by J. K. Coi
She looked up and realized she’d been watching the elevator buttons with too much intensity, and now he was watching her curiously. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”
His expression hadn’t changed, so maybe she wasn’t being as obvious in her freak-out as she thought she was.
“Thank you for what you did back at the restaurant.”
She shrugged, relieved. “I didn’t do anything.” Only her job.
“You handled that photographer”—he said the word with the kind of derision that came from more than just a cursory experience with the breed—“much better than I would have. If he’d tried to take one more picture, I would have decked him, and that would only have gotten me in more hot water with our investors when the news hit the Net.”
“You wouldn’t have hit him.” She was pretty sure about that. “You’ve never hit any of them in all the years they’ve been hounding you.”
His gaze narrowed. “And you know this, how?”
“It was a long afternoon. I did some research and called a friend at the FBI.”
“And do bodyguards usually have connections with the FBI?”
She didn’t answer, but she thought a lot of them probably did, or at least they had connections with the police. She knew from experience that personal protection was the fallback for cops and agents when that career path became closed to them, for whatever reason.
“What else did they tell you?”
“Nothing.” She didn’t want to mention what she’d learned about Justin Fielding’s Colombian accounts just yet. It might not be related to her assignment at all, and she didn’t want to overstep the bounds of her contract by admitting she’d dug up dirt she had no business digging up. Since the FBI seemed to be keeping an eye on the embezzlement case, if there were any developments, the agents should be the ones to approach Nolan about them, not her.
“So, your father is a boxer?” he asked, changing the subject again.
The question made her frown. Where had that come from? What did it matter? “Was,” she clarified. “He was a boxer. Now he’s retired.” And dying of cancer. She swallowed hard.
“That sounds like it could have been an interesting childhood.” When his lips twisted up like that, she just wanted to take one between her teeth and—
“Not really.” She shouldn’t talk to her client about her personal life. Even if Nolan wasn’t technically asking about her.
“And how long were you a professional boxer?”
Okay, scratch that. She glanced at him sharply. “Me? What makes you think I was a boxer?”
“You certainly seem to know your way around the ring.”
She shrugged. “I grew up in that world, so yeah, I learned a few things along the way, I guess. It’s good exercise, too. But that doesn’t make me a professional.”
Would Nolan analyze her words and realize that she hadn’t actually come right out and denied anything? Not that it was a big deal. She’d boxed for the IFBA for three years to make enough cash to get through college. She’d been good at it and could have stuck with it, but her father had practically forced her out the first—and only—time she’d come home with a fractured cheekbone. He’d always wanted her to have a career that would last her a lifetime, one that wouldn’t break her spirit along with her bones. He’d been so proud when she graduated with honors and made it into the FBI training program.
She shook off thoughts of her father that would only make her melancholy. Nolan looked contemplative. She’d tried to remain focused and impersonal with him, but it seemed she lost a little more of that resolve every time he spoke to her. Was he taking all the small pieces of information that she’d dropped throughout the day and working out where they fit in the puzzle that was April Porter?
She wanted to tell him to stop it. There wasn’t really anything interesting about her anyway. She shouldn’t rate high enough on the social scale for him to bother trying to figure her out. There were way more interesting women out there. Women who belonged in his world. Women who didn’t work for him.
“Well, you looked good up there,” he finally said, “like you were enjoying yourself.” His voice lowered in appreciation, insinuating that he’d noticed more than just her boxing stance or her smile.
Damn it. There were undercurrents in that deep drawl that she couldn’t possibly afford to acknowledge, and it was more than the filterless, inappropriate teasing she figured was his standard operating procedure.
She looked down at her feet, marking the floors by the musical ding and counting down until they would be out of the elevator, and she could put more distance between them. Her thick-soled, utilitarian boots looked ridiculous next to his shiny black leather designer shoes. He needed to look down at them, too, and be reminded of how ridiculous the two of them would be together.
“Your girlfriend is very pretty.” As a change of subject, it was pretty lame and decidedly obvious. She winced and rushed to add, “I’ll have to get her name. What does she do?”
“Jennifer isn’t… We’ve been out a few times, but it’s not serious.”
Really? After the way they’d acted together outside the restaurant, his idea of serious must be different than hers. On the other hand, the woman had been the bolder of the two of them. Surprisingly, he hadn’t taken advantage of her blatant invitations and had even managed to send her home alone without seeming to cause any disappointment or hurt feelings.
“And you are not running a check on her,” he finished.
April said nothing. She didn’t need his permission to do her job. And her job was protecting him, even when he thought it was a joke. She’d get the information she required one way or another.
“Don’t think you can go behind my back, either.” His voice was suddenly sharp and cold as ice. “Or you’ll be out on your ass so fast, you won’t know what hit you.”
She snapped her gaze up to his with a gasp, surprised that he’d figured out exactly what she was thinking. “You can’t do that.”
“Watch me.” His tense jaw seemed carved from stone, and she was startled to realize that she’d mostly bought into that laid-back, playboy act he’d been trotting out all day.
For a second, she had peeked behind his easy-going, approachable CEO face. Just for a second, but it was long enough to confirm that there was definitely more to Steve Nolan than the public got to see. She suspected there was more to him than even most of his friends got to see.
Her shoulders stiffened. At one time, she might have been intrigued and drawn in by those sharp glimpses of intensity, by the hint of danger. But that was a more naive April from a different time. She was no longer interested in guys like that…she wasn’t. Besides, with her father’s illness, she didn’t have time for intense romantic entanglements anyway.
She curbed her tone. “I am diligently trying to do my job here, Mr. Nolan. But if you insist on curtailing this investigation and putting unreasonable limits on my duties, it’s only going to take longer to get to the bottom of this.” She shrugged as if it was no skin off her back. “That’s fine because I get paid by the hour no matter how long it takes, but I was under the impression that time was not on your side.”
He ignored her and pressed forward, crowding her backward until the handrail along the wall of the elevator bisected her spine. She schooled her features. His face was inches from hers, so close she could see the brilliant flecks of gold in his deep brown eyes.
She realized it was one thing to tell herself she wasn’t interested, quite another to mean it. Especially when Nolan was looking right at her—into her—as if he could see and feel the pounding of her pulse. Especially when he still smelled of a fresh shower, which reminded her of the sweat that had poured down his chest back at the gym. Especially when she hadn’t had sex in so long, and his exact brand of strength, confidence, and magnetism was her drug of choice—notwithstanding that it was a drug that would only add complications to her life that she wasn’t equipped to handle.
&nbs
p; “Whoever’s playing these sick games is a stranger,” he murmured darkly. “It isn’t anyone close to me, so you do not need to interrogate my friends.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because no one who knows me at all would dare fuck with me like this.” He smiled, but this time he didn’t try to hide the dangerous predator lurking behind the perfectly cut suit and stiff silk tie. He was a sleek, powerful shark whipping silently through the dark water. And as his gaze flicked to her mouth, she knew he’d set his sights on her as an appetizer.
It wasn’t hard to imagine what he would do to someone who betrayed him, but she also knew from personal experience that no matter how safe you thought you were, the pain of betrayal could come from anywhere. The people closest to you were often the ones who ended up hurting you the most…whether they meant to or not.
She gritted her teeth. The air between them thickened as they stared one another down. “The reality is that in cases like this, nine times out of ten the perpetrator is someone who—”
“No.”
The finality in his voice dared her to contradict him again, but she wasn’t about to start that kind of argument in an elevator. If he wanted to wear blinders when it came to this investigation, then she wouldn’t push it for now. There were plenty of other rabbit holes to explore. She hoped for his sake that he was right, but if the time came when all the other leads turned up empty, and the only ones left were the ones Nolan didn’t want to acknowledge, then they’d have to do things her way.
Suddenly, his fingers touched her cheek. She gasped and leaned back, but there was nowhere for her to go unless she bolted to the other side of the elevator, and showing fear to a predator was always a bad idea.
His head dipped. “You might have a bruise there tomorrow,” he murmured with a frown. He’d caught her in the chin during their sparring session.
She cleared her throat, flustered by his about-face. “I’ll be fine. You barely touched me.” She put her hand over his, but he only shifted his touch to the slope of her neck, leaving goose bumps in his wake. She shivered all the way down to her belly and bit her lip to stifle a groan. Her stomach and thighs clenched and her fingers curled into the sleeve of his jacket. She hadn’t even realized she’d dropped her hand to his forearm but she couldn’t pull away, even though she knew she should.
His eyes darkened, all that intensity narrowing on her until she couldn’t breathe. Dangerous. This is stupid and dangerous, and you’re only going to regret—
And then he was kissing her, and it was nothing like what she’d imagined, not that she would ever admit she’d been imagining it at all; at least not more than once a minute since he’d stripped down to his gym shorts and boxing gloves, dripping sweat and oozing testosterone. Blood, laced with adrenaline and lust, pumped through her veins as hard as if she’d spent hours in the ring.
He didn’t fall on her like she was a prize he would claim, and he didn’t swoop in, trying to catch her off guard. His kiss was testing and calculating, just like him. Telling her exactly what he wanted and daring her to be bold enough to admit she wanted it, too.
She couldn’t admit something like that. Not even with her heart hammering like a speed bag at full tilt.
A groan escaped her lips, and he took that as permission, deepening the kiss. It should have bothered her, made her uncomfortable and nervous, but for once she was consumed by something stronger than self-preservation, the fear of losing her job, or the worry that had plagued her the last several months.
The elevator dinged, and she felt the drag as it pulled to a stop and the door started to open. She heard something, a distinct click out in the hallway, and jerked her gaze up over his shoulder, worried that they had company, but there was no one there.
He leaned back in like they had all the time in the world. His hand cupped the back of her neck, the other planted flat against the wall beside her shoulder, but the only other part of him touching her was his mouth. God, his mouth. His mouth consumed her, devoured her, took control of her until she almost whimpered with defeat.
Stop. This has to stop. She twisted away with a gasp, even though she couldn’t quite make her fingers unclench from his arm.
Thankfully, he immediately backed off.
Crap. She was such a freaking hypocrite. Hadn’t she just been thinking how irresponsible it would be to get carried away in an elevator? Hadn’t she spent the evening telling herself to stay focused and professional?
“You fucking jerk,” she snapped, angry. So angry. But with him…or herself for being such a stupid, weak glutton for punishment? “You were kissing another woman less than an hour ago.”
She shoved him, both hands slamming him hard in the chest. He leaned back, but his feet didn’t move. And then he smiled. The bastard actually smiled. “She was kissing me, actually,” he said, as if it made a difference.
“What? And you thought that since you couldn’t go home with her, I would just stand in like it was a part of my job description?”
He stood in front of her, not touching but not retreating, either. “Let’s make one thing clear.” The elevator door was closing on them again, but Nolan didn’t move. “When I kiss you, it has nothing to do with your job.”
She snorted and shoved her hand into the crack of an opening before the door closed all the way. “You assume it’s going to happen again.”
“I don’t make assumptions,” he corrected her. “I calculate inevitabilities.”
Chapter Four
As they finally exited the elevator, Steve noticed the door to the stairwell swinging closed. Had someone wanted to take the elevator and been scared off by the horny couple making out inside it?
He probably shouldn’t have kissed her. That could bite him in the ass in a thousand and one different ways. But he couldn’t regret it, especially not after getting such a hard-fought reaction out of her. Both reactions. First, her delicious submission, and then the beautiful outrage. The truth was, he’d do it again. In a heartbeat. In fact, he’d been looking for a reason to kiss her all day, and the impulse had little to do with tension or stress. It had everything to do with her. And him. The two of them being impulsive and sweaty together.
That sounded like him, all right. Too bad it didn’t sound much like the very proper Ms. Porter.
During dinner with Jennifer—who was the perfect combination of shallow and self-involved so that he never felt guilty for holding his real self back—“Ms. Porter” had been all he could think of. She had vaguely disquieted him with her unshakable reserve and unnatural stiffness, but she’d also intrigued him. She was interesting, competent, and mysterious. And then she’d become an Amazon at the gym. She’d punched his imagination into high gear, sending crazy, sweaty fantasies streaming through his brain.
Both sides of April Porter that he’d already seen fascinated him so much that he’d been less interested in taking his warm and willing date home, and unreasonably eager to spend just another five minutes with his new bodyguard. He was more than a little curious about the other sides she might have.
Even so, by the time the elevator door slid all the way open, Steve knew he’d miscalculated. The kiss had been too much, too soon. Walking beside him now, she was even stiffer than ever.
She was certainly a mystery, one he wasn’t sure he should try to crack. But he’d never be able to resist trying.
As they reached his apartment door, he pulled his keys out of his pocket with a frown as April stepped in front of him and held out a steady hand. She cleared her throat.
“You’re taking this protection thing just a little far, don’t you think?” he said.
He was immediately contrite. He shouldn’t have snapped at her. His irritation had nothing to do with the way she was doing her job.
But she didn’t even flinch. “Let me have the key,” she said.
“I’ve got it,” he insisted, pushing past her to reach for the lock on his own. “I think I’ll be safe enough in my own ho
me.”
He threw open the door and flipped the light switch.
The place was trashed.
He’d found no notes this time. Then again, the intentions of the bastard who’d broken in and destroyed his place didn’t exactly need to be spelled out any clearer.
April claimed that without a note, there was no way to be certain that the “incident”—as she called it—was related to the threats he’d already received. He begged to differ. She and the police officers could theorize to their hearts’ content, but Steve was certain. And he was sure of another thing, too. He’d had enough.
His bristly bodyguard was right. He hated to admit it, but it was past time for him to take this situation seriously. He couldn’t wait for these events to escalate any further. It was becoming obvious that the party responsible was taking it seriously, and he couldn’t afford for someone to actually get hurt because he was too stubborn to acknowledge the problem.
April glanced his way with a crease digging across her forehead. She said something to the police investigator. It had taken an hour for him to arrive, with two other officers in tow, and he had a feeling it might have taken longer if not for the combination of his reputation and her apparent connections.
Steve had been surprised to hear the investigator call his bodyguard by name and ask after her father. It added another layer to his curiosity about her, but now was not the time for an interrogation…even though the presence of police officers might suggest otherwise.
Doug approached. “I’m so sorry this happened, Mr. Nolan. I still can’t believe someone got up here without me noticing and trashed your place. This is completely my—”
“Don’t do that to yourself, Doug. It wasn’t your fault.”
His frown didn’t go away. Steve’s reassurance wasn’t making a dent in the poor guy’s guilt. “I’ll get the security tape from the manager first thing in the morning and make sure it gets to the cops like I promised,” said Doug. “And if I can think of anything else, I’ll let Ms. Porter know immediately.”