by Naima Simone
“I’ve thought of that possibility, yes. But my manager is half Irish, half Prophet of Doom,” she said dryly. “To keep him in L.A. and not camping out on my doorstep, I agreed. Besides…I don’t object to the added protection.”
Translation: She would feel safer knowing someone was watching over her.
“Understood.” He turned toward his computer and pulled up the firm’s contract. He quickly entered her name and address before grabbing a legal pad to jot down notes. “What exactly are you looking for? What do you need from us? And for how long will you require our services?”
“I’ll probably need you until the end of the summer,” she said. “I don’t want anything intrusive like a bodyguard in my house.” She shook her head. “I don’t think the situation calls for that. But maybe someone to guard the house outside? To keep an eye out for anymore unwanted guests?”
Chay nodded, scrawled a couple of names that automatically came to mind for the assignment. “How about cameras? Do you oppose having several security cameras installed around the property? Not inside but out.”
“No, not at all.” She leaned forward, and the T-shirt tightened across the rise of her breasts, drawing his attention. Damn. He jerked his scrutiny back to the pad and off her body. Her sinfully sweet body. Fuck me. “Only thing is the house belongs to my manager, Liam Ahearn. He’s letting me stay there. So you would need his permission.”
“Okay. Can I have his number?” She rattled it off. “Good. I’ll pass this along to Rafe so he can get in touch with your manager and explain all he’d like to do.”
“You mean you do let Dave Navarro talk to clients?” She grinned, and he had to glance away from the pure, infectious expression as quickly as he’d avoided staring at her breasts. Both sucked him in.
“We occasionally allow him out of his office when it’s a necessary evil. Especially since he is the techie half of this firm.” He snorted. “Dave Navarro. I’ll have to remember that one.”
Rotating in his chair, he faced the computer again and entered the info they’d discussed on the contract. As he typed, she rose from the chair and wandered around the office. Out of his peripheral vision, he noticed her pause in front of his bookcase. Technical texts as well as personal favorites filled the shelves, including all of Gabe’s bestselling legal thrillers. She picked up a framed picture of Gabe, Rafe, Mal, and him taken about eight years ago when he and Rafe had first opened Liberty Security Services. After studying the photo for several moments, she set it down and picked up the one next to it.
A phantom fist closed around his throat, choking off his air. His fingers stalled over the keyboard. He clenched his fingers before deliberately relaxing them and resumed completing the contract.
“Is this your mother?” She tilted the picture toward him.
“Yes,” he answered shortly, regretting the cold snap in his voice but unable to soften it, either.
“She looks like you.” She chuckled softly. “Or rather I should say you resemble her. Same eyes and features. The man? Is he your father?”
“Stepfather. He”—he paused, did the finger-clench thing again—“died a few months ago.” Died. Such an innocuous, misleading word. Darion Sheldon, his mother’s husband of ten years, had been brutally murdered. A victim of the psycho who had stalked and killed several people to avenge Richard Pierce.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she whispered, replacing the frame on the bookshelf.
He didn’t respond. What could he say? He didn’t deserve to say thank you or I appreciate it. Not when in his soul, guilt ate at him like a ravenous beast. Darion had been an innocent, a pawn considered expendable in a man’s quest to inflict as much pain as possible on Chay. He had brought the monster to his family’s door—literally. He didn’t warrant her condolences.
He hit print as she returned to the chair in front of his desk.
“My parents died when I was eighteen,” she said softly. “That was seven years ago. While the loss never truly goes away, I can promise you it eases.” Funny how her words nearly echoed his thoughts about the trauma she’d suffered.
He couldn’t help it; he met her gaze. And the sympathy in her pretty eyes squeezed his heart, tempted him to spill every detail, every hurt, every secret. The understanding and warmth in her gaze invited him to unburden, to share with her…to trust.
And God he wanted to. For a weighty moment, he wanted to trust her more than his next breath. Wanted to throw open the vault in his soul and expose every doubt, shadowy fear, and secret to the light of her pure spirit. Wanted to find out if she could handle the darkness that stained a man’s soul after he took another man’s life.
But spying rejection, distaste, or—worse—pity in Aslyn’s eyes wasn’t an option. The trade-off was the intimacy and love he witnessed every day with Gabe, Mal, and Rafe. But it was a trade-off he accepted.
So screw—no pun intended—the trust and intimacy. Just fuck. The little voice whispering through his mind should’ve been wearing devil horns and carrying a pitchfork. And as he studied her, his dick hardened, throbbed. This was a temptation of another kind. Not emotional, not tender. Just raw and wicked. Goddamn, he could almost see the parting of her feminine folds as he pushed between them, slowly burying his length into her tight—he instinctively knew she would be tight as a fist—core. Could feel the pulse and clench of her flesh around his. How her firm but slippery sex would caress and squeeze him with each thrust.
His lungs ceased working. Sweat prickled the back of his neck and palms, and he had to fist his hands before he did some incredibly dumb shit like reach for her. Dumb because a part of him realized he could try and convince himself being with her would be purely physical, but it would be a lie. And getting involved with a world-famous musician who reveled in and counted on media coverage for her career would be torture. All it would take was one curious reporter to dig deep and uncover the past of the man seen with Aslyn Jericho. Then the anonymity—the peaceful obscurity—he longed for would be blown to hell and back. He would be reliving his past on every tabloid, TMZ-like gossip show, and social media outlet all over again.
No way in hell.
Not even for the chance to discover if her pussy was as sweet as he imagined.
“Rafe will contact your manager about the cameras, and I’ll have your security detail ready and in place by early evening. They will do two-man double shifts until further notice,” he said, ignoring her words of comfort and reverting back to business. Business he knew; business he could do.
He slid the contract across the desk toward her. She didn’t reach for it. Didn’t glance down at the papers.
She frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?” He dipped his chin in the direction of the contract. “You don’t agree with something?”
“Not that. Did I say or do something to offend you?” She flattened a hand on top of the desk. “As you probably have guessed by now, I tend to speak before I think.”
Offend him? He shook his head. No. Bother him? Entice him? Make him yearn for things beyond his grasp? Hell yeah to all the above. But no, not offend.
“No, you’re fine.”
“Okay.” She still didn’t lose her frown, but she did finally pick up the contract and flip through it. At the last page, she tilted her head. “The security detail. Are you going to be part of it?”
“No,” he said, leaning back in his office chair, grabbing onto even that little bit of distance.
“Oh,” she murmured. “I thought since you live next door…”
“I manage the firm, Aslyn. I don’t personally do the field work.” Which was complete bullshit since he was the owner and could do pretty much what he damn well pleased. But the truth might have her kicking him in the nuts before hightailing it out of his office. If I remain around you for any length of time, I’d have you stretched out on the nearest couch, table, floor—hell, wall—with my dick buried balls deep inside you. Yeah, the truth probably wasn’t a good idea. “But
I don’t want you to worry. The men I’m assigning to protect you are the best. You will be safe.”
She nodded, the gesture hesitant. Moments later she slid the signed papers back across his desk and rose from her chair. He stood as well, but remained behind his desk. Rude, but self-preservation trumped manners any day.
“Thank you, Chay. For everything,” she said, almost parroting the same words from the previous evening.
“Of course,” he responded coolly. “It’s my job.”
“Of course,” she repeated, studying him with an intensity that shook him to the core. What the hell did she see? Did he want to know?
Murmuring a good-bye, she exited his office.
Leaving him alone.
Just as he liked it.
He reclaimed his seat and pretended as if the lie didn’t taste like ash on his tongue.
Chapter Six
Chayot Grey had to be one of the most enigmatic, distant, cold, fascinating, alluring, sexy—
Shit.
Sighing at her wayward mind and unruly libido, Aslyn parked her car in her driveway and strode toward the mailbox at the front of the house. How sad was it she couldn’t keep her mind off his wide shoulders and tight ass long enough to lambast him? Horribly sad. Like Cymbalta-and-a-country-song sad. Especially considering he’d pretty much washed his hands clean of her. Oh, he’d arranged for her protection like she’d asked. But his “It’s my job” ricocheted against her skull like a ping-pong ball on speed. That aloof exterior would need a pickaxe to break through. An exterior that became icier and harder as she’d studied the pictures of his friends and family. By the time she’d offered condolences for his stepfather’s death, he’d shut her out. Retreated behind the wall of steel she was beginning to detest. He endowed new meaning to The Man in the Iron Mask. That coolness almost hoodwinked her into believing the humor she’d witnessed with Rafe and Greer had been a figment of her imagination.
Or the hunger she’d detected in his hazel gaze had been a product of her own desires.
She’d been around men since entering the entertainment and music industry at fifteen. Lust? Easy to spot. Whether directed at her fame, money, or on rare occasions, herself, she could identify greed in a man’s—or woman’s—eyes at twenty paces. So, yes, she’d definitely glimpsed lust in Chay. For an insane Oh God, yes! moment, she’d almost believed he intended to stalk around his desk like the big jungle cat he reminded her of, grab her up, and press his hard, big body to hers. Bend his golden head and cover her mouth with his gorgeous, sensual lips.
Call her a slut, but she wouldn’t have stopped him. He possessed that much of an unexplainable…pull on her. He turned her into a giddy schoolgirl one moment and what her mother would’ve called a “hussy” the next. She wanted his hands on her—fantasized about them gripping her, stroking her, teasing her. She exhaled a shaky breath as she tugged the mailbox door open. Sex had never been a big deal. She’d lost her virginity at twenty. Then a year later she’d repeated the act with another lover to verify if her ho-hum experience had been a fluke.
No fluke.
No fireworks or tingly girl parts, either. So the last four years, she’d poured all her passion and desires into her music. At least it never left her feeling empty, frustrated, or like she’d just missed the boat. Lorenzo could’ve been the one to break her sexual fast, to show her that orgasms didn’t have to be strictly self-served. But then he’d fucked up.
She removed the mailers full of coupons and a manila envelope from the mailbox. Best not to think about Lorenzo. The cheating rat bastard made her want to go postal. Striding up her driveway, she turned the envelope over and studied it. Not much mail usually arrived at the Canton house. What did was almost always addressed to occupant. But this piece had her name typed across the front. A glance at the corner didn’t reveal a return address. Had to be Liam, though. No one else knew she’d taken up residence in his rental home. Maybe Liam, anticipating her agreement, had mailed the contract out early so she could sign and return it to him.
She hunched a shoulder against the dread beating against her chest in time with her heart. In four months she would be preparing to walk onto a stage in Puerto Rico and perform in front of thousands of people. What would happen when she sat down on the piano stool? Would a note emerge, would it sing? Or would the instrument remain silent, as frozen as she? The not knowing tore a hole in her. Not knowing if she would ever gain back everything Quinton Lakes had ripped from her. Not knowing if the music that defined her most of her life had disappeared into a dark void for good, never to be recaptured or experienced again.
She gripped her keys in her other hand, the metal ridges biting into her fingers. “Stop thinking,” she ordered her whirlwind thoughts. “Just stop fucking thinking.”
Gritting her teeth, she twisted the key in the lock and opened her front door. She tossed the keys on the small table just inside the entrance, and curious, thumbed open the envelope. She reached inside and instead of a sheaf of papers, pulled free a photograph.
Of her.
Frowning, she studied the picture, her brain not fully computing what she looked at. Her, sitting on the back porch, arms wrapped around her bent knees. Sadness and wistfulness filled her expression. She withdrew another. Her again. In her bra and jeans, the T-shirt she’d just removed in her hand, the thick ridge of her scar clearly visible on her right flank. Trembling, she scanned the next one. Horrible pain throbbed within her like an open wound, and a cry escaped her lips.
Her. Sitting at the piano, paralyzed, fingers petrified over the keyboard. Loss and anguish twisting her features.
Slowly, all the strength seeped out of her like a punctured balloon. She sank to her knees. Pain. Devastation. Fear. Violation. They pressed her to the floor. The envelope tumbled from her fingers, the other photographs spilling free.
Her life—her sad, lonely existence—scattered around her like a glossy, pathetic fan.
Not again. Oh God, not again.
…
Tap-tap-tap.
Chay beat out a steady rhythm on his desk with the end of his pen and glanced at his closed office door. Again. What did this one make? The tenth time in the ten minutes since Aslyn had walked out?
Muttering a curse, he tossed the ballpoint down and fell back against his chair. Working—or pretending to work—was pointless. A damn near impossibility when Aslyn’s face haunted him. The disappointment when he’d told her he wouldn’t be a part of her security detail. And the hurt when he’d verbally slapped away the hand she’d reached out to him. Damn. Maybe there was a blind man in the lobby he could punch.
Business. He’d kept it business. Nothing he should feel guilty over…
“Fuck.” He scrubbed his palms over his face then, grabbing his keys and cell phone, stood, calling himself all kinds of idiot. He had work to do, damn it. Running after Aslyn because her feelings might be hurt? Not on the agenda.
He held out for two hours.
“Ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous,” he muttered, pulling in Aslyn’s driveway behind her car and cut the engine. He exited the car and slammed the door shut with a loud bang. Instead of marching up her walk, he should still be at work doing something crazy like, oh…working—
“What the hell?” he murmured, drawing to an abrupt halt at the bottom of her small front porch.
The door to Aslyn’s home stood wide open. She knelt in the entrance, hunched over as if in severe pain. He charged across the last few feet separating them before he’d realized he was in motion.
Shit, was she hurt? He drew to an abrupt halt next to her, the toes of his shoes almost nudging her thighs. He scanned her head, shoulders, and back, searching for blood, for any sign of injury.
Nothing.
Thank Christ.
The band squeezing the shit out of his chest eased a fraction. So what…?
Glossy photos littered the floor and spread out around her bowed body like the hem of a wide skirt. He tilted his head and focused o
n the images. Aslyn. Every one of the prints reflected Aslyn in various settings and positions. It was immediately obvious she’d been unaware of being photographed since most of them captured her from the rear or in profile. From the scale and angle, the photos appeared to have been taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. Fury kindled and flared when he caught sight of the picture taken while she’d been in the process of undressing. She’d been spied on…again. Violated.
This surpassed Peeping Tom status and veered straight into criminal. Into obsession. Not only had some crazy asshole stalked her with a lens, but he’d been bold enough to send the pictures to her. A huge “I can get to you any time I want” stuffed in her mailbox.
He lowered to the floor next to her, several of the photos crackling under his knees. Gently, he cupped her head in his palms, lifted it. Her eyes were closed, the lashes wet and dark. Damp tracks resembling rivulets stained her cheeks, and the soft, vulnerable curve of her mouth trembled. A low, pained whimper escaped her parted lips, twisting his gut. The terror and pain on her face seemed sacrilegious. This vibrant, brave woman should never wear those emotions.
“Baby,” he breathed, swiping the pads of his thumbs over her skin, drying her tears.
She shook her head, and the crinkling of paper snagged his attention. He glanced down, for the first time noticing the picture clutched in her hand. Like the others, she was the subject. She’d been shot at the piano, her fingers hovering above the keys as if preparing to play. Caught in profile, she seemed to be staring into space, an expression of such profound…sorrow and loneliness etching her lovely features. Witnessing the depth of desolation seemed like a further violation of her privacy. Part of him wanted to glance away. But the other side—the side that longed to fight her demons, to annihilate the source of the agony in the picture—needed to touch her, hold her. Protect her from the unseen threat stalking her movements.
Keep your distance.