The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Thirty-Four

H olding P eony’s reins, I walked out of the barn only to abruptly stop in my tracks.

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

He was here.

On the farm.

Larger than life, Tank looked even bigger than I remembered, and worse, emotions I’d been fighting to keep down just so I could breathe through the day came rushing back at the sight of him. He literally took my breath away.

Peony whinnied and kicked the dirt.

“Easy, girl,” I murmured. “Easy.”

His gaze cutting through me, Tank took in every inch of my body without his eyes ever leaving mine. “I need to talk to you.”

My stomach lurched, and my knees almost buckled at the sound of his deep, unforgiving voice. A dozen thoughts flew through my head with a dozen more responses I wanted to say. I miss you. I want to talk to you too. I’m sorry. I can’t breathe. I want your arms around me. I need you. I fucked up. I never meant to hurt you. Please, please kiss me.

But I didn’t say any of it. “I’m busy.”

Daddy looked between us, and for a second I thought he’d come to my rescue. But we weren’t that family. We never were. If there was anything I’d learned from my father, it was that the Jensens fended for themselves.

“Audrina,” Tank warned .

My father grunted and stepped forward, taking Peony’s reins.

Tank glanced at him before looking back to me. “You can take five minutes to talk to me.” He tipped his chin toward the path that led around the side of the barn before heading toward it without even looking to see if I followed.

I glanced at my dad, but he was already leading Peony in the opposite direction.

Shit.

Nerves licking up my spine, my stomach flipping, I was trying to breathe through my pounding heartbeat when a breeze kicked up and I got a lungful of his scent. Man, soap, musk, laundry detergent, it all blended together and smelled about a thousand times better than I remembered.

Fighting a groan, I was thinking about making a run for the house and locking myself inside when my mom came out on the front porch, glared at me, then went right back inside. She still hadn’t asked why I’d come home. Neither had Dad. In fact, they hadn’t asked me anything, not about my career or what I was doing here, or if I planned on staying. They hadn’t asked a thing. They’d just put me to work.

I’d walked in the house at dinnertime over a week ago, had insults thrown at me, then we’d all sat down and eaten off the same plates with the same silverware that I’d grown up with, as we discussed the same issues with the farm. It was as if time had stopped.

But it hadn’t.

Nothing was different, except everything had changed.

In seven days I’d learned my brother was divorced and living in a trailer on the other side of the apple orchard. He and a few hired farmhands tended to the cornfields, and Dad took care of the apple orchard, which was opposite of how it worked before I left. My brother and I had always taken care of the apple trees. Those trees, the ones Tank was walking toward, had been the best part of my childhood.

I was trying to decide if I wanted to taint those precious childhood memories with a giant beast of a man who was no doubt still angry with me, when he turned around and gave me a warning look.

My first instinct was to rush toward him and all of his alpha bossy bullshit and beg for forgiveness. Thankfully it was immediately followed by the stubborn streak that’d motivated me my entire life.

My hand went to my hip. “How did you find me?” My mother had given me over to a D-list casting agent all those years ago, complete with a legal name change and guardianship papers. She’d buried my identity, and my family had kept their mouths shut for ten years. It’d worked. No one had figured out who I really was. Until now.

Predator slow, Tank walked back toward me. Looming over me, expression impenetrable, he stared at me for two heartbeats. Then he reached in his cargo pocket and pulled out a photo. Using his first two fingers to hold it up, fingers that had been inside me, he flipped it to face me.

I dropped my gaze to the picture.

It was me, on Peony’s mother, Daisy. Gripping two handfuls of her mane, riding bareback, a smile wider than I remembered how to make, I was holding on for dear life as she ran full tilt. My long hair behind me, the sun setting, I remembered the day like it was yesterday.

I cleared my throat against the memory. “My brother took that picture. So what?”

We’d snuck my parents’ new camera the night before after they’d gone to bed. Daddy had bought it to take pictures of the horses because he was going to sell them. It was the only piece of technology in the house, and my brother and I had been forbidden to use it, but we were kids and we were curious. My brother had taken pictures all day, and we’d used the small screen to look at them until the battery ran out.

It’d been the best day ever until Daddy caught us. Then we’d both gotten a beating and were sent to bed without dinner. That was the first night my brother had come into my room. A week later I’d caught Momma looking at a pile of printed copies of the pictures before breakfast, before anyone had been up. She’d shoved the pictures in a drawer, and I’d stupidly not thought more of it .

“Look closer,” Tank commanded.

I peered at the picture my mother had sent to the casting agent all those years ago. It was one of the only mementos I had of my childhood. “Where did you get this?” I thought I’d gotten all the pictures when I’d left.

“Background, right side,” he said ignoring my question. “What do you see?”

I looked closer. Our mailbox, right next to the street sign.

“Do you know how many streets in the US are named Oak?”

Road , I mentally corrected, looking closer at the picture he was still holding up. But the photo was old and the RD was blurred out, same as it was on the actual sign. “No idea.”

“Almost seven thousand.”

“Who knew,” I said dryly, reaching for the picture.

He snapped the photo back and shoved it in his pocket.

“Hey, that’s mine.” I stupidly reached for his pocket.

Grabbing my wrist faster than I could blink, he pulled hard. My chest slammed into his, and his voice dropped to a warning. “Did I give you permission to touch me?”

It was instant.

Desire surged between my legs, and need so sharp it was painful crawled across my skin. My mouth watered, my pussy clenched at emptiness, and I wanted to ride him like I’d ridden Daisy.

If his brand of dominance was a drug, I was addicted.

“Answer me,” he demanded.

His unforgiving gaze held me hostage, but I didn’t have to give in to my addiction.

Steeling my resolve, I straightened my shoulders. “What are you going to do, Falcon?” I purposely used his name. “Turn me into your needy little bitch ? Throw me down and fuck me right here in front of the stables?”

Not a single muscle moved on his face, but his voice turned lethally quiet. “Fantasizing about my cock? ”

“You wish,” I taunted, lying. He was all I’d been thinking about.

He grasped my jaw as his fingers closed over my neck in dominance. “You sure you wanna keep up that attitude?”

“Or what?” I forced myself to pull back. He let go of my face, but not my wrist. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t Miami Beach.”

“It’s not fucking Hollywood either,” he countered.

“Meaning?”

“Cut the bullshit.” His grip on my wrist tightened. “You know why I’m here. You know what you need to do.”

My stomach bottomed out, and the last ounce of hope I’d been stupidly, stupidly holding on to was crushed into the dirt of my family’s farm. “Go fuck yourself.” I wrenched my wrist free, stormed into the stables, and started mucking out Peony’s stall.

Tank stormed right in after me. “Two choices,” he warned. “Put the pitchfork down or I make you put it down.”

“Go ahead and try.” Fighting back tears, I made the mistake of not even looking at him.

A second later, I was airborne.

One arm around my waist, Tank ripped the pitchfork from my hand, threw it down, then spun me. My back hit the side of the stall, he grabbed my wrists and he pinned my arms over my head.

I kicked him.

His nostrils flared, but that was it. No flinch, no grunt, no change in expression.

So I let loose.

My back arched, my legs kicked out, and I fought against his hold as I threw my whole body into a headbutt. Twisting, kicking, seething mad at him, at myself, I didn’t even realize I was crying until my guttural scream filled the stables and Peony’s sister, Daffodil, started kicking her stall and neighing.

“Let me go !” I futilely yanked to free my hands, but managed to get a solid kick to his upper thigh.

That’s when he moved .

Dropping my arms and catching my waist, he spun me to face the wall as he grasped my wrists again. Bringing my arms up, my palms hit the rough wood of the barn wall as he held me captive with my hands on either side of my head.

His hot breath touched my ear as his voice grated across my frayed nerves. “If you ever try to kick me in the balls again, I will give you a spanking you’ll never forget. You hear me?”

Fighting to hold back a sob of humiliation, I bit the inside of my cheek.

“You fucking hear me?” he barked.

Ashamed, enraged, despondent, I somehow managed to nod.

His hand left my wrist only to slam against the wall a second later with his cell phone. “Call your publicist. Make a statement. Unfuck your goddamn mess.”

“I don’t have a publicist anymore.” My voice hitched.

“She’s waiting for you to call.” He dropped my other arm, shoved his phone into my hand and stepped back.

My heart shattered, my hands shaking, I didn’t make the call.

I stared at his phone.

His smell all around me, it felt more intimate holding his phone than having his hands on me.

But I didn’t have an intimate relationship with this man.

I’d never have anything with him.

Steeped in regret, I dropped his phone and walked out.