After gently maneuvering Christine so that she was sitting in the center of the couch, Ben removed his tuxedo jacket and settled it over Christine's bare shoulders. He knelt in front of her while Matthew sat to her right on the couch and immediately grabbed her wrist to check her pulse and heart rate. Christine's head fell forward drowsily, and Ben lifted her chin to try to keep her awake.
"Open your eyes and look at me, sweetheart," he cajoled in a low, soothing voice.
He watched her struggle to lift her lashes, and when she finally managed the feat and saw him, she smiled slow and sweet. "Ben." she murmured on a wisp of breath. "I'm soooo tired and sleepy."
He cupped her face in his hands. "I know you are, honey, but I need you to stay awake, okay?"
She licked her lips and tried to nod. "Mmmm-hmmm."
While Ben proceeded to talk to Christine to keep her alert, Matthew continued his examination. He looked into her eyes and checked her pupils and vision, then went on to monitor her breathing. He even pressed his ear to her chest so he could listen to the rhythm of her heartbeat. Matthew asked how much she'd had to drink, if she was on any type of medication, or had recently taken any kind of drugs.
The last question Ben couldn't answer, and when Matthew repeated the inquiry to Christine, she responded with an indignant, but sluggish, "I don't do drugs!"
Christine's spirited reply despite her lethargic condition almost made Ben smile. Instead, he glanced back at Matthew and decided to level with him on the situation.
"Look, I've been hired by Christine's father as her bodyguard, and I'd really prefer not to have to take her to the ER and have her exposed to the public for hours there, if it can be helped."
Ben could just imagine the field day reporters would have with that kind of story. Undoubtedly, someone in Lambert's camp would turn it into some kind of drug scandal against Nathan's daughter, and ultimately, smear Delacroix's great reputation and his campaign.
"I don't have any proof, but judging by what happened up at the podium, and Christine's behavior now, I think someone slipped her something," Ben said, giving Matthew his gut feeling on what might have transpired. "I've never seen her act like this before."
Matthew checked her pulse rate again. "From what I see, she does exhibit many of the symptoms of ingesting Rohypnol," he said, referring to the street drug roofie. "Her motor skills are definitely impaired, and she's responding as if she's had a lot more to drink than she did. The good thing is, she only consumed one cocktail hours ago, so that does reduce the effects of the drug."
Ben nodded, grateful for that much, at least. "What do I need to do?"
"Take her home and watch her throughout the night to make sure there isn't any change in her breathing or any extreme drop in her pulse rate," Matthew instructed. "Her reaction is something she's just going to have to sleep off, and most likely she won't remember any of this in the morning."
Anxious to get her out of the hotel and safe at home, Ben stood, fished a ticket stub from his pants' pocket and glanced back at Matthew. "Would you mind getting our car from valet while I carry Christine out of here? I don't think she can walk or stand very well on her own and I don't want to risk her falling."
"Absolutely. I'm glad to help." Matthew took the stub and headed out of the lobby to the circular drive in front of the hotel to retrieve their vehicle.
Ten minutes later, Ben had Christine secured in the passenger seat of her Lexus, with the seat reclined so she could sleep on the drive home. He shut the door, then turned back to the good doctor, who withdrew a business card from his wallet and handed it to Ben.
"These are my emergency numbers where I can be reached twenty-four/seven," Matthew said. "Call me if you have any questions or need anything at all."
"Thanks, man." Ben shook Matthew's hand, thankful to have the backup if he needed it. "I appreciate it."
GETTING Christine inside the house and carrying her to the guest bedroom where he was staying was easy. Getting her out of her long, elegant dress when she was as limp as a wet noodle was going to be a bit more tricky. He laid her down on one side of the double bed, and she woke up long enough to reach for him, her hands sliding along the front of his dress shirt as she tried to unfasten the buttons with clumsy, fumbling fingers.
Her blue eyes were glassy, her lips oh-so-tempting as she murmured in a seductively drowsy voice, "Come 'ere… I want you."
A pained smile touched his lips. "I know you do, sweetheart. You've already made that very clear. Numerous times." Knowing one of the effects of Rohypnol was a lack of inhibition, he grasped her slender wrists and gently pulled her hands away from his shirt. "But first things first. Let's get you out of this dress."
"Yeah," she sighed as she looked up at him with a soft, come-hither look in her eyes. "Let's get naked."
Her head fell back against the pillow, and in the next instant she was asleep again, which would make his next task of stripping off her dress so much easier. Because of the one-shoulder design of her gown, the zipper was located beneath her arm and he pulled the tab all the way down to her hip. Slipping the material off her shoulder, he dragged the dress down her lithe body and off, leaving her scantily clad in a strapless bra, skimpy black lace panties, and a pair of black, sexy designer heels.
Those were the first to go. Then, keeping his gaze on her face, he unhooked her bra and added it to the gown he'd draped over the chair next to the bed. Thankfully, she remained unconscious, even when he pulled one of his T-shirts over her head, pushed her arms through the sleeves, then yanked the soft cotton material down to her thighs. Once she was sufficiently covered, he put her beneath the blankets, then took off his holster and stripped off his own formal attire.
Wearing just a pair of boxer briefs, he turned off the lights, slid into bed beside her, and pulled her close to his side with his fingers pressing gently against the pulse in her neck so he could monitor the beat of her heart.
He'd made the decision to bring her to the guest bedroom because it was less personal and intimate than crawling into her feminine bed, but as she snuggled up to him and her soft body curled so sweet and trusting against his, he realized that it didn't matter where the two of them slept tonight. His awareness of her was so acute, so undeniable, that they could have been in an igloo in the North Pole and his body still would have been as hot as a furnace.
Before that swift kick of lust could settle in his groin and keep him hard for the entire night, he rerouted his thoughts to something less arousing. Like the phone call Ben needed to make to Christine's father in the morning to let him know what had happened.
That definitely dissolved any last, lingering bit of desire. He didn't relish informing Nathan that someone had tried to drug his daughter at the gala, especially under his watch. He'd been hired specifically to protect Christine, yet someone had still been able to get to her in a way that he'd never anticipated. The results could have been far more tragic if he hadn't been around, but that notion did little to soothe his conscience.
Instead, it brought up haunting memories of his fiancée, Kim, and the brutal, unexpected way she, and most of her unit, had been murdered by a roadside bomb in Iraq-and how he'd been unable to keep her safe during a mission that had gone so horribly wrong.
Now, he lived with the guilt, the remorse, the vivid images of how he'd held her lifeless body in his arms and wished that it had been he who had died, instead of her.
A familiar lump formed in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut to block the painful recollections. He'd failed to keep Kim safe, but he wasn't going to make that same mistake with Christine.
CHRISTINE cuddled closer to the hard, warm body next to hers. Still caught somewhere between sleep and sublime awareness, she grasped at the nebulous images and feelings floating through her mind, embracing the decadent sensations that could only be a wonderfully sensual dream. She breathed in the scent of earthy male, and her flattened palm skimmed over ridges of hot skin sprinkled with a trail of course hair that
led to an elastic barrier.
Undeterred, and wanting to see where this delicious fantasy led, she boldly slipped her hand beneath the waistband. Finding what she sought, she smiled and released a little hum of approval as she wrapped her fingers around an impressive erection. She squeezed the hard shaft, then stroked the hot, silky length of flesh in a tight fist-from the thick base all the way up to a broad, swollen head, which seeped with a slick moisture.
A deep groan rumbled beneath her ear, which was pressed against a warm, solid chest, the sound so vivid and real she felt her stomach curl with an answering need. Her breasts swelled, her nipples tightened, and between her thighs she throbbed for release. She turned more fully toward the temptation beckoning to her, aching for a deeper contact, to feel all that pulsing flesh filling her full.
Instead, strong fingers pulled her hand away from the erection she still held in her grasp, and she moaned in protest. This was not how her fantasy was supposed to end.
"Christine, sweetheart, wake up."
The deep, masculine voice and a gentle shake penetrated the fog that seemed to surround her. Forcing her eyes open, she blinked a few times, trying to clear not only her vision, but also the haze clouding her mind. It was as if she was dealing with a hangover, and after that one time in college when she'd woken up ill from a night of drinking too much alcohol at a sorority party, she'd never overindulged again.
Feeling confused and disoriented, she lifted her head and glanced down at the man lying half-naked beside her. Daylight streamed through the slats in the wooden blinds covering the windows, providing more than enough illumination to see Ben staring at her with dark eyes that were hot with the same desire burning through her. The stubble on his jaw told her that it was most likely morning, yet she had no idea where they were or what had happened.
"Ben," she said, her voice raspy and just as bewildered as she felt.
A lazy smile curved his lips. "Morning," he murmured. He brushed away stray strands of hair that had fallen against her cheek as his gaze searched her face with concern. "How are you doing?"
With a frown, she glanced around, recognizing the guest bedroom where Ben had been sleeping for the past week. She was wearing one of his T-shirts, and her hair was falling in a disheveled mess from where it had been pinned atop her head. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten here in his bed, and if they'd enjoyed any in-between-the-sheets kind of activity she had no recollection of that, either.
She supposed there was only one way to find out. "Did we sleep together?"
"Sleep was all we did in this bed," he said as he continued to watch her. "Well, actually, you slept and I kept a close eye on you all night long."
She sat up and pressed a hand to her cool forehead. "I don't understand," she whispered, trying to recall something, anything, that led to her waking up beside Ben.
He turned onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. "What, exactly, do you remember about last night?" he asked.
Last night… She struggled to grasp some kind of flashback to give her a clue, but all she could come up with was odd, disjointed images that didn't make a whole lot of sense and only made her more frustrated. She caught sight of her black beaded gown draped over the chair beside the bed, and that, thankfully, helped to jog her memory.
"We went to the charity event together," she said, meeting Ben's gaze once again as events starting meshing into a cohesive thought. "I remember the cocktail party, and our dinner, and meeting your friends. I even remember getting up on stage to make my presentation for the silent auction and being nervous about speaking in front of everyone…" And shortly thereafter that's when everything had gone fuzzy and vague and then completely nonexistent in her mind.
Those were the missing pieces of the puzzle she needed to fill in. "What happened? Did I pass out?"
Ben shook his head. "Not at first, no." Then he went on to explain everything that had happened, along with his suspicions that she'd been drugged at some point-either at the dinner table, or her water at the podium.
She listened as he told her about Craig's part in last night's escapade and how he'd been quick to take her outside for some fresh air. While Ben's loathing toward Craig was a tangible thing, Ben had no proof that Craig was responsible for what had happened.
"Wow," she said once Ben finished telling her everything, right up to the point where he'd taken off her dress and tucked her into bed-and spent the entire night watching over her, making sure she didn't have any kind of adverse reaction to whatever she'd been slipped.
"I can't believe all that happened," she said with an incredulous shake of her head, then winced when a dull pain jabbed at her temples.
Once the discomfort subsided, she smiled at Ben and reached out to trail the tips of her fingers along the rough stubble on his jaw. "I do have to say that my first thought when I woke up this morning was that you and I had finally done the deed, and I would have been pretty upset if we had sex and I had no recollection of any of it. Because when that does happen, I want to remember every single detail of the experience."
Chuckling, he slid from the bed, grabbed a pair of worn jeans, and pulled them on over the boxer briefs that molded to all those yummy, masculine parts of him. "Why don't you go and take a nice long, hot shower to clear your head? I need to call your father and let him know what happened, then I'll make you something to eat."
"Okay," she said with a nod of her head. "I should check in with Madison and make sure that the auction did well, despite my quick exit."
"Actually, Madison called your cell phone when I was driving you home last night, and I answered the call and let her know what happened." he told her. "She promised that she would handle everything for you, and she'd call you today to see how you were doing."
That said, he started for the door, but she stopped him before he could leave. "Ben?"
He turned back around. "Yeah?"
She was momentarily distracted by his bare chest and somehow managed to lift her gaze back to his. "Thank you for taking care of me last night and keeping me safe."
He gave her a slight, imperceptible nod. "That's my job," he said, then disappeared from her view.
Yes, she knew she was a job to him, an assignment he took very seriously, and she understood and respected his position as her bodyguard. But it was her own myriad of emotions that she wasn't sure she had a complete handle on. When it came to Ben, there was a wealth of want, need, and desire most definitely. Affection and caring was right up there, too. But it was the deeper, unexpected feelings wrapping around her heart that made her realize that she was falling for Ben in ways she'd never, ever, anticipated.
And she wasn't altogether sure what she was going to do about her growing feelings for him, especially when her life was finally her own and everything she'd wanted it to be.
Or so she thought.
FRESH from her shower and dressed in a comfortable sweat outfit for a lazy, restful Sunday at home, Christine walked into the kitchen to find Ben standing at the stove cooking up something that smelled so good it made her stomach grumble hungrily.
She came up beside him as he sprinkled grated cheese on what looked like an omelette sautéing in a pan. "Can I help you with anything?"
"Nope." He wiped his hands on a terry towel, then dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. "I made a fresh pot of coffee if you want a cup, and I'll be done with your breakfast in just a few minutes."
"Thank you." Pouring the hot brew into a mug, she added creamer and a spoonful of sugar, and stirred.
He cast her a quick look as he transferred the delicious-looking omelette to a plate and started in on another. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay." She took a sip of her coffee and let the warm liquid make its way down to her empty stomach. "That shower definitely helped to clear the cobwebs in my head, but I hate the fact that part of my memory of last night is gone."
He added fresh sliced mushrooms and chopped ham to the eggs, then started buttering the toast
that had just popped up in the toaster. "Trust me, you're not missing anything worth remembering. Now go sit down so I can feed you."
Smiling, she obeyed his order and took a seat at the table, while he set a plate of fragrant food in front of her. "Wow, this is impressive," she said, taking in the fluffy omelette he'd made for her. "For a bachelor, that is."
He returned to the stove to finish his own breakfast. "Hey. I might love pizza, but I can't live on that alone," he said with one of his sexy grins. "You had all the ingredients for an omelette, so I took advantage."
Suddenly ravenous, she dug into her eggs, which were absolutely delicious with the mushrooms, ham, and cheese. "Where did you learn to make such a light, fluffy omelette? In the military?" she teased.
"No." With his own plate and coffee in hand, he joined her at the table. "This is a gourmet meal compared to what I ate for breakfast while serving in Iraq."
"Which was?" she asked curiously.
"MRE rations, a protein bar, or mushy scrambled eggs," he said, then ate a big bite of his omelette. "Learning to cook something decent to eat came from a lot of years of being on my own."
The comment was said ambiguously, but it made Christine think about how this man lived his life-alone, in a sparsely furnished apartment, and without any family to call his own. "You were on your own long before joining the military, weren't you?"
He'd just taken a bite of his toast, and he glanced up at her, his gaze suddenly dark and shadowed. "What makes you say that?" he asked gruffly.
Judging by his guarded reaction, she knew she was tiptoeing into personal territory he considered off-limits, but there was so much about this man she wanted to know and understand, and she didn't let his brusque demeanor dissuade her, as it had when she'd been at his apartment a week ago.
"I'm just going off of the conversation we had at your place when you mentioned that your father had passed away a few years ago, and that you had no idea where your mother was… nor did you care to know." She took a drink of her coffee, watching as a muscle in his clenched jaw twitched. "What was your childhood like, Ben?"
Wild for Him Page 14