Saving Jade: Stormborn Security Services

by Ava Bloom

  “You don’t like talking about yourself,” Jade said, grabbing my plate and taking it to the sink even though I still had a few bites of toast and some fruit left.

  I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement. “True.”

  She rinsed off the plates and put them in her dishwasher. When she stood up, she smoothed down her dress, leaned against the counter, and stared at me. “Will you tell me something about yourself? If we are going to spend all this time together, I want to know something about you.”

  “Like what?” I asked, having a hard time meeting her eyes. Instead, I looked down at my foot as I kicked the metal bar of the stool.

  “Something true.”

  When I did look up, I didn’t see the usual fire in her eyes. It was softer, curious, welcoming. Much like her apartment. And, as I was beginning to suspect, much like the real Jade.

  I took a deep breath and told the truth. “I’m not a stalker.”

  Her mouth tightened, and I thought it was to hold back a smile. She pushed away from the counter and grabbed her purse and a bundle of paintbrushes on a table next to the door. “Well, thank God for that. A stalker is the last thing I need right now.”

  7

  LOGAN

  JADE SAT in my passenger seat with her hands folded in her lap and her ankles crossed. She was poised and graceful, her long, lean limbs looking much like a painting themselves. In the morning light, her skin seemed to glow, the harsh lines of her bangs and the black of her hair contrasting the softness of the rest of her. It was a compelling image, and I had a hard time not sneaking glances.

  “Do you live nearby?” she asked.

  “No.” Her studio is in the middle of our two apartments, so her place was pretty far out of my way. I didn’t want to tell her that I had to drive forty minutes to sit outside her apartment so early in the morning, and that I then had to backtrack twenty minutes to beat her to the studio. She didn’t need to know how important her safety had become to me.

  “Then you probably don’t know it is a really safe neighborhood,” she said, her chin lifted high as she stared straight ahead at the road. “Some property crimes and petty thefts, but hardly any violent crimes.”

  “Hardly any isn’t none.”

  She sighed but didn’t argue.

  “Do you have friends in your building?” I asked, reaching out to turn up the air conditioning. The car felt stifling with both of us in it. “Anyone nearby who could help keep an eye on things?”

  Jade turned the air conditioning back down and rolled down her window, the still cool morning air rolling through the window. I smirked and rolled down my window, too. Immediately, Jade’s hair lifted, strands of it swirling around in the wind. Rather than smooth it down and complain, she leaned towards the open window and closed her eyes. The breeze seemed to bring her to life, and I was so busy watching her soak it up, that I almost didn’t notice the light ahead of me turn from green to yellow to red. I slammed on the brakes, my car screeching to a stop.

  Jade never opened her eyes. “I don’t need anyone to keep an eye on me. I’m fine.”

  Arguing with her was futile, so I didn’t bother. “Do you know anyone who would want to attack you?”

  “The police asked me that. No, I don’t.”

  “Any ex-boyfriends or spurned lovers?” I asked.

  “We’ve already discussed this,” she said, opening her eyes and leaning back against the headrest. “No ex-boyfriends. A few first dates, but nothing worthy of attacking me over. Besides, I was attacked by two men. Even if I did have a spurned lover, he would have had to recruit one of his crazy friends to attack me, which seems far-fetched.”

  As much as Jade pretended the incident was no big deal, it was clear she had given the idea some thought. She wanted to know who had attacked her just as much as anyone else. Perhaps even more. Her tough exterior was just that. An exterior.

  I pulled my car along the curb a block down from her studio, rolled up the windows, and turned off the ignition. “I just find it hard to believe you haven’t dated anyone seriously. Ever.”

  Jade shrugged. “Believe it.”

  As she got out of the car, she dropped her bundle of brushes, and before she could bend down to pick them up, I snatched them up and tucked them under my arm. “What about high school boyfriends?”

  “You think a high school boyfriend would wait almost ten years to attack me?” she asked, her red-stained lips puckered in disbelief.

  “No, I was just curious if you had one.”

  “What about you?” she asked, poking me hard in the shoulder. “Why should I tell you about the ins and outs of my dating life, or lack thereof, if you aren’t going to tell me anything about yours?”

  “Not much to tell.”

  Jade groaned and let her head roll back to look up at the sky. “Do you have a word limit you are trying to stay under or something? Feel free to expand upon your ideas. With these short, clipped sentences, it’s no wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Who says I don’t have a girlfriend?” I asked, looking at her sideways, one eyebrow raised.

  The look on her face was priceless. Wide eyes, pink cheeks, lips parting and closing, looking for a good response.

  “I don’t have one, but who said it?” I asked.

  Immediately, the shock faded to annoyance, her eyes narrowing. “I take it back. Don’t expand. The short sentences are fine.”

  She pulled her keys out of her purse and unlocked the front door of the studio. Neither of us said anything as we walked in, and I knew why. We were both scanning the floor and the windows, searching for any sign of another note. Any sign that her attackers had been back and left their calling card. Thankfully, there was nothing.

  Jade walked to a blank easel in the back and dumped her purse on the nearby table. I followed her and sat her brushes down. She thanked me with a quiet nod of her head, and I went back to the front of the space and claimed my seat in the accent chair.

  “I had a girlfriend before the military.”

  Jade had been shaking out a plastic tarp to lay on the ground, but she stopped as soon as I spoke, turning her attention to me.

  “She sent me a letter where I was stationed to say she’d met someone else.”

  “Bitch,” she hissed.

  I shrugged. “We would have broken up anyway. It wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Any girlfriends since then?”

  I shook my head. “I go on dates and meet women at bars, but it rarely goes beyond a one-night stand or a regular booty call.”

  Jade suddenly became very interested in her brushes at that, arranging them in perfect parallel lines across the table. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “How does that work for you?” I asked.

  Her head whipped towards me, her blue eyes wide and blazing. She looked at me like I’d just ripped my shirt off and flexed my pecs at her. “What?”

  “You wanted to know something about me,” I said. “Something true. Does that work?”

  She took a deep breath and her shoulders relaxed. Or did they sag? I couldn’t tell if it was relief or disappointment that moved through her. “Yeah, that works. It might be a little too true.”

  “Are you judging me?” I asked, feigning offense.

  She shrugged. “I just had no idea you were such a player. With a reputation like that, people are going to start to talk when they find out you are spending all this time with me.”

  “I’m not worried,” I said. Especially because there weren’t any people to talk. I didn’t have much in the way of friends outside the security team, and they wouldn’t expect me to date one of my clients. It was done on rare occasions, like Theo and the popstar he was hired to protect, but things rarely worked out so well. Dating a client meant complicating things, getting fired, losing money, and damaging your reputation. It was almost never worth it. Almost.

  “I am not worried about you,” she said, grabbing a box cutter and slicing open the side of
a huge flat cardboard box on the floor. “What about my reputation? What respectable man is going to want to date me with you hanging around? I doubt any respectable, eligible man is going to want to go past my rake of a bodyguard to get to me.”

  She peeled back the cardboard and revealed a stack of canvases taller than she was and almost wider than her arm span. I watched her struggle to try and pick one up for a moment before I jumped up and jogged across the room to assist her.

  “It’s going to take more than a bodyguard to keep a smart guy away,” I said, grabbing one side of the canvas and nodding for her to lead the way. She picked up the other side and walked backwards down the hall and into one of the back rooms I hadn’t seen before.

  It was a small space, mostly for storage, but there were shelves on the walls full of paintings, both finished and half-finished, and blank canvases. Jade kicked aside a bucket that was splattered in paint and leaned the canvas against the wall. When she stood up, she straightened her dress, the collar inching even lower so I could see the soft inner curve of her breast. Propriety told me to look away, but I couldn’t.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” she said, picking up our conversation from the other room. “I don’t tend to attract smart guys.”

  She made her way to walk past me and back into the studio, but her foot caught on the edge of the canvas, and she stumbled. She would have been fine, but instinct sent me lunging for her, anyway. My hand wrapped around her wrist, and my other arm slipped around her waist. She felt delicate in my arms, and even when she was standing firmly on two feet, I didn’t let go. I looked down at her. Her bangs were hanging low and brushing across her eyelashes, moving with every blink. Pink was slowly moving from her neck to her cheeks, but she didn’t move or look away.

  “Even dumb guys can recognize beauty,” I said quietly. “And you are gorgeous.”

  She bit her lower lip, which was only inches away from mine, and I felt my heart flip. “Are you a smart guy or a dumb guy?”

  I closed the distance between us in an instant, my mouth claiming hers. She went rigid for only a second before she became clay in my arms. Jade curved into me, her hips pressing against mine, her back arching. I ran my fingers down her spine, and she brought her hands up to my face, her fingers running down my cheek and across my beard.

  I didn’t answer her question, and for that, I knew I was a smart man. A very smart man.

  Jade opened her mouth to me, allowing me in, my tongue swirling against hers. I pinched her lower lip between my teeth, and then tipped her head back for better access. When I slid from her mouth, pressing kisses to her jaw and her neck, Jade let out a soft moan. I walked her backwards and pressed her against a low table covered in tubes of paint and palettes. I grabbed her hips and Jade brushed it all aside as I sat her down. Immediately, her legs wrapped around my hips, and I couldn’t believe this was happening. That morning, I’d been lurking outside her apartment like a weirdo, and now I was kissing her, touching her, feeling her against me.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” she whispered against my cheek as I sucked on her earlobe. I couldn’t tell if she was saying it with the same reverence as I had been thinking it. Was this a mistake in her mind? Or the fulfillment of fantasies that had bloomed over the past week and a half?

  I began to pull away. “We don’t have to if you—”

  “No,” she said, her legs tightening behind my back.

  When I turned to look at her, her lips, swollen from kisses, were curved upward. “I want.”

  My hands dragged down her sides, exploring every curve of her chest and hips, the soft tapering of her waist. When I felt the tie of her wrap dress, I pulled it without hesitation. I’d imagined undoing the tie so many times, including the first time I ever saw her, and I never thought it would happen. The dress opened just as easily as I thought it would. The flaps slipped free, revealing a white lacy slip that cut low across her chest and high on her thighs. When I stepped back and scanned down her body, I groaned. She was unreal. An actual fantasy.

  Jade lowered her chin and looked up at me, her blue eyes mischievous. Then, she spread her knees apart, the fabric of her slip inching even further up her thighs.

  I pressed myself between her legs instantly, and Jade’s hands scraped down my chest and lower until she found the button of my jeans and undid it with a quick flick of her fingers.

  “I have a condom in my pocket,” I said, not even ashamed to admit that I’d been carrying one around with me since the second day on the job. I decided it wasn’t creepy to be prepared, though she might disagree.

  Jade grinned up at me. It was the same smile she’d given me the day I’d walked into the studio before she learned why I was there. It was the smile I’d hoped would be aimed at me again one day. “Just one? I have a few in my purse.”

  I growled and leaned forward to rest my forehead on her shoulder, unable to grasp my unbelievable luck. I turned my face and kissed her neck. “You are perfect.”

  She laughed. “Hardly.”

  But then her hand slipped inside the waistband of my jeans and my boxers, and she proved herself wrong. Jade was perfect. Perfect for me, anyway. She was strong and opinionated, and she knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to go for it. And that was a very admirable quality because right now what she wanted was me, and she was certainly going for it.

  When her long painter’s fingers wrapped around my length, my body went slack. None of my other limbs mattered. Only one. She curled a hand around my neck and pulled my lips to hers, pressing long, lazy kisses to my mouth in time with her strokes. It was all I could do to remain standing.

  She pulled away, her eyelids heavy. “I’m not going to be a one-night stand.”

  I shook my head. No. This couldn’t happen only once. I would need this regularly. Need her regularly.

  “Or a booty call,” she whispered, stroking me from base to tip.

  I groaned.

  “Because I’m not that kind of girl,” she said at the same time she did something that that kind of girl would do.

  “Of course not,” I said, my voice hoarse and thick.

  Using one hand, she began unbuttoning my shirt, her other hand still moving in long, smooth strokes. I was very impressed with her fine motor skills and show of ambidexterity. After the top three buttons, she leaned forward and pressed her red mouth to my chest, her tongue swirling across my skin as her hand twisted. It was a beautiful kind of torture and I slid my hands down to her waist and gripped the soft flesh there.

  Then, a scream rocked through the studio.

  8

  JADE

  I JOLTED in surprise at the scream, my hand inadvertently tightening around Logan. He cursed and jumped out of my grip. I flew away from him, my back slamming against the wall. The memory of being pressed back against the bricks, the large man’s body pinned against mine rose to the front of my mind, and I batted it away.

  Logan and I stared at one another for a hazy second before we realized neither of us had screamed. The sound had come from the studio.

  Just as fast as Logan had undone my dress, I wrapped it around myself and tied the knot at my hip while he arranged himself and zipped his pants. We both still looked rumbled, but there was no time to worry about it.

  “Jade?” Footsteps sounded across the studio, and I recognized the voice immediately, but Logan didn’t. He pushed me behind him as he opened the storage room door and stepped into the hallway, hand on his hip where I realized a gun was hidden. How had I not felt it?

  “It’s Faith,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder and moving around him. “Faith?”

  My voice echoed around the gallery space before I saw Faith standing in the middle of the room, tears running down her face. My heart stopped.

  “Faith, are you okay?”

  As soon as she saw me, her shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank God.”

  “What happened?” I rushed towards her and pulled her into a hug, the same hands that h
ad just been around Logan now making soothing circles along her shoulder blades.

  Faith was trembling and she shook her head. “I was robbed.”

  “What?” I held her at arm’s length, looking her over to make sure she was okay. “When?”

  “Just now.” Faith stepped out of my grasp and leaned against the edge of a table. She didn’t look like she could hold herself up.

  “Have you called the police? Are you okay? Who was it?”

  Faith just shook her head. “I’m fine, I think. They had masks on. I don’t know who they were.”

  “Have you called the police?” Logan asked, repeating my question.

  Faith look at Logan like he was the man who had robbed her, and then turned her attention back to me. “I don’t want to involve the police.”

  “But you were robbed. You have to report it,” I said. “Insurance will help recover what you lost, and—”

  “I didn’t lose much,” Faith said quickly. “The cash register was almost empty because I ran to the bank last night after closing and deposited everything. They got two hundred dollars and a bunch of quarters from the tip jar.”

  The trembling in her hands had stopped, and she seemed much more relaxed than she had been even a minute ago. She was recovering quickly.

  “Still,” Logan said. “You need to report it. It could be the same men who attacked Jade last week.”

  Faith shook her head. “It wasn’t.”

  “How do you know?” he asked suspiciously.

  I looked over my shoulder at him, with a warning look in my eyes. Logan nodded and took a step back, giving us some space.

  “Because I saw the men who attacked Jade, remember? These guys were completely different builds. And I think one of them was black. Both the guys who attacked Jade were white.”

  “You could see their skin color from the mouth of the alley?” he asked.

  I gave him another look, and he held up his hands in surrender.