far rather wade through the potential sexual obstacles to sleeping at Warren’s place than wake up with a gun in her face at her own apartment.

  An involuntary shiver shook her whole body.

  They were quiet on the short ride to his apartment, a ride made longer only because Warren asked the cabbie to take a detour in case Tabitha’s place was being watched. They’d taken another detour from her apartment to his, even though they lived close.

  “This is it.” Warren pointed out his building as the cab rolled to a stop.

  A sign advertising Caribbean food hung over a restaurant awning on the bottom floor. The place spilled over with people and old blues music, while a small neon placard over the door read simply Della’s. Above the restaurant loomed about ten floors of what looked to be residences. The place had an unassuming air with no oversize numbers announcing the address, but the corner lot had to make the location more expensive than many of the neighboring buildings.

  “You like Caribbean food?” she asked as he helped her from the cab. The scents wafting out of the building made her mouth water even though they had to be done serving by now. Her watch said it was almost midnight.

  “Too spicy. But Della’s serves Southern food, too. The crab cakes are incredible.” He took her bag from the trunk and paid the driver before steering her toward a side entrance. “I can have something sent up if you’re hungry. I know the owner and he’s always got leftovers.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got to be on set early tomorrow for some leg shots.”

  “Leg shots?” He held the door for her and called the elevator.

  “Close-ups for a steamy shower scene, I think. I need to keep up my connections in the film world until people feel certain
that hiring me won’t bring down the wrath of Manny Redding. For now, it’s a paycheck.” She slid under his arm into the elevator cabin and tried not to think about how they’d agreed to pick up where they left off earlier tonight before they realized she might be in danger.

  Would Warren still want to take her up on that offer?

  Her heart pounded at the thought.

  “So you hope to get back into film in spite of the trouble your ex has caused for you? I pulled a few of the newspaper pieces on you last night for research on the case and I couldn’t help but notice some of the controversy around the divorce.”

  That topic effectively squashed the heat inside her.

  “Manny will deny it forever, but he told everyone who would listen not to hire me because I was difficult to work with. It doesn’t matter that it’s not true, he just never wanted to see me succeed in this business for reasons I still don’t fully understand.”

  “Some guys can’t handle a woman’s success. Was he a jealous guy? Possessive?”

  The elevator car arrived on the eighth floor and slid open, saving her from having to make eye contact.

  “Yes, on both counts. I was shocked to realize how little I knew him after we tied the knot. He made a lot of excuses for why I should go back to school or help him with his career instead of pursuing my own goals in film. For a while I thought he was just trying to keep me ignorant of his affairs that I was growing to suspect. But it seemed like a moot point after the divorce and he still wanted to keep me out of the business.”

  Actually, she recognized now that Manny had wanted to be petty after a divorce that hit him in the ego. But to admit that to Warren would only make her feel worse that she’d been too blind to see it.

  At Warren’s door he set down her bag to open the locks and let her inside. The apartment was big by her standards. Eighteen hundred square feet maybe, which was a lot for an older building that hadn’t been designed by today’s hunger for floor space.

  A small foyer led into a dining area straight ahead, with tall archways on either side for a living room and an office. Dark wainscoting made her think of an old library, while the rich burgundy wallpaper above the wooden panels stretched toward the dining room and then gave way to lighter colors. A leather sofa in the living room was littered with a little popcorn, but other than that, nothing screamed “bachelor.” The whole apartment was quietly elegant and comfortable at the same time.

  “Wow. Nice place.”

  “Thanks. My ex took all the good furniture, but after I threw a New Year’s party for some neighbors last year, a couple of guys who own an antique shop up the street saw the place and decided to make my apartment their sideline project.”

  “They’ve done a great job.” She’d been against hiring decorators for the ice castle Manny had bought, longing to put her own stamp on her home. But maybe if she’d had Warren’s guys on the project she wouldn’t have ended up living in a shroud-covered museum.

  “There’s an extra room this way.” He carried her bag down the hall past the dining room and opened a door to a small space with guest bed, a weight bench and a TV. “Unfortunately this isn’t anything the antique guys got a hold of, so the decor is fairly lackluster.”

  “It’s perfect.” She dropped her purse down on the weight bench and speculated what Warren looked like during his bench presses. Bad, bad idea. She licked her lips and tried to staunch the flow of sexy mental pictures featuring Warren sweaty and half-naked. “So you have an ex, too?”

  The topic was guaranteed to cool things off until she got a handle on his expectations for tonight. And her own. She still wanted him with an intensity that surprised her, but the reality of seeing Warren at a murder scene and thinking she might be in danger had spun her emotions around so thoroughly she didn’t know what to think.

  “I was married for three years. She never liked that I was a cop even when we were dating, but when she stopped making noises about it, I figured she’d accepted the idea.” He dragged the weight bench into the corner to give her more room and then shed his jacket, leaving her staring at him in a white shirt and a blue tie he’d loosened around his neck.

  “She wanted you to quit your job?” Tabitha watched as he took the barbell off the bench and placed it on the floor, his muscles stretching the white cotton sleeves of his shirt.

  And damned if her want for him wasn’t overriding the unhappy conversation.

  “Apparently my mother gave Melinda the idea that she’d talk me into the family investment firm eventually and then Melinda could have the lifestyle she preferred. Why she believed my mother when I’d told Melinda I would never go into any business bearing my father’s name is beyond me.” He straightened, the diamond stud in his ear winking in the lamplight. “She left three years ago and she’s been married to a violinist for two and a half. She travels a lot. She’s happy.”

  She sounded awful as far as Tabitha was concerned, but having been married to someone fairly awful herself, she kept the opinion quiet. Still, her mind kept tracking back to the fact that his family’s business was investing. His background sounded more sophisticated than hers and that made her wary. Manny’s social expectations of her had been one of the earliest marital war zones. But even though Tabitha’s mother worked as a stock analyst now, she’d spent most of Tabitha’s childhood embroiled in a bitter custody battle that left her broke, then had attended college while working two jobs to support them. Tabitha admired her mother’s tenacity and was happy that she’d achieved her dreams to make a very secure living, but Tabitha didn’t know her mother well and she didn’t share her mother’s financial stability.

  “It would be nice if people could be honest and up front about what they wanted when they got married.”

  “Nobody’s ever honest and up front. We just have to do our best to attune our bullshit meters so we can see through the lies.”

  “That’s a very cynical view.” She didn’t want to admit that on her darker days, she’d shared the opinion.

  She didn’t want to remain a pessimist forever. Just until she got over the way Manny had screwed her.

  “Hey, I happen to know I’m a really good guy. But even I haven’t been honest and up front with you.” He took a step closer and her heart jumped in reply.

  “You haven’t?” Had he found evidence at the murder scene that she should know about?

  “No. You might think I offered you a place to stay for strictly honorable reasons, but that would be dishonest of me.”

  She warmed at his words, even knowing he wouldn’t act on them tonight if she didn’t want him to. He didn’t move any closer but she could feel the flames flicker between them.

  “What other reasons were you hiding?” She swore she didn’t move her body, but her every cell seemed to strain toward him.

  He stepped closer, the way she’d wanted to.

  “My other reasons all had to do with the kiss you gave me back at your place and the implication that we might be repeating it soon, remember?” He dipped his head to her face since he’d lowered his voice as he spoke.

  He didn’t touch her, but his bristly jaw loomed near enough that she could have licked it. The musky scent of his soap tempted her, making her knees weak with the urge to wrap herself around him.

  “I think we implied more than that.” Her heartbeat pounded loud in her ears at the memory of his hard male body pressed up against her.

  “Did we? By all means, tell me what you think we suggested since I wouldn’t want to be the one to presume too much.” He stroked a fingertip up the side of her neck and watched her as she shivered in response to the feathery caress.

  “I think there was a sense that next time we touched, we probably wouldn’t be able to stop at just kissing. We said something about skipping dinner and heading straight for dessert.”

  Her eyelids fell to half-mast as her insides smoldered and her juices flowed hot for him. She didn’t know how she could be thinking about sex with more interest than she ha
d in years, given her day from hell, but she wanted Warren badly.

  “Ah, Tabitha, I’m so glad to hear you say that.” He nipped her ear with his teeth, his breath warming her neck as a bolt of desire hit her right between the thighs. “Because it just so happens I’ve got one hell of a sweet tooth.”

  CHAPTER 6

  IF THERE WAS an ethical problem with him sleeping with Tabitha, Warren wasn’t going to think about it until tomorrow.

  He realized he was still staring at her, his hand gripping her shoulder as he looked down into her green eyes. She was so damn hot.

  “I’m not good at sex.” She blurted words he never would have expected to hear, her work as a body double at odds with the claim.

  Her body was so amazing she showed it off on film. Men must have been drooling over her since she was a teenager. How could she feel inadequate when it came to sex?

  Warren blinked. Forced himself to slow down when he’d been ready to start peeling off her skirt.

  “What do you mean? I think the chemistry we’re feeling is assurance enough the sex is going to be incredible.” He kept his hands on her, massaging her shoulders through her sweater. He didn’t want to lose the ground he’d gained with her and he knew she’d been feeling the same heat as him a moment ago.

  “But I don’t—finish easily. Or—more to the point with us—not always at the right time. And I just want you to know that up front so you’re not disappointed or you don’t think it has anything to do with you.” Her cheeks tinged with color.

  It would have everything to do with him if he couldn’t make that happen for her, but he didn’t say it out loud since she’d tensed up at the conversation. Her comment about having a sensitive trigger took on new meaning now. She apparently thought there were better times than others to hit her high note in the course of a bedroom encounter. He assumed orgasms at any time were welcomed by women everywhere.

  “First of all, I promise not to have any expectations for how this is going to happen, okay? There’s no timetable for what will take place tonight as far as I’m concerned, and no right time to do anything. So you couldn’t possibly disappoint me.”