In the Line of Fire: Hot Desert Heroes, Book 1

by Jett Munroe

  “Don’t you worry about me. I don’t want you having a meltdown at all, baby. It’s my fault you did, and I’m sorry about that, more than I can say.” He rested his hands on the arm of her chair and leaned in. “I’m not embarrassed, and you shouldn’t be, either. You reacted to something I did.” His low chuckle rumbled across her senses and drew her gaze back to his tender features. “Hell, I should be the one who’s embarrassed, but by my own actions, certainly not by anything you’ve done.”

  Delaney ran her tongue across her bottom lip. Beck’s eyes tracked the movement and turned to molten silver. A different sort of heat spread over her skin and warmed low in her belly.

  “Seriously, honey. Don’t do this to yourself. We’re good.” He leaned in.

  Being surrounded by his warmth made her feel safe. Protected.

  “Right? We are good, aren’t we?” he asked.

  He wasn’t playing with her, she realized. He wouldn’t make fun of her or deliberately put her in a situation that would humiliate her. He was straight out of her girlhood daydreams—tall, dark, and handsome, good and kind but with an edge of danger. She’d given up on those dreams, had them hammered out of her first by her mother then, lest she get her hopes up, by her husband.

  But maybe it was time to dream a little again. The tightness in her chest eased. “We’re good.” She gave an emphatic nod. “Yes, we’re good.”

  He smiled. On his way up out of his crouch he placed a light kiss near her ear. The slight rasp of his whiskers against her face and the aroma of his cologne shot a bolt of awareness to all her lady parts. She took a deep breath through her nose and drew the spicy fragrance into her lungs. God, he smelled so good. She wanted to wrap herself around him and wallow in his scent.

  She shifted in her seat and watched him as he returned to his chair. With the crook of two fingers he motioned for the server, who reentered the room with a studiously blank expression on his face. He finished pouring the wine for Beck and waited for him to taste it and nod before moving to Delaney’s glass.

  She fought against a renewed blush and mostly succeeded. She managed to get herself together enough to give her order for grilled salmon and asparagus with a side salad, when the waiter asked for it.

  Beck gave his order—mid-rare New York strip steak, loaded baked potato and salad—and after the waiter left, he lifted his wineglass and waited for her to do the same. Once she had, he said, “To a memorable evening with a beautiful woman.”

  Her cheeks flushed but she clinked her glass against his. “To a memorable evening,” she partially repeated.

  A smile widened his sensual mouth. “With a beautiful woman.”

  “I can’t say that.” She frowned at him. “It’s too egotistical.” She took a sip of wine and put the glass back on the table.

  He shook his head and brought his wineglass to his lips. She watched his Adam’s apple bob with his swallow, and her pulse drummed in her own throat at that sign of his masculinity.

  She couldn’t believe she was turned on by a man swallowing a bit of wine.

  “So tell me about yourself.”

  Oh dear God. She hated this part about dating because she disliked talking about herself. She was boring. She’d probably always be boring. And nothing was more boring than talking about being boring.

  She shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. I’m thirty-one, married once and divorced and work as an administrative assistant at SNJ.”

  He gave her a look over the rim of his glass. “You can do better than that, Laney.”

  “Really, I can’t. I’m pretty…ordinary.”

  “That I find hard to believe. I think there are hidden depths to you.” When she didn’t respond beyond a shrug, he said, “Tell me about Coffee & Confections, then. How do you know Lily?”

  This she could do. “I met her through my best friend, Rachel. Rache and she have been neighbors for about ten years, and I met both her and Andi, the other owner of the shop, at a barbeque Rache and her dad hosted.”

  “And how did the coffee shop turn into your local hangout?”

  “You’re really asking that?” She blinked at him. “They make the best coffee in town.”

  He smiled. “That they do.” He leaned back in his chair. “And you love their carrot cake muffins too. You get a blueberry bran muffin sometimes, but more often than not you go for the carrot cake one.”

  Good Lord, he’d noticed what kind of muffins she bought? She guessed she’d been so focused on ducking him she hadn’t realized he was watching her so closely. Rather than making her feel uncomfortable, the knowledge settled deep inside and filled her with warmth and a sense of safety.

  “I get the blueberry bran muffin if I feel like I need to be good. You know, eat healthier. But I can’t believe you noticed.”

  His smile widened into a grin. “Baby, I’ve been noticing you for a year now. In case you hadn’t noticed. Which, maybe you hadn’t, since you were doing your best to be anywhere I wasn’t.”

  Heat flooded her cheeks. Again. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” Let’s see how much you like to play this game.

  The waiter returned just then with a bread basket and their salads. After setting them on the table, he reached for a water jug on the sideboard and refreshed their water glasses. Beck waited until the young man had left the room before he said, “I’m forty-two, never been married. Served twenty in the marines and got out two years ago. Started Red Eagle Group with Tyrell Thorne last year. He was a lieutenant on my squad.”

  “So you’re joint owners?”

  “Uh-huh.” He picked up his fork and poked through his salad. “Red Eagle specializes in cyber and personal security, and threat assessment. Ty’s also a licensed fugitive retrieval specialist, so sometimes he’s out of town rounding up a bounty. We run the billing for those jobs through the company.”

  That sounded like something big, muscled Tyrell Thorne would do. But the other…

  “Personal security as in bodyguards?” Delaney wasn’t sure she liked that. Actually, she was pretty sure she didn’t like it at all. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “It can be. Usually isn’t.” He grabbed a roll and slathered butter on it after splitting it in half. “It’s usually pretty mundane. Boring, really.”

  She’d bet good money that the last word someone would use to describe Beck Townsend was boring. Heck, he could sit around watching paint dry and still he would not be boring.

  Delaney ate a few bites of salad then said, “Have you guarded anyone famous?”

  He laughed. “We’ve provided security to some high profile people but not anyone I think you’d know. Starting Monday, we’ll be part of the security detail for Mari and the Ever Hard Boys while they do a two-day run in Vegas.”

  “Are you kidding? I love their music!” She sat forward. “Have you heard them?”

  His mouth twisted and he gave a short nod. “Have to say, though, I’m not a fan.”

  That didn’t surprise her. Mari and the Ever Hard Boys were a mix of grunge and garage band and had a following of mostly teens and young adults. Delaney was at the high end of the demographic but she didn’t care. She loved music of all kinds.

  “So, being a bodyguard to a celebrity, is it like they portray it in The Bodyguard?” she asked, naming a Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston film she’d absolutely adored.

  He shook his head. “That movie’s grossly unrealistic. Hollywood’s smoke and mirrors, though, not reality, so I suppose it’s entertaining if you can look past the discrepancies and lack of realism.”

  Beck bit back a grin at the look of disappointment that crossed her face.

  “Oh. It looked plausible enough to me.” She chewed at the corner of her mouth then said, “Do you…have you ever been shot?” Her eyes were wide and clouded with worry.

  Warmth pooled in his gut. She really was a sweeth
eart. He was glad that his original assessment of her was being proven correct. She was a knockout, but, more importantly, she was a caring person.

  “Not as a bodyguard.” He reached over and took her hand, enjoying the way her slender fingers curled around his. It gave him hope that she liked it when he touched her, because he planned to do a whole lot more touching in the future. “Most of the work is done behind the scenes, and the onus is on the outer perimeter security personnel. If the threat gets close enough to the client where we get involved, our role is to move them away from danger as quickly as possible.”

  He swept his thumb over the back of her hand. God, her skin was soft. He’d thought so the first time he’d taken her hand in the coffee shop that morning. He couldn’t help but wonder if the skin on her hand was this soft, just how soft would she be all over?

  “Think of how the Secret Service protects the president,” he went on. “They have plainclothes operatives in the crowd, lookin’ at everyone and everything. The guys in the black suits, the close protection part of the operation, are the ones you see, and all they’re lookin’ at are hands and eyes. If a threat gets close to the president, they cover him and hustle him away.”

  “But Secret Service agents get hurt protecting the president and others, right?”

  “Yes, but, really, it’s rare. From what I recall, there’s been one death and only a couple of injuries resulting from assassination attempts. When you look at how often a president goes out in public, the statistics are very low, mainly because the Secret Service has advance preparations in place to mitigate every possible threat. So do we.”

  “Still seems dangerous to me,” she mumbled, a flush turning her cheeks pink.

  “I’m not saying it isn’t.” He gave her fingers a squeeze and sat back to finish his salad.

  She frowned at him. “I don’t think I like you doing that kind of work.”

  “Walk in the park compared to what I did in the military, babe.”

  Delaney’s frown grew. “Can’t say that I like that, either.”

  Beck grinned. Fuck him, she was cute. And even more so because she didn’t try to hide that she worried about him. He liked that. He liked it a whole hell of a lot. But he hoped she could get over the fear of him doing his job because he wasn’t going to be doing anything else in the foreseeable future. “I’m good at what I do, Laney.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a second,” came the quick rejoinder in her quiet, melodious voice. He liked that too. “But bad guys are oftentimes good at what they do too,” she went on. “That’s what worries me.”

  “They’re not better than me and my guys.”

  Her eyebrows shot up.

  “Not bein’ cocky. Just statin’ a fact.”

  “Yeah, stating it in a cocky manner,” she said and scrunched her nose. “Which makes you, ya know, cocky,” she finished with a grin.

  If she were another kind of woman, he’d be making a ribald comment right about now. But this was Delaney, and he knew, especially at this juncture in their relationship, if he made a suggestive remark she’d shut down on him. And he wanted to bask in the bright light that was Delaney.

  “Nope,” he replied with a smirk. “Just confident.”

  Shaking her head, she heaved a sigh and forked salad into her mouth. When she’d swallowed, she said, “Do you have family?”

  This was something he wasn’t ready to talk about. Talking about being orphaned would bring pity to her eyes, and that wasn’t what he wanted to see. So he prevaricated. “Doesn’t everyone?” He smiled to try to alleviate any sting his abruptness might cause and asked her, “What about you?”

  “A younger sister, whom I adore, and my mom.”

  The fact that she didn’t include her mother in her adoration told him a lot. “Don’t get along with her, yeah?” When she shook her head and took another bite of salad, he commiserated, “I get that. Tough.”

  The waiter brought out their meals. Over the next thirty minutes they kept their conversation light. She tried a few times to get him to talk about his past, and he was able to deflect the conversation successfully back on to her without really answering her questions. She seemed to be on to his game but it didn’t appear to upset her.

  With a sigh she pushed her chair away from the table. “I need to visit the ladies’ room,” she said. “If the waiter comes by, would you ask him to wrap that up so I can take it home?” She gestured toward her plate, upon which rested half her salmon and a few spears of asparagus.

  “You’re not going to eat any more?”

  She grinned widely. “I’m saving room for dessert. Let the waiter know I want a slice of their New York-style cheesecake with raspberry sauce.”

  Finally, a woman who actually ate food. He returned her smile and stood when she did. “Got it,” he said, sitting down and watching her hips sway as she walked away. Damn, but that woman had the best ass he’d ever seen. Ten minutes later, watching her coming toward him, he admired that view too.

  After the server brought her cheesecake, watching her enjoy the rich dessert was a lesson in restraint for Beck because the woman enjoyed her cheesecake and showed it. Every sweep of her tongue across her full lips, every slow blink of her eyes, every low moan she made fired his libido like nothing had for a very long time. By the time she pushed away her scraped-clean plate with a replete sigh, he was about to lose his mind.

  The waiter entered the room with the bill, and Beck handed him a credit card. “Make it quick,” he muttered.

  “Yes, sir,” the young man said with a grin. He was back in what seemed like under a minute, certainly no more than two. Beck added a generous gratuity, helped Delaney from her chair, and cupped her elbow in his hand as they made their way out of the restaurant. She didn’t seem as bothered by her clothing as she had on the way in. He glanced around and saw that while a few people were watching their progress, no one else seemed bothered by her outfit, either.

  As a matter of fact, he realized with a scowl, a few men were looking at her legs a little too closely for his comfort and their safety. When their eyes came up and they realized he was glaring at them, they quickly turned back to their own dinner companions and tried to act as if nothing happened.

  He noticed a couple being seated and squeezed Delaney’s elbow to get her attention. “See over there?” he asked softly and tipped his chin toward the young man and woman. “They’re both in jeans, even if he does have a jacket and tie on. What you’re wearing falls somewhere between their outfits and the other women in here. So see? You’re fine.”

  She shook her head, but with a slight smile. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m bee-you-tee-ful.” He opened the outer door for her and she went through saying, “I’m sorry I made such a fuss. It’s just that…” She sighed again and shook her head. “My mom isn’t the most supportive person in the world, and my ex spent our marriage telling me what a loser I was. I heard it so often I believed it. Now I do my best to rise above all that, but obviously I still have my moments.”

  He beeped the remote to unlock his low-slung Audi and helped her into the passenger seat. He gently closed the door. As he walked around to the driver’s side he tried his best to tamp down the fury rising in him. The people who were supposed to love, nurture, and support her had been the ones to drive her so far into herself she was still trying to find her way to the light. He hoped to God he never met her ex because they would for sure have a come-to-Jesus meeting the bastard wouldn’t soon forget.

  What he was going to do about her mother, he had no idea. At the very least he’d encourage her to spread her poison far away from Delaney.

  The ten-minute drive back to Delaney’s house was accomplished mostly in silence, except for the Mari and the Ever Hard Boys CD Beck started up for her to enjoy. When he told her Mari’s agent had shipped the CD to him as a thank-you in anticipation of a job well done, she’d actually
clapped and bounced in her seat.

  So fucking cute.

  A few times he had to grin when she started to sing along. She had a good voice but would all too soon remember she wasn’t alone and the quasi-karaoke session would falter and die. He was about to overload on how adorable she was. He didn’t know how he’d handle it when she got comfortable enough with him to really let him experience everything that was Delaney Murphy.

  When he pulled into the driveway of her house, he heard her sigh. He shut off the engine and undid his seat belt.

  “I…um…” she rolled her lips between her teeth as she unbuckled her own seat belt, “…I had a good time tonight,” she whispered.

  Cute. And sweet. And nervous as hell. He wasn’t going to push her for anything beyond a light kiss tonight.

  “Me too,” he said with a smile. “Come on. I’ll see you to your door.” He climbed out of the car and came around to help her out of the bucket seat. As they approached the front of the house, he took the keys from her hand and unlocked the door. Handing them back to her, he looked down at her in the light from the sconces on each side of the door.

  She was unbelievably pretty. Wholesome, with thick, dark-brown hair so healthy it gleamed. She wasn’t short, but even with heels on, he’d have to bend his head to kiss full lips he already knew were exquisitely soft. Hazel eyes darkened to nearly brown when she was agitated, and leaned to green when she was being shy, like she was now.

  Beck reached out and brushed long strands of hair behind her ear and let his hand linger, curving his palm over her jaw, threading his fingers into her hair. Her skin was soft, her hair like silk cascading over his hand.

  Her breathing escalated then the tip of her tongue swept along her bottom lip. It was so fucking hot he felt it in the thud of the pulse heating his cock. This close to her, her scent, a mixture of light floral and citrus, filled his nose. And he liked that too, how she smelled.

  When he bent his head, she went up on her toes to meet his mouth. The tip of her tongue touched his lips, and he was lost. What he meant to be a light goodnight kiss quickly turned into something much more.