Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 04]

by Over the Line

  “Miss Perkins!” he all but bellowed through the ornate wood. “Miss Perkins!” he repeated, rapping until he thought his knuckles would bleed.

  “What? What—who?”

  Weak with relief that he’d finally roused her, he toned things down a bit.

  “You wanted me to wake you up,” he reminded her.

  “Mission accomplished,” she sputtered. “For God’s sake, did you have to break the door down?”

  Umm . . . yeah.

  “Next time, I’ll ring down for a wake-up call.”

  “Hell, next time I’ll request the wake-up call,” Jase muttered, his face still flaming, his mind still filled with the erotic image of her wanton and naked on that bed.

  Yeah. He was in some seriously deep shit. Hell. He was the mayor of Shitville.

  5

  She opened the door five minutes later.

  Jase chanced a glance up, relieved to see she was dressed. Well, sort of. She’d evidently showered, because her hair was damp and she smelled like every fresh, cleansing scent known to God. She’d wrapped up in a short jade-green silk kimono that did very little to camouflage all the fine lines and slim damp curves beneath it. Not to mention the slight sway of her breasts and the tight pucker of delicate little nipples that he now knew were the palest, prettiest pink.

  “Morning,” she said, joining him at the breakfast table.

  “Morning,” he mumbled back, and kept his nose in a file folder that outlined her schedule for the next few days.

  She didn’t have much to say. That was fine by him. Chitchat, thank you, Jesus, didn’t appear to be in the job description. And the truth was, he didn’t think he could look at her again without flaming red.

  Didn’t seem to be able to help himself, though. He glanced up at her over his coffee. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her hair smoothed free of the rat’s nest of a do she usually wore. Instead, she’d tied it back into a loose soft, fluffy tail at her nape. Her hair like this made him think of that stuff his mom used to use to decorate their Christmas trees. Angel hair—that was it. Very full. Very fine. All soft and a little curly this morning and sort of out of control.

  No. This Janey Perkins wasn’t even a close second to the glitzy rocker the public was used to seeing.

  Or the centerfold material he’d just ogled like a damn pervert.

  Feeling guilty about that and trying not to stare, he watched her dig into her chow. She thought he looked like a kid? Right now she looked all of twelve . . . and as she ate her fruit, he realized it wasn’t just her fresh-scrubbed face that lent the impression of youth. It was the way she carried herself. Without her makeup and high-end boutique clothes, she’d transformed from personality to person. And this person, though steady and serene, was far from the controlling, commanding rocker who’d threatened to boot his ass out the door a few nights ago.

  “Be back in five,” she said after finishing her fruit. “And we’ll have that run.”

  Yeah. They’d run. And maybe he could run off that picture he kept seeing in his mind’s eye. The one of her wet fingers and feathery curls.

  Whoa, whoa, wait,” Jase said when she came scooting out of her bedroom wearing a skimpy black leather and silver bikini and enough bling to choke a horse.

  Lord Jesus God. This morning is just one trial after another.

  “Pardon me, ma’am, but you’re not really planning to go out in public like that?”

  Hot. It was very hot in here, he thought, doing his damnedest not to ogle all that smooth sleek skin and those amazing curves. And that low-riding tattoo of a clef note. But hell. He was human. He was male. It was against the laws of nature for him not to notice how totally rockin’ she was. But it was against company rules for him to do anything about it. Not to mention his personal code of honor.

  Which he’d shattered all to hell when he’d let himself stare at her naked in bed.

  He should apologize for that. He needed to apologize for that. Told himself he was about to when she challenged him.

  “What’s the matter with the way I’m dressed?” She looked down at herself, reacting, no doubt, to his scowl.

  Besides the black, almost–bathing suit, she was wearing that clunky Celtic cross around her neck. The thick silver and leather bands she wore on her forearms and around her wrists fairly shouted that whips and chains couldn’t be too far from reach.

  The glittery silver-threaded do-rag she’d wrapped around her head was a nice subtle touch. So was the silver link chain circling her bare hips that hooked on to a silver hoop complete with a twinkling diamond. The hoop hung from her pierced navel. And unlike her fresh-from-the-shower rain forest and sunshine scent, she smelled—Hooah—she smelled like sin on a silver platter. Something floral and musky and designed, no doubt, to grab a man by the gonads and squeeze him into a stranglehold.

  Jesus.

  “Nothing’s wrong—if you want to draw your usual crowd, ma’am. But we’re talking public beach here. I’m good, but I can’t control a mob, and that’s what you’re going to get, decked out like that.”

  No shit, Sherlock. Besides her “look at me, I’m a rock star” getup, there was that world-class body to deal with. Wouldn’t be anyone missing that. Strong, firm legs. Slim hips. Tiny waist. Not much of a rack, but mighty fine, just the same.

  And she has the prettiest diamond-tight little pink nipples.

  “And you suggest—what?” She gave him a look.

  He cleared his throat and tried not to think about racks and nipples and natural blondes. And about the way she smelled, which was almost too good to bear.

  “Well, for starters, you could lose the bling, ma’am. Go for a tank top. Gym shorts. Running shoes. No glitzy designer labels, if you own such an animal. And if you’ve got a ball cap and a pair of dark glasses—a pair without rhinestones,” he clarified with a glance at the ones propped on top of her head, “that would be swell.”

  For some reason, she found that amusing. “Swell, huh?” Grinning, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and slung her weight on one hip. “You know, it occurs to me that you’ve been on the payroll for several days now and I know nothing about you. Where you from, Wilson?”

  It was where he was going, not where he was from, that was at issue here. To hell, for certain. Out the door, maybe.

  “Iowa, ma’am.”

  “Ahhh. Iowa.” She drew out “Iowa” in that slow, smoky southern drawl of hers—the drawl he’d heard break through a couple of times when her guard had been down and she’d been talking with Max. Jase knew she was born and raised in Mississippi—he’d read the folder—and this was mint julep and magnolia up close and personal.

  “Figures,” she added, as if that explained everything.

  He was used to it. A lot of people thought that his Iowa upbringing explained a lot of things. Like why he looked like Opie Taylor’s distant cousin.

  “Are you always this polite?”

  He hadn’t been ten minutes ago.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he lied.

  “All those homegrown midwestern values, right?”

  If only she knew. “I suppose so, yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay. Let’s stop with the ‘ma’am’ crap, all right?” She headed back for her bedroom without the fuss he’d expected. “Makes me feel like a nun or something.”

  As fuckin’ if.

  No one would ever mistake her for a nun. A sinner, maybe, but not a sister. Not if they saw her in that skimpy suit. And got a whiff of her. And definitely not if they got a rear view of her walking away, he thought as he stood in the middle of the hotel suite and watched her tight little ass disappear behind her bedroom door.

  And lest we not forget, not if they saw her sprawled and naked and sated in her bed.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face and walked over to the window. Stared at the surf washing against the beach several stories below while a boner the size and consistency of a railroad spike changed the shape of his shorts.

  “
What took you so long?” he muttered, pressing the heel of his hand against his dick.

  Okay. Time-out. Time-fucking-out.

  This was not happening.

  Talk about unprofessional.

  And talk about left field. Where in the hell was this coming from? Sure, she was a hot property, but hell, that didn’t mean she was the kind of property that made him hot.

  Sara. Sweet, vulnerable, reserved. Now that was a woman to get worked up over. Lord knew he had. But a rock star? So she was a surprise. She’d still probably done or been done by jerk-offs from here to the West Coast and back again.

  No. Thank. You.

  It did not compute. And yet, there was proof in his pants that it did.

  He needed to figure this out.

  The best way to do that was to treat it like an op.

  Analyze. Assess. Act.

  Analyze: Okay. He’d been running in the muck too long. After Sara—well. There hadn’t been any women after Sara. There’d been booze and bar fights and bawling in his beer. And then there’d just been the brawling. The WWA. He hadn’t been with a woman for a while was all. And he didn’t count the girls prancing around the ring in their skimpy bikinis and silicone implants holding signs announcing the round numbers. They’d been available and attainable and a total turnoff.

  He wasn’t a saint. He’d had his days of cheap thrills and one-night stands. Hell, when you were going off to war and you didn’t know if you were coming back, you took it when and where you could get it and told yourself it was the least you deserved.

  He’d been a kid then. And stupid with it.

  He was older now. Liked to think that he was smarter. Too smart to blow a great job over an unexpected testosterone rush. One that had come out of the blue and reminded him that his heart might still be broken, but his equipment worked just fine.

  Assess: No damage done. Not yet. Not ever. Now that he had an idea where this was all coming from, he just needed a plan to keep it from happening again.

  Piece of cake.

  Act: Focus on the job. Take care of his duties. Keep the big head on his shoulders and the little one in his pants and remember what was at stake here. Potentially a woman’s life—at least her well-being. All he had to do was review the info on Edwin Grimm, the pervert who had gone to prison for stalking Miss Perkins—and from this point on, she was Miss Perkins to him—three years ago. Grimm had done his time. He was out on the streets again. And possibly on the prowl.

  That was what Jase needed to act on. That and the constant assaults on her privacy from the press and the fanatics who thought of her as their personal property to idolize and fantasize about and were potential threats because of it.

  A door opened and closed behind him, her amazing scent preceding her into the room. Okay. So he just wouldn’t breathe the rest of the day, he decided, and squared his shoulders.

  When he turned, he found a toned-down version of the siren who had knocked him for a loop. Thank you, Jesus.

  She’d ditched all the silver and gold—even the cross. Her T-shirt was white; her shorts were tan; her ball cap was red. She looked like an ice-cream cone with a cherry on top.

  Yummy.

  “Better,” he said, tamping back the thought of munching on damn near everything he saw. “Guess there’s nothing to be done about the tattoos.”

  “Actually,” she said with a thoughtful look, “I think I can fix that. Be right back.”

  When she came back into the living area, she’d tied a small red scarf around her neck, effectively covering the tattoo there.

  “Help me with this, would you?” She handed him a roll of gauze. “You can play doctor. We’ll pretend I have an owie.”

  At the thought of playing doctor with her, the part of his anatomy that hadn’t yet figured out there wasn’t a snow cone’s chance in hell of that ever happening twitched to life again.

  Another part—the part that was trying to deal with the stupid part—did some mental ass kicking as he wound the gauze around her upper arm and over the tattoo. Unfortunately, both parts realized at the same time that he’d never been this close to her before. At least not without a slew of reporters or fans or crew around.

  Aside from the softness of her skin, there were a lot of other sensual firsts happening. Like getting drunk on the incredible scent of her. Some amazing mix of floral and musk and . . . hell, he didn’t know. Something intrinsically female. Undeniably sexual.

  And her hair. Up close like this, he could see how truly fine it was. Fine and thick and fired through with a hundred shades of silver and gold and chestnut where it hung in feathery little waves midway down her back.

  “How ya doin’ there, Doc?”

  His gaze snapped from her hair to her face. She’d turned her head, was looking up at him over her shoulder, and he was hit with another jolt of awareness. Of the color of her eyes. The depth and the complexities. “Brown” was too mundane. Cinnamon, mocha, sorrel, gold . . . hell, and shades he didn’t know the names of.

  He wondered if her eyes went smoky when she came.

  “Umm . . . problem?”

  The puzzlement in her tone finally jarred him into action and out of dangerous territory.

  “Nope. I think I’ve got it.” He quickly tucked the end of the gauze under the band of the fake bandage he’d made. Just as quickly backed away.

  Way the hell away. He snagged his black cap with the U.S. Army logo and gave her what he hoped came across as a “pass the muster” once-over.

  “So we’re set?”

  “Your hair,” he said, then cleared his throat when the words came out sounding like a croak. “It’s a dead giveaway.”

  No one had hair like hers—although he was certain many women, from fans to supermodels, had tried to get that look.

  He watched as she gamely whipped off her ball cap, scooped the streaked golden mass together at her nape, then twisted. With little effort and some magical thing that beautiful women were probably born knowing how to do, she managed to tuck it all up and under that red ball cap.

  “Work for you?” Hands on hips, she grinned up at him.

  Too many things were working for him. And on him. He needed air that wasn’t saturated with the scent of her. And some distance. And he was having some major second thoughts about confessing.

  “Let’s do this.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied with a sharp salute.

  “Sorry.” Now was not the time to forget who was boss. “When you’re ready, we can go, if you like, ma’am.”

  She grinned and headed for the door. “Don’t worry about it. And I asked you to quit calling me ma’am.”

  “Sorry, ma’—Miss Perkins,” Jase corrected, following her.

  “Okay, let’s take this a little further. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, right? Don’t you think it’s time we ditch the formalities? How about we go for ‘Janey’?” she suggested as they waited for the elevator to take them to the lobby.

  “I’d prefer ‘Miss Perkins,’ if you don’t mind.”

  She glanced up at him. He couldn’t see her eyes behind her dark glasses, but he had a feeling she was laughing at him again.

  “Have it your way, sugar.”

  Fine. Let her laugh.

  “And I think it’s time we figure out what I should call you.”

  “ ‘Wilson’ would be fine.”

  She smiled—a wicked glint in her eyes. “ ‘Iowa’ it is then.”

  He hadn’t intended to smile back. The superior look she shot him told him she knew it and figured she’d scored a point in whatever game she thought she was playing.

  Okay. So she was competitive. He’d seen that the day she’d laid the poor schlep of a trainer out flat. Competitive was cool. He liked competition. He liked a challenge. The problem was, she just might be easy to like and like under these circumstances could be just as dangerous as lust. He couldn’t afford either. He was going to keep this professional and impersonal if it killed him.


  And as they walked out one of the back entrances of the hotel, crossed the boardwalk, and hit the beach, he decided it just might.

  Her ass looked as good in those loose running shorts as it had in that leather bikini bottom.

  6

  Amazing,” Janey said aloud when they slipped out one of the Atlantic City Hilton’s ocean-side doors and right past the paparazzi who had been lying in wait on the off chance she would make an appearance. “They didn’t recognize me.”

  “That was the plan,” Wilson said without a trace of “I told you so” in his voice.

  Okay, so he’d been right, Janey thought as they crossed the boardwalk and she set a steady pace alongside him on the Atlantic City beach sand. She was so used to perpetuating crowd reaction she’d forgotten how to dress with subtlety. Early on, the orders had come from the suits at the label. They’d wanted buzz—as much as she could create—and outrageous fashion statements were the most direct route. They’d wanted the hype and the stir it caused when she’d started to become notable.

  Now she was. And she’d forgotten how to dress so that she didn’t draw attention to herself. It felt kind of nice to blend for a change instead of standing out. One thing she’d never forgotten was how much she missed anonymity.

  Right now, she missed Max. He’d been the grown-up in her day-to-day life. Now she was the adult in this party of two—her and Baby Blue—and she wasn’t certain she liked the shift of power.

  Oh well. It was done. Time to suck it up. Just like she’d sucked up over the news about Grimm being on the loose again. That didn’t mean she didn’t think about him. Or about her mother. But she wasn’t going to dwell on any of that today.

  The sun was big and bright and hot as a firebrand. The breeze off the Atlantic was a wonderful mix of salt and suntan lotion and sea spray. Her running shoes sank into damp sand, working her thighs to the max.

  And beside her was the diversion she needed to keep at bay thoughts of crazed stalkers and dead mothers who never gave a damn—and yet Janey had loved her anyway.

  Baby Blue was a mass of fluid muscle and powerful strides, holding himself back, she suspected, to keep pace with her. She supposed she could count this, at least, as a plus. She loved to run and Max had never been one to break a sweat, so she rarely got to run outside.