The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Ten

G od fucking damn it .

She knew exactly how the fuck she was looking at me.

“Like I’m your only anchor.” It wasn’t a statement, it was a warning. This woman wanted more than my mouth on her. Which wasn’t something I did. Ever. I didn’t kiss women. I bent them to my will, then I fucked them and left. No kissing. No attachments.

A shitstorm of emotions raced across her face before something close to calm settled in. I was stupid enough to presume her next words would be every bit the actress she was.

“Right now, you are my only anchor.” Guileless, and with a trust I didn’t fucking want, she laid her shit out there.

And because my dick had been hard since the damn shower last night, I bit out questions I had no business asking. “Boyfriend? Family? Support system?”

“No, I don’t have anyone.” No hesitation, she rattled off her response without blinking.

Fuck. Fuck . “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why no support system?” I’d been around too long not to see the warning signs. Famous actress or not, a lonely chick was a lonely chick. Add a uniform, whether it was the service or Luna’s damn logo polos, and you became a target. I wasn’t above using a uniform to score, but a chick who clung to you? Not my scene and not fucking happening.

Her chest rose with an inhale. “Jerry and Janette were it.” Her eyes a clearer shade of blue this morning without her pupils dilated as fuck, she stared at me for a moment. Then she dropped a bomb. “I just fired them.”

Fuck .

I wasn’t surprised she’d fired her asshole agent. Expecting the unexpected was how you survived. Shit rarely surprised me after Afghanistan and Iraq. Only a fucking fool would let himself get taken off guard after spending any time downrange. I figured something was up when she’d called her lawyer then he’d had her security contract switched to her control. But fuck . The ramification of Hollywood’s it girl firing the team that managed her career while I was her security detail? That fucking threw me.

“You got someone else in place?” I had no business asking. My job was singular. Protect her from the paparazzi. I got paid whether she threw her life away or not. I didn’t need to get involved.

She shook her head. “No.”

Not involved. Christ . I had her hair in my fist, she was looking up at me with misplaced trust, and my dick was itching to get in her mouth and have those full lips wrap around it. Not to mention I was contemplating kissing the fuck out of her just to see what she tasted like. This wasn’t a dangerous combination, it was a fucking catastrophe. She was a catastrophe.

A naturally submissive, sexy-as-fuck catastrophe.

She licked her bottom lip again.

Jesus , I needed to remember my fucking job.

I changed the subject. “Tunnel vision, ringing in your ears, light-headed, anything?”

She’d already almost passed out on me once, which hadn’t made me fucking happy. In fact, it’d done the opposite. I was pissed as hell she hadn’t told me about her fear of needles, or blood or whatever the issue was, but she clearly knew it going in and tried to mask it with bravado. Not that I didn’t respect that, but her laid out on the floor wasn’t happening on my watch .

She reached up and grasped my forearm in her small hand. “I’m good.”

I knew the move. I knew every signal she was putting out, and they were all green lights. I also knew who the fuck I was. I didn’t screw around with clingy women. I kept everything simple and clean. That meant no attachments and no bullshit drama. This chick was drama on steroids.

She was also begging for the kind of attention I knew how to give. She’d be exactly what I wanted between the sheets. Hell, she’d fit my needs like a glove, but fuck, I was a damn fool to even consider going there.

Shoving down thoughts about taking her mouth and wondering what her sexy bedroom voice would sound like when I fucked her hard, I dropped my hand to her elbow. “Let’s go.”

She planted her feet. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Shit. “No,” I clipped, digging myself deeper.

“Wife? Current or ex?”

Was she fucking crazy? “Read between the lines.” I dropped her arm and stepped toward the door.

She followed. “Answer my question.”

“No.” Goddamn it, my cock liked sparring with her.

“No, you don’t have a wife or no, you aren’t answering?”

I stared at her because I could.

“I’m your boss,” she said defiantly. “You have to answer my question.”

A dozen ways to wipe that defiance off her face crossed my mind then traveled straight to my dick. “You’re a lot of things, but my anything isn’t one of them.”

“I’m your client.” She pointed out.

I switched tactics. “Do you know how old I am?”

Her face scrunched up in confusion, like I’d thrown her. “Thirty?”

I had no clue when she was or wasn’t acting. Not when I didn’t have my hands on her. Which wasn’t happening again. “Thirty-four.” Too fucking old for her. “Why didn’t you go for Tyler?”

That made her blink. “The other bodyguard?”

“Yeah.” Or any other asshole for that matter. I wasn’t fucking fishing for compliments. I was stupidly trying to gauge how serious she was, because despite every warning sign, I was still thinking about what it would feel like to pound into her.

“The one who smiled all the time and called me ma’am,” she stated, like I was dumb as fuck.

And the one who’d let her naked ass run across South Beach, which I was progressively more pissed about by the minute. But she didn’t ask it as a question, so I didn’t answer.

She exhaled like she was put out, then glanced around the office before her gaze came back to me. “Okay. You want the truth?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Here it is. I don’t do this.” She pointed between us. “I don’t sleep around. I wasn’t looking for a man to satisfy some itch. I wasn’t looking for anything except to keep my head above water until the day I decided I was done. Because you don’t get to decide anything in this industry. Not what you say, what you wear, how you act, where you go, who you go with, what you make, or how you do it. None of it is in your control. I’m not a person, I’m a brand.”

She stopped to take a breath and see if I’d say shit.

I didn’t.

“But I’m not my brand.” She held her hands up and spread them out as if reading a marquee. “Former squeaky-clean child star becomes Hollywood’s darling.” She snorted. “That isn’t me. It never was, but I’m not dumb enough to fuck my gravy train with no end game in sight. So I made my own end game, and that’s been my focus for four years. Not a thirty-second orgasm from some Hollywood prick more concerned about how he looked as he fucked me and what he’d get out of me than if I got off. So no, I didn’t look twice at Tyler, or any other man.” She paused. “Until I woke up handcuffed to your bed.”

Bullshit. “Let’s go.” I turned toward the door .

“That’s it?” she practically squeaked, her voice cracking with indignation. “That’s all you have to say?”

I didn’t buy one fucking word. Declarations were the half-assed attempts of the desperate to gain control over a situation they had no control over. She didn’t think shit when she woke up handcuffed, except to wonder where the hell she was and who I was.

“You’ve been here long enough.” I needed to get her the fuck out of here. “Time to move.”

She let me take her arm as the same two security guards met us outside the office and escorted us back to the parking garage. By some stroke of luck, no one had figured out she was here, and we made it to the Escalade without incident—until I opened the door to the back passenger seat of the SUV.

She looked up at me with disdain. “Now I can’t sit in the front?”

“I never should’ve had you in the front to begin with.” Not with a high-profile client. The side and rear windows were limo tint, but in the front passenger seat she was visible through the windshield. “Get in.”

She didn’t move. “So this is how it’s going to be? You lead me on, I pour my feelings out, then you relegate me to the back seat?”

“I’m your security detail, not your shrink.” Unsecure garage, no backup, and vehicles coming and going, it was only a matter of seconds before someone recognized her.

She looked at me like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Then she shook her head and her actress face slid into place. “You’re an asshole.”

“Confirmed and certified.” I knew who the fuck I was.