Necessary Risk (Bodyguard) (17 page)

He nodded, not saying anything, listening as he rolled paint onto the wall in long, even strokes.

“Right around the time my dad died, I wasn’t making good decisions. I was hanging out with the wrong people, and I did a lot of stuff I’m not proud of.”

She hesitated, and he urged her to continue. “I won’t judge. We’ve all got stuff in the past we’d like to pretend isn’t there.” His features tightened, just for a second.

“When my dad got sick, and then died, I kind of came off the rails. I didn’t know how to cope with losing him, and I just wanted to be numb all the time. I was seventeen, and I was going to bars, and smoking pot, doing coke, sleeping around…and everyone around me just kind of cheered me on, like I was doing something great. Like my self-destructive behavior somehow deserved to be celebrated, or glorified.” She paused, scoffing out a quiet laugh. “The glorification of terrible behavior? That’s Hollywood in a nutshell. I had money from
Family Tree
, and
Sunset Cove
was proving to be a hit. But that wasn’t enough of a high for me, so I chased other highs.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“You’re a client. It’s my job to know what information about you is out there.”

“So why’d you ask?”

“You seemed like you needed to talk.”

She chewed her bottom lip. “So you read up on me.”

“I did. And for what it’s worth, none of that changes what I think of you.”

“Oh.” She took a sip of her beer, not knowing what to say.

He didn’t say anything for a few moments either as he dumped more paint into the tray and continued working his way around the room, painting the top third of the wall that she couldn’t reach on her own.

“Besides. That role is…it’s pretty incredible. I don’t think I could do it justice,” she added quietly.

“Why not?”

She chewed her lip, trying to figure out how to explain in a way that wouldn’t sound self-pitying or as if she were fishing for compliments. “The character, Elle, she’s so…strong. She sees something wrong, and she does everything in her power to stop it. She’s brave, and she’s tough, and smart, and—”

“She’s you.”

She froze as the compliment washed over her, somehow both soothing and exhilarating at the same time. She set her roller down and picked up her beer, taking a tentative step toward him. “That’s really how you see me?” She pointed at the script, needing to know. “Like that?”

He set his own roller down in the tray and turned to face her. “You know what I see when I look at you?” He said it almost like a challenge, as though he was daring her to believe him.

“What?” she managed, her legs suddenly feeling wobbly.

He took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. His hand came up to cup her face, his thumb tracing over her cheekbone. “I see a beautiful woman, inside and out.”

She laughed nervously, relishing the feel of his thumb brushing against her skin. “You barely know me.”

“You barely know me. How do you see me?”

His eyes held hers, and for a second her brain stopped completely, as though it were devoid of blood and oxygen, despite the furious pounding of her heart and her quick, shallow breaths. “I see someone strong, and brave, and dedicated to his job. Someone who makes me feel safe and protected, despite everything that’s happened over the past week.” She swallowed, her mouth dry. She leaned forward slightly, needing to be closer to him, when he suddenly jumped back.

“Shit! I’m sorry,” she said as she realized that she’d poured her beer all over him as she’d moved closer. She’d been so caught up in the moment that she’d forgotten she was even holding it, and she’d tipped it forward.

He held his wet T-shirt away from his skin, flapping it and revealing tantalizing glimpses of his abs. She darted into the kitchen and grabbed a towel, cringing at her clumsiness. When she stepped back into the dining room, Sean was naked from the waist up, his beer-soaked T-shirt balled in one large fist. His sweatpants hung low around his hips, revealing a deep-cut line on either side of his hips.

Sierra almost swallowed her tongue. “I…uh…towel,” she stammered, shoving the kitchen towel at him awkwardly. He took it from her, their fingers brushing. It was as though an electric current passed between them, and every hair on her body stood on end. He swiped the towel over his abs, mopping up the beer that had soaked through the thin cotton of his now discarded T-shirt.

She hadn’t realized she was going to touch him until her fingers made contact with his skin, her fingers brushing lightly over his ribs. She felt him suck in a surprised breath, but he didn’t back away. She glanced up, and was nearly undone at the heat sparking in his brown eyes. She slid her hand up, resting her palm over his heart, and the heat only burned brighter.

She skated her hand lower, feathering over the ridges of his abs, and she felt him tremble slightly. “Do you want me to stop?”

In response he dropped the towel and grabbed her other hand, placing it on his bare chest. “No,” he ground out, his voice strained, his eyes burning into her.

He held perfectly still as she walked around him in a slow circle, tracing the contour of every single muscle, every peak and valley, every inch of warm, smooth skin, drinking in the sight of all that masculine strength. The light from the setting sun filtered in through the windows, casting a warm orange glow over the room, and her mind flicked back to her candlelit dream. But this wasn’t a dream. He was too solid, too warm, too perfect under her touch for this to be anything but reality.

Her hands slid up his back and to his hard shoulders, avoiding the gun tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants. The sight of the gun threatened to bring her back to reality, but she couldn’t stop touching him. It was as though her skin were desperate to memorize his. She took her time exploring him, letting her hands wander over his chest, his abs, his back, his arms, his shoulders, marveling at the incredibly solid strength beneath her hands. She continued her slow circle, making her way back to where she’d started, dragging her fingertips over his skin as she did. Goose bumps followed her across the wide plain of his back, and he trembled slightly.

She was making this muscled beast of a man tremble. With her fingertips. A surge of power flowed through her as she came to a stop in front of him, her hands sliding up his bare chest, her palms scraping lightly over his flat brown nipples, his chest hair crisp against her skin. She wound her arms around him and tentatively brushed her lips against his chest, inhaling deeply, wanting to memorize his scent.

His nostrils flared, and he took a short, sharp breath. “Fuck, Sierra,” he said quietly, his voice deep and raw. He threaded his fingers through her hair, and her breathing hitched as he gave her hair a gentle, electrifying tug, tilting her face up to his.

His eyes were dark, glittering with heat. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him, and none of the other shit mattered. The harassment. The past. The lingering doubts. Now that she’d tasted Sean’s skin, how could anything else matter at all?

Crackling tension vibrated between them, the air thick and charged as before a storm. And it was about to pour.

“Fuck professional ethics.” He dipped his head, a tiny up-and-down movement, brushing her lips with his, a tease of a kiss. But as desperate as she was, she didn’t want to rush. No, she wanted to savor every single second of this.

Ian cleared his throat loudly from behind them, and Sean released her, turning away.

“I just picked something up on the security cam,” said Ian, his hard blue eyes flicking between Sean and Sierra. With swift yet somehow casual movements, he checked the clip of the gun in his hands. “I think we’ve got a visitor.”

Sean pulled his own gun free of his waistband, his eyes still dark, but with a different kind of heat now. “Stay here,” he ground out, his voice rough. He looked like an action hero, shirtless and ripped, a gun clutched in his big hands, danger written in the hard lines of his face. “Where?”

“Coming round to the backyard.” As if on cue, the alarm erupted with a continuous stream of blaring shrieks, and Sierra jumped, pressing a hand to her chest to keep her heart from leaping out of her body.

“Cover me.” Sean made his way quickly across the dining room to the French doors in the kitchen, pressing his back against the wall and peering out. The sun had just about disappeared below the horizon, leaving the backyard in purple shadows. Ian mirrored Sean’s actions, his back pressed against the wall on the other side of the doors. A crash sounded from the backyard, and with a nod at Ian, Sean pushed through the doors, his gun leveled at the intruder as he chased him down, his long legs eating up the distance in seconds.

Pulse pounding in her throat, Sierra raced to the window, practically pressing her face against the glass as she watched her own personal action hero grab the intruder around the waist, lift him, and slam him into the ground. Sean came down on top of the intruder, wrestling him onto his stomach and grabbing his arms, pinning them behind his back. Ian kept his gun trained on the man, approaching with quick, sure steps.

The intruder struggled against Sean, who held him down easily, muscles bunching and flexing in a show of strength that had her stomach doing a slow, scalding turn.

“Search him,” Sean called over his shoulder to Ian, who dropped down beside Sean and began rifling through the man’s pockets. Sierra’s blood turned to ice as she saw Ian pull out a capped syringe and a small serrated knife. The threatening words of the note flashed through her mind, and she sank down onto the floor, too relieved that Sean had caught the intruder to do anything else.

Chapter 13

A
fter showering and dressing the next morning, Sean strode into Sierra’s kitchen, his phone pressed to his ear.

“He won’t say a damn word to the cops,” said Clay on the other end of the line. The intruder hadn’t had any ID on him, and although he was currently sitting in a jail cell downtown, he wasn’t giving the police any information. “But he doesn’t need to talk for me to find out who he is,” continued Clay, and Sean couldn’t help but smile. Clay was expensive, but worth every fucking penny. “I used the security cam footage and was able to use the image to pull his driver’s license.”

“How the hell did you do that?”

“You really want to know?”

Sean paused. “Probably not. So who is this asshole?”

“Name’s Judah Kirkham. He just moved here from San Francisco, and guess what? He was a confirmed member of Sacrosanct there. He’s been arrested for obstructing access to Choices locations and criminal trespassing. He also just did a ninety-day stint in Pleasant Valley State Prison for his role in bombing a Choices clinic last year.”

“So that confirms it. We’re dealing with Sacrosanct.” Something hot and possessive washed over him as he remembered the syringe and the knife the fucker had clearly planned to use on Sierra.

“Without a doubt.”

He hung up, hating Sacrosanct even more than before. Not only was it threatening his girl, but it had thoroughly succeeded at cock-blocking him last night.

There was no doubt in his mind that if not for the interruption, he would’ve taken Sierra back to the guesthouse and spent the night violating his professional ethics and exploring her, discovering exactly where she liked to be touched. Kissed. Licked.

“Morning,” called Sierra as she stepped into the kitchen, still in her pajamas, her hair in a messy bun, no makeup on. He liked her without any makeup because he could see much more clearly the freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks. He liked imagining kissing every single one of those freckles, claiming every one of them for himself. “Have you seen my phone?”

He tipped his head toward the dining room. “I think it’s still hooked up to the speaker in there.”

She smiled her thanks and gave his arm a squeeze on her way through the kitchen and into the dining room. She’d barely disappeared around the corner when she came darting back in, a bright, surprised smile on her face.

“You finished it?”

He’d been too keyed up to sleep after last night’s intrusion, so he’d finished painting the dining room for her. He’d needed something to do with himself, and he hated leaving a job half finished.

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“You really didn’t have to do that,” she said, shaking her head but still smiling.

“I know how much you wanted the graffiti gone. It’s no big deal.”

“Thank you.” Her eyes were soft and full of something he couldn’t quite decipher. So he simply nodded.

“You’re welcome.”

She grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down at the island, her fingers curled around the mug.

Instantly Sean’s mind went back to last night and the way she’d touched him, his skin coming alive under her fingers. The way she’d taken her time, exploring him, savoring him with a kind of sweet reverence that had left him incredibly hard and shaking with how much he wanted her.

She cradled her phone between her ear and shoulder, checking her messages as she sipped her coffee. Her movements slowed, and then stilled completely, and she froze. All the blood drained from her face, and Sean pushed up from his stool, his blood pressure skyrocketing.