At least, I hoped not.
“Are you hungry?”
I glanced at him, surprised out of my thoughts.
“I am, actually.”
“There’s a great little Chinese place up here. I could run in and get us something, if you’d like.”
“Did your team tell you that my fridge was empty?”
He laughed, the sound deep and smooth, like melted chocolate. “No. But I’ve worked with enough CEOs to know that very few of them have time to shop.”
I glanced out the side window. “Yeah. That’s the reason.”
He laughed again. I looked over at him, deciding I really liked that sound.
He pulled to the curb and put the SUV in park, but left the engine idling.
“I’ll be back in a second.”
“Okay.”
“Keep the doors locked and honk the horn if you get scared.”
“I’m an adult. I think I can handle sitting in the car alone for a minute.”
“I’m sure you can.” His eyes moved over me for a second, as if he wanted to argue the whole adult thing, but then he just turned and shut the door.
I turned on the radio and played with the stations until an old pop song came on. I hummed under my breath, watching traffic go by out the windows. It was well after nine, but there was just as much traffic now as there had been earlier in the day. They call New York “the city that never sleeps” but it seemed as if Los Angeles was right up there, too.
I nearly jumped out of my seat when he came back, a large bag in his hands. He smiled, but he didn’t say anything. The food smelled so good I could hardly wait until we got to my apartment. I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was until I smelled it.
I live in a small apartment complex in the valley, the same one I moved into just after I graduated college. I could have moved long ago, could have bought a house, or even more than one. But I liked my neighbors. I liked that Mr. Collins next door always brought me coffee and a donut on Sunday mornings because he knew I got up early to go to church—when I managed to go. And I liked that Mrs. Allen always put my clothes in the dryer when I lost track of time and forgot to go down to switch it out myself. It was rare to find good neighbors in a city like Los Angeles. Not only that, but also what would I do in a big house all by myself? I’d be lost.
I expected to see big cameras, like the security cameras at the office, hanging from the corners of my apartment. But I couldn’t tell that anyone had been in there at all. I led the way inside, gesturing to the counter for Kirkland to put his burden down.
“It’s pretty small,” I said. “Kitchen, living room, and bedroom.”
“It’s bigger than my place.”
“Yeah?”
He didn’t elaborate, but I hadn’t really thought he would.
I went into the bedroom and slipped out of my shoes. I’d normally strip and curl up in my favorite bathrobe, but I decided that wasn’t a good idea tonight. I compromised and slipped out of my skirt in exchange for a comfy pair of sweat pants.
“Where are the plates?” Kirkland called.
“There are paper plates above the stove.”
I walked back out, and he had removed the cartons of food from the bag and was dumping a pile of rice onto one plate. I reached into the fridge and pulled out a couple of root beers. It might be childish, but I love root beer.
Kirkland laughed.
“I haven’t had root beer since I was a kid.”
“I love it. Drink it all the time.”
Kirkland picked up the bottle and took a long drink. Then he regarded me over the rim.
“You are an interesting lady.”
Lady. I liked that. I just hoped interesting was a good adjective in his book.
Chapter 5
Kirkland
She was curled up on the couch, her legs tucked under her and her body just sort of disappeared in the large cushions. She was taller than Joss. Taller than Ricki, too. But she wasn’t exceedingly tall. Average, maybe. I didn’t think I had a type, but Donovan once pointed out that I liked tall women. Usually women who could look me in the eye when they were wearing heels, and that was asking a lot. I stood six foot three. For a woman to look me in the eye, she’d have to be five nine, maybe even five ten, in her stocking feet.
Mabel wasn’t that tall.
Watching her pick at her food, buried in the couch, was like watching a baby doll that had suddenly come to life. She seemed uncomfortable in her own skin, yet she seemed perfectly confident. It was an odd contrast that I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around.
And she was beautiful. I hadn’t thought so at first, but she took her hair out of those crazy ringlets and it flowed down her back like a dark waterfall. It softened her face, too, taking a little of the sharpness out of the angles of her jaw. Those full lips…
I had to look away before my thoughts started going somewhere they shouldn’t.
“You been doing this long?”
That was a question most of my clients asked on the first night. I think it helped them feel more secure in my presence to know that I was used to sleeping on couches and in spare bedrooms while invading the privacy of someone I didn’t know.
“I’ve been with Gray Wolf since Ash came up with the concept.”
“Yeah? Were you friends before?”
“No. But we were both Green Berets about the same time. He’d heard about me and thought I’d be a good fit.”
“Why’d you leave the Army?”
I shrugged. “Didn’t like being told what to do all the time.”
“I understand that.”
She took a dainty bite of her food, her eyes moving all around the room except to where I was. It made me a little nervous, her habit of not looking at me. It made me want to grab her chin and force her to focus on me.
“That why you run your own business?”
“It is.” She set her fork down and sat back a little. “I was working for one of these big tech firms when I first came out of college. My boss, he’d watch over my shoulder day and night, and rag me for the simplest things, but then he’d turn around and claim credit for my work. It was truly irritating.”
“So you got into sex.”
She blushed, a deep red blush that spread from the roots of her hair all the way down her neck. It was amusing. Endearing in an innocent sort of way.
“It was kind of an accident, actually.”
“How’s that?”
“I wanted to be my own boss. And I liked the idea of running a sort of short story publishing business. I started with a couple of writers, just publishing it all under pseudonyms on Amazon and places like that. But I wasn’t selling enough to justify what I was paying my writers. So I did research and discovered that erotica was hot at the time and that the people making the most money had their own websites where they offered sneak peeks for free and sort of reeled people in. So I did that. And then customers started writing in, suggesting things they’d like to see on the website and one thing just sort of turned into another.”
“And you were making money hand over fist.”
She shrugged, her head tilted just slightly. “You could say that.”
“Cumming’s Treasure is huge on the internet. I can’t imagine you don’t do well.”
“It does. I’ve made more money than I could ever know what to do with. But that’s not why I do it.”
“Why do you?”
She bit her lip, her eyes on her plate as she thought about it.
“I like the challenge of negotiating contracts. I like working with people I respect. I like having the freedom to make my own schedule.”
“All good reasons to go into business for yourself.”
She smiled. “Yeah. My parents, on the other hand, are absolutely mortified. They keep hoping I’ll go back to working for someone else, do something they can brag to their friends about.”
“Do they know—?”
“Oh, God no!” She laughed. “They think I s
till sell sexy stories. They have no idea what Cumming’s Treasure is really all about. My brothers know, but they wouldn’t tell them either.”
I set my plate down on the coffee table and leaned back, crossing one leg over my knee. I tried to imagine what my father would say if he knew I was sitting here right now. I doubted he’d care enough to be pleased or shocked. I doubted he would even understand what it all meant. He’d never taken much time to take an interest in my life.
“My family’s pretty conservative,” she said, also putting her plate on the coffee table. She sat back again and nearly disappeared into the couch cushions. “My parents are Mormon from generations back. All my brothers still follow the teachings of the church.”
“How many brothers?”
“Five.”
“No sisters?”
She shook her head. “No. Just me.”
“Must have been hard for your parents when you moved out here.”
“It was. They didn’t want to let me come, but I got a scholarship to Stanford and they couldn’t shake their heads at that. The hardest part was convincing them that I had better job prospects if I stayed in California after graduation.”
“How’d you end up in Los Angeles?”
She shrugged. “My college roommate got an interview for a big magazine out here, and she convinced me to come along for the day. I fell in love with the city. And I knew if I went back to Oregon my parents would have me engaged to some good young man by the time I was there six months. That wasn’t what I wanted.”
I tried to imagine her in a family of conservatives. On the one hand, I could see it. Her odd dress, her quiet demeanor. But, on the other, I couldn’t. The woman I’d seen in the conference room today, the one who could read the man on the other side of the table and be exactly what she knew he wanted her to be—demure with one guy, tough and unyielding with another—was not the kind of woman who would be content raising babies and getting down on her knees only for church every weekend.
“You are an interesting lady,” I said, repeating myself. But I didn’t know what else to say.
“Ricki says that you…” She hesitated.
“That I’m something of a player?” I asked, smiling at her attempt to be kind.
“Yes. She said David tells her stories.”
Her eyes moved up along the smooth line of the ceiling, pausing at the cameras made to disappear against them. I was a little surprised that she could spot them because most of my other clients couldn’t. But, again, she had an eye for detail.
“I’m sure he has plenty of stories to tell.”
“Then you are—?”
“Does that bother you?”
She bit her lip again, a habit that was threatening to drive me to thoughts I had promised I wouldn’t entertain. For a woman who sold sex for a living, she seemed surprisingly naive about men. If she knew what she was doing to my equilibrium, she would never do that.
“Have you slept with your clients?”
“Most of them are very frightened by the time they call us. They feel isolated and paranoid, like the whole world’s out to get them. Women like that tend to be in need of a little TLC.”
“Is that what you call it?”
I laughed. She was calling me out on my bullshit, and I’m not sure she even realized she was doing it. This woman was such a contrast, confident and strong, but so very innocent and unaware of the bigger world around her. The more she talked, the more she revealed her naivety, and I was finding it really hot.
I stood up and picked up our discarded plates, carrying them to the kitchen.
“You should get some sleep,” I said to her.
“You can take the bed, if you’d like.”
I shoved the paper plates into the trash and set the forks in the sink.
“What kind of gentleman would I be if I kicked a woman out of her own bed?”
“But this couch is kind of small, and I’m so much shorter than you.”
“It’s not a problem. I’ve slept in much worse places.”
“Are you sure?”
She’d come up to stand at the end of the counter, watching me move around her kitchen. I stepped close to her and touched her arm lightly.
“I’m going to take a walk around the building, make sure everything’s quiet. You go to bed.”
“Do you really think this threat is real?”
There was a slight tremble to her voice. I knew she was afraid. But I could also see she was trying very hard to hide it.
“I think you should take any threat to heart until it’s proven to be benign.”
“That’s smart.”
She dragged her fingers through her hair and it fell from them like silk strips. One long strand fell over her eyes, and I wanted desperately to push it back, but I’d made a promise I intended to keep.
“Goodnight, Mabel,” I said softly.
“Night, Kirkland.”
I could feel her watching me as I left the apartment. I walked slowly in the cool January air, my hands tucked deep into the front of my pants pockets for more reasons than one. I don’t know why I was so attracted to that woman. She was a mess. And her sense of style was nothing short of bizarre. But she was beautiful and she was frightened and, let’s face it, that was all the criteria I really required.
I was never going to change. I accepted that. David and Ash needed to accept it, too.
Chapter 6
Mabel
I had a hard time sleeping just knowing that Kirkland was laid out on the couch, just a few feet away. I’d never had a man in my apartment—not counting my brothers—let alone had a hot guy like him sleep on my couch. There were men in my life. My brothers. My dad. The men who worked for me at Cumming’s. A few male friends. But I’d never felt this nervousness that I felt when Kirkland looked at me.
I tossed and turned, finally falling into a fitful sleep a little before three. When my alarm went off, my eyes were dry and gritty, swollen from lack of sleep. I rolled over without opening them again, rubbing them with the heel of my hands, then stumbled toward the bathroom. That was a mistake.
My bathroom has a door from the bedroom and one that opened off the living room. I’d forgotten to say anything to Kirkland about the bathroom, about what time I’d be getting up, about anything that might have prevented what happened.
He was in the shower. And my shower has a clear, glass door.
Oh, my God!
Surprising as it may sound, I have never accidentally walked in on a guy showering. We had locks on the bathroom doors back home, and we all made sure that we used them. Never had this ever happened to me.
I immediately stepped back, pressing my head against the edge of the door, the image of Kirkland, his head under the spray of water, soapsuds running down the length of his back, his legs, bright in my mind. And then…I was a glutton for punishment or something…I snuck another look.
He was beautiful! I’d seen naked men before. I ran a porn website. I’d seen more cocks than I could ever want to see. But I’d never been in the presence of a living, breathing naked man. And Kirkland was more than words could describe. His shoulders were impossibly broad, his muscles rippling in his back and his arms, his waist tapering in just the right amount, and that ass rounded and full, a handful of muscle that just begged to be touched.
I stared far longer than I should have. I pulled back a second time, but I just couldn’t make myself walk away. And then he turned, and I realized he was going to see me if I didn’t move. I quietly closed the door and stepped back, my heart pounding in my chest. I pressed my hand to it, pressing hard between my breasts, trying to tell myself I wasn’t going to hell for what I’d just done.
But going to hell was the least of my worries.
Why was it that I could watch pornographic movies half the day and nothing. But one look at Kirkland and I was ready to do things I’d only seen on my computer screen? I was worried for a long time that sex had lost its allure for me because of my cho
sen profession. But now…I didn’t think that was going to be a problem.
I paced the room, my mother’s voice in one ear telling me what an evil person I was for doing such a thing, Ricki’s voice in my other ear telling me that maybe Kirkland was just the guy to relieve me of my worst burden.
I couldn’t decide which was right. Or if either of them was.
What the hell was I doing? When did I become this person?
My phone chimed, letting me know I had an email. Work. That was what I needed. I had to get my mind on something else before my own deviant behavior got me into trouble.
I sat on the edge of the bed, aware that the water had just shut off in the shower—how was it that I could hear it turned off, but hadn’t noticed it running in the first place—and pulled up the email. My heart, which was still pounding, suddenly stuttered to a stop.
It was a picture of a young woman alone in her car, a suicide note at her side. Underneath someone had written: Today is the day.
It was different. What did that mean?
I shot across the room without realizing I’d stood, pulling the door open with the phone outstretched as though it was some dirty thing I didn’t want to contaminate myself with.
“Kirkland?”
He was immediately there, dressed in nothing but a clean pair of black slacks. His chest was like the Rock’s, only on a smaller scale and minus the huge tattoo. He did have a tattoo, a small heart with two sets of initials in it: CJ and LP. My overtaxed mind was aware enough to be relieved that it wasn’t his initials tangled up with someone else’s. But, again, it could be. What did I really know about this guy?
And then he had my wrist in his hand, my pounding pulse pressed against his warm fingers, and he was slipping the phone out of my hand.
KIRKLAND: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Page 4