Protect Me - A Steamy Bodyguard Romance (You Can't Resist a Bad Boy Book 5)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Protect Me
Layla Valentine
Contents
Layla Valentine
Protect Me
1. Tyler
2. Paisley
3. Paisley
4. Tyler
5. Tyler
6. Paisley
7. Tyler
8. Paisley
9. Tyler
10. Tyler
11. Paisley
12. Paisley
13. Tyler
14. Tyler
15. Paisley
16. Tyler
17. Tyler
18. Tyler
19. Paisley
20. Paisley
21. Tyler
22. Paisley
23. Tyler
24. Paisley
25. Tyler
26. Paisley
Epilogue
Ana Sparks & Layla Valentine
Triplets For The Billionaire
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Ana Sparks & Layla Valentine
Quadruplets For The Billionaire
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Ana Sparks & Layla Valentine
Baby Bet
Introduction
Prologue
1. Sean
2. Violet
3. Sean
4. Violet
5. Sean
6. Violet
7. Violet
8. Frank
9. Sean
10. Violet
11. Frank
12. Frank
13. Violet
14. Violet
15. Sean
16. Violet
17. Sean
18. Violet
19. Sean
20. Violet
21. Sean
22. Violet
23. Violet
24. Violet
25. Sean
Layla Valentine & Ana Sparks
Theirs To Share
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
/>
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Layla Valentine
STEAL ME
Introduction
1. Owen
2. Emily
3. Emily
4. Owen
5. Emily
6. Owen
7. Owen
8. Owen
9. Emily
10. Emily
11. Emily
12. Owen
13. Emily
14. Owen
15. Emily
16. Owen
17. Emily
18. Emily
19. Emily
20. Owen
21. Owen
22. Emily
23. Emily
24. Emily
Layla Valentine & Ana Sparks
Royal Baby: His Unplanned Heir
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Also by Layla Valentine
Protect Me
Layla Valentine
Copyright 2018 by Layla Valentine
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Tyler
The sky knew. The sky always knows. Thunder rolled. It shook me to my core, awakening me from my stupor. Red raindrops in my eyes. The gutter smelled like garbage and blood. Everything smelled like blood. Numb fists twanged with life, shooting pain up my arms to my skull.
At least my skull was intact. I couldn’t say the same for Billy. I could still hear the sirens in the distance, speeding him to St. Frederick’s. Maybe they could save him. God, I hoped so.
Billy was a good kid, and a good fighter. Almost as good as I was. Almost.
I shook the water out of my eyes, squinting through the dark streets of industrial Memphis. I grew up on these streets. They were good to me; better than my bastard father was, anyway. The streets taught me how to fight. I still remember my first. A man who saw ghosts took my day-old trash burger. I fought him for it. I lost.
I swore that day that I would never lose a fight again. I never did.
That night, sloshing through the gutters on auto-pilot, I wished to God I had. Just once. Just this time. As the shock left my body, every ache made itself known. My cracked and bruised ribs. My broken nose. The gash on my forehead. My gut.
Billy almost won. He had me by the throat, pressed up against the ropes. I was losing air. I shook the image away, but it kept coming back. My feet led me to the bar.
“Yo, Tyler! You look like hell. Have a drink.” Dan slid me a whiskey as he flipped his bar rag up on his shoulder.
“Better make it a bottle.” I swept dripping, bloody hair off of my forehead. The whiskey burned as it went down.
“Bad fight?” Dan asked casually as he poured me another.
“Bad doesn’t cover it. I might’ve killed Billy.”
“Might have?”
“They took him to the hospital. They were breathing for him.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” My throat tightened, and I loosened it with booze. To hell with it. Someone should hear my side. “He had me pinned against the ropes. Had my neck in his elbow. Cutting off my air.”
“Hell of a spot to be in.” Dan nodded sympathetically.
“Yeah, well… Figured I couldn’t stay there. Walked myself up the ropes. Pushed off. He tried, man. Twisted me around, tried to stay on top.” Shot number three, down the hatch. “Didn’t work. Caught my knee in the side of his head. I…” I trailed off, hearing it again. “I heard his skull crack. Didn’t even slow him down. He got a shot to my throat. I blacked out. Next thing I know, I’ve got four people pulling me off of him. He didn’t…look right.” A tear fell into my drink, carrying a thin swirl of blood.
Dan grunted, closing his eyes against the picture I painted.
“He beat the hell out of me first, though,” I said with a bitter laugh. “He’s damn good. Was…damn good.”
“They’ll fix him up,” Dan told me encouragingly. “He’ll be back in the ring with you before you know it, with one hell of a grudge.”
My stomach twisted and I shook my head. “Can’t do it, Dan. I’m done. I’m out.”
“Out? You can’t be out. You’re the best fighter around. Who am I gonna put my money on?”
“Gonna have to back a new horse, Dan. I have to stop before I kill somebody.”
Dan was understanding, but his disappointment was clear. I didn’t blame him. I was disappointed, too. More than that, I was petrified.
“All I’ve ever done is fight,” I told him quietly. “I gotta figure something out. I need money, lots of it, fast. Jeanne just had those twins, she can’t work. Billy ain’t insured for this. I gotta do something, Dan, I screwed up their whole lives.”
The alcohol must have been getting to me, because I seemed to have to choke every word past a lump in my throat.
“You serious?” Dan had a strange look in his eye as he passed me another shot.
“No, I’m lying. I’m going to strut into the sunset with my winnings and leave his girl and his kids to fend for themselves.” Sarcasm wrapped around my guilt, insulating it. Smothering it.
“I’m just saying, I know how you can make a bunch of money, fast. Tons. More than you make in a year.”
That caught my attention. I cocked an eyebrow and immediately regretted it as the action split the fresh scab, spilling a trickle down into my eye. Dan leaned over the bar, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
“Celebrity sex tapes,” he said.
“What?”
“Big money, boy. I’d do it myself, but no hot little starlet is going to want a balding, pudgy bartender. You… You’ve got that appeal. All I ask is that you cut me in. Not much, just enough to make retirement more than a fading wet dream.”
“Come on, Dan, who’s gonna pay for that?” I scoffed, but the idea was gaining a foothold in my alcohol-soaked brain.
“I know a guy,” Dan said with a shrug, leaning back to wipe the counter. “You get the babe, he’ll give you the cash.”
“How much?”
“A lot,” Dan said vaguely, but his eyes glittered like a fox. “Enough for you to throw ten percent my way. Ten percent and I’ll be able to buy that houseboat, save my money for my old age. No point in keeping a mortgage now Debbie’s gone.”
I did some rough calculations. Yeah, that was enough. More than enough.
I switched to beer. It was better for thinking. A sketchy plan was better than no plan. Guilt shook me, and I licked my cut l
ip. Appraising Dan sideways, I considered everything he said.
“There’s just one problem with that plan of yours, Dan.”
“What’s that?”
I gestured around the seedy bar, where old men worked hard to put the last nail in the coffins of their livers, where young men numbed themselves just enough to want a fight, where too-thin women crowded together in protective groups.
“What celebrity is going to stumble into a place like this?”
“So don’t be in places like this. You gotta get close to them.”
“Them?”
“Celebrities,” Dan said with a leering smile, flashing his brown tooth. “You got a reputation in this town. Everybody knows you’re a fighter. Hell, old Jonny’ll be glad to give you a reference.”
“A reference for what, Dan? Talk in a straight line, I’m weaving here.” I swallowed the last of my beer and waved my hand for another.
He popped the top for me and gave me a sly look. “Get yourself hired as a bodyguard,” he said. “You’ve got the skills. You could fake the credentials. Get yourself…”
“Hey, Danny, turn this up, would you?” someone shouted from across the bar, pointing drunkenly at the TV.
Dan did so, muttering under his breath about the diminutive “Danny”. He turned back to keep talking, but I hushed him with a wave of my hand.
“Thanks!” The gorgeous girl on the TV giggled. “It’s a process, you know, it’s sort of tracking my personal growth, I guess.”
“Who’s that?” Dan asked appreciatively.
“Paisley Abbott,” I told him without thinking. “Singer.”
“She looks a little soft to be a metalhead.”
I pressed my lips together. She was too soft to be a metalhead.
“So your last single, Spark on the Wing, hit number one on both Country and Pop charts last month. That must have felt like a real accomplishment.”
Dan raised his eyebrows at me with a smirk. I ignored him. Nothing wrong with a little brain candy on the playlist.
“It would’ve felt like more of an accomplishment if I’d written that song myself,” Paisley confessed with an adorable little wince.
“You didn’t?” The interviewer looked irritatingly predatory.
“I wish I had,” Paisley said. “I actually bought that song to fill up my album. I wrote the other twelve, but my manager felt that it needed to be a baker’s dozen, you know? There wasn’t time to write one, so I bought it. The genius behind that song was actually Eric Mercer, who nobody knows, but everybody should. He’s written most of the top forty for this year.” Paisley seemed genuinely earnest in her praise.
“I see,” the interviewer said, obviously not interested in hearing anything more about the songwriter. “So what will you do now that the album has been released?”