Chapter Two
As Often as I Could
Lottie
When the doorbell rang, I was already mildly freaking
out.
When I looked through the peephole and saw nothing but a
black compression shirt covering a muscled chest, I got even more freaked out.
I was barefoot. My peephole was nearly at eye level.
Regardless, it magnified the area outside it.
And still, all I saw was chest.
Right…
How big was this guy?
“Who is it?” I shouted through the door.
“Mo!” was grunted back.
Okay, that was the name I was given.
“Squat down, I can’t see your face!” I yelled, still looking
through the peephole.
The chest moved, and a thick, ropy throat came into view
before I got a face.
Whoa.
Smithie described my new bodyguard as “motherfucking huge,
bald and ugly.”
He got two things right.
The last was a matter of opinion. That fixed stare from
silver eyes under a protruding brow and over a large nose that was framed by
cut cheekbones with cavernous cheeks and a jaw so perfectly angled, it could be
used in geometry class could be considered too brutish for some.
But not me.
This was going to be a problem.
“I’m opening up!” I bellowed, still staring at his face.
That face disappeared, and I got his throat and chest again
as he straightened.
Yes, this was going to be a problem.
I unlocked and opened my door.
Then I immediately, and automatically, took a step back.
All right.
Whoa.
I could get a hint from the chest and what it might be
attached to with what I’d seen of that throat, but this guy had to be six five,
maybe taller.
And his height was only a part of why Smithie described him
the way he did.
He wasn’t “motherfucking huge.”
He was motherfucking huge.
I was average height.
But slender.
My sister had ass.
My job was physical. It wasn’t just the nightly dancing. It
was the practice and constantly choreographing and adding new routines. I could
probably eat a boatload, but I didn’t because I was too busy to eat, and when I
did, I’d learned long ago what all the experts said was what an expert would
know from studying it. Eating good food gave me more energy, made me sleep
better and put me in a better mood (most of the time).
So unless the occasion was special, I put good food in my
mouth and didn’t drink much outside water, flavored water, sparkling water,
with the odd antioxidant vitamin drink thrown in.
So yeah, I was slender.
And two of me could make this guy.
Maybe three.
He moved forward.
I moved back.
His movements were unwieldy. Not clumsy—heavy and plodding.
It didn’t matter this guy was a bull in a china shop.
He’d terrify small children.
Hell, he’d terrify grown men.
And that had nothing to do with the gun worn openly on his
hip.
It had to do with what that compression shirt barely
contained, not to mention the carved protrusion of the muscles of his biceps
exposed by the short sleeves, the sinewy, richly veined lengths of his forearms
and the trunks of his long legs covered in dark gray commando pants.
He shut the door behind him, twisted at the waist and I
heard the lock click.
He twisted back to me.
“Hey,” I forced out.
He dipped his chin.
“You’re Mo,” I stated unnecessarily.
“Yup,” he agreed.
“Okay, so…”
I stood there, barefoot, in my tight tank that had ridden up
to gather around my middle and as such exposed an inch of flat belly over my
low-slung faded jeans, and I didn’t know what to do.
He was looking me in the eye.
Right in the eye.
Not once did his gaze drift down.
Or up, to my hair.
I had great hair.
And great tits.
And, well, not to be conceited or anything, but considering
a lot of folks came to watch me take my clothes off, it wasn’t lost on me I had
a good body. But I already knew that because I just did.
I was struggling with dealing with a man who not only looked
like this but was also as big as this and was there for the purpose he was
there.
But it was worse because I had no clue how to deal with a
man who looked me right in the eye and appeared to have no interest in anything
beyond that.
Except for the fact I was no longer freaked out, and
considering Smithie had phoned to tell me I now had a bodyguard, though he’d
shared he’d explain why later, my freakout might have been mild, but I’d still
been freaking.
Now, instead, I was battling the urge to climb him like a
tree.
I contained the urge and asked, “How freaked out should I be
that Smithie put you on me?”
“Hawk’ll get into that.”
Well, there you go.
Freakout returned.
I mean…
Hawk Delgado?
Smithie hadn’t mentioned Hawk Delgado.
Smithie had only mentioned I had a bodyguard, and ugly stuff
had gone down at the club in the past. Ugly stuff that tore Smithie up. So I
put it down to him being overcautious, something he was now on a normal basis.
Hawk Delgado was either reaching the extremes of
overcautious or shit was serious.
And my guess was, Smithie didn’t tell me about Hawk because
he was parceling out the bad news.
Shit.
“Right. Hawk,” I said. “Now how freaked out should I be that
Smithie brought in a guy like Hawk Delgado for whatever is going on?”
This guy made no reply.
He just kept looking me in the eye.
“Mo—”
“Hawk’ll get into that,” he
repeated.
I threw up a hand. “Listen, I’m sure this is no big thing.
It isn’t unusual to have guys fixate on me. It’s happened before. They’re
typically harmless.”
Mo had nothing to say to that either.
“Or Smithie has a word with him or sends in Joaquim or
Jaylen and they back off. If they had the guts, they’d just approach me from
the beginning.”
Mo still didn’t feel like replying.
“If Smithie’s freaked and called in Hawk, that says to me I
should be seriously freaked,” I pointed out.
Again, no input from Mo, but it cut through my freakout that
he might not be moving his mouth, but his eyes said, “Yes, you should be
seriously freaked.”
So I went from getting seriously freaked to being
seriously freaking freaked.
“Ohmigod,” I whispered, my hand drifting to my belly. “This
is bad.”
That was when it happened.
That exact moment was when my entire life changed.
His gaze moved down to my belly.
And his face went from harsh and impassive to wholly
beautiful.
This was because it softened.
Whatever was happening, he hated it was happening.
Whatever had Smithie freaked, me freaked, Hawk Delgado (of
all people) pulled in to deal with it, Mo didn’t want it to be happening. He
didn’t want me to feel what I was feeling, what I would feel until this
situation was brought to an end.
He hated I would be feeling that too.
He was there. He was going to get paid to protect me from
it.
But it was not just a job to him.
It was more.
He did not know me, and I wasn’t just a great pair of tits
and a fantastic head of hair any guy with a dick would want to see go unharmed.
I was a person who was feeling something sucky and he was a
person who didn’t like people to feel sucky.
No.
He hated it.
That was the guy he was.
Yes, my entire life just changed.
“Mo,” I called quietly.
His attention returned to my face.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I assured
him.
That strong chin dipped again.
Okay.
Moving on.
“Do you want something to eat?” I asked.
“Tour,” he grunted, but he did it not looking around.
He needed to know the lay of the land.
But now I had another problem.
I was nervous.
Actually nervous.
I didn’t get nervous around guys.
Handsome. Confident. Built. Successful. Rich. It didn’t
matter to me.
Were they funny?
That mattered.
Were they smart?
That mattered too.
Did they have goals in life and weren’t afraid to do the
work to attain them?
That totally mattered.
Did they define me as a stripper in all that conveyed to the
judgmental world who didn’t get I really couldn’t give that first fuck what
people thought about what I did to make a (very good) living? Thus, they
thought I was sleazy and easy and could get in my pants and then brag they
tagged a stripper and not even remember my name?
That definitely mattered.
I couldn’t remember the last time I was nervous around a
guy.
In fact, I didn’t think there was a time I’d been
nervous around a guy.
But I had this insane desire to play with my hair, was
worried I’d trip when I turned around to guide him into my house, and worst of
all, I was suddenly completely focused on not doing anything that would make
him think I was a dork, an idiot, or anything the slightest bit unattractive.
Shit.
I successfully made the pivot and moved him through the
short foyer of my Denver Tudor into the living room and immediately regretted
decorating in mostly white.
White with gray veins in the marble of the fireplace. Boxy
white contemporary sofa (though it had big, colored throw pillows and warm but
light-colored wood feet). White walls. White curtains (though they hung at the
sides and the Roman shades were bamboo). Even the rug was mostly white with a
gray geometric pattern. But the floors were oak (however, it was white
oak, gah!).
Did Mo like fresh, clean and bright?
Did he have a problem with the salmon accents?
I mean, my armchair was salmon. Was that too feminine?
And if he sat on the sofa, would he bang his head on my
standing lamp that arched over the side? (Thank God it was black.)
“Uh,” I swept out a hand, making a mental note to adjust the
arch of the lamp, and turned to him, “this is the living room.”
He said nothing.
But he walked to the window closest to him and my
blinds—which were only partially lowered because they looked good that way,
giving the room a warmer feeling from the wood—came down because he made that
so.
He then lumbered over to the other window and did the same.
“Okay, so no one looking in, right?” I guessed, feeling the
room turn suddenly chilly, and not because the sun was no longer shining into
it.
He turned and dipped his chin to me.
He then looked toward the open plan dining room and kitchen
that fed from the living room and moved there.
I followed him.