by Dana Marton
“Ready?” he gave warning before coming around the corner.
“Good to go.” She was walking toward the door already, but her steps faltered at the sight of him.
His shoulders were wide and massive; an impressive amount of muscle covered his torso. He hadn’t bothered to dry off, so droplets of water glistened on his skin and on the smattering of hair that began around his belly button and disappeared below the waistline of his Bermuda-style swim shorts.
She swallowed hard and skipped that area, then swallowed again when her gaze dropped to his legs.
He always wore jeans with a black T-shirt, a pair of sweatpants in the gym. This was the first time she’d seen him in anything short. She eyed the extensive scars on his right leg warily.
He caught her looking.
“Land mine,” he said. “There. Now you know something else about me.”
“Where did that happen?”
“On the Korean border. I was looking for the damn thing. Missed it. Thank God for the protective suit. Still gave me a mother of a concussion.”
“And nearly took off your leg.”
“There was that,” he said, his face tightening.
“I didn’t know marines disarmed land mines.”
“Marines do everything and then some. But by then I wasn’t with the marines.”
Where do you graduate to from the marines? Hadn’t that job been dangerous enough for him? “Are you going to tell me who you were with?”
He gave a small smile. “Not a chance.”
“You’re not an easy man to get to know.” And if she had any brains at all, she wouldn’t try to get to know him better. She would let him do his job then forget him when he left.
She stopped and dropped her towel on a plastic chair, remembering the conversation she’d had with her mother after her first disastrous date when a guy had used her for a publicity stunt, getting her tipsy at a party then getting her up on a pool table to dance, flipping her skirt up for a photo that had made tabloid headlines all over the country.
She’d had such a crush on him. They’d been in the same accounting class all semester.
“I’m not ever going to trust a guy again,” she’d told her mom. “And since I can’t fall in love with someone I don’t trust, I’m probably never getting married,” she’d warned. “How did you ever trust Dad?”
Her father was partial owner of an up-and-coming business when he and her mother had met. Her mother came from one of the oldest Pennsylvania families, with plenty of old money and connections among the top tier. She’d had plenty of suitors who’d wanted a piece of that.
“When you really know a man with all your heart, you’ll know whether you can trust him. If you can, love comes after that,” her mother had said.
She wondered if anyone had ever loved Nash. If he’d ever let anyone close enough to get to know him.
“Worried about tomorrow?”
She hadn’t realized that he’d been watching her. She shook her head. “Thinking about my mother. How about your parents? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
They were by the pool, at the deep end.
“Only child. Parents both dead,” he said in a tone of voice that said that was the end of that conversation.
“You ever really talk to anyone?” she asked. How on earth did anyone ever get close to a man like this when he never shared anything about himself? Not that she wanted to get close to Nash. If she had any brains at all, she would stay far away from him.
“Not much to say.” He shrugged.
“I doubt that.”
“Women love a man of mystery,” he said with a sudden, teasing smile. And then he jumped into the pool, splashing her.
She could do little else but go after him. Nash was beside her, they were trapped together in their own world. In that one moment, for the first time in a long time, she felt completely safe. Too bad she couldn’t stay there forever. She pushed away, desperate for air.
He was still underwater when she broke the surface, but only a second or two passed before he came up next to her, shaking water from his hair. He had a leaf on his shoulder. Must have come from one of the dozen potted ficus trees that edged the pool.
She reached out to brush it off. His skin radiated heat. Their gazes held. The air disappeared from her lungs. Physical attraction drew her forward. Common sense held her in place.
She held her breath as time stopped.
“We should swim those laps,” he said, breaking the spell.
And she threw herself into the task as if thrown a lifeline. She put every ounce of energy she had into slicing through the water. One lap, two, three…five, six. She was only vaguely aware that he passed her periodically, his powerful body outpacing hers almost two laps to one.
When she was gasping for air, her muscles burning, she stopped and hung on to the pool’s edge, watched him finish.
He stopped next to her once again, just as close as before. Closer. Drops of water rolled off his wide shoulders. His eyes burned with desire. Her mouth went dry as primal need overtook her.
He shook his head. “It’s not working. I still want you so much I can’t see straight.”
She couldn’t breathe.
“It’s about the stupidest thing we could do. Your call.”
She had no idea where she got the temerity to slip into his arms. “I haven’t done anything colossally stupid in at least a week,” she murmured against his mouth.
The second their lips met, pleasure flooded her body. He pulled her to him tightly, leaving no doubt where he wanted her, how much he wanted her, every inch of them touching. And then he kissed her dizzy.
His lips were firm and warm on hers, tasting, teasing, cajoling. He was still the soldier. First he did a thorough recon, then he moved ahead and conquered. His large, masculine hands explored her body under the water. She wore very little, barely anything blocking his way. Her breasts grew full under his palms. Heat gathered low in her belly. She was about ready to wave the white flag and surrender everything when he pulled away.
He was breathing as erratically as she was. But he grabbed on to the side of the pool and pushed himself out of the water, his triceps bulging. Among other things. When he was out, he turned to offer a helping hand.
He pulled her out and up into his arms, carried her to the showers. This time, they showered together. And what little clothes they had on didn’t leave much to the imagination.
Whatever was happening between them was progressing at the speed of light. They had to stop, but as his hands slid down the curve of her back, she found herself pressing even closer to him.
He kissed her, possessed her, tasted her mouth, her neck, her nipples. She wanted him, then and there, their bodies slick with water.
She had never in her life done anything as crazy as making love in a public place when she knew very well the paparazzi were always lurking. She had to be out of her mind to be doing this.
As if reading her thoughts, he pulled away, leaning his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry, princess. This is it.”
Her body vibrated with frustration and need. She couldn’t speak.
“I don’t have any protection.” His voice was thick with barely controlled desire.
“I’m not on the pill,” she admitted.
He drew a few slow breaths, regained his composure faster than she did, pulled back to look into her eyes. “And even if we had…If we went any further, you’d regret it in the morning. You’d probably fire me, and there’s no way in hell I’d leave while you were still in danger. Things could get real complicated.”
He reached for a towel and wrapped her in it before he stepped away from her completely. For an endless moment he watched her, one emotion after the other flickering through his keen gaze. Then he said, “I crossed the line tonight. It’s not going to happen again. My full focus has to be your safety. You’re not safe yet. Not from the enemy, and as hard as I’m going to try, probably not from me,” he sai
d in a rueful tone.
She ignored that last bit for now, didn’t know what to do with it. “But the man is dead.”
She’d talked to the police. She and Nash had given statements. Thing was, the elevator crash did seem like a massive computer error, nothing more. The guy in the basement couldn’t be linked to it in any way. He had no ID, so the police were still trying to find out who he was. Not an employee, although he wore an employee’s uniform. The cops thought he might have stolen a uniform to get in free, maybe to see a show. He’d probably run from Nash only because he thought he was about to be caught by security.
“That guy wasn’t here by accident. He was here for you.” Nash clearly didn’t agree with the police. “But you don’t know him. Greg doesn’t know him. Nobody on your team had ever seen the man before. It’s unlikely that your whole family is being targeted by a random stranger. What’s his angle? It’s a lot more likely that he was a hired man, working for someone. And whoever hired him can hire another hit man just as easily.”
“But he wasn’t in my apartment when the picture was taken.” She wasn’t sure what that meant, only that she badly wanted her staff exonerated.
“Whoever wants to hurt you could have more than one person working for him.” He went to grab his clothes.
She made sure she was dressed by the time he came back, not an easy task when her limbs were still weak with need.
Once again, he went first in the staircase, stopped at the bottom before they stepped out into the hallway on their floor.
His whiskey-gold gaze held hers. “My mother was a small-town diva, Miss Montgomery County, the beauty queen. Married my father then decided blue collar was too low for her. Couldn’t forgive him that he got her pregnant and cost her a magazine-ad photo shoot, either. She kept leaving and coming back. He started drinking. She left when I was sixteen. By then the old man was pretty mean. I stuck around until I graduated from high school, then I joined the service. My old man drank himself into the grave before I was done with basic training.”
Her worst fear was that she would lose all her family. Her worst fear, and he was living it. She moved toward him, but he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, didn’t turn to her again until they were inside her suite. He walked her to her bedroom and wished her good-night without so much as a chaste peck on the cheek. Which was probably for the best. She would have hated embarrassing herself by begging him to stay with her.
She dropped on top of the covers, not bothering with undressing. She wore a pair of clean shorts and a tank top. But despite all the running and swimming she had done, sleep didn’t come easily.
She kept thinking of Nash.
And the more she thought, the more grateful she became that nothing had happened in that shower. As attractive as she found the man, she couldn’t have an affair with her bodyguard. He didn’t even like her. And he’d be gone in a couple of days.
If she weren’t careful, she was going to end up like her fast-and-loose celebrity image. And that wasn’t the direction she wanted to take her life. Some day, when the danger was over, she was going to have a serious image makeover. She was going to be a businesswoman to reckon with, one who was strong enough and respected enough to take over the company after Uncle Al retired.
Nash was a temporary distraction. She needed to stop thinking of him as a man and stick to business. She needed to focus on her future and her plans.
PART OF HIM was glad that she didn’t get hurt, part of him was furious that the man he had paid had failed. He was a friend of a friend, someone he trusted.
She should have left things alone. But she kept pushing and pushing. And now that Wilder guy was on her team. What were they doing anyway, sneaking in and out of the suite together? He didn’t like that.
The man made him uneasy. Wilder took charge. Wilder was investigating. But Wilder had been hired by her. When she was gone, Wilder would go away. He had to outsmart Wilder for only a little while longer. He would find someone else who could help him with Kayla. And then it would all be over.
NASH STARED at the ceiling. Kissing her had been incredibly stupid. Yet he couldn’t regret it. He wanted her still. His body demanded that he walk into her bedroom, close the door behind him and finish what they’d started.
It had been a frustrating day all around. Someone had nearly gotten to Kayla. Fury whipped through him every time he thought about that. When he nearly had the bastard, the idiot had gone and got himself killed, so they were no closer to an answer now than at the very beginning.
And he’d even asked for Welkins’s help. He’d taken the picture of the man who’d messed with the elevators and sent it on to the boss by cell phone. Maybe there’d be a hit in one of the databases Welkins had access to.
Other than that, his only lead was the photo taken inside Kayla’s apartment. And that photo pointed to someone on staff. But he’d been unable to make any progress on that.
Tsini plodded out of Kayla’s room and walked around the living room, checking the perimeter, sniffing around the front door. She looked at Nash as if to make sure he was awake and on guard, as well.
The dog looked as goofy as all get out with her fancy haircut, but she was growing on him. As if sensing the danger to Kayla, whenever she wasn’t competing, Tsini stuck close to her.
“Nothing we can do tonight,” he told her. “Might as well go to sleep.”
He needed rest. He needed to be at one hundred percent tomorrow. The enemy had one man down. Which didn’t mean she was safe. All depended on how fast the bastard who was behind all this could find a replacement.
Tsini made another round, then, seeming satisfied with the result of her inspection, moseyed back into Kayla’s bedroom to settle at the foot of her bed.
Not that long ago, when he went to battle his teammates provided cover with rocket launchers. Now he had a poodle for backup, Nash thought, and shook his head.
He slept in fits and starts, waking bleary-eyed in the morning, not that he would let that affect him. He’d been trained to operate on little sleep.
Kayla looked as fit for the silver screen as always. Since she wouldn’t meet his eyes when she came out of her room for breakfast, he figured he’d been right and she regretted everything that had happened between them during the night.
He shouldn’t have felt disappointed. She was way out of his league. She was a celebrity heiress. He was a washed-up nobody.
She raced through her food then Elvis did full hair and makeup. Pretty early, he thought, considering that Tsini wasn’t competing for the Best in Show title until that afternoon.
“I’m going down to see the agility competitions,” she said before he had a chance to ask anything. “I don’t want to sit around up here all morning.”
“No.” The word came out too loudly, too forcefully. In front of her whole staff.
Just the thing Welkins had told him not to do if he knew what was good for him.
He wasn’t supposed to take over. He wasn’t supposed to act the boss, especially in front of the client’s employees and friends. He no longer cared.
Her lips, the same lips that he’d kissed senseless the night before, now tightened. Mike and Dave pulled themselves taller, ready to see him lose his authority, allowing them to get some back.
“It’d be safer to stay. I’m sure you would agree, considering all that’s happened.” He tried to backpedal, hating that he couldn’t simply issue orders. He didn’t much like operating in the civilian world. Dealing with military personnel was much easier.
On his team, he’d been the leader. And his men had followed rank. Here, Kayla outranked him, which, if he were honest, bugged him to hell.
“Agility is fun. I don’t want to be locked up here. I deserve a normal life,” she said. “We’ll be careful.”
He could have pushed. He was a tough son of a bitch, he could have probably browbeaten her, scared her into staying in her suite. But suddenly he found he didn’t want to do that. Because she
was right. She did deserve a normal life.
He was used to living under battle conditions. But she shouldn’t have to live her life as if she were at war.
She was still in danger, he had no doubt in his mind about that. But maybe they’d get a little breather before her enemy, whoever the bastard was, regrouped.
He held her ocean-blue gaze. “Stick to me. Draw no attention. When I say we leave, we leave.”
She surprised him with a smile and a mock salute.
And the tension leaked out of the room as everyone went about their business.
In the end, Tom stayed behind to beautify Tsini for the Best in Show competition. Greg stayed with him. Poor guy had another one of his headaches. Nash left Dave in the suite with them, and Mike joined him and Kayla. Elvis, Fisk and Ivan tagged along, but soon split off, going after their own interests.
The elevator ride was uneventful. If Kayla felt nervous, she didn’t show it. He had to give it to her, she was one tough woman. She didn’t crack easily.
The morning contest didn’t turn out to be as boring as he’d expected. The working dogs were all right. They conquered the obstacle course like nobody’s business. Although, now that he’d gotten to know Tsini better, he was beginning to think that Tsini could more than hold her own against them. Apparently, fanciness and toughness weren’t mutually exclusive.
Agility was followed by Junior Showmanship. Since Kayla so obviously wanted to stay, he didn’t push too hard to get her back upstairs. They didn’t return to her suite until lunch, in fact.
After lunch, it was Tsini’s turn again.
And Nash found himself leaning forward in his seat, rooting for her, hoping for another win.
The dogs were checked from head to toe as before. They had to run around the judge in a circle. Tsini pranced between a rottweiler and a St. Bernard. He had no idea how the judges could compare breeds that were so different from each other.
