Chapter 11
Devyn shoves open her door as I slow the Aston Martin.
I slam on the brakes, ensuring I’m stopped before her feet hit the ground.
I don’t even bother turning off the engine before jumping out of the car and chasing after her.
My boots hit the driveway with sharp, percussive strikes, each matching the rate at which my heart pumps fury through my veins.
She thinks she can just walk away? That this conversation is over because she decided it was?
“Devyn!”
Not a fucking chance she gets off that easy.
“Devyn Martin!”
I catch the front door before it closes in my face, my hand slapping against the wood with enough force for it to echo through the entryway.
Devyn is halfway across the foyer, her shoulders rigid, that ridiculous excuse for a dress—emerald green and barely there—clinging to her body with every angered step.
My gaze lingers on the line of her spine through the thin fabric and the way her shoulder blades shift beneath her skin.
When I step into the foyer, I slam the door behind me.
It closes hard enough that photographs on the entry wall rattle against the drywall.
“Do not slam my door!” Her velvety voice is controlled, yet furious. She whirls around to face me, her chin lifted at a defiant angle I’ve already come to recognize as her pre-brat stance.
I stare at her for a long moment, the color rising in her cheeks as her chest heaves with each breath.
After abruptly turning on my heel, I wrap my fingers around the handle and pull the door open wide.
The warm evening air rushes in as I stand in front of the open threshold for a few seconds before slamming it again.
Harder. The pictures jump on their hooks, one threatening to fall to the floor.
“Gunnar—” Hawk sternly warns, from beside the staircase. As much as I might regret it later, I choose to ignore him.
“We are in charge here.” My booming voice fills the foyer, bouncing off the hardwood floors and the vaulted ceiling, resonating with an authority I don’t feel but absolutely own. “For your safety. You hired us to protect you, and that means from yourself, too.”
Devyn closes the distance between us in three quick strides, her heels like gunshots against the floor.
She stops inches from me, close enough that I can smell the expensive floral perfume clinging to her skin.
She jabs her index finger into my chest, firmly over my sternum, igniting a fire that burns through my shirt and over my skin.
“I hired you.” Each spat word is accentuated with a poke of her finger. “You aren’t the boss of me.”
I look down at her finger, then up at her face.
Devyn’s fury is beautiful. Her eyes are bright and dangerous.
Her breaths, coming fast and heavy, blow between her parted red lips.
The urge to do something stupid wars with my professional restraint.
For a dangerous and electric moment, I let myself wonder what it would be like to actually teach her a lesson.
The thought of her bent over my knee flashes through my mind.
I can’t help but smile at the thought of showing her that her actions have consequences, and that her little rebellion could have cost her life.
My hands flex at my sides, fingers curling into fists, releasing, and curling again. I tower over her—six foot four to her five foot eight in heels—and I use every inch of that height, leaning down until we’re at eye level. Forcing her to see exactly how serious I am.
“Be happy I’m not,” I growl, my voice low and dangerous, coming from a darker place than professional frustration. “Because if I were in charge of you… After that bratty little stunt, you wouldn’t be sitting for a week.”
It takes her a second to register what I said, and I watch the realization dawn over her face.
Her eyes blow wide, the pupils so round, they nearly eclipse her golden irises, as her sharply inhaled breath hitches in her throat.
Devyn opens and closes her mouth, her lips repeatedly parting, but no sound comes from between them.
For once, she is at a loss for words, stunned into silence at the not-so-subtle implication of my hand leaving prints across her tight little ass.
But it isn’t her shock that causes my own breath to stutter; it’s the tiny glimmer of intrigue that flashes across her eyes. That tiny spark of curiosity and interest leaves my palms itching to follow through with my idle threat.
She recovers her composure quickly, her spine snapping rigidly straight and her firm finger falling from my pec. But she can’t hide the flush that has spread up her chest and over her, now rosy cheeks.
“You—” she starts, but her ire crumbles before it can pass through her lips.
Biting my tongue, I say nothing as I watch her stare back at me, this little spat between us suddenly becoming a standoff. The air between us feels heavy, charged with inappropriate possibilities.
She breaks eye contact first, spinning on her heel.
Her hair whips around her shoulders as she storms over to the staircase.
I’m rooted in place as her heels click against the hardwood floor, mesmerized by the sway of her hips.
The tiny emerald dress—barely more than a slip of silk—clings to her body before fluttering away with each step, revealing glimpses of skin that make my mouth go dry.
As she climbs the stairs, the fabric rides up just enough to garner me an improper glimpse of where her long, lean legs meet the swell of her tight little ass.
Though I am supposed to be a hardened professional, the sight before me sears into my memory. And I can’t help but think how much more of her I want to see.
When she crests the top of the stairs, her heated steps clack down the hallway. Even when she is no longer in my line of sight, I can still feel her fury radiating down the stairs. Her bedroom door slams loudly, firm enough to shake dust from the chandelier.
“I told you,” Jagger teases from behind me, amused and insufferable. I turn to find him leaning against the banister of the grand staircase, his arms crossed and a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “You like her.”
Hawk stands beside him, his expression carefully neutral, but I can see the judgment and concern in his eyes.
I storm past them both, my shoulder brushing against Jagger’s, hard enough to make him stumble. “Shut up, Jag.”
“But I’m not wrong.” He follows me, dogging my steps like a persistent shadow. “You’re all worked up over this girl. Your pulse is elevated, respiration increased, pupils dilated—”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” I grouse, accentuating each word, as I head into the kitchen.
I open and close cabinets, the act less about looking for something and more about needing to do something with my hands.
Something other than grabbing Devyn Martin and shaking her, kissing her, or bending her over the nearest available surface to show her exactly what happens to disobedient little brats.
I plant my palms on the ice-cold marble island and hang my head.
She’s fucking infuriating. Not only does she treat our protection like it’s merely a suggestion, but she also spent the entire car ride arguing with me about it.
She’s reckless, stubborn, and has absolutely no concept of the danger she is actually in.
Or how badly I want her…
The realization hits me like a physical blow, stealing what little breath I’ve managed to recover.
I want her with an intensity that scares me.
I can’t stop thinking about the sounds she would make if I actually followed through on my threat.
It’s not a fantasy, but a ravenous need.
The image rises unbidden: Devyn folded across my lap with that little green dress around her waist and her skin pinkening beneath my hand.
“I’m going to pull you from point.” Hawk’s voice, deep and serious, spills into the kitchen. Unable to meet what I can only assume is his unapproving gaze, I can’t bring myself to turn to look at him. “I’ll take the lead. You can work surveillance and logistics with Jagger instead.”
I shake my head, the rushed movement sharp and violent. “No.”
“Gunnar—”
“I said no.” I push off the island and turn to face him, my hands flexing involuntarily at my sides as Hawk’s eyes diligently catalog me. “I’m fine. This is fine.”
“This is not ‘fine.’” Hawk air quotes, stepping into the kitchen. He lowers his voice, mindfully, before continuing, “She’s under your skin. I’ve never seen you like this. Not with a client. Hell, not with anyone.”
“She’s difficult,” I lie—poorly—to us both. “She gets under my skin because she’s a pain in my ass. That’s all.”
“Bullshit,” Jagger chirps from the doorway.
Seriously! Does he have any survival instincts at all?
I glare at him, but it does absolutely nothing to shut him up.
“In a foyer full of witnesses, you threatened to spank her. Now, I am not normally one to deny the need for a solid correction… but I’m pretty sure none of us have ever spanked a client.
” His gaze darts to Hawk next to me and Damon a few feet behind him, his lips pursing and eyebrows lifting inquisitively as he internally questions his own statement.
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and count slowly to ten as he continues, “Well, I have never spanked a client.”
Then twenty, before proceeding to fifty for his own well-being.
“She needs to learn,” I blurt out, opening my eyes and fixing on Jagger with a stare that would make a smarter man back down. “She needs to understand that her actions have consequences, that she can’t just—”
“Brat away without getting a sore bottom?” That cocky-ass grin, always plastered to his face, has grown feral. “But… based on her expression, she wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea, old man. Or with your bad eyes, did you not quite catch that?”
Oh, I saw.
Missing it would have been impossible. With those wide eyes and flushed skin, her intrigue and forbidden interest clearly showed in her outrage. It took every ounce of my self-control not to follow her up those stairs and show her exactly how little I appreciate her behavior.
“She’s a job,” I roughly exhale, the words tasting like ash on my tongue. “Nothing more than a client.”
“She’s hot,” Jagger counters. “And for some reason, she’s into your old ass. That little finger poke? That was foreplay, my friend. She’s testing you.”
“Enough.” Hawk’s voice cracks through the kitchen like a whip, even causing Jagger to finally shut his yap.
“Gunnar, you need to get your head on straight. She is Devyn Fucking Martin. Along with a stalker hunting her, she’s got paparazzi following her every move.
It’s your job to protect her, not fantasize about her. ”
The words land like blows, each one accurate and deserved. “I know.” I run a hand through my hair, gripping hard enough that pain rings through my scalp. “I know what my job is.”
“I know you do.” Hawk steps closer, lowering his voice even further. “But from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re more interested in something other than just being her bodyguard.”
I wish I could deny it, storm into a rage, and insist that I’m a professional.
I want to believe that I am controlled and would never cross that line.
Not that I shame my brothers for having done it.
But the image of Devyn over my knee is burned into my brain—squirming, with her skin warm beneath my hand as I teach her a lesson she won’t soon forget.
“Fuck.” The word comes out on an exhale, all the fight draining out of me.
Hawk studies me for a long moment, his expression softening to something that resembles pity.
“I know you’ll do your job. I know you’ll keep her alive.
I know you won’t hesitate if you’re the only thing standing between her and a bullet.
But right now, she has you far more than distracted.
You’re wound so tight, you’re volatile. If you can’t keep that in check, you need to keep your distance. ”
I nod, because he’s right. He’s obnoxiously always right. “Distance,” I repeat, as if saying it will make it easy. “Professional. Distant.”
“Good.” Hawk claps me on the shoulder, giving it a brief brotherly squeeze.
“You should probably go turn off the car, it’s still running in the driveway.
And maybe”—he glances beyond the doorway to the empty staircase Devyn stormed up—“maybe give yourself a minute and let one of us go check on her.”
I tip my head again in agreement. It’s necessary.
It might be the only way I can make it through this assignment without doing something stupid—something that will ruin us both.
But as I walk back through the foyer, past the spot where the sweet scent of her perfume still lingers in the air, I know with certainty that distance is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to maintain.
As I step out into the night, the warm air does nothing to cool the heat simmering under my skin.
The Aston Martin sits in the drive, door ajar and engine still purring.
Walking toward it, I can’t stop thinking about her wide eyes glimmering with intrigue, asking the question she didn’t dare to ask.
Would you really?
Echoing through the dark places of my mind where professionalism doesn’t reach, my own traitorous answer comes hard and fast.
In a fucking heartbeat.