In Bed with the Bodyguard (16 page)

Her car pulled up to the curb with a squeal and she slid into the passenger seat. In a daze, he walked around the car and found his spot as the reliable driver. Though at this moment, he was anything but secure. Ari continued to rock his world with the unexpected. She didn't want his family money, and he'd offered it to her with no strings. How…odd.

His admiration for her grew at her confident approach to her admittedly massive problems. This was not the same girl from weeks ago who could barely sweep the glass off the floor. His brain filled with things he wanted to say, like how he respected her and … loved her, hovering on the tip of his tongue.
Loved her?

He swallowed over a suddenly dry mouth. Was it true? Had he fallen in love with Arianna Rose, daughter of America's Most Wanted?

Shit, he had. Head-over-freaking-heels. It had not been that long ago, which was one big reason he should chalk it up to lust, but it was more than lust. All the reasons this relationship were doomed surfaced then drowned as the weak excuses they were. He'd take a lot ribbing for it, and his boss would be less than thrilled, but there was no reason he couldn't go public about his relationship with Arianna. He could handle comments like the ones Nancy Melton slung tonight. The one truth remained that if they loved each other enough, no feeble reason should keep them apart.

He slid the car into drive and sobered as he remembered he was spying on her at the request of his boss and had to report anything of interest back to him. Women tended to hate that kind of stuff. He realized he had to tell her the FBI had asked him to report anything suspicious and was struggling to find the right words when Ari started speaking before he could confess the truth.

“I'll figure out the funding for the opening, but now I need to find a place to stay,” she said.

“You could stay with me, at my apartment.” The words came out of his mouth before his brain caught up.

Ari looked up from her cell phone, which she'd pulled out to thumb through her contacts looking for a place to stay. “Seriously?”

“If you want to.” His blood pumped harder in anticipation of her response, and he wasn't sure which answer he wanted from her, an acceptance or decline. “I mean, um, Valerie and Jason's apartment is too small, you can't stay there.”

“No…”

“And a hotel is out since you'll need all your available money for movers and the gallery show.”

“True.”

He felt like an awkward teenager hinting at what he wanted, which was to keep Ari close. He didn't try to delude himself into thinking it was for his job and for her protection; he knew the truth. He wanted her close for himself. “It would be safer, too. Since you can't afford to pay Tony anymore. I'd have a harder time looking out for your attacker if we weren't together.”

A small smile hovered at the corner of her lips. “Lance, do you
want
me to move in with you?”

“Move in? No, but you're welcome to stay until you get back on your feet. I mean, I'll be back at work soon.” Well, hell yes, he wanted to live with her, but if he started talking monogrammed towels and shit, she'd run.

The smile left her face. “I think I'll call some other friends. Ones who would actually want me there.”

“I want you there. Don't call other people.” He heard the bark in his voice and regretted it, but his whole body went into protest at the thought of her living with someone else, of another person seeing her rub lotion into her legs or watching her interminable morning dressing routine. That was his privilege alone.

“Okay.” She closed the contact app on her phone. “You've convinced me. I'll stay with you. Let's go start packing when we get home.”

“That was too easy,” he said, wondering what made her capitulate.

“It seemed the smartest decision. The art show is my first priority. Shelter for me is the least of my problems.”

He relaxed his body and tried not to crow with delight that she'd be sleeping in his bed soon. He'd find another time to tell her he was supposedly spying on her for the feds. Why screw up a good night? There'd be plenty of time later.

Lance had been dead wrong about the Sorenson article. They'd arrived at her apartment from the charity benefit to dozens of messages from curious journalists and more calls came in while they packed. Finally, after a magazine called with an offer for her to pose nude, Ari muted her phone and focused on packing and sorting her belongings from the last four years of her life.

They'd stayed up until the wee hours folding and packing clothes and other more personal possessions. By three a.m., she was too dirty and wiped out to do anything more than shower alone and drop into bed wearing nothing more than a damp towel and Lance's arms wrapped around her. Five hours later, the sun poured through the arched window and she lay in bed determined to enjoy her last morning in her beloved loft before the movers arrived to put her furnishings in storage.

Lance had been an amazing help, using his muscle to move bags downstairs and making a late-night run to a Dumpster for boxes. For the first time in a long while, she hadn't called Valerie to help. She knew Jason would be overprotective and refuse to let his wife lift anything heavier than a Kleenex, but it was still strange to move through a major life hurdle without Val's presence. Maybe it meant that at long last, at the age of twenty-eight, she was finally growing up.

A rustle of sheets next to her caught her attention. Lance still slept deeply, looking altogether too delectable with his morning beard and his lashes shadowing his cheeks. She tugged the sheet a little lower to appreciate his shirtless chest. Though she'd never seen him in action, he'd told her he was trained in a variety of martial arts disciplines, and his muscles showed it.

Her finger trailed lightly along his collarbone and down to one nipple, which she circled, hoping not to wake him up. It was rare to have a creature as strong and dominant as Lance at her complete mercy. She planted soft kisses and little love bites along his torso.

“Mmm.” Lance shifted and grumbled, but his eyes remained closed.

Ari glanced down the bed to Lance's hips hidden under the sheet, which now tented up toward the ceiling. “Thank you, morning wood gods,” she said with a delighted grin. She slid the sheet lower and moved her kisses south toward Lance's erection, now visible and straining toward his belly. Simply touching his gorgeous body had her own arousal building.

The moment her mouth made contact with the tip of his shaft, his hand came down on her head.

“Good morning,” he said in a scratchy voice. “What did I do to deserve this?”

She scooted up to kiss his mouth, morning breath and all. “Good morning. This isn't a gift, it's purely selfish. I'm going to get you wet and harder and then I'm going to ride you.”

He smiled. “So I'm your stud?”

“Yep. My own living, breathing dildo.”

He folded his hands behind his head and thrust his hips subtly. A little spike of pleasure zinged through her at the picture he made naked and ready for her ravishment. “I can live with that. Have at it,” he said.

She grinned back at him, feeling a thrill of delight at their silly repartee, and headed back down to wrap her mouth around Lance.

“One request.” Lance's voice made her lift her head back to see his face. “Get on your knees and turn that sexy ass this way. It's not fair if I'm the only wet one in this scenario.” He didn't wait for her compliance and planted his large hands on her hips, physically lifting her into position. If his body hadn't been enough to arouse her, his sheer strength had her wet and aching.

She was in a perfect position for his fingers to tease and linger over a spot that had her gasping and leaning back into him. His fingers played inside and around her, teaching her things about need and desire. Things she'd never dreamed of learning. He was the master, she a willing disciple.

“You like this?” He did something magical with his fingers that had her moaning and taking even more of his length in her mouth. “How about this?” One digit slid back from her dripping core, back to…
oh my.
She started to tighten around him, and he tugged her around to face him and straddle his thighs. Remembering his concern over their previous lack of condom use, she leaned over to grab one from the nightstand.

Once he was safely sheathed, he grinned at her, his arms now crossed behind his head. “Ready to ride?”

He looked like a tantalizing buffet for her pleasure. She pressed her hands onto his chest for leverage and reveled in the flex and strength of the warm muscles under her palms. Leaning forward, she raised her rear in the air and sank slowly back down, letting him fill her inch by inch.

God, the friction was amazing. Ari's inner muscles adjusted to Lance's girth. Once he was fully inside, she closed her eyes and shut herself off to all sensation save the feel of their physical connection.

For several minutes she raised and lowered her hips with abandon, focused solely on pinpointing pleasure, but it all changed when Lance's arms tugged her head down for a kiss. Sensations flooded in, overwhelming her with his taste, his musky soapy scent, and the sound of his low grunts as she rode him faster and faster.

“Harder, Ari. I can take it, and you want it,” he growled in her ear. “You're my wild girl. You'll do anything to please me, anything for your own pleasure, won't you?”

“Aah,” she panted from the back of her throat. God, his words? Total turn-on. It was almost too much to handle. Her brain was on sensory overload. With furiously increasing speed, they thrust against each other, riding the wave ever closer to breaking.

“Don't come yet, Ari,” he warned.

“I'm close.” Her words were a plea. He had her close to begging. What did he mean, “Don't come?” As if she could help herself with him clutching her hips and pounding up into her. She'd lost the power struggle despite her position on top, and it was all she could do to hang on for the ride. His powerful thighs braced in place and he used them to thrust up ever harder.

“You'll come when I tell you to,” he said.

Her eyes squeezed shut, and she shook her head wildly. “Can't. I'm too close.”

“Beg,” he ordered.

The words fell out of her mouth as if he'd planted them there centuries ago. “Please, too good, can't stop,” she babbled. She was no longer sitting up over Lance. Her breasts rubbed against his torso and she sobbed into his collarbone.

“Okay, baby. Come for me.” With a grateful sob, she fell apart around him with shudder after shudder of delight. Lance kept thrusting upward, still riding his way toward orgasm.

She tried to keep up, but the sensation bordered on overwhelming and she could feel another orgasm hovering if she was brave enough to let herself go for it.

“Arianna, look at me.” Lance's voice left no room for disobedience.

She cracked her eyelids open, but with dilated pupils and blood pounding in her ears it was hard to make out his words.
I love you
?

“You
love
me?”

He didn't answer, but took her lips in a sweet, slow kiss that told her the answer without words.

A
knock on the gallery door finally roused Arianna and Lance out of their stupor in bed, where they lay coming down from their sexual high. Lance's startling revelation still floated silently around the room, changing the vibe and significance of her upcoming stay at his apartment.

She hadn't reciprocated with a confession of her own, despite her burning desire to profess her feelings and shout it from the top of the Washington Monument. Something had stopped her, and it scared the living daylights out of her. Lance hadn't pressed, but she could feel his need edging out the postcoital glow.

Thank goodness for the movers giving her an excuse to escape downstairs and out of a too-intimate conversation. She didn't do well with admissions of love, since they were usually attached by strings. The feelings she had for Lance were too new and too scary to admit out loud. She'd keep them to herself until she had definite proof Lance's L-bomb was for real and not brought on by impending orgasm.

A part of her wondered if her reluctance to emotionally commit to Lance was because of her father. To be fair, she'd
always
been emotionally distant from her lovers, thanks to the shining example from her own parents, and this week she was as vulnerable as an open wound from the news that her father had stolen her money. However, Lance had broken past nearly all the barriers. Only a thin wall remained, as translucent as wax paper.

“Wait for me,” Lance barked as he chased after her down the stairs. “We've talked about this.” He wore a white towel around his waist and nothing else, save the ugly gun in his hand.

She turned to frown at him. “It's the movers. Stop acting paranoid.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Last time you opened the door to a stranger, you thought it was one of your artists and you got hit by a bag of dog shit. Do you want to take that chance again?”

He made a good point. Despite a lot of shampoos, she imagined she could still smell the subtle, disgusting
eau de poo
in her hair. Would it ever go away? “Fine. You open the door.” She gestured him forward and moved off to the side.

The knock sounded again.

“The art gallery is currently closed. Please state your name and business,” Lance said through the closed door.

Ari moved around to her brand-new, crystal-clear front window to get a view of the movers and was surprised to see strangers in the vestibule. “Lance, open the door, it's a kid and his mom.”

He frowned at her, but pulled open the door to let in a woman in her mid-forties tightly gripping the arm of a teenage boy. The boy's hair hung in dark hanks across his face, hiding his eyes from view. Black jeans, black Converse, and a faded black t-shirt with the name of a punk band Ari liked on it completed his look. His whole vibe screamed disaffected angry youth. She recognized it intimately, having played that tune herself as a teen.

“Hi. Welcome to the Rose Gallery, how can we help you?” she said.

The mother spoke up first, not even seeming to notice Lance's and Ari's state of undress. The kid did, though. He peeked at her with hatred glowing in his eyes, but a faint blush covered his cheeks, telling them he was still young enough to be affected by the sight of a near-naked woman.

Lance stepped in front of her. “What are you doing here?”

“My son…” The woman stopped speaking and shook her son by the elbow. “My son has something he would like to say to Ms. Rose.” She gave the boy another hard shake.

Ari and Lance watched him and waited.

“Sorry.” He mumbled the one word under his breath.

“Sorry? For what?” Ari asked. “I don't know you, do I?”

“Tell them, Kevin.” The mother's lips narrowed into a tight, white line.

“I'm sorry I broke your window and spray-painted your painting and threw the sh—feces at you and knifed your car,” Kevin muttered.

Oh, my God. Ari's heart pounded furiously and her skin tightened. This boy, this little punk, was responsible for her terror and…wait… “My car? What did you do to my car?”

“Her car?” Lance repeated.

“That's why we're here today. He bragged about it online to his friends,” the mother said. “Tell them.” She released the boy's arm and looked like she needed a chair, as if holding up the weight of the world had finally become too much.

“What did you do to my car?” Ari heard the steel in her voice as Lance's hand cupped her shoulder in a comforting but restraining grip.

“I…um…kinda slashed the convertible top,” Kevin admitted in a low, angry voice.

Only Lance's strong hand prevented her from tackling the kid to the floor of her gallery.

“Why did you do it, Kevin?” Lance's voice was gentle yet firm as he addressed the teen.

Kevin looked up at Lance, letting his hair fall away from his eyes, revealing for the first time the anguish and anger he held.

“What do you have against Ms. Rose?” Lance asked.

“Yeah, what did I ever do to you? I've never seen you before in my life.”

“
You
did nothing.” Kevin's mother spoke from across the room, where she'd leaned against a gallery wall. “It was your father.”

Ari's heart sank and some of her outrage fled.

“It's your dad's fault my dad's in the hospital,” Kevin said, and Ari heard the hurt little boy behind his tough-guy teenage mask.

She fisted her hands and hid them behind her back. Her worthless, good-for-nothing father…He should be the one facing this family, not her. “What happened to your dad?”

“My husband suffered a stroke. He'd been at risk as a diabetic, but the news of our savings account going to zero sent him over the edge.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” She was about to tell Kevin not to worry about any of the damage, but Lance interrupted before she could say anything.

“Did you enjoy it, Kevin? Did you brag about it to all your friends online?”

“Lance,” Arianna gasped.

Lance frowned at her. “Don't be too softhearted, Ari. He's lucky I'm not going to call the police.”

There was a soft exhalation from Kevin's mom in the corner.

“I'm sorry about your father, Kevin, but there's never an excuse for taking the law into your own hands.”

“Lance.” Ari whirled to face him, upset by the harsh tone in his voice. Why was he being mean to the poor boy?

“Apologize to Ms. Rose for the damages and terror you caused her and let's figure out how you're going to pay. You don't have the thousands to reimburse her for her new window or a new convertible top, do you?”

“We'll pay it back,” Kevin's mom said. “Summer vacation is coming up and he'll get a job.”

“No, that's not necessary,” Arianna said. God, how could she add to their financial burdens when it was her family who'd put them there in the first place? “I don't need the money.”

Lance's hand squeezed her shoulder in a death grip, and Kevin suddenly stood about two inches taller in the face of Lance's authority. “I'll pay it back,” he promised.

Lance clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course you will, and you can start right now.”

Ari shot him a curious look. “How?”

“Yeah, how?” Kevin asked, all suspicious youth again.

“Here,” Lance said. “Ms. Rose is moving today. I could use some extra muscle.”

“I'm pretty strong.”

“Good,” Lance said.

Arianna was hit by a stab of an unidentified emotion deep in her belly at seeing Lance act so…so…dad-like with a needy youth. Lord, he'd be a great father and husband someday. He deserved a loyal wife who would be a great mom. A woman who knew how to handle a kid like Kevin, or cook, or fill out a mortgage application. It wasn't her. Lance claimed to love her, but how could he?

“I'm going upstairs to finish packing.” If she hadn't already packed up her potter's wheel, she'd go throw a pot or two to center her thoughts.

Lance spared her a quick glance. “Wait a sec, I'm coming up with you to get dressed.” Then he turned to the boy's mother. “Leave Kevin here and you can pick him up around five,” he instructed.

“Kevin?” The mom checked in with her wayward son, but he was already in Lance's thrall, another minion to add to his ever-growing train, which now firmly included her. Oh, man, was she in trouble; moving in with a guy who'd professed to love her. What was scarier: that he loved her or that she might love him back? She didn't wait for him but hurried up the stairs.

For once she didn't dally over her clothing choice and yanked on an old pair of jeans and borrowed one of Lance's white undershirts. It hung nearly to her knees but she knotted it up at the waist and got ready to work.

“Are you going to run?”

She whirled around to face Lance, who stood in the doorway with an inscrutable expression.

“What do you mean? I have to pack. Where would I run?”

“From me.” His hands hung on the door molding above his head, framing his face between his taut biceps. The towel was knotted low on his hips. “I told you I loved you and you couldn't escape the bed fast enough.”

“I don't know what you mean,” she said in a false cheery tone and turned her back to him as she started pulling piles of clothes from shelves and tossing them into an open suitcase. “I didn't run. I went to answer the door.”

“Ari. Stop packing for a second. Look at me.”

“No time. I need to be out of here. The movers will be here soon.”

Lance left his perch in the doorway to stalk over to her, his jaw clenched tightly. He still wore only the white towel, but somehow it looked masculine. Ari allowed herself one admiring glance at his chest, then turned back to folding t-shirts. His hard hand squeezed her upper arm and froze her in place. “Lance, stop. I'm trying to pack.”

“Packing can wait a damn minute.”

“And you can't—”

“No, I can't.” Palpable frustration rolled off him. “Can you give me something? Anything? At least tell me if I freaked you out when I said I loved you.”

She turned and collided into his hard chest, sending the stack of t-shirts in her arms flying. “Crap.”

He held her in place when she went to pick up the fallen clothes. “Ari, stop packing for one second.”

“You want me to stop packing?” She stood and pushed back at his shoulders to gain some breathing space. “Fine. I stopped packing. What do you need, Lance? You told me you love me. Do you need me to say it back? I can't.” Her curls brushed her shoulders as she shook her head. “I just can't.”

“Can't or won't?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

Damn him for being too perceptive. She collapsed onto the bed and leaned into his warm body when he sat next to her. His hands rubbed long, warm strokes up and down her back. His bare chest radiated heat and smelled of their combined sweat from their recent bed play.

“Can't. Won't? I don't know.” She swallowed back her tears. “I'm not a relationship kind of girl. A few months ago I might have been willing to try, but now? Now I'm too scared. My dad opened my eyes. I trusted him. I loved him, and if your own father can hurt you that badly, I don't dare take that kind of risk with a virtual stranger.”

A cool breeze brushed her on the side where Lance had sat, but he now stood glaring down at her. “A stranger? You think I'm a stranger. Christ, Ari. I've revealed bits of myself to you that no one knows. Hell, I offered to get you a loan from my parents. I've never done that for a woman before.”

Tears now flowed freely down her face. “Which is why I could never take it. It would ruin things between us.”

“My parents' money won't ruin things between us,” he said coldly. “You're determined to do it on your own. Don't shut me out, Ari.”

“Shut you out? I'm moving in with you, Lance. How am I possibly shutting you out?”

“Lance?” Kevin's voice called from the bottom of the stairs. “I finished putting the files in boxes. What should I do now?”

Talk about timing. Ari lifted a brow at Lance. “Better go, we don't want to leave the delinquent alone downstairs. He may have more spray paint.”

Lance turned to pull on faded jeans and a gray t-shirt. “This isn't finished. We'll talk more at my apartment tonight.”

Once dressed, he strode out of the room, leaving her no chance to tell him she'd changed her mind and was going to a hotel.