by Sorcha Black
“What are you doing?” she whispered, aghast.
“Buying some novels,” I replied neutrally. “You can borrow them if you want.”
She moved away from me as the cashier rang up my purchases, as though trying to pretend she didn’t know the strange man buying unapologetically dirty books. As we left the store, I tucked the bag under my arm.
“I have no way to pay you back for those.”
“I’ll expect a full book report on all three.”
She made a strangled sound. “A book report?”
“An oral book report.” I didn’t mean the double entendre, but it was hard not to laugh when she didn’t catch it at all. Hopefully the books wouldn’t give her the vapors. “I’ll give these to you later. Do you have somewhere safe to hide them?”
She nodded. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t make my job harder than it needs to be, and this could happen regularly. Music too.”
“So, you’re bribing me to behave?”
“Let’s call it incentivizing.” I smiled to myself. “We could have a good time together, or we can make each other miserable. Your choice.”
She glanced sidelong at me and bit her lip. “I’ll be a good girl.”
Something inside me growled in completely inappropriate interest.
No. Absolutely not.
Little Miss Aberdeen Kincaid was not allowed to get under my skin.
When we were almost at the car, I decided I needed to say one more thing on the subject. “The book you were reading is not how BDSM is supposed to work. It’s entertainment, not a how-to manual.”
A strange, breathy gasp left her lips. Rather than reply, she darted ahead to slide into the backseat of the waiting car.
And now I’d shocked her.
Shit.
* * *
“Are you going to stand there all day?”
I could feel her peeking out into the hallway at me.
Damn it.
It was hard to avoid the woman I was guarding, but I’d been doing precisely that.
My fucking brain wouldn’t shut up about her.
“This is my job, Miss.”
“Protecting me is your job. That doesn’t mean you have to stand outside my bedroom door like I’m the Queen of England. You can come in and sit down, for goodness’ sake.”
“I usually give people as much privacy as I can.”
“How about you come in and give me what I want instead?”
I blinked at the wall across from me, not chuckling even though I wanted to. It sounded like innuendo, but it wasn’t.
“And what is it you want, Miss?”
She’d kept reading the roughest book, and had proudly told me what page number she was on yesterday. Exactly how kinky was she?
Unable to resist, I’d bought a digital version and started reading it on my phone during my off-duty hours, but then had to stop because I kept picturing her as the main character.
It was so fucking unprofessional to let my mind go there.
“Having you stand out here makes me feel weird. Can’t you come in and sit down?”
“Lazing around doesn’t sound very professional.”
“Jake did it all the time. Standing up too long was hard on his varicose veins.”
I glanced over at her. The door was opened just far enough for her to stick her head through. Her curls were caught up in a sloppy bun held in place with a pencil, and her eyes were wide and guileless. Why did she have to be so damned beautiful?
“I don’t have varicose veins, Miss.”
“But if you keep standing around all the time you never know. They could sneak up on you. Or maybe you’ll get flat feet.”
“My arches are impeccable.”
“Did Mother inspect them as a condition of your employment?”
“I supplied references and Polaroids. She considered that sufficient.”
She laughed. It was a pretty, unselfconscious laugh, and it made me smile even though I tried not to.
“Please come in? I’m bored.” The pleading note in her voice was adorable—everything about her was.
“How am I going to protect you from in there?”
“I don’t know. Jake did. What if someone came in through my window? You’d be too late to help me.”
If I gave into this obvious ploy for companionship now, there’d be no getting out of it again.
“Have all of your bodyguards sat in there with you?”
“Mostly just Jake.”
I relented and turned to her. She backed into the room and opened the door wider for me, eyes mischievous.
“How can you be bored if you have books to read?” I asked in all sincerity as I walked into the lioness’s den. She closed the door behind me, and I wondered if it might be better to leave it open. Maybe she was used to entertaining people in this space, but for me things felt a bit too intimate, considering the bed and my thoughts.
At the mention of books, her face flamed pink. Her eyes went wide and furtive, and she quietly shushed me.
“I can’t read and crochet at the same time, and I have some preemie hats to finish for the hospital.”
“I hope you’re not expecting me to read aloud to you.”
“No!” She smacked my arm with complete familiarity, then yanked her hand back and held it as if touching me had burned her. It had surprised me, but maybe she’d surprised herself more.
She settled into a spot on the couch, which she had apparently just vacated, considering the detritus surrounding her—yarn, a few sheets of paper that looked like patterns, packaging from a granola bar. The television was on, and a game show contestant was trying to guess the retail price of a box of rice.
“We could move to a sitting room?” I suggested, standing awkwardly by the armchair that matched the couch.
I towered over her in the first place, but when she was sitting I felt like an ogre.
“I’m already set up here.” She glanced up at me in confusion.
“This is very—” I gestured vaguely. “Cozy.”
“Is cozy a bad thing?”
“Maybe if I leave the door open…”
“Are you afraid of being alone with me?” she asked, looking amused. “I don’t bite. I promise.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone to make allegations of impropriety.”
She laughed again. “As if someone like you would be interested in someone like me.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“Besides, this is how things work in this house, Mr. Köhler. The staff uses my first name. People chat and hang out. And even if my mother is home, she barely notices we exist. No one is going to make any allegations. Who would they even make them to?”
“Servants gossip.”
“My friends would never betray me,” she said with an almost shocking amount of self-assurance. “They would never do anything to harm me.”
“But what about me? You don’t know me from Adam, Miss. What if I’m not a very nice man?”
Her blue gaze flashed to me. “Aren’t you a nice man?”
I sighed uneasily. “That’s a loaded question. Are any of us truly nice?”
“Humans, or men, specifically?”
“Either. Both.”
“I don’t know many people well enough to judge. I assume most people are born with the capacity to be kind and good, but the world either teaches them that cruelty is synonymous with power, or they’re wounded and they lash out at the people around them. Even then, I think most people choose to be mostly good.”
Feeling weird about standing over her, I lowered myself to sit on the edge of the recliner, since it was the farthest point from where she was sitting. She nodded at me as if she approved of the fact that I’d finally sat.
“You don’t believe anyone is evil from birth?”
She shrugged, picked up her yarn and a long-handled hook, and set back to work. Her slender fingers flew, and I watched in awe as she added yarn to th
e small hat that was taking shape. It was like watching witchcraft in action.
“I’m sure some people are born without the ability to feel empathy, and that will inevitably affect their ability or desire to make choices that benefit the community, but I don’t think cruelty is basic human nature. We’re pack animals, aren’t we?”
“So all of this means you’re willing to give me the benefit of the doubt?”
“I’m also sure Mother had someone look into your background and call your references.”
I smiled at the top of her bent head.
This was very different than my last job. I doubted she’d been begging me for a piggyback ride every few minutes.
She paused in her crocheting, picked up the TV remote, and tossed it to me. I had to lunge to catch it, and she giggled.
“Sorry. I don’t have much of a pitching arm. There’s not a lot of ball-throwing in dance.”
“You dance?”
She shrugged. “Years of ballet. I love it, but I’m not good at it.”
“You grew up taking lessons?”
“Private ones, yes. It’s not the same as being in a real class.”
“That sounds pleasant. Less pressure.”
“No one to compare myself to, true, but it also means there was no one to compete with. No dance troupe either. No competitions or recitals. No friends.”
“Just your mother as an audience?”
She gave a surprised laugh. “No, Jake and my nanny, back when she was still with us. Mother has a lot to do. After my father died she had to take over the entire company.”
“Oh.”
“If she were a man no one would judge her for being dedicated to the success of her company.”
I wasn’t sure if she was defending her mother to me, or to herself.
“Every family is different.”
“Exactly.” She added a few more stitches. “Turn it to whatever you want.” She gestured to the TV. “I only have it on for noise. Maybe not the news, though.”
“You don’t like watching the news?”
“I don’t enjoy horror as a genre, and dressing it up in the guise of information makes it all the more terrifying. I can’t control what’s happening in the world, but I can vote, and I can donate money.” She shrugged. “I should be more politically active, but hey, there are a lot of things I should be doing.”
“With your money, you could have some political influence, I’m sure.”
“It’s not my money, and I’m sure Mother’s politics are different than mine. We’re very different people.”
“You don’t take after her much?”
“Ha. No. I think it’s safe to say I don’t take after her at all.”
“No?”
“Nature had nothing to do with my creation, and as for nurture, she’s been busy. I might take after Jake and my nanny a bit.”
Nature had very little to do with her creation? What was that supposed to mean? It felt too personal to ask. Maybe she was conceived through fertility treatments? Those were common enough nowadays, though. It seemed strange to refer to it that way.
“Jake is a crochet enthusiast?”
She glanced at me wryly. “No, that was my nanny, April. Jake did teach me how to play poker, though.”
“Poker? Now, that’s something I can work with,” I said, fiddling with the remote until I found the channel guide.
“I could always teach you how to knit or crochet, if you’re interested.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“It’s very relaxing.”
“I’m supposed to be alert, not relaxed, Miss.”
“Hmm.” I saw her glance up at me and smirk, but I kept my gaze on the television. “I guess I’ll have to think of ways to keep you on your toes, then.”
Had that sounded…suggestive?
Shit. That didn’t bode well at all.
I turned my attention to scrolling through channels, and we lapsed into silence. Maybe I wasn’t very good company, but being too friendly with her might be dangerous—to my moral compass, if nothing else.
Chapter Three
It was late on a Friday—or maybe early Saturday at that point. The movie we were watching was boring, but sitting on the same couch as my bodyguard was decidedly…not.
The man was polite and unobtrusive, but despite his hard features and mashed nose, he had animal magnetism. It was like having my own laconic Viking.
Something important was happening on-screen but I was having trouble following. I kept getting distracted. There’d been a tense scene where the villain had slammed the female action hero against the wall and whispered something threatening in her ear, and my mind kept replaying it, but with different people playing those roles.
What would it be like if Mr. Köhler did that to me?
If I’d been alone, I might have taken the edge off and cooled down a bit before I kept watching the movie. Instead, I found myself hyperaware of the man next to me, his hand in the popcorn bowl on his lap.
I’d gotten bored of my own popcorn and switched to candy, and I twirled the cherry lollipop, finding having something to do with my mouth soothing.
Mr. Köhler shifted in his seat, not for the first time. Was my couch uncomfortable? Was I making annoying noises with my candy? He was glancing over once in a while, but I pretended not to notice as his gaze lingered on me. It seemed to last even longer if I was licking my lollipop or twirling it in my mouth.
Oh…
Was what I was doing suggestive?
Heat bloomed from my chest, up my neck and cheeks, all the way to the tips of my ears. Hopefully he couldn’t tell how red I was in the low light. My first instinct was to throw the lollipop in the garbage, but the intensity of his gaze made me breathless.
Could he possibly be thinking of me that way? No one thought of me like that.
Testing the theory, I popped the candy out of my mouth and gave it a long, lingering lick, pretending I was engrossed in the car chase on the screen. He grunted like someone had kicked him.
Was it true?
It was exhilarating. Empowering.
The low-level frustration between my legs got a few degrees hotter.
I stretched out and placed my feet on the pillow beside his leg. I was wearing flannel pajamas and warm socks, but when my toe brushed his thigh it was electric.
Mr. Köhler did not react—not a twitch, not a sound. He stared ahead at the screen as though he’d never been watching me in the first place.
I sighed. It had probably been my imagination the whole time, or maybe he really had been annoyed by the sounds I’d been making with my lollipop.
Frustrated, I twirled the candy in my mouth and wriggled, then stretched again, this time accidentally nudging him with my foot. One of his large hands closed around my toes where they touched his muscular thigh.
I gasped and our gazes clashed.
“Are you bored, Miss Kincaid?”
“Um…no?”
“You’re a very distracting co-watcher.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “I’ve seen this before anyway. I should head to bed and turn you over to the night guard.”
“Oh.”
We got up at the same time, and I slid past him to head to the bathroom, embarrassed that I’d annoyed him while trying to test out flirting. I brushed against his front as I went past, and bumped something hard in his pocket. His gun?
“Sorry, I—”
He caught me by the arm and led me to the corner of the room and placed me facing it.
“What are you doing?” I asked, confused.
The hand on my arm moved to the back of my neck, holding me there. The heat between my legs began to throb.
“You’re being a brat. Now, stand here and think about your behavior.” His voice was a low growl that vibrated my eardrum.
I whimpered, turned on but not sure what was happening. He sounded irritated, but also not at the same time. My entire body was turni
ng to hot putty under the grip on the back of my neck, and I was so confused.
“What did I do?”
“Don’t try to play innocent with me, little miss. You might think it’s funny to torment a man who’s just trying to do his damned job, but it’s cruel. Whatever you’re hoping for isn’t going to happen, so stop it.”
He tugged the lollipop from my mouth and it made a popping sound as it broke the seal of my lips. “And no more of these—understand me?”
“Yes, sir.” So he had found my candy annoying. Why hadn’t he said that before he got so mad about it?
The sound he made was aggravated. Animalistic. “Don’t call me that.”
“Yes, Mr. Köhler. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
We stood there like that in complete silence, me facing the wall, him holding the back of my neck. Was he as confused as I was?
I could feel my privates getting heavier, slicker, even though I was trying hard not to interpret this wrong. It wasn’t like he was spanking me, but this felt like a sexually charged moment, at least from where I was standing. What man forced a woman to stand in a corner for making noises while she was eating or for shifting on the couch?
The hand on the back of my neck eased, but as he pulled away, his fingertips brushed my nape, and I shuddered.
“There. Good girl.”
Oh god. Why did I feel like I could purr? I was a complete mess.
“I’m sorry I upset you.”
He patted my shoulder, which didn’t feel sexy at all, unfortunately. “You need to keep the bratty stuff to a minimum around me, okay?”
“Yes, Mr. Köhler.”
“Goodnight, Miss Kincaid.”
“Goodnight.”
He was gone by the time I turned around. My bedroom door closed behind him with a soft click.
My legs shook as I turned off the television and brushed my teeth. The interaction played and replayed in my head, and I tried to remember every detail, scrutinizing what had happened now that I wasn’t in the moment, and I didn’t have a giant sexy male looming over me.
I crawled into bed and closed my eyes, listening hard and wishing I had x-ray vision so I could see through the wall. Was he thinking about what had happened too?