“Come on out, princess. It’s over.”
Well, that’s good. That’s obviously Jack. I’m still blinking, trying to adjust to the light, but there’s no question about who that particular voice belongs to.
I open my mouth to say something smart and ironic and maybe even funny. Instead, I make an embarrassing squeak.
He reaches down to take my hand and lifts me to my feet. My legs wobble. For some reason, they’re just not working properly.
“It’s all over,” Jack says, putting a hand on my back. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I’m not scared.” It’s the first thing I’ve managed to say, and it’s not exactly the smartest thing I could have come up with—since I’m still trembling with nerves and reaction.
“Shit, you’re shaking.” He slides an arm around my waist and makes me move. I suppose he thinks he’s helping me walk, but with his arm around me, I have no choice but to move when he does.
We end up on my couch. I have no idea how we get there. But there’s a fuzzy blanket on the couch and Jack wraps it around me.
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing to be afraid of now.” He sounds different than normal. Gentler. The tone immediately raises my ire.
“I’m not afraid. I’m cold. Now tell me what the fuck is going on!”
“There was suspicious activity in the building, and I couldn’t take any chances.”
“What was the suspicious activity?”
“A drunk ex-boyfriend of your neighbor, as it turns out. I’m sorry I had to wake you up and scare you so much, but I have to treat every suspicious incident as a threat.”
“Oh.” Okay. It’s time that my brain starts to work. I try to force it back to its normal processing. Then I try to make myself stop shaking since it’s starting to get embarrassing.
No luck with either attempt.
“I’ll be right back,” Jack murmurs, getting up and walking away.
I have no idea where he’s going. I just sit and shiver under the fuzzy blanket and wonder what the hell happened to my life that I’ve ended up here.
With Jack, of all people.
He comes back to the couch with a mug in his hand and hands it to me.
“What is it?” I ask, taking it with both hands since he’s thrusting it in my face and I might spill it if I hold it with only one hand.
“Coffee. Drink it.”
I take a sip and then make a face. “It’s too sweet.”
“I don’t care. Drink it anyway.”
In my defense, I’m not in the habit of obeying just because a hot guy tells me to do something. But I’m not in my normal state at the moment, and drinking sweet coffee seems a reasonable thing to do.
So I drink.
After a minute and about half the cup, I stop shaking.
Jack has sat down on the couch beside me, slouched down and looking so scruffy and scrumptious I’d be highly tempted if I weren’t getting over a panic. He hasn’t said anything. He’s just watching me take each sip.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“I’m sorry about all of this.”
“Would you stop saying that? You were doing your job. If there really was a threat, I sure as hell would rather be stuck in a closet than dead.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
His voice is low and gravelly. It does strange things to my belly, which is already unsettled enough from the fear and coffee.
“So everything is all right?”
“Yeah. It’s a fine. I showed the drunk ex-boyfriend out of the building.”
“That sounds very polite.”
“It’s wasn’t exactly polite.” His expression seems a little shifty, and I realize he must have roughed the guy up a little.
I actually smile at the thought. If I’m having a bad night because of that idiot, then the idiot better have a bad night too.
“You can go back to bed if you want,” Jack says.
“Are you kidding? After the coffee and the adrenalin, there’s no way I can go to bed any time soon. Where’s Bill, anyway?”
“He’s here now. Outside. He had car problems, so I stayed late—until he got here.”
Bill is the night guy—that’s what Jack calls him anyway. If you hadn’t figured it out, one bodyguard can’t cover every hour of the day, not if he wants to do things like eat, sleep, and shower.
“Oh.”
I look at Jack, wondering about him again. I’ve only known him a few weeks, but I feel like I should know more about him than I do.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” he asks.
“Just curious.”
“About what?”
“About you.”
“Why?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because I’m your bodyguard. No need to know anything except that I’ll keep you safe.”
Girly or not, I like the sound of that.
“What would you have done if it had been a real bad guy?” I ask him. It really shouldn’t be possible, but he looks hotter than normal, with his hair slightly rumpled and his jaw in desperate need of a shave.
His eyes rest on my face, and I have no idea what he sees there. “I would have taken care of it.”
“How?”
He arches his eyebrows in an unspoken question.
“I’m just wondering,” I say defensively, feeling like he’s somehow mocking me, although I can’t pinpoint exactly how. “I’ve never had a bodyguard before. Shouldn’t you be throwing yourself on top of me?”
The eyebrows go even higher, and I blush. Yes, I stupidly blush.
“You know what I meant!”
His face changes into a smile—one that takes my breath away. “Yeah, I know what you meant. You’re thinking about movies about the Secret Service.”
“Oh. But isn’t your job to keep me safe?”
“Of course. That’s what I was doing. No one was getting into the apartment.”
“Then why did you put me in the closet?”
He shrugs and gives me an almost sheepish look. “It felt like the right thing to do.”
Stupidly, I giggle. It must be the leftover adrenalin.
“So would you use your gun to take care of it?” I ask. “If it was really a bad guy, I mean.”
“Maybe.”
“Why maybe?”
“Because I use whatever works, given the situation. Sometimes that means a gun. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
Okay, that adrenalin must be really messing me up because I suddenly want to rip this guy’s clothes off. I’ve lusted after men before—obviously—but it’s always been more in my mind than my senses, if that makes any sense at all. I mean, physically, the right things happen to my body, but they seem to happen from my mind more than just from looking at the guy.
So it’s strange now that just the sight of Jack is doing bad things to me. Strange details like the way his t-shirt stretches across his broad shoulders. Like the way he’s slouching slightly in the couch, making his flat abdomen a very nice level plain. Like the way his big, strong hand rests on the couch between us.
Just looking at a man has never made me feel this way before. Must be the adrenalin. After all, I’m supposed to be on a man-fast.
Oh, yeah. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before, and it’s something that might be helpful to know about me.
I’m on a man-fast.
Fasting from food is supposed to be good for you—clear your body, clear your mind, get you refocused on what’s important. The monks used to do it in the Middle Ages, and they could focus better than anyone else.
So this year, I’m fasting from men, so I can focus on what’s more important. Or get through the year. Or whatever.
And, I’ve got to tell you, having Jack slouched beside you on the couch in the middle of the night is not the easiest way to remember you’re on a man-fast.
To distract myself, I return to our conversation. “So do you have any skills?”
; There go the eyebrows again. “I have a few skills,” he drawls.
I’m absolutely, positively, not going to blush.
I think about certain skills he might possess and how he could use them on me.
I might blush. Just a little.
“Stop turning everything dirty,” I tell him, in what is supposed to be a no-nonsense voice. “I mean fighting skills. You know, some sort of cool martial arts fighting or something. Do you know anything like that?
“I can do whatever’s necessary to stop someone from hurting you.”
I sigh, since his bland voice is really getting in the way of my imaginings. “So you’re not a boxer or an MMA fighter or anything.”
He snorts. He actually snorts. “Uh, no.”
I let out a disappointed breath. He could have been. He’s big and hard and dangerous enough. “Have you been in jail before?”
“Why would I have been in jail?”
“I don’t know. Just a question.”
“No.”
“Do you have any tattoos?”
“Tattoos?”
“Big, cool bad-asses always seem to have tattoos.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” He doesn’t look sorry at all. He looks vaguely amused.
“Why don’t you?”
“You think I should get a tattoo?”
“Only if you want one.” Realizing it sounds like I care more about what he does than I should, I add, “It doesn’t matter to me if you have one. Carter had a tattoo on his back.”
He gives a derisive huff. “Your model of a cool bad-ass is your sociology professor boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He was never my boyfriend. We just slept together. And, no, he’s not my model of a bad-ass. It was just a random comment.”
“Let me guess. It was something clichéd and pretentious.” The corner of his mouth tilts up. “Japanese letters?”
I frown at him as coolly as possible. “No.”
Jack has the most amazing thighs. I mean, they’re powerful. I can see how big and strong they are beneath the stretched denim of his jeans. I can’t seem to stop looking at him, and more bad things are happening to my body.
“Tell me.”
I gulp. “Tell you what?”
“Tell me what his tattoo was.”
“Oh.” I almost forgot about that. “Egyptian hieroglyphs.”
He gives a soft, low laugh. “I was close.”
“You don’t have to sound so superior. You don’t have any tattoos at all.”
“I’ll get a tattoo if you want me to. What do you think? A princess tiara on my shoulder?”
I put down my coffee cup so I can bristle at this comment instead of laugh—which is what I really want to do. “That wouldn’t be very bad-ass. And I’ve got to say you don’t have much leeway on that account. You don’t have any cool fighting skills. You haven’t been a SEAL. You haven’t been in jail. You don’t have a tattoo. Not very bad-ass, are you?”
He starts to laugh but then his expression changes strangely. He reaches over and pulls my blanket up over my shoulders.
“Why did you do that?” I let the blanket drop, mostly to defy him.
He lets out a breath as his eyes lower to my chest and then jerk away abruptly.
I glance down to where he was looking and discover that I’m not exactly proper. One of my straps has fallen off my shoulder and the neckline of my tank is drooping dramatically, revealing more cleavage than is entirely appropriate. Plus, my nipples are super-tight and poking out through the fabric.
I jerk the blanket up over my shoulders again. My body doesn’t have such standards, though, and it’s getting all excited about the idea of Jack seeing me like that.
Okay, we were having a conversation. Think about that. Think about that—and not about the way the tension in Jack’s body makes me want to run my hands up and down him.
I have no idea what the conversation is even about. I can’t think about anything except Jack and his big body and his strong hands and his rough jaw and that deep, hot, knowing look in his eyes.
And now I’m jumping off the couch to put up my coffee mug. Better to do that than to do what I’m really wanting to do.
He’s standing up when I return to the living area.
“Where are you going?” I ask, stopping abruptly
“I was going home. Bill is outside, and you’re perfectly safe.”
“Oh.” I don’t really want him to go, but that’s kind of hard to admit. “I thought you might show me some bad-ass moves.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t a bad-ass.”
“Well, you’re more bad-ass than I am. You could show me how to protect myself.”
His eyes are focused on my face with a strange intensity, as if he’s having to fight to keep them there. “If someone comes after you, princess, then your best move is to run.”
“But isn’t there some special way martial arts way of me knocking them out?”
“You’ve been watching too many movies. The best way to protect yourself is inflict the most damage with the least amount of effort.”
“So how do I do that?”
“Go for his balls.”
I frown. “Oh.”
“I’m serious. His balls or his eyes or his nose. Wherever he’s vulnerable. Wherever you can get to with a hard part of your body.”
“I don’t have hard parts to my body.” Yeah, I know that sounds stupid, but this guy really throws me off and I can’t make my mind work the right way.
He smiles in that knowing way he has and steps over closer to me. “You don’t have many,” he murmurs, that delicious rasp in his voice again. He lifts up my arm, his fingers trailing over the skin until he reaches my elbow. “But this is hard.” Then his fingers trail up toward my hand, the light touch making me shiver. “And the heel of your hand is hard.”
“Oh.”
He puts my arm in a position where I could slam the heel of my hand into his nose. “See? If you hit me like this, I’d be out of commission for a few seconds. That’s when you run.”
I stare up at him, wanting to touch him in ways that have nothing to do with self-defense.
He rearranges my body so my back is facing him and his arm is around my waist. “Try to always keep an arm free, and then you’ll be able to use your elbow. Show me what you’d do.”
He obviously doesn’t mean what I’d do if I can get him in bed, which is what I’m actually thinking about. Responding to his instruction, though, I throw my elbow back.
“Good.” He turns me around so I’m facing him and I swear—I swear—it looks like he’s about to kiss me. Instead, he says, “Your knee is hard too. You know what to do with that.”
I raise my knee toward his groin. I don’t actually knee him there, of course.
“That’s all you should be thinking about,” he says. “Fancy moves don’t do you any good if they don’t work. Do the simplest, easiest thing you can make work.”
“Is that what you do?” My voice is hoarse, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m so turned on I’m almost shaking with it.
“Yeah. No fancy skills. Just whatever works.” His hand is still on my shoulder, and it’s not really that far from my breast.
I shift slightly so it’s a little closer. It won’t take much, just a slight lowering, for the side of his hand to brush my nipple. I want to feel it there so much I can barely breathe.
“Okay,” Jack says abruptly, in an entirely different voice. He drops his hand and takes a step back. “It’s late. That’s your lesson for the evening. You better get back to bed.”
“I don’t want to go to bed.” Well, I do, but definitely not to sleep.
“Okay, you don’t have to. But I need to get home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And that’s it. That’s seriously it. He walks out of the apartment without even looking back.
And I’m left by myself—just a trembling, heated mass of lust and adrenalin-aftermath.
I knew there was some reason why I don’t like Jack.
***
So here are the top ten things to avoid if you’re trying not to lust after your bodyguard.
One – Don’t look him in the eyes. He’s likely to have these gorgeous blue eyes—like you’ve never seen before—that seem to offer you far more than they should. Best not to even look at them.
Two – But don’t make the mistake of lowering your gaze to his mouth. He’ll have these sexy, agile lips that look like they can really do things. Focusing on them too much will give you very dangerous daydreams.
Three – His hands are something else to avoid looking at. Because he’s touched you before and they know how they feel in casual touches, so you can’t imagine how they’d feel when he’s trying to turn you on. Oh, God, he definitely knows how to use them.
Four – His shoulders will be nice and broad, somehow signifying stability as much as strength. Don’t look at them much if you can help it.
Five – It’s not just things you might see that are potentially dangerous. Don’t get too close or you’ll smell him, and that’s almost worse than how he looks. He doesn’t wear cologne or anything, but he always smells delicious—some sort of combination of soap and laundry detergent and just plain man-ness. Stay as far away as you can. If you really need to get close, try to breathe through your mouth.
Six – Don’t let him put his hand on your back. He’ll do that sometimes, and it’s supposed to be casual—just moving you along or pointing you in the right direction. But I promise it will feel like a lot more than that. It will feel like he’s claiming you as his.
Seven – Be very careful if he talks to you in any way that’s not business-like. His professional voice is pleasant, but it doesn’t do terrible things to you. But every other way he talks—his dry mutter, his flirtatious drawl, his intense murmur—those are the voices that you’ve got to avoid if you don’t want them to play havoc on your girly parts.
Eight – Don’t let him make you laugh. He’ll have a good sense of humor, and if you think he’s funny, you’ll just want him even more.
Nine – Be sure to avoid focusing on his thighs. They’re big and strong and powerful, and they’re far too close to something else that is absolutely essential to avoid.
Ten – Speaking of that, do not—do not ever—look or think or wonder or dream about his cock. I’m just saying…it will be tempting, but as soon as you start thinking about that, you won’t be able to stop.
Knowing Jack Page 4