by Kym Roberts
Khaos had called again to warn her…for the umpteenth time. “Ty Beckinsale is dirty. He enjoyed the high life when he should have been working. That whole team put the security detail at risk.”
Yet Faith had a hard time placing the man—this man who worked harder through the pain than most of her clients—into the category of womanizing party boy. It just didn’t fit the man on the mat in front of her, stretching with his hands locked behind his back.
“What happened?” spilled out of her mouth.
Ty finished his set and breathed. Painfully. She knew it hurt. The jagged scar running through his eyebrow twisted, drawing attention to the mark that made him even more attractive when his chin tilted to one side. He stared up through that brow, his eyes penetrating her very soul. Heat rushed her face, suffusing her cheeks with a blush she was too old to wear. She shouldn’t have asked. It was none of her business.
“Are you asking what happened with my set, or did we start another conversation I missed?” His deep voice scratched over all the sensitive parts of her body, yet his expression held no flirtation at all. One minute she thought he was attracted, the next he might as well be wearing those obsidian shades the President’s men were famous for. He was a complete mystery.
“Forget I asked. It was nothing.”
“Does nothing often bother you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your curiosity forced words from your mouth before you thought about them, so obviously whatever it is must have bothered you enough that you were focused on it, instead of counting for my set.”
“I’m sorry. That was unprofessional of me.”
“That wasn’t my point—”
“It should have been. Let’s move over to the treadmill.”
Ty grabbed her hand before she could turn away, and she froze. Not just because she knew it would hurt him if she pulled from his grip, but because for the first time in her life, she felt something magical in a man’s grasp. The strength of his long, masculine fingers and callused palms sent a shiver through her body, with a jolt of sexual chemistry she never dreamed possible.
Off to her side, Kas growled deep in his throat. A warning only a German Shepherd could make as he stood up. His back legs were crouched, ready to leap into action. His ears high and alert, he watched the exchange between them.
Ty released her hand immediately, the warmth and electricity and acceptance that had flowed from his touch, suddenly gone. Faith wanted to whimper. Instead she turned to her dog.
“Nein, Kas. Platz,” she commanded. Kas immediately laid down right where he was. His long narrow black snout nestled between two large tan front feet. His ears pointed and stood pert, interpreting every noise. His eyes watched unyielding, capturing every movement. Waiting for a command, or one false move.
“He’s trained.” Ty eyed the dog suspiciously.
“He washed out from the Service. Khaos bought him for me.”
“What did Khaos think you needed protection from?”
She didn’t explain about her dad’s business partner who turned on her parents. Or the man who killed them. Insinuated himself into their lives and acted like a friend before murdering them in the middle of the night. Instead she went for the short, and not-so-sweet answer. “Intruders and unwanted attention.” Unwanted was true. Uncraved couldn’t have been farther from the truth. She desired Ty’s attention with every fiber of her being. Ty, however, believed the lie, and that’s all that mattered.
“Good to know,” he said and stood up. He moved toward the treadmill slowly, deliberately, with a grace that belied his injuries.
So why did it hurt that he accepted it so easily?
Kas raised his head, and the two males locked eyes. Two alphas, two predators, two protectors.
“Blieb, Kas,” she ordered, and her dog’s head returned to his feet.
“What does that mean?”
“Stay.”
Faith could have sworn she heard a light laugh accompany the slight dimpling of his cheek, like he was laughing at her dog for having to obey her. The all-powerful Ty Beckinsale took orders from no one. He’d won a silent battle between man and beast, though Faith would argue which one was the beast. Kas lived by rules. Ty didn’t, yet his swagger told Kas he was superior, as if there truly was a male competition being played out.
Faith decided Kas wasn’t the only one who needed parameters, and bound her client tight with instructions for his next exercise. “No more than ten minutes on 2 miles per hour.”
Ty snorted. “Don’t you think that’s kind of laughable?”
“Not for a man in your condition,” she replied, ready to instill her position on the top of the masculine power hill.
He stopped and looked down his body, confidence rolling off him in raw waves of masculinity. He met her gaze and dropped a challenge at her feet, daring her to find a flaw in his sculpted physique. “Is there something wrong with my condition?”
She accepted the challenge, and despite the increase in her pulse and the awareness flowing through her system like an aphrodisiac on speed, she let her eyes drink in every last drop of the drug standing in front of her. His legs were only visible from just above his kneecap, but she’d seen the corded muscles as he’d done weightless leg lifts. His hips were lean with muscle that v’d down from his ripped abdomen. His chest was a thing of beauty. Broad and carved to perfection, the Hard Rock t-shirt with Disturbed written across his pecs only defined him more, like the cut-off sleeves that enhanced his rounded shoulders and to-die-for arms. They were the kind of arms a woman wanted wrapped around her naked body.
All of that topped off with a strong jaw covered in what she knew from firsthand experience was a velvety soft beard. His hair needed cut. Too long on top, it curled gently at the nape of his neck. And those eyes…they simply took her breath away. A green and blue mixture captured inside a dark ring, gave away a glimpse of his soul, if you managed to look past his clenched jaw and furrowed brow.
Somehow Faith managed to keep her voice strong and level, and hid the fluttering in her lower stomach that made her want to strip down naked on the floor in front of him. “Ten minutes on two miles per hour.”
Her instructions fell on deaf ears as Kas silently jumped to his feet and took off for the doorway.
A flash of fear crossed Ty’s face before it turned feral, his deadly gaze narrowed in on her dog as he took off at a run. “Rosie, don’t move! He’ll bite!”
“Ty, don’t run!” Faith’s order went completely ignored.
Across the room a slim, elderly woman who’d drawn the attention of both alphas crouched down to greet Kas, who whimpered like a puppy, his tail swaying back and forth in pure joy. Her dog obviously knew the woman, yet she didn’t look the least bit familiar to Faith. Dressed in athletic apparel, she wore skin-tight yoga pants and a waist length grey puffy coat that looked like it belonged on woman in her twenties.
“Good boy, Kas. Good boy,” the woman said as she laughed and received a bath of dog slobber on her face. Her long thin fingers disappeared in the thick fur around Kas's neck and she ruffled him like a long lost pet.
Ty slowed to a walk and watched the exchange as he approached. Faith was right behind him.
“Rosie, he could have torn you to shreds.” Ty warned, eyeing her dog like he was a bit pyscho.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Kas and I go way back.”
“Way back?” Faith asked.
“We used to meet at the park last summer while I was walking my Stella.”
“You walked your cat on a leash?” Ty’s voice was full of skepticism and suspicion.
The woman he called Rosie turned to him with a hand on her hip, just daring him to challenge her further. “I’ll have you know Stella is very good on a leash. Anyway, as I was saying before I was interrupted…”
Ty bowed his head in acknowledgement of his rude behavior, and Faith inched forward, her curiosity completely peaked. This petite, elderly woman was standing up to a man wh
o looked like he could snap her neck in a heartbeat.
“A nice, tall handsome young man…” Rosie said, her hand raised to her chin as she tried to recall the name. “I believe his name was Phillip. He had the sexiest French accent. Absolutely dreamy.”
“Phillipe,” Faith filled in for her. “He used to take Kas to the park for me while we were renovating.”
“Oh, is he your boyfriend?” Her eyes strayed to Faith’s left hand.
Faith laughed. Whoever this woman was, she wasted no time gathering every tidbit she could about the lives of the people around her. “No, he was my manager.”
Rosie patted, Kas on the head, stood up and wiped the slobber from her face in the crook of her elbow and then held out her hand to Faith. “I’m Rosie. Ty’s grandmother.”
Faith couldn’t help it; Rosie had shocked the stuffing right out of her. She’d never even thought about Ty having family in Fort Collins. For that matter, she’d never thought of him having any family. He was a lone wolf, not a family man. God, what if he was married with kids…and she’d kissed him!
Faith tried to stop the tremor traveling through her body, but from the look on Rosie’s face, she failed miserably as she greeted the elderly woman. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Faith Artino.” She paused squinting in Ty’s direction. “I didn’t realize Ty had family in town…”
The man shuffled uncomfortably, and his guilt nearly gave her a heart attack. He was married.
Rosie shook her head. It was her turn to laugh, mischief swimming in her eyes. “Ty has never been very good at introductions. In high school, he kept the girls away from his parents. I suspect he was too afraid his mother might choose one for a bride.
“In college, he avoided home. Not because he was a bad kid, although he did have his moments, but because he was living the life a young person should.”
Visions of Ty dating his future wife and having fun in college at frat parties and college pubs made Faith think about her own sheltered college history—completely partyless. Just classes and an apartment with a guarded gate and a state of the art security system. Not exactly the kind of existence Rosie was talking about.
“When he went into the Army, I think his decision to not bring a girl home was due to the battle he warred with his own mortality. A lot of our young people are experiencing that with this never ending war against terror.”
“Rosie,” Ty eyed Kas suspiciously as he approached his grandmother and kissed her on the cheek.
How interesting that her dog didn’t seem to have any problem with Ty touching his grandmother.
“I love you,” he continued, “but I really don’t think Ms. Artino wants to hear about my personal life.”
Rosie batted a hand in his direction and Faith couldn’t help but smile. “Of course she does, dear. She’s a full-grown woman with a very single, very hot grandson of mine in her gym. She wants to know everything about you.”
It was hard not to laugh at Ty’s discomfort, until his grandma turned the heat up on Faith.
“Don’t you?”
Faith blinked. Then looked from one to the other. “I—I—I mean—sure, if he wants to share that information. But we have him registered under Brad Williams to protect his reputation.”
The elderly woman’s eyes narrowed. “Protect his or yours?”
“Rosie—” Ty started, but his grandmother wasn’t about to be shushed.
“I am not ashamed of your time with the Secret Service. You served your country well. It’s not your fault you were stuck with a group of men on the prowl—”
“Okay, I’m ready to go,” Ty said, trying to corral his grandmother’s galloping mouth.
“What happened in the Secret Service?” Faith asked. Clearly this woman had been heaven sent to ease her mind, and Faith was going to take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about Mexico and her brother’s hatred of Ty.
“Really Grandma, why don’t you wait in the car? I’ll be right out.” Ty tried, but Rosie was going to defend her grandson with her last breath.
“It’s too damned cold in that car. Go get your stuff and I’ll finish my story.” She turned her back and addressed Faith. “Now, where was I, dear?”
Dismissed like a little child, Ty’s shoulders slumped as he disappeared into the locker room at the fastest walking pace he could muster.
“Oh, yes! Ty was filling in for another agent on an advance security detail trip to Mexico for the President, when he got sick.”
Faith listened intently to the family version of Ty’s brush with the law in Mexico. A pathetic prostitute. A sick secret service agent. And a party that paralleled no other. If Faith was to believe Rosie’s cleansed version, Ty was a victim of circumstance as much as the woman who lost her life.
Yet experience had shown her, nothing was ever what it seemed to be—especially innocence.
Chapter Thirteen
Ty wasn’t sure what Rosie had told Faith about his time in the Secret Service, but every day for the past five weeks he’d caught Faith looking at him. Speculating. Trying to read his every move. Driving him crazy with those fathomless eyes.
So when feminine heels exited the women’s locker room, their rhythm enticing to every male in a ten-mile radius Ty didn’t look. There was only room for one woman in his brain.
“I’m leaving,” Alena called across the gym to Faith, as she purposely detoured in Ty’s direction.
Faith’s smile lit up the room as she waved good-bye to her employee. “Have a good night!”
Ty nodded in her direction. “Night.”
But Alena wasn’t about to be dismissed so easily. Her brown hair, piled high on her head in soft curls, glistened under the lights. The little black dress she wore over her curvaceous body was exactly that. Little.
A night with her would be a welcome distraction. Except Ty couldn’t even rouse one image of her without that little black dress. He could appreciate the way it looked. The way she walked. The way her eyes devoured.
But it did nothing for him.
Fuck me.
Ty lifted the puny weight, happy the only witnesses to his weakness were Alena and Faith. They probably thought he was one of those muscular men who had the actual strength of a ten-year-old. A bloated SpongeBob with no actual real strength.
Alena stopped next to him, smiled and then bent over giving him a peak down the front of her dress…if he wanted. He didn’t.
“I’m the last one out. Everyone else is gone.” She waggled her eyebrows.
When he didn’t respond, because there was no way in fucking hell he was going to, her eyes rolled so hard he thought her head would follow.
“You two are perfect for each other, only you’re both too blind to see it.”
“Excuse me?”
“The kiss. It’s been too long between your first kiss and your second. You need to take advantage of the privacy. I’ll lock up behind me. No one will be able to get in without the alarm sounding.”
“I don’t think—”
“That’s good. Don’t think. Act.” Alena pinched his cheek and winked like they had a true conspiracy going between them to take Faith down off of her pedestal.
Except Ty had no plans of doing that. Driven to find the cause of Faith’s fear, he’d researched her family and her past. Faith and Daniel Khaos Artino had been orphaned when she was eighteen, Khaos twenty-three. Victims of the drug trade reaching all the way to the suburbs of Denver.
Their father, Daniel Artino, Sr., had been a good man with strong convictions and an even stronger spine when it came to facing down the drug cartels demands that he ship their ‘product’ in the truckloads of food Artino & Simons Shipping imported from Mexico. Those strong convictions, however, cost him and his philanthropic wife their lives. The worst part, Artino’s business partner had buckled. He accepted the silver, or rather, the boatloads of untraceable cash, instead of receiving a lead bullet to the head. Then he bought out the Artino kids, making them instantly wealthy, and scared
as hell. Whether Simon did it to spare them or ensure his secret was kept, no one would ever know. The sole owner of Artino and Simon’s Shipping disappeared a year later, and the business was left to ruins.
So when she’d found a critically injured man near the scene of another organized crime murder, she’d obviously freaked out and wasn’t about to let her identity be known. Yet like her father, her convictions made her do what she had to do. She saved his life and disappeared. He couldn’t blame her for being frightened. With her past, Ty Beckinsale was a risk no one would take.
But it’d been five weeks since she’d kissed him. Five weeks of watching her avoid him as much as she possibly could. She’d changed his appointment times, avoiding the beginning and end-of-day time slots, fitting him in during the middle of the day when clients and trainers filled the facility. Three days after that kiss, when he’d made it obvious that he wasn’t about to make a move or allow her to make the same mistake twice, she’d relaxed just a bit—even smiled.
That small victory, however, had long lost every ounce of triumph. She’d still kept distance between them. Refused to touch him. Which was fine, because he didn’t want to go there again. If Alena hadn’t walked in on them 5 weeks ago, the attraction between them would have gone up in flames. One second later and he would have been running his hands up under her shirt toward that tight red sports bra that hugged her breasts. He would have stripped off her clothes right there in the lobby and explored every inch of her firm curves.
Geeezus, he had to stop thinking about her in those terms. She was Artino’s sister. Off limits. Even if he wasn’t in the Service any more.
By the third week after their kiss, everything was going fine. They were talking. Becoming friends. Not friends with benefits. And definitely not friends who trusted each other enough to divulge their deepest secrets. But friends who felt an attraction growing and ignored it like that big fat-ass-elephant-in-the-room that it was. And then Rosie had shown up and asked Faith to move his physical therapy to an evening time slot, saying Ty was seriously cramping her daily routine. Which was the exact same reason why he’d moved out of his grandmother’s house and into the small apartment on her property. Not much more than a one-bedroom rental that Rosie refused to rent out, it allowed both of them space. Rosie said it was the perfect place for her grandsons to stay and “entertain guests.”