Guarding His Body

by KS Augustin

  He tuned into the conversation in time to suggest himself as a potential guinea pig, and was amused and gratified by the brief frisson of alarm that danced across her features. That was good. It showed she wasn’t unaware of him and of the sneaking attraction that wound its way around them both.

  Pinning a small smile on his face, he stood there, watching as she skimmed his figure from head to toe. Why, even in those shiny black shoes of hers, she must only reach to his shoulders. But then he saw the look in her eyes and felt a stab of unease. The young woman looked at him as if…as if he was nothing more than a slab of meat! A filet de boeuf on display at a butcher’s counter, to be analysed and prodded before being either chosen or discarded, her gaze cool and assessing. It was as though she was weighing him for some purpose, and Yves was uncomfortably struck by the thought that he probably had a similar expression on his face when gazing at beautiful women.

  Mon dieu, was that true? He thought he treated each of his bed partners with cordiality and respect, but this detached appraisal brought home the other side of the coin—of women he had eyed in the casinos and on the racing circuits and polo fields of Europe—and a shiver of unease crawled up Yves’ spine, making him shrug his shoulders in order to relax his muscles again.

  Who was this petite femme who dared look at him in such a manner, he wondered with growing irritation. He would send her packing and have stern words with Ryan Greenwood after this. The Australian would be lucky to get another international client again. Yves flexed his shoulders again, this time more casually. He might be a businessman, but he had been an athletic young man, even trying out for the French soccer team while he was still studying at university. His ongoing fitness was something he took very seriously. He jerked his head up. So let’s see how many seconds it would take before this young scrap found herself on the floor and out of a very lucrative contract.

  “Would you like me to keep the jacket on or off?” she asked, lightly.

  “Off,” he said shortly, then realised that both people were staring at his quick and abrupt response. He smiled, softening the words. “This part of the world is quite warm. I doubt you’ll need to wear many warm clothes. Let us dress for the weather in this demonstration.”

  She nodded and unbuttoned the jacket. It was a simple and casual series of gestures, but watching her nimble fingers as she snapped each button free was one of the most erotic things Yves had seen in his life. She shrugged off the garment and walked to the empty chair next to Guy, laying it carefully over the chair’s back, while he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. The top that looked so demure while under the jacket revealed itself to be a smooth, short sheath of glistening sensuality. The vest hugged Helen Collier’s curves even more lovingly than the jacket did, and Yves slowly let out a silent breath. Even Guy watched her with obvious male appreciation. Then she turned back to him, and he concentrated once more on the lesson at hand.

  “What would you like me to show you?” she asked of Guy.

  He waved in his assistant’s direction. “Um, Monsieur Nerin will let you know.”

  If the young woman thought it strange that a rich man referred to his assistant in the formal manner, she made no comment.

  She looked at him enquiringly but he shrugged, his mind completely—and uncharacteristically—empty.

  “Okay, why not pretend you have a knife?” she suggested. “Take a stab at me.”

  He didn’t believe she was ready. She couldn’t be ready, not when she had not adopted any traditional stance that he knew. Her feet were a little apart, but she had not even raised her hands. Maybe this femme didn’t know anything, and this whole episode was some kind of sick dare aimed at an unsuspecting foreign dupe. Well, she would soon find out what it meant to waste the time of Yves de Saint Nerin!

  Despite his irritation, Yves didn’t want to hurt her so, imaginary knife in hand, he made a relatively slow overhand lunge at her with his right hand. He didn’t know what happened next, although Guy told him later that she moved the instant he started his downward arm movement. There was a stinging pain in his arm, then across his chest, then he felt a hard wall slam into his back. The breath whooshed out of him.

  Helen Collier stepped up and glared at him. “Only villains in television dramas try to knife someone in an overhand attack,” she told him. “How about attempting something a bit sneakier?”

  Yves grimaced and tried hard not to look too flustered. He stepped forward, away from the wall, and she stepped back to give him more room. He glanced over at Guy, who looked like he was trying to hold back spasms of laughter.

  He was distracted, that was all. Distracted by that revealing figure-hugging vest item she was wearing, and a fragrance that reminded him of a summer’s breeze blowing across French fields. He would not make that same mistake again.

  He frowned at Guy, to show that he was not happy to be the butt of someone’s joke, and asked for the pen that lay on a table next to his assistant. Guy threw it to him, and he caught it with one hand. That felt better. Now he could better visualise what it would be like to be holding a weapon, instead of just pretending to. That was another thing that probably threw him off, simulating a knife attack without a knife. Feeling more confident, Yves widened his stance and opened his arms, beckoning her to fall into his embrace. This was certainly something different for him, enfolding a woman in a way that was not at all affectionate.

  Helen didn’t move. She just stood there, waiting, looking at him with those huge, stormy eyes until he eventually took a step forward, determined to try for a slash across her body this time. Again, she moved faster than he could track. He felt something hard contact his hand, sending the pen spinning across the room, then a sharp elbow in his gut, driving the air from his body. This time, he felt himself stagger back, hitting the wall once again. Dimly, he heard Guy spluttering in the distance, but he shook his head. In front of him, Helen Collier stood, as cool and unruffled as before.

  Bien, so the chit knew something after all. But Yves was still not willing to put his safety in her delicate looking hands.

  “That was an impressive demonstration, Madame Collier,” Guy said, obviously thinking that Yves had had enough of being slammed into a wall. “I think perhaps we have seen–”

  “Non,” Yves interrupted loudly. “Let’s clear some space and try one more time. And not with a pretend, or otherwise, knife this time.”

  Something flickered across her face—it couldn’t possibly be amusement—and then she was helping Guy move the furniture to the other side of the room. The conference table was rather large, but they turned it sideways and shoved it against the wall, leaving a large open space near the door for Yves’ last experiment. Despite himself, he liked that about her. There was no hesitation in helping Guy, even when it involved moving heavy objects around the room. The usual women of his acquaintance would have shrieked horribly lest they chip one of their perfectly manicured fingernails but, after slanting that one sly look at him, she had pitched in without complaint. It was—disconcertingly attractive.

  But he was not here to run an admiring glance over his supposed bodyguard. He was here to prove that she simply didn’t have what it took to take care of him. There was nothing personal in the thought. He didn’t mind women around, of course, but in their proper places—and with one so attractive, on a hair-trigger as she walked by his side, there was no such place. But maybe, after he convinced her that they could not deal together, she might still be open for dinner as a consolation prize. While he was determined to remain in Australia till the police had time to thoroughly investigate Leonid Alexandrov, nobody said the time he spent here had to be celibate.

  He smiled disarmingly as he faced her, but nothing so much as flickered behind those cool, assessing eyes. D’accord!

  He moved with a panther’s grace, feinting in one direction then stepping in another, and had the satisfaction of seeing sudden surprise on her face before it was quickly masked. He didn’t have time to wonder why such
a thought gratified him before he lunged at her again, this time catching her wrist in a vice-like grip. He expected her to scream, to say something, to stop, but she kept moving as if it didn’t matter that he held onto her in the kind of hold, he was sure, she could not break.

  To his own surprise, she angled around to his back and he felt a stab of pain in his kidneys. He had no choice, he had to let go of her hand—the strike to his back both stunned and hurt him—and he felt a quick kick to the back of his knees.

  He was still surprised as he felt himself falling, her hand on him—touching him, moving with him like a lover—as he fell through the air and hit the carpet. When he opened his eyes, she was crouched above him. Her hand tightened against his throat, fingers like steel cables against his neck, and one of her feet pinned down his right arm. He knew he could play the macho man now, and sweep her aside just as she’d managed to demonstrate her skills without hurting him too much, turning the tables on her and sneering in her face. Something in her face told him she half-expected him to do exactly that, and he was ashamed that she thought so little of his gender.

  He relaxed his body, ceding defeat, and tried smiling up at her. This was no mean feat, considering she was still pressing her fingers against his windpipe, but it was enough, and she relaxed her hold and swiftly moved away from him, rising to her feet.

  “Would that be enough of a demonstration, Monsieur Nerin?” she asked, unable to keep the silkiness out of her voice.

  “Oui,” he replied, although he had the urge to cough. “You’re hired.”

  Chapter Three

  Oh, he felt good. Helen half-curled her fingers into her palms as she stepped away from Mr. Nerin. Maybe she had hit him a little harder than she should have—that mocking look on his face had goaded her into proving herself once and for all—but he was as hard and delicious to the touch as she’d known he would be. It was difficult laying a hand on him to move him when all she wanted to do was grab him and pull him closer, and press those cynical lips of his against hers. In a way, the demonstration made it more difficult, because she now had the memory of his body imprinted on her fingertips, and his dark and spicy masculine aroma seared into her brain.

  With a tight smile at both men, she walked to the vacant armchair and shrugged into her jacket, buttoning it up. She usually didn’t care about such things—she had a job to do and that was the most important thing—but there was a driving need to hide herself from the tall man who now watched her with a glint of speculation in his eye. She felt vulnerable in front of him, as if he could somehow see straight into her soul, and she didn’t like it.

  And that wasn’t the only thing bothering her. The relationship between the two men was somehow out of balance. Mr. Nerin seemed to hold the upper hand, even though he was supposedly Guy Aubrac’s assistant. It wasn’t just his height, but his personality that commanded automatic respect. She stood relaxed and looked at the businessman. He’d think it was because she expected a final answer from him—after all, he was the one paying her—but she was actually using those seconds to weigh up his character. Maybe he was one of those men who inherited his money from a line of wealthy ancestors. And, rather than admit that he had little business acumen himself, had set about hiring the most astute assistant he could find. Helen didn’t know how such things played out in Europe, but it sounded possible to her. What a stroke of luck then that he had managed to find Mr. Nerin. The man didn’t even have to speak to have everyone scurrying about, doing his nonverbal bidding. One flick from his eyebrow, or a glare from those deep, mysterious, blue eyes of his, and lesser mortals would instantly divine what was wrong and rush to rectify whatever had displeased him.

  The explanation seemed plausible to Helen, except for the fact that no-first-name gorgeous hunk didn’t look the type to bend his will to any other person. Even when she had him on the floor, pinned with one foot and ready to do some serious damage to his throat with the other, he was the one who told her she was hired, while his employer sat across the room, frozen into inaction, unwilling to cut the demonstration short. Could Guy Aubrac see the unstoppable ambition in his assistant? Helen hoped so, because Mr. Nerin was, quite simply, lethal, and Guy seemed too nice a person to be drowned by the tsunami of his assistant’s obvious zeal.

  “That was, er, a very formidable demonstration, Madame. I think,” he glanced over at the other man who was—Helen was amused to hear—coughing discreetly behind her, “we can safely say you are hired for this position.”

  “I have something to say to Monsieur Aubrac,” Nerin added, his voice still a bit raspy from her hold on his throat. “If you could just step out of the room for a moment?”

  It wasn’t a request even though it sounded like one. Helen nodded her head and left the room, closing the door behind her with a soft click.

  What in the world was wrong now? Had she somehow dented Nerin’s pride, and he was now after revenge? Was he going to suggest that they reverse the decision to hire her? But he seemed to concede the situation earlier. Helen’s hands became suddenly clammy, and she paced back and forth, in front of the door with short, quick steps. She hated having her future determined by someone else, and she hated the fact that she was desperate for the money that was on offer. It would solve so many of her more immediate problems. But all of her plans would remain fantasy if she couldn’t somehow convince the two men in the room that she could be trusted with their personal security.

  The door swung open noiselessly, and she looked up into a pair of blue eyes. Whatever Helen had done to him, he looked completely recovered. A polite, but impervious, expression was on his face, and she met a wall when she tried to dig deeper, to find out what he was thinking behind such a blankly civil gaze. She couldn’t tell whether she was going to get the job, or be thrown out on her ear. And she couldn’t tell if he was as disturbed by their intimate encounter as she still was.

  “Please come in.”

  Helen entered the room, hoping her anxiety wasn’t too obvious. Mr. Nerin moved past her—she got another whiff of his delectable fragrance—to the other armchair and seated himself. Both men looked at her.

  Aubrac cleared his throat. “May I ask where you live, Madame?”

  It was strange how uncomfortable he looked as he asked that question, as if it had been reluctantly pulled from him.

  “Fortitude Valley,” she replied, then realised that the two foreigners might not know where that was. “It’s north of the city but quite close to here. It’s no trouble getting here each day, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  The slight pink on Guy Aubrac’s face deepened, puzzling her. “We would, ah, prefer it if you stayed here. At our expense, of course,” he added quickly.

  She looked around. “At Heritage House?”

  The thought was tempting. Actually, it was more than tempting. The opportunity to live in the lap of luxury in an historic and impeccably renovated house with a million-dollar view—the object of her abseiling fantasies—was almost irresistible. Almost.

  “But why?” she continued, quashing down her errant thought. “I live only a handful of minutes away.” She thought back to the coffee she’d shared with Ryan yesterday, and his assurance that she wouldn’t be needed around the clock.

  “If you’re going anywhere, I can be here—dressed appropriately—in less than twenty minutes,” she persisted.

  “But what if m-Monsieur Aubrac’s schedule is more spontaneous?” Nerin asked smoothly.

  “I still don’t see the problem,” she countered. “Is a wait of ten or twenty minutes really going to make much of a difference?”

  Nerin glared at her, obviously bothered by her stubbornness.

  Why was she making such a big issue out of this, Helen wondered to herself. Most people would jump at the chance to stay at the historic home, especially if it didn’t cost them a cent. But the truth was, she didn’t really want to be any closer to the disturbing Mr. Nerin than she absolutely had to be. There was something about the man tha
t constantly unsettled her, from his frankly assessing gaze to the leashed power of his body. Not to mention the feel of his hot, taut muscles under her fingers, a disloyal part of her added.

  “It may do,” the object of her musings replied in clipped tones. “And what if I, or Monsieur Aubrac, are attacked? Do we say to them, could you please wait until our bodyguard arrives?”

  His voice was mocking and Helen flushed at the taunt.

  “I would have thought, Madame Collier that, considering what we are prepared to pay you, a bit of loyalty to your employer is not out of the question.”

  Damn him, but the man was right. Under any other circumstances, Helen wouldn’t have hesitated. It was quite natural for a client to want his security escort close by, and staying at Heritage House was no hardship. And, besides... She. Needed. That. Money.

  “You are correct, Monsieur Nerin,” she finally conceded stiffly. “I will make arrangements to move into Heritage House tomorrow.”

  “Today,” he said firmly.

  Even her ostensible employer, Guy Aubrac, looked surprised at that.

  “Today?” she repeated.

  “We have paid for two weeks of your time, have we not?”

  “Y-e-s.”.

  He nodded, as if the discussion was already closed. “And today is part of that two weeks. Therefore, you will move in today.”

  There was nothing she could say to that, except stare at him blankly.

  “Tell me where you live, and I shall help you move.”

  Let this man into her private apartment? Her private life? Only if she had a death wish! The one thing she was absolutely sure of, was the fact that Monsieur Nerin was unforgettable. As things stood, she knew she would never scale the rocky wall at Kangaroo Point again without remembering her meeting here today. She would never be able to enter Heritage House, or look at pictures of it, without being reminded of his intense, blue eyes or the feel of his body against hers.