Chapter 11
Idaho
Iknew the minute she gave in. It was hard not to feel victorious.
I shouldn't be looking at this as a battle that was won, but of course I was.
I always looked at everything as a competition and winning was everything.
Stepping forward, I tugged her into my arms. She looked like she needed a damn hug, so I gave it to her.
She rested her cheek against my shoulder and sighed.
"This is stupid."
"What is, Duchess?"
"Trusting you."
I grunted and squeezed her tighter. "I'll prove to you it isn't." Having her body melding against mine felt damn good.
It was hard not to get lost in the sensation of holding her close.
She was tall for a woman, but still shorter than me by a few inches.
Her hair smelled like flowers and sunshine, and I couldn't help but bury my nose in it.
This was supposed to be comforting to her, but it was doing something else to me.
My dick was getting hard, and I knew she could feel it pressing against her.
She pulled back and stared up at me with wide eyes. "You're serious about this?"
"My name is Levi Sharpe. I'm a businessman and a biker," I told her with a grin. "You can find out a lot about me just from searching on the internet, but I'm willing to share as much as I need to in order to make you trust me."
She blinked up at me and I couldn't stand the tears filling her eyes. "I still don't understand. Why would you do this for someone you don't know?"
She was having a hard time trusting this, trusting me. I couldn't blame her. I'd be suspicious, too. I brushed away the tears that spilled over onto her cheeks with my thumbs. "I told you. I don't like assholes who try to hurt women. And I happen to like you."
She took a deep breath and stepped back.
She was still wearing the clothes she'd worn to bed and it was fucking distracting.
Her shirt barely covered the bottom of her tits—it kept shifting and showing peeks of her lacy bra—and her pants were so tight I knew she wasn't wearing panties.
There were no lines. Gritting my teeth, I tried to get my hard-on under control.
The fact that I'd jerked off in the shower earlier was the only reason I was able to maintain my restraint.
"My name is Tatiana Evangeline Desmet."
The silence filled the room between us. Finally, I responded, "Okay." The name didn't mean anything to me offhand.
She smiled, nibbled her bottom lip, then continued. "My father is Louis Reginald Desmet the Third...The Grand Duke of Luxembourg."
More silence. I stared at her in shock and a slow grin began to form. "You're seriously a fucking duchess?" I asked with a laugh. "Jesus. I only called you that because you're so formal and prissy."
She glared at me. "I'm not prissy. Or a brat," she added.
I chuckled. "You're absolutely both," I corrected. She wasn't really, I just liked teasing her. I'd started last night to help get that haunted look out of her eyes, but now I just like seeing her get mad. Her cheeks got all rosy and her eyes deepened to a beautiful jade green.
She sighed, irritated with me, but continued speaking. "I'm also not a duchess. My title would only be Lady Desmet. I'm not my father's heir."
"Your father's a duke?" The humor faded pretty quickly.
This was a goddamn mess. It was one thing to protect a girl who was rich as fuck, but this was on an entirely different level.
The amount of enemies she had were likely triple what some business tycoon's daughter would.
It made my job that much more difficult.
Nowadays a duke wasn't just a title, her father would have every type of connection that I had, plus the connections of a government official. A hybrid position.
"Yes."
"And you're here with only one bodyguard?" I asked, finally putting together who Thomas was to her.
"My father agreed to let me come here to attend University if I brought Thomas with me. He's been my bodyguard for years."
I snorted and shook my head. "He didn't do a very good job last night."
Her eyes flashed with anger. "That wasn't his fault. He wasn't even there."
"How is it not?" I shot back, anger ripping through me.
She blinked, lost for words for a moment.
I caught her by surprise. "We didn't know anyone was targeting me," she said, finding her voice once more.
"I wanted..." She grimaced, but then squared her shoulders and met my gaze.
"I wanted more of the college experience.
So, I moved in with Jo and Brittney and I only call Thomas if I need him.
He didn't even know we were going out last night. "
My eyes narrowed. "That was not only reckless, it was just fucking stupid."
A pout formed on her lips, but there was resignation in her eyes. "I'm sure I'll be hearing that particular lecture from both Thomas and Father. I don't need it from you as well."
"You're twenty-nine years old," I reminded her. "If you're going to do something so deliberately stupid, you deserve to be scolded for it."
Her lips parted on a gasp and her hands went to her hips. "Perhaps, but you don't get the honor of doing so," she snapped, anger flashing in the captivating green depths of her eyes.
"No?"
"No!"
"That's where you're wrong, Duchess. If I'm going to be the one protecting you, I'm damn well going to be giving you orders. And you're going to fucking follow them, or there will be consequences."
Her chin jutted out in a display of stubbornness. "Well, I never agreed to let you help me. So you can just..." My brows lifted while she battled with herself. Finally, she spit out the rest of the sentence, "Fuck right off."
I had to fight the grin. It was obvious she wasn't used to cussing.
She looked like a tiny little kitten who'd been drenched with water and was spitting mad.
"We'll see about that," I said, voice low as I took a step toward her.
She didn't move back, but I could see the way her body tensed up.
She was ready to fight or flee, depending on what happened next.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Duchess," I told her as I reached out and stroked my fingers down the side of her cheek.
Her skin was so soft and warm. My dick was throbbing in time with my heartbeat.
I wanted her. Badly. But this wasn't the right moment.
Not yet. "But if you're going to be staying here, there will need to be some ground rules. "
She glared up at me, then turned away and stalked over to the bed. She sat down and folded her arms across her chest. "I'm listening."
"You don't leave this building without me," I began. "If me or one of my brothers can't go somewhere with you, you call Thomas."
"That's ridiculous-"
"Do you want to go home?" I asked her.
"No," she muttered.
"Then you need my help. Don't you?"
She sighed heavily. "Yes."
"Then you do as I say."
Her eyes narrowed on mine. "Fine."
"Good girl."
Her lips parted and she stared at me in shock. "Don't talk to me like that."
I chuckled. "Like what? You're being a good girl, aren't you?"
Her cheeks flushed and I knew I'd hit a nerve. She was a good girl, but she wanted to be bad. I could see it in the way she responded to me. The way she'd kissed me back. The way she was reacting right now to my words.
"You're not going to tell my father about this, are you?" she asked, changing the topic of conversation abruptly.
"No," I agreed. "Not yet."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not going to call him until we know what happened last night and have a plan for moving forward. There is a remote chance it was drunken assholes, but more likely, almost guaranteed, that it's something else. I need to know for sure before talking to your father."
"Thank you." She let out a sigh of relief. "He's going to insist that I come home. I don't want to leave here."
My brows lifted as I studied her. "What's so important about staying?" I didn't want her to leave either, but she was so dead set against it, it would help to understand why.
"I just told you." She looked away from me. "I need to finish my PhD."
"There's more to it than that, Duchess, you can get your damn PhD online," I said with a shake of my head.
She stiffened, but didn't respond.
"Fine, keep your secrets for now," I told her. "But I will find out what they are."
"Why? Why do you care?" She sounded exasperated and I couldn't blame her.
It wasn't like I had a reason for this other than the fact that I wanted to fuck her.
And protect her. But she didn't need to know my true motivation yet.
She wasn't the kind of woman you fucked and discarded.
Which meant that was off the table. There was just something so vulnerable about her.
It spoke to me. Enough that I was offering myself up to play bodyguard.
It was going to be fucking brutal trying to keep my hands off her.
"I'm a businessman, Duchess," I told her. "I don't do anything without a reason."
Her eyes narrowed on me as though she were trying to read my thoughts. "My father." She sounded defeated and disappointed, but it was easier to let her believe that was where my true motivations were. "You want something from my father."
She was forgetting that I didn't have a fucking clue who she was until she told me.
She was probably used to people using her to get close to her dad.
I'd play off that insecurity, because if I continued to tell her how much I wanted her, we'd end up in fucking bed together and then I'd have a real shitshow on my hands.
Heir or not, Eva wasn't going to be allowed to marry some American biker.
For all I knew, her father had already promised her off to some asshole who had the pedigree he liked.
I would just make trouble for her, and that was the last thing I wanted.
I let her statement hang in the air. I didn't want to lie to her, but I could see she was already drawing her own conclusions. Her eyes darted away from mine as her shoulders drooped. It was almost fucking impossible not to go to her and give her comfort, but I managed to hold back.
"Okay, then," she said a few moments later, after she pulled herself together. "What do we do now?"
"I have more rules to go over with you," I told her, crossing my arms over my chest. Her eyes flashed back up to mine and she glared at me.
"Just because I'm agreeing to this doesn't mean you get to boss me around."
I stepped forward until I was directly in front of her and leaned down until we were almost nose to nose. "That's exactly what it fucking means, Duchess. You tried things your way and look where it got you. Now we do them my way. You'll obey the rules or pay the price."
"What does that mean-"
"But for now, we need to go speak to my brother," I said, cutting her off. Grasping her by the upper arm, I hauled her to her feet and pulled her along with me.
"Wait," she gasped. "I'm not dressed to go anywhere." She was trying to dig her heels in, but her feet were bare and sliding across the hardwood flooring.
I glanced over at her and took in the outfit again. It didn't leave much to the imagination, but it wasn't like she was naked either. I shrugged. "You're fine."
"No!" She yanked on my grip and tried to get free.
I stopped and turned back to face her. "You want to change?" She nodded. "Okay, then." I pointed to the bathroom. "Make it quick."
She scampered off, grabbing her bag, and shutting herself in the bathroom.
The door shut with a loud bang, and I couldn't help but shake my head.
What was I doing? Taking on this woman was a bad idea, but I couldn't seem to help myself.
I had my business, prospecting, and getting back into my brother's good graces to worry about.
I didn't need this, too. But life had gotten stale.
Flat. Fucking boring. There was no challenge left.
It was why I knew it was past time to set the record straight with Lockout.
And it was part of the reason I was so insistent on helping Eva.
She intrigued me. Knowing who she was now meant I had to tread carefully.
The Grand Duke of Luxembourg was a powerful man.
I hadn't met him, though I had met a lot of foreign dignitaries, but I knew of him. I needed to tread carefully.
"I'm ready," she said from behind me.
I turned and took in her appearance. She'd changed into a pair of jeans and a sweater that covered her tits, but still clung to every curve of her body. "You look good."
She blushed, then looked away. "Thank you."
Her dark hair was loose and wavy, hanging down to the small of her back. I wanted to wrap the silky strands around my fist to hold her in place while I pounded into her from behind. Blowing out a breath to try to ease the lust that had me in a vice grip, I told her, "Let's go."
"You're with us," I told Thomas, who was waiting out in the hall. They followed me out of the room and down the hall to where Lock's office was. My brother wasn't going to be happy about this. At all. But it was too late. I'd offered her my help and that was exactly what I was going to do.