The Alpha Bodyguards Books #4-6

Chapter Four

I gave up protesting and stared out the window at the quiet, dark streets of Bal Harbour before Sawyer drove over the bridge and off the exclusive island.

I kept my mouth shut for five whole minutes before I couldn’t take his silence anymore. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes.” His deep voice rumbled around the quiet interior of the giant SUV as his scent filled my head with thoughts I had no business thinking.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I dared to ask.

“No,” he answered immediately with no intonation.

I couldn’t handle his emotionless responses to every question I’d fired at him today. I didn’t know what that meant. I’d seen him frown plenty of times. I got it, I was irritating him, but then why was he so insistent on taking me out to eat at three o’clock in the morning of all times? It didn’t fit. Nothing about him fit.

His suit was custom made, his hair was perfectly trimmed, the five o’clock shadow he sported was magazine cover model sexy, and his shoes cost more than I made in a week. He spoke with a courtesy that went beyond manners, his watch was a Vacheron Constantin, and he smelled like money and sandalwood.

Everything about him was refined.

Except it wasn’t.

His muscles were bigger than any man’s I’d ever seen in the elite social circles of Miami’s upper crust. They were bigger than any man’s I’d ever seen, period. He carried a gun in a holster under his left arm, his eyes never stopped scanning, and his clipped, emotionless responses to my questions weren’t out of boredom or irritation alone, they were guarded.

His intensity, the set of his shoulders, the way he clasped his hands in front of him and stood with his feet slightly apart, all of it was guarded.

But when he actually made eye contact and looked at me?

That was all predator.

Every move he made, every word he said, it was calculated.

Inhaling, I breathed in the intoxicating scent that was all him. Then I asked another question because I literally had nothing to lose. “If you aren’t asking me out on a date, then why are you taking me to dinner?”

For two whole heartbeats, silence filled the SUV.

Embarrassed, uneasy around him, I laughed. “Okay, forget I asked.”

“I like your eyes,” he replied quietly.

Heat flamed my cheeks, and I blinked.

Thankful for the dark interior of the Escalade, I swallowed past the sudden dryness in my mouth. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome.” Pulling into the packed parking lot of the diner, he expertly eased the giant vehicle into a spot. Then he threw the gearshift into park, scanned the other parked cars, and pulled the key out of the ignition. “Wait there.”

Exhaling after he got out, I whispered to myself. “Holy shit.”

My door opened, and his stark blue eyes met mine. He wordlessly held his hand out.

Not a date, not a date , I silently chanted as I took his hand.

His huge fingers engulfed mine, and awareness shot up my arm, zinging through my body. Giddiness I couldn’t squash fluttered in my stomach, and I smiled.

His gaze tracked the movement of my lips, but he didn’t return the smile. Holding my hand with purpose, he helped me out of the SUV as his other hand landed on the small of my back.

My feet hit the ground, and I stumbled in my five-inch heels.

He pulled my arm at the same time as he stepped against me, and I fell into his chest instead of on my ass on the pavement.

“Oh God,” I gasped.

“You’re all right.” His breath touched my skin, fluttering a strand of my hair.

A tremor went up my spine, but this time I didn’t laugh away my nervousness. Leaning against him, feeling his hard body support me, having his arm around my waist— oh God , I didn’t want to move. Ever .

“Thanks,” I breathed, not trusting my balance enough to step away.

As if reading my thoughts, he stood perfectly still as his chest rose and fell three times. Then he shifted, and his quiet voice filled my head with wayward thoughts.

“Inside,” he commanded, stepping to my side. “Let’s get you dinner.”

“Okay.” One touch of his hand, one feel of his body against mine, and the last of my resolve to push this dominant, alpha man away disappeared into the southern Florida nighttime humidity.

Dropping my hand but keeping his palm against the small of my back, he led me across the packed parking lot and opened the door of the diner as he took me inside. Giving his first name to the hostess, ignoring the way her blatant gaze dragged over his biceps, he then corralled me in a corner and stood with his back to the other people waiting, effectively caging me in.

I would be a total liar if I said I didn’t like every single second of his protective dominance. But I had to remind myself I wasn’t his client and this wasn’t a date.

“So….” I craned my neck to look up at him. “Have you eaten here before?”

He scanned the afterhours clubbing crowd without actually looking at any of the women in dresses and skirts that barely covered their asses before he brought his gaze to me and stared a moment. “Yes. You?”

“I’m not really the clubbing type. I don’t usually go out to eat at three a.m.” Or ever. Dining out alone wasn’t on my short list.

He nodded once in acknowledgment, then his gaze cut to a group of drunk, rowdy guys who walked in.

He moved to his left a few inches.

The shift of his tall body was slight, but the implication was huge. In protective bodyguard mode, he blocked me from the guys.

I couldn’t stop myself, I smiled.

He frowned. “What?”

The hostess came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Perfectly straight, long brown hair, model thin, a full face of makeup, she smiled flirtatiously at him. “Your table’s ready.”

He tipped his chin at her, and my smile dropped. No matter how many meals I skipped, I’d never be like her. My curly hair had a mind of its own. I didn’t have a seductive bone in my body, and makeup wouldn’t change my pale skin or fire-engine-red blush.

Oblivious to my thoughts and shortcomings, Sawyer’s hand landed between my shoulder blades and he guided me a step in front of him as the hostess led us to a booth.

Looking up at Sawyer, completely ignoring me, the hostess dropped the menus on the table. “Your waitress will be right with you. Let me know if you need anything else.”

When Sawyer didn’t make eye contact with her and only nodded, she spun on her heels and walked off.

Wishing I had paid more attention to all the reasons why I shouldn’t have come to eat with him in the first place, I started to slide into the booth.

Sawyer caught my arm, stopping me. “Other side.”

“Oh, okay.” I moved to the other side of the booth.

He slid in across from me after I was seated and unbuttoned his suit jacket.

“This side wasn’t good enough?” I joked.

He didn’t smile. “No view of the front.”

Feeling stupid, I picked the menu up. “That’s important?”

“Yes.” His eyes on me, he didn’t even glance at his menu.

The hostess walked by again, leading the group of rowdy guys past our table. One of the guys checked out my cleavage as he passed and winked at me.

Sawyer scowled.

Not a date , I reminded myself, turning my attention to the menu. “So, do you come here a lot?” I couldn’t see a man like him eating in a diner like this, even as an after-clubbing stop. The booths were bright red, the tables were retro Formica, and everything else was chrome. He looked like a Michelin-star restaurant regular, not a burger joint connoisseur.

“No,” he clipped as a waitress approached.

Older, a little frazzled, she smiled wearily at us. “Hi, what can I get y’all?”

Glancing at me, Sawyer took my menu. “Two deluxe cheeseburgers and two lemonades.” He raised his eyebrow at me. “Is that good?”

Warmth hit my chest, my stomach fluttered, and I blushed hard. That’s why he’d brought me here, for lemonade. “That’s perfect,” I managed, choking on the lump in my throat.

He nodded and handed the menus to the waitress.

“Be right back with your drinks.” The waitress left.

Suddenly feeling naked, not knowing what to do with my idle hands, I dropped them to my lap. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“The lemonade. You remembered.” Oh my God, idle hands . No wonder I felt naked, I’d left my purse in his car. I was never without my cell phone and tablet. I even slept with them right next to me on my nightstand. Shit, how could I have forgotten them in the car? I moved to the edge of the seat.

Sawyer studied my face, then tracked my movement. “What’s wrong?”

The waitress came back with our lemonades. “Your burgers will be up soon.” She set the drinks down and retreated.

“I forgot my purse in the car.” I grasped the edge of the table and slid one leg out of the booth as I started to push up. “If I could just borrow your keys for a second?”

His hand landed on my wrist. “You don’t need your purse. I’m buying.” Warm and firm, his fingers felt like they could caress my skin as easily as they could crush my bones.

“It’ll just take me a minute.” I pulled out of his grasp, wondering if there were two distinct sides of him, a refined billionaire and a lethal Marine, or if he managed to meld the two very different lives together and be one person all the time. I shook my head and pushed the thought away. “I don’t want to leave my purse in the SUV. It could get stolen, you know, if someone broke into the car while we were sitting here, and that would be bad. I have my cell phone and my tab—”

“Sit,” he commanded sternly.

Taken aback by the stern tone to his voice, a tone exactly like what I imagined a Marine would sound like, I sat.

His chest rose with an inhale. Then he exhaled slowly, and his voice came out quieter. “You don’t need your devices right now.”

“My life is on those devices.” I couldn’t lose them.

“The car is locked. No one’s going to steal them. They’ll be there when we’re done eating.”

Torn between the rationality of what he was saying and the inexplicable feeling of being naked in front of him without my phone and tablet as a buffer, I stared at him.

His eyes weren’t bright blue, but they weren’t pale blue either. They were just… blue. Like the sky on a winter day. And his hair wasn’t white blond, but it wasn’t dirty blond either. It was wheat blond, like pictures of golden fields I’d seen in magazines, but never in real life. I hadn’t noticed the true color of his eyes or hair until just now. When I’d first met him, he’d had a baseball cap with the logo of the company he worked for pulled low over his face. But now that I was truly looking at him in the bright florescent lights of the diner, there wasn’t a single thing out of place about him. Not a speck of lint on his jacket, not a single strand of his close-cropped hair was out of place, even his stubble was symmetrical on both sides of his face.

Everything about him was perfect.

Right down to the fact that he could leave valuables in a car and not panic about it. He could eat a meal without checking social media or emails or a messenger app. He could sit still and not fidget, and he could get out of a car without tripping.

I took a steadying breath.

Then I did something I hadn’t done since I’d first started working for myself.

I acquiesced.

“Okay, fine.” I threw my empty hands up in surrender and smiled sheepishly. “I’ll leave my purse in the car.”

He didn’t smile, but he leaned back in the booth. It seemed like his version of relaxed, or as relaxed as he could get.

My smile turned to a grin, and I pointed a finger at him. “You know, even though you don’t walk around with your phone glued to your hand, I bet you have as hard a time relaxing as I do.”

He didn’t take the bait. He didn’t even glance at my finger pointing at him. He simply held my gaze.

I took his lack of a frown as an opening. “What do you do when you want to unplug or relax? Or have fun,” I boldly added.

He laced his fingers together, rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward. His eyes intently focused on mine, he asked the last thing I expected him to ask. “Have you ever dated?”

Thrown off guard, a half snort, half laugh escaped. “Is that a trick question?” Was he making fun of me?

He kept staring at me, but he didn’t answer. He waited.

I’d dealt with a lot of clients over the few years I’d been working for myself. As an event planner, it was usually women clients I dealt with, and they were almost always particular. I’d learned to navigate minefields of emotions. I’d figured out ways to work around unattainable requests and temper tantrums, and I’d dealt with a whole host of different personalities.

But I’d never dealt with someone like Sawyer Savatier.

Everything about him intimidated me and excited me in a way I wasn’t sure I could put into words. Not that I wanted to, because then it would make the feelings real, and nothing about this was real life. Men like him didn’t ask women like me to dinner.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t hold my own.

Squaring my shoulders, I gave him more than he deserved. “I’m not sure you weren’t trying to insult me with that question, but I’ll answer you anyway. I don’t have time to date.”

“I would never insult you.”

He already had, several times. “Right.”

The waitress showed up with our food and set our plates down. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked in a rush.

“No,” Sawyer answered without taking his eyes off me.

She retreated, and I picked up the ketchup as the heavenly smell of grease and carbs wafted up from my plate.

The ketchup was plucked out of my hand as I fumbled with the sticky flip top. “Explain,” Sawyer demanded.

“Explain what?” I knew what.

In direct contrast to the stern, almost angry look on his face, he shook the ketchup bottle once, flipped the top open without a problem, then squirted a liberal amount on my plate as if being conciliatory. Setting the bottle down, he picked up the wrapped straw next to my lemonade, unwrapped it and shoved it into my drink. “Why do you assume I’m lying?”

He was mercurial and brooding, and I was beginning to grasp just how alpha Sawyer was, more so than any man I’d ever met.

“I didn’t say you were lying to me. You said you would never insult me, and I said right , sarcastically.” I picked up a fry, suddenly not sure my stomach could handle it.

“Because?”

“Because,” I sighed, “you already insulted me.” I forced myself to eat the fry.

His eyebrows drew together. “How?”

Okay, I lied. I could eat. I dunked another fry in too much ketchup and ate it before picking up my burger. Barely swallowing the fry, practically salivating at the delicious smell, I brought the burger to my mouth.

“ Genevieve ,” Sawyer reprimanded. “I asked you a question.”

I took a bite.

Oh.

My God.

Hamburger, melty, drippy cheese, crisp lettuce, firm tomato—flavors exploded in my mouth, and I closed my eyes as I chewed. It was official. Burgers at three a.m. tasted better than at any other time of day.

Opening my eyes just so I could look at the burger with lust, I took another bite… and studiously ignored the angry ex-Marine slash billionaire bodyguard across from me.

I may drop my tablet on occasion, or talk a mile a minute, or be going in five different directions at any given moment. And I may not have any experience with being one of those pretty girls who knows how to flirt with a man, but I did have another skill. I was excellent at ignoring things.

I ignored clients’ temper tantrums. I ignored my mess of curls that ruled over every attempt to tame them, mocking me for the effort, and I ignored the funny noises my car had been making for six months. I even ignored the fact that I still hadn’t changed my locks since….

I shook my head, ignoring the thought.

And I ignored Sawyer.

I took another bite.

Hard blue eyes stared me down, then he exhaled. “Impressive shutout.” He finally picked up his hamburger.

Maintaining my ignoring streak, I dunked a fry and brought the ketchup bite to my mouth as a model-thin blonde in a barely there silver dress stopped at our table.

“As I live and breathe.” Her sultry bedroom voice dripped disdain. “ Sawyer Savatier .”