CHAPTER TEN
JOSH
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I drive around the back of Ink & Mane Studio and slide the Maserati into Cassy’s parking spot.
One of my guys picked her car up last night and returned it to her. It’s parked in her garage.
She won’t need it until Isaac is back behind bars.
I glance over at her sitting in the passenger seat. She’s wearing a long, black, V-neck dress with ankle boots.
It's edgy and irrationally sexy.
I took one look at her when she opened her front door and she frowned at me.
“What?” she asks.
“What, what?” I ask back, as my eyes did another sweep of her body.
She huffed and pushed past me to the car. “Clearly, you only have two facial expressions: smirking and angry.”
I followed her. “I’m not angry.”
“Really? Because you always look like you want to kill something.” She opens the door before I can do it.
Which fucks me off.
“Probably because I do.” I shrug and shut the door after she climbs in. Then I turn and walk around the rear of the car because I didn’t want her to see my smirk.
I’m not going to prove her right.
After that, she was quiet, swiping on her phone and ignoring me. A good move as Cassy is half right. I’m not in a great mood today. I lay awake for hours questioning the Cartwright job.
If any of my team were this attracted to a client, I would pull them from the protective detail in an instant.
Erections are distractions.
So I spent hours questioning if I was the right person to do this.
I’m not.
But I am.
As the last sentence of the Navy SEAL ethos says, I will not fail. I can’t explain it, but I won’t hand her over to anyone else.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one concerned.
Aidan messaged me early this morning, asking me to call him when I was awake. I put him on speaker while brushing my teeth with the electric toothbrush.
“Turn that fucking thing off.” He growled after talking for about two minutes.
I grinned. Spat. Rinsed. Then wiped my mouth and picked up the phone, walking through my house to the coffee machine.
Not well planned, I realized.
Coffee and mint. Yuck.
This is what happens apparently when you are distracted by a woman you want to fuck and can’t. Nothing I’ve experienced before, so I wouldn’t know.
“It’s off. Now get to the point, Black.” I grunted as the coffee machine began to hiss.
“You want to fuck Cassy Cartwright,” Aidan replied.
Of course I do. Had he not seen her? She’s sex on two legs. An utter fucking beauty. I’d be hard pressed to find a man who didn’t want to sleep with her.
“So do you.”
There was a pause.
“Yeah, but if I even tried, I’d have your bullet in my skull within minutes.”
I froze and stood staring at my coffee mug.
Fuck.
I took too long to respond. Where I knew I should be making a joke, I didn’t. And we both knew it was because he was right.
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
My brows lifted. “No. I don’t know. No. What the fuck does it matter? You aren’t fucking her. I’m not fucking her. End of story.”
“Ryder can juggle the roster and do this job,” Aidan said. “You need to step away.”
I leaned one hand on the marble bench and breathed heavily through my nose. “No.”
Another pause.
“Care to explain?”
Nope.
Aidan and I are equal partners and have no authority over one another. At times we disagreed and that could get noisy and robust, but it was business. We both knew my decision to task myself with Cassy’s personal security had nothing to do with the job.
I didn’t fully understand it myself.
I had other priorities.
“No.” I repeated.
Aidan cursed. “Jesus, Hawke.”
I dropped the mug and turned, leaning against the bench. “I’ll brief Ryder as backup and there will be a full team. We have a big budget from Cartwright. If I think I can’t do the job, then I’ll step aside.”
“Will you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth.
I’m not so arrogant that I think I’m the best. I’m good. I might even be the best, but I’m only able to do that with other good men around me.
And by making sensible choices.
Ones without a fucking erection.
The Black Hawke team has set up security around her residence, and a second one scoped out her workplace early this morning.
It is not just me, and if I thought I was going to put her life at risk, yeah, I would walk away.
I glance at the curve of Cassy’s breast and curse inwardly.
Keep telling yourself that, Hawke.
Lifting my sunglasses and laying my arm on the steering wheel, I turn to her.
It would be so easy to blame all of this on her perfectly plump C-cups, which I want to expose by ripping open her dress while those big green eyes of hers plead for my mouth.
But it’s not just her lithe body.
It’s the vulnerability and fear in her eyes which she tries to hide, and the way she devours me with those same green globes that has me clenching my jaw and forcing back the urge to spread her legs and sink inside her while promising no one will ever touch her again.
Raw, powerful, and carnal.
“Still looking angry there, Mr. Hawke,” Cassy says.
I lift my brows. “Mr. Hawke?”
“I’ll have to call you something. I want my team to know you are a professional.” She shrugs.
“I am professional. Josh will do.”
“Josh the SEAL?”
I can’t hide the smirk. Damn, maybe she’s right and I do only have two moods.
“No. Josh, your bodyguard.” I reply, wiping my smile. “You don’t have to go into any details. You told me they know what’s going on.”
Cassy sighs. “Yes, I told them yesterday after lunch.”
“Good. This is for your safety and theirs. I’m sure I don’t need to expand on that.”
She shakes her head.
I read up more on Isaac when I left her last night, and he is one messed up human being. He believes Cassy loves him and has done some fucked up things to get to her.
I suspect he wouldn’t kill her, but he would try to kidnap her, torment her and...do shit I can’t think about right now or I’ll crush my new steering wheel.
Cassy looks away and I immediately want her eyes back on me.
“Tell me he won’t get past you.” She suddenly asks of me, and her words reach inside my chest and squeeze.
My hand moves before I can stop it, reaching for her. It freezes midair and we both stare at it.
Fuck!
I was inches from laying it on her leg, like she’s mine to touch.
Christ.
“Let’s go,” I say, climbing out of the car.
“Josh,” Cassy says, clambering out the other side. “Wait.”
I stop at the end of the vehicle because I can’t walk away. I’m her fucking bodyguard.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” My eyes cast around the parking lot then down to hers.
“What?”
I lean in. “Do. You. Have. A fucking boyfriend?”
Cassy shakes her head.
“No. That wasn’t...you can touch me,” she says, shocking the hell out of me.
Woah.
“Excuse me?” I just had this sudden insane thought that maybe she had a man in her life, and I didn’t know. If Cassy belonged to me and some guy tried to touch her, I’d kill him.
Instead of telling me to keep my paws off her, she’s giving me fucking permission to touch her.
Not a good idea, Cassy.
“Last night you touched me. Shit, that sounds insane. What I mean is, people weren’t sure what to do with me after Isaac happened. But you can...if you need to.” Cassy shares in a muddle of words as her face blazes red with embarrassment.
“I can touch you.” I repeat.
She nods.
I’m stunned and unable to react. What is wrong with her?
“Well, I’m not in the business of touching my clients. And word of warning, sweetheart, do not go around telling men they could touch you. I. Am. Armed.”
Cassy bites her bottom lip, and for the love of God, someone must think I’m a saint because this is pushing me to my limit.
“Okay,” she says, as I rub my face with my hand. “No touching.”
My god.
This woman is going to be the death of me.
“Let’s go.” I lead her to the back door entrance of Ink & Mane Studio where Cassy punches in a code.
The door clicks open, and she holds it ajar, turning to me with a grin. “I forgot to warn you about Scarlet, but I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
Warn me?
Who the fuck is Scarlet?
“Is Scarlet a dog?” I ask, following her inside.
“Ex-fucking-scuse me?” A petite woman stands in the middle of the room and plants her hands on her hips as she glares at me.
Well, look at that. I was wrong. This woman will be the one who kills me.
I can see it in her eyes.