Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 04]

by Over the Line

  He’d figured she’d have minions to do the work for her minions. Come to think of it, he’d expected a large, tightly clinging entourage shadowing her every move. Making her feel important. Making her feel loved.

  But the lady traveled light. Other than the road crew who handled the stage setup and hauled the equipment in a convoy of semis, the only others on hand were her band, her backup singers, that Sanders guy—Jase still hadn’t figured out what he did—the videographer, and Max. Who, come to think of it, hadn’t answered his page or returned the message Jase had left on his cell phone.

  “All clear,” he said, turning around to reassure her and damn near knocking her over before realizing she’d been tailgating.

  “Whoa.” He grabbed her by the shoulders to steady her—took one look in her eyes and decided the hell with it. It wouldn’t hurt him to give her what she needed.

  “Hey. It’s okay now,” he said softly, and pulled her into his arms. And felt her body just sort of give and sway into his.

  It didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel stupid. It didn’t feel sexual. At least not at first.

  It simply felt like the right thing to do. So he did it. She needed steadying. He had a broad shoulder. She obviously needed one, and Max wasn’t here to offer it. So he’d stand in. No big deal.

  And as they stood there—her slight and trembling and leaning into his embrace—he couldn’t help but think of Sara.

  She’d been broken and weak and in need of someone else’s strength after Will had killed himself. But not before he’d shot her, too.

  Jase hadn’t expected to fall in love with Sara. He’d just wanted to help. That was all he wanted to do now. But try as he might to remain detached, that wasn’t the way his mother had raised him. He could almost hear her voice.

  The girl is hurting, Jase. You can do something about it.

  That was why he’d helped Sara. And he’d fallen in love.

  Now he was helping Janey.

  Different circumstances. Different results.

  With Sara he’d been acting on emotions.

  With Janey—well, it was just different was all.

  That was his story and he was sticking to it.

  He made a clumsy attempt to pat her back. Amazed all over again by how tiny she was. How, in spite of the salt and surf scent clinging to her hair, she still smelled amazing. And, unfortunately, he was also way too aware that her cheek was resting against his bare chest. Her breasts pressed against his upper abs. Things had happened so fast, he hadn’t thought to put his shirt back on.

  Big, big oversight on his part.

  Lord Jesus God. Her breath was hot. Majorly hot where it fanned his nipple, and he did a little puckering of his own as an unbidden image of her mouth cruising across his skin came to mind.

  He cleared his throat because it suddenly felt like his heart had swollen to the size of a frag grenade and lodged dead center behind his Adam’s apple—just before it had pumped all the blood in his body to his groin.

  “How you doing down there?” he asked because he had to say something. And he had to put some distance between them before she noticed all that tightening going on beneath her fingertips.

  She sniffed. Lifted her head. “I’m doing.”

  When she pulled away, he let out a breath of relief because, Jesus, things had somehow gotten very intense all of a sudden. He almost swallowed back a much-needed breath when she tipped her head and looked up at him.

  Aw, God. She looked so little and so lost and so vulnerable. Like Sara.

  Only, one more time, she was nothing like Sara. And he’d do damn well to remember it.

  It was hard to remember anything, though, when Janey looked at him that way. The only thing he had a real good bead on was that she was a woman. All woman. The kind a lot of guys would do crazy things for.

  Like risk their lives. Risk their jobs.

  She had a mouth made for French kisses. Long ones. Deep ones. Wet ones. She’d taste of salt right now. Salt and sex and a little bit of fear.

  He was wondering what she’d do, what she’d say, if he took a taste. If he just lowered his mouth, opened over hers, tasted her with his tongue.

  And he almost did it. God damn he almost did it. But then his brain finally engaged and reminded him with a swift kick what was at stake here: her life.

  Dumb ass.

  He was such a dumb ass.

  “Sorry about that.” He heard her voice through a distant ringing in his ears. “I don’t usually . . . you know . . . let things get to me.”

  He believed her. And that made her little meltdown all the more poignant.

  Poignant. Shit. Listen to him. He was going all soft in the head. And he was falling into the same downward spiral he had with Sara.

  What was it with him, anyway? Just because a woman needed saving didn’t mean she needed anything else from him.

  And just because he had a sudden case of testosterone-induced insanity didn’t mean he had to take up residence in the loony bin. And that’s where he was headed if he didn’t straighten up and fly right. He wasn’t so far from needing saving himself, and he’d do well to remember that.

  “Yeah, well,” he groped for and miraculously grasped the thread of their conversation, “I don’t usually play big brother, so don’t get used to it, okay?”

  He’d wanted her to smile. Thank you, God, she did.

  “Big brother? Thought never crossed my mind. Now little brother, maybe.”

  Good. Great. Let’s just ramp up this fraternal image.

  And let’s keep her shored up. He liked it better when she was spunky. It was a helluva lot safer because she was usually a helluva lot farther away.

  “So. You want me to wait here in the bedroom while you shower?”

  “No. It’s okay. My Weak-kneed–Wilda moment has passed. Go take your own shower. I’m fine.”

  He headed for the door, couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  “Hey . . . Iowa.”

  He stopped reluctantly, turned with even more reluctance, and looked at her.

  Jesus, look at her.

  “Yeah?” he finally managed around that lump that wouldn’t go away as her brown eyes met his and held.

  “Thanks.”

  They stood that way for a little too long. Let their gazes cling a little too intensely.

  “That Bryce guy—at the gym,” he said, dredging up the memory from God knew where. “He’s a lousy kickboxer.”

  She tilted her head, gave it a confused little shake at his total disconnect from the current conversation. “Is that how you say ‘you’re welcome’ in Iowa?”

  “No, ma’am. That’s an offer. If you ever want to work off a little tension, I’ll be happy to kick your ass. You won’t be thanking me then . . . ma’am.”

  And he left, shutting the door behind him. Feeling like he’d just escaped a major disaster.

  He leaned back against the door. Wiped a hand down his face. Wiped the picture of her standing there with a grateful little smile and a body he’d give his right nut to know in every possible way.

  How had he ever managed to conjure up a big-brother image in the first place? No matter how many times he told himself he wasn’t going to be ruled by testosterone, he did not want to be her brother. Not in this lifetime. Not in a million lifetimes.

  He’d like to meet the man with a beating heart and working equipment who could look at her and think brotherly thoughts. She was tiny, delicate, and as hot as a desert night.

  In damp clothes and scraggly hair and no makeup.

  And flat on her back, stunningly naked and floating on a rush from her own hand. He wanted it to be his hand pleasuring her. His mouth. His . . .

  Jesus, there he went again. He so should have gotten laid before he took this gig. He should have gotten himself a soft, willing woman and screwed his brains out. To hell with love and commitment and all those things he believed a man ought to feel for a woman he took to bed.

  “Shi
t,” he muttered; then he reviewed analysis, assessment, and action all the way to the shower. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  For the record,” Janey said, fresh from her shower, “I really don’t let down like that.”

  And she didn’t, Janey acknowledged to herself as she lifted her wet hair out from under the gold chain that held her mother’s cross.

  Dressed in short blue sweatshorts and a yellow skinny T, she sank down into a wing chair in the living area of the suite, tucked her bare feet up under her hip, and worked a pick through her damp hair.

  In her own defense, her whole life had turned upside down in the past week. Starting with Grimm’s release from prison. She absently fingered the Celtic cross, her last link with her mother. Alice Perkins was gone, her death still a mystery—just like her life, Janey thought sadly.

  Then there was Max’s sudden departure from her day-to-day life. And Baby Blue’s unsettling insurgence into both her life and her dreams. Now this. Grimm was definitely back. No denying that now. And a nightmare she’d never wanted to relive had hacked its way back into her life again.

  All right, fine. Just deal with it. She’d had her little moment of weakness. It was over. And she wouldn’t let Grimm or anything else get to her again.

  Her bodyguard sat across from her on the sofa, poring through a file folder. Full of information on Edwin Grimm, she’d guess.

  At least Jason Wilson provided a different type of diversion. She wished she had a folder on him so she could get a bead on what made him tick. She wasn’t used to underestimating men. She’d underestimated him, though.

  He kept surprising her. The erection at the beach had been a helluva surprise. And she wasn’t yet sure what to think about that. Just like she wasn’t quite sure how to handle the battalion of butterflies that, despite the gravity of her situation and her determination to keep things on a professional level between them, had started taking flight in her stomach.

  Oh yeah. She’d been trying to ignore them, but they attacked at the oddest times.

  Like when she looked at him. Or when he touched her—like he had just before her shower. All that strength, but his hands had been gentle. His muscled chest had been a refuge. And yet the scent of him—all sweaty and salty and warm and male—hadn’t felt one bit comforting in the final windup.

  Unsettling, yes. Comforting, well, no.

  He hadn’t intended the embrace to be sexual. She knew he hadn’t. But somehow that was what it had become. When he’d looked down at her, those incredible blue eyes so intense and searching . . . well. For a minute there, she’d thought he was going to kiss her.

  And she was pretty sure she would have let him.

  Pretty sure? Who was she kidding? She’d have latched onto those amazing lips like a Hoover.

  She’d thought about that a lot during her shower. And finally chalked things up to the high anxiety of her situation. It was as good an explanation as any. And it worked to steady her.

  The butterflies were settled now, too. At least they were until he glanced up at her and little wing beats tickled her from within. He’d showered, too. And that clean, masculine scent she had begun to associate with him reached out and put a touch on every erogenous zone in her body.

  8

  Miss Perkins?”

  Janey blinked, tuned back into their conversation, and realized that Wilson had been talking to her.

  “S . . . sorry, what?”

  “I said I believed you the first time,” he said, and went back to his reading.

  She drew a total blank, mostly because she had become completely transfixed by his face. By the beauty of it. By the contrasts. Gentle blue eyes and soft, sensuous lips juxtaposed intriguing angles and hard planes. Fascinating.

  And she was staring. So was he—like he was wondering what the hell was wrong with her.

  She’d missed something. “You believed what the first time?”

  “That you don’t usually let things shake you.”

  “Oh. Oh yeah,” she said, feeling foolish because she’d completely spaced out of their conversation.

  Because he was gorgeous? Had amazing muscles? And incredible baby-blue eyes? And the sexiest smile?

  What are you, sixteen? This was so high-school.

  She had a problem. A much bigger problem than renegade hormones. And the name on the folder he was reading was finally enough to sober her up. “Grimm’s a real whack job, isn’t he?”

  He grunted in agreement. “In spades.”

  “I wasn’t ready for him the first go-round,” she said, staring at the fingers on her left hand as she plucked absently at a thread on the upholstered chair. “I was totally unprepared.”

  “I’m thinking there’s no way to prepare for a loose screw like Grimm.”

  “And yet I fool myself into believing that I have,” she said with a self-effacing smile.

  He frowned, then got her meaning. “The kickboxing?”

  She nodded. “If I ever meet that bastard face-to-face again, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to kick his nuts up through the roof of his mouth.”

  He blinked, then blanched. “Oo-yeah. That’ll send a message, all right. In the meantime, I’ll live with the hope that I never land on your bad side.”

  He had a way of making her laugh. So she did. Which made him smile.

  Which sent the butterfly squadron in flight again when their eyes met and held for another one of those searching, assessing moments.

  A red flush stained his cheeks just before he looked away, and Janey experienced an “Ah” moment.

  Having some trouble with this attraction thing, too, aren’t you, Baby Blue?

  She still wasn’t sure what she thought about that.

  Or what to make of it. Or more to the point, what to do about it. Although some very interesting images came to mind.

  “Tell me about Grimm,” he said, shuffling the sheaf of papers, then setting them aside.

  Nothing like a cold, hard slap of reality to jar a girl out of an erotic daydream.

  “Can’t imagine that everything you need to know isn’t in that stack of reading material.” She nodded toward the folder he’d tossed on the coffee table.

  “I want to hear about him from your perspective.”

  She looked toward the window showcasing a blue-green view of the Atlantic and a sun so bright she could almost smell the heat through the glass. She didn’t want to think about Grimm, let alone talk about him. But ignoring him wasn’t going to make him go away.

  “Okay. Where to start. I guess . . . at first he was just a regular fan. He showed up at my concerts—always front-row. Always smiling. Sometimes with roses. Sometimes with a stuffed animal or something.”

  “A love-struck groupie,” he concluded with a dark look.

  “It seemed very . . . sweet at first. But then it got creepy. He’d be at every concert no matter where we played. I was thinking, man, this guy needs to get a life. And he started sending letters. Sometimes e-mails. Those weren’t so sweet.”

  “Explicit?”

  She nodded. Felt her stomach turn.

  “The next time he made an appearance, Max had security remove him from the building. Grimm went berserk. From then on, we were on the lookout for him. As far as I know, he never made it into another concert. And then . . . well, then the hearts started arriving.”

  She hated Grimm for that almost as much as for the terror he’d put her through. Hated him for ruthlessly killing something small and innocent and defenseless just to make some sick impression on her.

  “According to the file, he comes from money.”

  “Money. Yeah, lots of it, apparently. I was told that his parents died in a car accident. When he was seventeen, I think. They were investors, savers—anyway, that’s what I was told.”

  “So after he broke into your place, he had the means to hire a high-ticket lawyer who got him off with three years served.”

  Another sick feeling rolled through her. “And now he’s ou
t.”

  “And has access to enough cash to go wherever he wants,” Baby Blue concluded. “And to grease a few palms, considering he got into the suite today.”

  Despite the sky full of sunshine warming the beach below, Janey felt chilled. “How long do you think it will take the police to come up with something?”

  He leaned back on the sofa, his strong legs splayed wide, his bare feet flat on the tile floor, and stretched his arms above his head. “They’ll question the staff and eventually hit on something to tie him to today. When they do, they’ll put him away again.”

  “If they can find him.” Rising and walking toward the bank of windows, she hugged her arms around her waist.

  “They didn’t find him before. Not until he . . .” She trailed off. It was still hard to talk about finding Edwin Grimm in her house that night three years ago.

  His eyes had been wild. His voice eerily soft as he’d told her what he was going to do to make sure they were together forever.

  She’d run. She’d hidden. She’d managed to trigger the silent alarm. The police had arrived just as he’d kicked his way through the bedroom door that she’d barricaded with a full chest of drawers. To this day, she didn’t know where she’d found the strength to move it.

  “He’s not going to get to you again.”

  She started, pulled out of the terror of that night by the steady, true cadence of Wilson’s voice.

  “He’s not going to get to you again,” he repeated when she turned.

  She realized that she was shaking—saw that he hadn’t missed that fact. “Yeah. That’s what they said the last time.”

  “Hey.”

  His hard tone snapped her gaze to his.

  “This time is nothing like the last time. This time, he has to get past me. And that just isn’t going to happen. Got it?”

  She assessed the determination in the blue gaze that held hers. Stared at him long and hard. At this American-pie Iowa boy who had earned the right to be regarded as a man in the cold mountains of Afghanistan and the burning deserts of Iraq.