Star Crossed (10 page)

“I was worried about Pop-Pop, that he’d go downhill like older people do sometimes. I . . . ended an estrangement with my father so he’d agree to give him a job.”

“Your dad gave you a job too.” Luke seemed intrigued by the implications.

“Yes.” She fought an urge to squirm. “That was my leverage.”

Luke laughed. He was too sharp to miss the irony. “You father offered to save you from unemployment, and you used it as leverage?”

“My
estranged
father.”

“I’d ask why that was, but I suspect my luck in getting you to open up doesn’t stretch that far.”

She didn’t ask why he wanted to. He’d just use it as an excuse for more flirting.

“Szymanski gave you the new phone?” she asked instead.

“He did . . . and your ‘go-bag’ as well. I put it in the guest room.”

Did he purr when he said
guest room?
Her clit certainly thought so.

“Great,” she said, summoning the poker face she’d learned from her dad. Luke didn’t need to know his voice made her wet. “If you’re set, I wouldn’t mind calling it a night.”

He rose, because of course she wasn’t going to head him off from escorting her. “I’ll show you how the guest room shower works. Don’t say ‘no.’ It’s a digital system and not exactly intuitive.”

A.J. restrained her sigh. It was true she didn’t enjoy fiddling with unfamiliar electronics in strange bathrooms.

Though the en suite facilities were big, they shrank with Luke in them. His faded jeans didn’t help matters. Loose like his T-shirt, they showed off his taut butt fine. She gritted her teeth and tried not to drool while he demonstrated how to use the bath’s touchscreen.

When he finished, he handed her the remote. “If you keep this with you, you can turn on and preheat the shower while you’re still in bed.”

This time he wasn’t purring but grinning like a kid. To her dismay, A.J. found that just as irresistible. “I guess this luxury stuff isn’t old hat to you.”

“Nope. I really love gadgets.”

He met and held her eyes—smiling faintly, smugly, very much aware of the influence his smoldering orbs exerted on females. He was only a step from her. A.J. was in the bathroom doorway. She must have backed up without thinking, because now she realized her spine rested on the frame. She wanted to cross her arms but fought the defensive reaction.

She told herself she wasn’t getting hot because he was taller than she was.

“You can go now,” she said dryly. “You showed me what you wanted.”

“Hardly,” he joked then lifted both his palms. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist the opening.”

“Don’t make me ask again,” she said.

His face grew quiet, the tinge of sadness touching it again. He didn’t come closer but didn’t move away.

“You really don’t remember,” he murmured.

He confused her. She’d already admitted she remembered the night they spent together. “Luke . . .”

“I’d never forget these eyes,” he said, cutting off an objection that probably wouldn’t have made sense. His nearness spun a spell she couldn’t resist—his voice, his scent, his body heat doing odd things to her. A.J. didn’t give in to men unless she decided to.

Not to men who weren’t him at least. He was too smooth by far. When he traced her eyebrow with one finger, she didn’t so much as twitch.

“Your eyes are a glass of whiskey set on a window sill. You’ve no idea how much I’d love to get drunk on them.”

The way he said it didn’t sound like a line.

He’s an
actor
, she reminded. Maybe a better one than he got credit for.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he said. “If you don’t want that, you’d better move away.”

How could she move? He’d hypnotized her to remain where she was. Her knees felt weak, her skin humming all over. Her lips fell open. She thought she was drawing in breath to speak, but the air just sighed out again.

God, her body was way too hot. Her spine felt like it was melting. The shower remote clattered to the floor.

“My angel,” Luke breathed so softly she thought she must have misheard him.

He pressed his mouth gently over hers, molding their lips together. His were warm, cushiony satin—softer than hers, she suspected. She could have been sixteen and kissing her first boyfriend. She gasped when Luke’s tongue slipped out to touch the seam.

The burst of sensation that exploded in her nerves startled her.

“Luke,” she cautioned even as her hands fluttered to his waist.

She shouldn’t have touched him. Even through the T-shirt, his muscles were very hard. She’d seen his abs on screen and justifiably admired them. Clearly, he wasn’t letting his regimen slide between movies. It seemed she
had
to sweep her thumb up and down the delicious grooves that paralleled his hipbones.

Not to do so would have been a disservice to womankind.

Luke felt the caress, of course. A noise rumbled in his chest as he leaned more of his weight on her. His head tilted, his tongue gaining entry to stroke inside her mouth.

The way he claimed the space was perfect. He wasn’t too forceful or too tentative. He simply slid in and let his tongue speak to and seduce hers. Even the urgency his body communicated wasn’t too much for her. Though he didn’t shove her into the door jam, she felt the shape of him distinctly: his chiseled chest and stomach, the quickening expansion of his ribs.

Having him that close to her felt intimate, like they already knew each other well. One of his thighs rested solidly between hers. Hers must have made room for it. She couldn’t remember him forcing the issue. She guessed he liked the feel of them fit together there. With a groan that stood the hairs on her arms on end, he rolled his pelvis X-ratedly against her.

A.J.’s eyebrows rose. He was erect. Totally. Thoroughly. Like, eight inches of molten steel poured into a long, hard mold. His cock was so thick she thought her finger and thumb might not close around him. She shivered and squirmed, excitement gushing from her pussy.

She hadn’t seen this part of him on screen. More to the point, she hadn’t done it justice in her memory. Maybe back then his injury had inhibited his arousal? She remembered being impressed, but tonight he seemed gigantic.

His hands took hold of her butt, squeezing it with exploratory enthusiasm as he drove the kiss deeper.

Wow, he was good. Her head actually spun. She slid her hands up his back, clutching all of him closer. His trapezius muscles were incredibly well formed. Was that
her
making whimpering noises? Surely it couldn’t be.

“Alexandra,” he groaned. “Christ, I want inside you.”

His use of her given name shocked her. No one called her Alexandra, not even her mother.

“No,” she gasped, pushing at his chest as sanity returned.

He’d been caught up in kissing her—lost in it, she supposed. She had to shove hard to get him to withdraw.

“Shit,” he panted raggedly at her. His expression was accusing.

“I’m not apologizing,” she tried to snap around her own breathlessness. “I warned you this wasn’t happening.”

That was before she’d kissed him back, but she stuck to her guns. Luke’s brows lowered thunderously.

“I mean it,” she said. “My job is guarding you, not getting distracted.”

“At least you admit I distract you.”

“
I’m
not a child.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed in a new, more considering way. “I see you’ve figured out I don’t like having that particular button pushed.”

“Don’t make me push it.”

He dropped his hold and stepped back from her. “You
liked
me kissing you.”

“Again, I don’t deny it. I’m still entitled to say ‘no.’”

He let her have the last word—at least on that topic. “I’m putting in the breakfast order before I go to bed. Unless you’ve made other arrangements, I’ll get enough for you and Brian too.”

Her mind took a second to catch up. Of course he knew Szymanski by his first name. Luke was a people person down to his bones. “Szymanski can’t eat gluten,” she retorted, knowing this from her bagel runs.

Luke smiled like she’d amused him. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He moved to the door and paused. She wished she weren’t memorizing the flush that lingered on his cheekbones.

“Sleep well,” he said caressingly.

Then he shut the door gently behind him.

As if
, she thought, shaking her head in exasperation. Going a dozen rounds with her punching bag would have suited her better than sleep right then. She was fully aroused and antsy. If Luke were anyone else, she’d totally have stripped him naked. Then they’d have enjoyed a marathon sex session in that sleek shower.

Not happening
, she mouthed in reminder.

She sat absently on the cushy bed, pulling out her phone to check for messages. Apparently, Luke had sent her father the information he requested, and her dad had cc’d A.J. He’d asked for the usual stuff: people who disliked or resented Luke, recently fired employees, rivals, altercations, and weird fan mail. Though Luke did some updates himself, he had a firm overseeing his social media activity. He’d provided contacts for that and for the firm that screened his snail mail. To A.J.’s relief, he didn’t get this at home. Best not to be accessible to any nut with an anthrax lab.

What bugged her was the glaring blank beside who might wish him harm. Sure, Luke was charming, but who had no enemies? No human, in her experience. Admittedly, A.J.’s perspective was cynical, but even Luke ought to know better. As fortunate as he’d been, he couldn’t
imagine
being resented?

“Lamb,” she muttered.

She felt a worry she didn’t usually experience in these situations. No matter how this turned out—whether Luke’s enemy was someone he knew or a stranger—Hoyt-Sands’ investigation would dig up information he’d be more comfortable not knowing. Lies would be unearthed, petty betrayals, maybe big ones too. Chances were, the farm boy’s rose-colored glasses would be crunched underfoot. He’d never feel as blithe about being safe or loved again.

Her breath came out on a lengthy sigh. Surprisingly, if she could have, she’d have shielded his innocence.

EVERYTHING considered, Luke decided last night had been two steps forward, one step back. He’d confirmed A.J. was attracted to him, though better at resisting their chemistry than he could be thankful for.

She’d also—reluctantly—given him a reason for her long-ago failure to return his calls. He guessed he could understand it. Unfortunately, it underscored the fact that she didn’t consider their encounter as important destiny-wise as him. He was just a guy she’d left behind, maybe a memorable guy, but not anything more than that. That was the step-back part, of course.

He reminded himself one step forward was better than nothing.

By the time the Hoyt-Sands driver arrived to take them to the airport, Luke had talked himself into a buoyant mood. Maybe too buoyant. Both A.J. and Szymanski seemed to find his cheeriness surprising.

“You’d think he didn’t
mind
getting shot at,” Luke heard the male guard murmur.

Szymanski sat up front beside the driver, while A.J. slipped into the limo’s back with him. Luke liked that too, though his positive disposition did take a tiny hit when A.J. took advantage of the quiet to call her work bestie. From the sound of it, Martin Sands would be accompanying them to Los Angeles. Another bodyguard had replaced him with Naomi, because
Martin
was A.J.’s preferred second in command.

“He has aviation experience,” she informed Luke after she hung up. “He’ll talk to your crew and they’ll check over the jet together before we board.”

“Great,” Luke said, possibly not as convincingly as he wished. “I suppose he can fly the thing as well.”

“He’s rated up to a certain size. He could pinch hit for your pilot if he had to.”

Of course he could. He probably didn’t need anyone to protect him from threats, either. A regular Chuck Norris in the flesh. “Handy,” he said dryly.

A.J.’s brows drew together. “Do you have a problem with Martin Sands? The guard who replaced him with Ms. Davis is topnotch too. He’ll take good care of her.”

Luke shook off his irritation. He was being irrational. Martin was A.J.’s work colleague.

“I’m sure he will,” he said. “Thanks for arranging that.”

A.J. shrugged. Her go-bag hadn’t included anything exciting. Her black pants and white button shirt were identical to those she’d worn yesterday. On the bright side, she’d removed her suit jacket once she got in the car. The sight of the leather holster snugged around her shoulder was weirdly hot to him.

For a girl, her shoulders were unusually straight, her rack small but appealing. Luke wondered if she had to do anything different to practice her quick draw. He shouldn’t have let his mind drift in that direction. The thought of her breasts—which he distinctly remembered the feel of—was giving him a slight erection.

“My dad is overseeing Naomi’s security,” she said, seeming unaware of his reaction. “And he wouldn’t put anyone second-rate on it. I’ve worked with the guy he assigned. He’s a former ranger. Completely solid. If Ms. Davis wants to hire him going forward, he’d be a stellar choice.”

Just not the choice A.J. was bringing to LA.

“I’ll be sure to let her know,” he said.

“By the way,” she said as if she’d forgotten to mention it earlier. “The dark sedan with the tinted windows is one of ours. Don’t get uptight if you see it following us.”

Luke hadn’t noticed.
Martin
would have, he presumed.

“Now I feel like the president,” he said as lightly as he could. “I’ve got my own motorcade.”

“To us, you’re as important as the POTUS.”

She said this straight-faced but absentmindedly, like it was company policy. Luke was pretty sure she didn’t mean the kind of
importance
he was aspiring to.

*

A.J.’s hyper-vigilance had snapped on before they left the hotel. With a clarity most people didn’t experience when focused on one thing, she was aware of many simultaneously. Luke’s words, the flow of traffic outside the car, the calm and competent body language of the driver her dad had sent—all registered with her. The multi-tasking in her brain wasn’t magic. Her father trained his employees to broaden their perceptions. He was a good leader, a good teacher, and he’d imparted everything he could to A.J. One of the things he made sure she learned was that the man who’d taught
him
hadn’t made it out of Afghanistan. That was a sobering fact. No system could counter every threat.