7. Lynx
LYNX
Dear Diary,
I didn’t realize naked arguments and stepmom porn would be part of my job description. I was wrong.
Ididn’t know what to do. I’d had exactly zero training as a bodyguard, so although I was pretty confident in pulling out a gun or getting in a fistfight, nobody had told me what I was supposed to do when your charge was naked and verbally sparring with the man who’d been ready to give you a blow job the night before.
So fucking awkward. And I’d only made it worse by calling him Mr. Guerra and then making jokes about stepmom porn. Fuck me. I was an idiot.
Nyah stormed down the hallway in nothing but my jacket, and I fought the urge to groan at the tanned, bare thighs. Just an inch or two higher and that jacket would have been showing off the curve of her ass.
She was fucking gorgeous. I’d noticed it the night I’d seen her at dinner with Dax and Reaper but hadn’t really given it more than a passing thought. She was clearly with someone else, and I’d had a whole lotta other shit on my mind anyway. Women weren’t one of them.
But I also hadn’t seen her walking around in nothing but my jacket.
Fuck.
That was going to be hard to forget.
So now I was standing between two bedrooms, each containing a person I wouldn’t have minded going to bed with but knowing full well I couldn’t have either if I wanted to keep this job.
Which I did. Because finding a job when you were fresh out of prison was fucking impossible, even in a town like Saint View where the standards weren’t exactly high.
I’d spent months looking, only to find trouble.
My old life had tried to welcome me back with open arms, and for a hot minute, I’d let it.
But it had left me cold. Lonely. I’d spent six years in a cell with Reaper, and for maybe the first time in my life, I’d realized what a true friendship felt like.
Someone to have your back was something I’d been missing ever since I’d given up hockey.
So I’d followed him back to the Slayers Motorcycle Club.
Humbled myself by asking them to take me on, letting me start at the bottom and earn their trust.
Earn my spot in a family.
And they’d let me.
That had meant more to me than anything. More than money. More than sex. So I wasn’t going to do anything to fuck that up. If I got involved with my boss’s son, that wouldn’t end with me keeping my job.
And if I started messing around with my boss’s wife?
Fuck me, I wouldn’t have to worry about having a family and a roof over my head.
Because I’d be buried six feet under.
So I stood in the hallway between their two bedrooms and counted the grapes in the painting again.
Luca’s door was the first to open, and a pile of Nyah’s clothes was dumped into the hallway. He disappeared, and a moment later more clothes, her suitcases, and a mountain of shoes were tossed out.
I raised an eyebrow at him, and he slammed the door in my face.
I fought back a snort of amusement at his tantrum. It was kind of cute.
Abandoning my grape-counting mission, I knelt and started folding up Nyah’s clothes, neatly placing each one in her suitcase.
Her door cracked open, and her big brown eyes peered out.
They widened farther when she saw what I was doing.
She stormed out, still wearing nothing but my damn jacket, and shoved her hands on her hips as she stared down at me.
“Did he seriously just throw all my things at you and expect you to fold them all?”
I frowned. “Uh, I think—”
It didn’t matter what I thought. Nyah banged her fist against Luca’s door, and when he swung it open, she glared up at him.
“You asshole! You don’t treat Lynx like he’s your slave! It’s not his job to pick up all my clothes!”
“They were in my room, reeking of your fucking perfume.”
“Things that smell nice bother you?”
“Things that smell like you bother me. Whatever that scent is smells cheap.”
Her mouth dropped open. “It’s Silk Venom! It’s five hundred dollars a bottle!”
He rolled his eyes and shut the door in her face.
“Asshole!” she shouted.
“Fake virgin!” he shouted back.
Okay, so it was going to be like that with the two of them. I wasn’t mad about it. At least they were amusing. And their argument was a lot more exciting than counting grapes.
Nyah snatched a silky dress out of my hand. “Lynx! Stop that. You aren’t his slave. Or mine. I’ll pick up my own clothes.”
I shook my head, taking the dress back from her fingers. “Honestly, I don’t mind helping. It gives me something to do.” I grinned up at her. “I like your perfume, for what it’s worth.”
She smiled and flopped down onto the carpet beside me, helping me put her clothes back into her suitcases so we could get them back to her actual bedroom.
“Thank you. This evening would have been a lot less bearable without you.” Her eyes held a sparkle of mischief.
“Would you have really shot Luca? You burst into that bedroom like you were James Bond.”
I nodded seriously. “I was told my job was to protect you at all costs. I wasn’t told anything about him. You were screaming. So I was ready to do my job.”
She paused with a shoe in her hand. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “This job is important to me.”
Her smile fell a little at that. “Of course.” Whatever she was feeling, she clearly pushed it aside, and her voice brightened. “Well, I’m glad to have you around. I hope we can be friends.”
I’d just seen her fully naked, and she was smoking freaking hot. My dick gave a kick of protest at the very notion of being this woman’s friend.
I wanted to say fuck that.
And kiss her.
Or maybe bend her over something and take her fast and hard from behind like Luca had suggested.
But since she was about to become my boss’s wife, being her friend was a much smarter option. I stuck my hand out, and she fit her much smaller one inside.
“Friends,” I agreed.
I tried to ignore the fact I was holding my “friend’s” lacy G-string. Friends didn’t notice things like that. Nor were they still thinking about the fact I was sure she had no panties on.
We gathered up the last of her things, and she let me carry her bags into her room.
I placed the suitcase down on the mattress and unzipped it for her, then stepped back so she could get whatever she needed.
She disappeared into the adjoining bathroom with an armful of things and came out a moment later wearing silky shorts and a matching sleep top.
She sheepishly handed back my jacket. “Thank you for that. I’m pretty sure Luca would have had me run back here naked.”
Part of me wished I’d thought of that. Because Nyah running through the hallways without clothes on did something to me. Fuck, I would have loved to chase her around, hearing her laughter as I stalked her, eventually catching her and pushing her up against a wall to take her hard and fast.
To turn her laughter into moans.
But instead, I’d probably have to stand in the fucking hallways and watch as she did that with Carlos Guerra.
Jesus. That killed the fantasy hard.
I changed the subject. “What do you have on your schedule tomorrow. I’m back on duty.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think I have anything. I think my only job is to sit here until Mr. Guerra gets back.”
I frowned at that. “They were serious about that? You aren’t supposed to leave at all?”
“I don’t think so.”
That didn’t sit well with me. I might not have had any pull with Carlos Guerra. But presumably, if he wasn’t here, Luca would be second in charge. And maybe I could persuade him to let Nyah out. I pushed her further. “If I can get you sprung, where would you want to go?”
She opened her mouth but then closed it quickly. “I don’t know,” she said eventually, though I was pretty sure that wasn’t the answer she actually wanted to give. “What do you like to do?”
“Watch hockey. Play hockey.” I shrugged. “I’m just learning more about bikes now that I’m a prospect with the Slayers.” I slanted a glance at her. “I could take you over there, if you wanted? To see Violet? She’s often there with Reaper.”
But Nyah shook her head in a panic. “No! I can’t do that. I told Violet and Dax I was going home to look after my mother…”
I didn’t ask why she’d lied. She clearly had her reasons.
“Please don’t tell them I’m here.”
I didn’t talk to either Violet or Dax regularly, so that seemed easy enough. “Sure. But it might be good to have a friend you can talk to.”
She forced a smile. “I have you, right?”
But we both knew how sad that sounded. That me, a man she’d just met, hired to be her bodyguard, was the only friend she had.
I silently promised myself I’d find a way to get Violet back to her. Whatever Nyah was hiding, she would need a friend.
One who didn’t have the image of her naked body beneath his jacket seared into his mind for the rest of eternity.