by Leah Braemel
He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, his forehead furrowing. “Then why are you packing like there’s a four alarm fire on the floor below?”
“I’ve decided to switch off with Kris or Andy. We’ll all be happier that way.” Well, she wouldn’t be. Goddamn, when would men realize that just because she was only 5’1 and didn’t have a penis didn’t mean she couldn’t provide proper protection or run an effective op?
“Happier? You wanna tell me why you think I’d be happier with them? What bee crawled up your— What’d I do to send you running like someone tied a bottle rocket to your tail?”
She whirled, her arms held rigidly at her side. “Oh, let’s see, you wanted someone else protecting you, not a little bitty woman who wasn’t a former Navy MP or D.C. City cop or CIA spook. And then when I asked you earlier if you had a problem with me being on your detail, you lied to me. Outright lied! I’ve put up with a lot of crap, Mr. Watson, but I don’t tolerate lies. You don’t want me guarding you, fine. But you should have said that when I asked.”
“I didn’t lie. I never said I didn’t want you protecting me because you were a woman.”
“But you told Chad you didn’t want me assigned to you, didn’t you?”
“Yes, that part’s true. But—”
“Ay bendito. I knew it.” She advanced on him. “Just because I’m short doesn’t mean I can’t take you down—just ask Kris or Andy. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m not a damned good shot. I’ve been trained in counter-surveillance, and bomb disposal.”
“I know that, I—”
“Just because I’ve never worn a uniform or carried a badge doesn’t mean I can’t guard you. I’ve been on details guarding an Oscar winning actor while he was making that movie down in Savannah and got him to safety when the barricades failed to hold back hundreds of screaming fans.” Then the asshole had expected her to put out in the limo. “I’ve protected those three country music singers—did I mention how much I hate country music—and let’s not forget the gentleman from Saudi Arabia with his three wives and sixteen kids, or the dozens of women from the Safe and Sound program.”
“I know you’re good at your job. That wasn’t why I wanted someone else.”
“Ha! So you did want someone else. You admit it.”
“Yeah, I already admitted it. But—”
“But you don’t trust me to protect you.” She closed the cover on the suitcase and zipped it.
“I trust you. But—damn it! I wasn’t objecting to you because you’re a woman, Rosie. Well, yeah, it’s sort of because you’re a woman. Aw, hell, you’re reading this all wrong.”
“For all your bullshit about equal opportunities, it’s still just bullshit. You want to be a big macho he-man who guards the ‘little woman’ but God help you now it’s the other way around.”
“Rosie—Ms. Ramos—”
“I’ll stay until Chad can get someone else over here to replace me, but then I’m out of here. And not just this assignment but D.C. I refuse to work for someone who doesn’t respect my abilities. I’ll expect you to approve my transfer first thing in the morning. Because if you don’t, then I’ll file a lawsuit for sexual discrimination.” She stopped talking, the words clogging her throat. Oh Lord. Fifteen minutes ago, she was feeling so proud and now she was about to walk away from the job she loved.
“Goddamn it, I don’t want you to leave Hauberk, Rosie. I didn’t want you guardin’ me because I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to keep my hands off you!”
The breath whooshed from her lungs. Of all the excuses he could have given her, that was one she wasn’t expecting. A blast of heat, of desire, filled her veins, headed straight for her nipples, her pussy. “You—”
“You drive me crazy, woman!” Heavy hands landed on her shoulders, spun her around. “All you have to do is walk by and I get hard. I’m so hard right now it hurts.”
A glance down proved him correct.
Her traitorous eyes refused to return to his face, instead they sent a message to her knees to drop down to the floor, to her hands to cup him, caress him, free him. Her traitorous tongue flicked out and licked her upper lip in anticipation of taking that impressive erection into her mouth. Luckily enough, a part of her mind retained just enough control to override those urges.
“All I can think of is getting you out of those clothes and beneath me, Rosie. I know that you could slap me with a sexual harassment suit just for saying that. But it’s true.” He muttered something about the difficulty of herding cats—whatever the hell that meant—then moved closer, the heat from his body like a blast from a foundry. “I can tell when you’ve been in a room by the scent of your shampoo. That’s all it takes to stop my brain from workin’. Then my dick takes command.”
Just like her pussy heated and creamed whenever she smelled his aftershave. Or heard his deep chuckle floating through the office. Just like her breasts ached watching him roll his cigar between his fingers, wishing it was her nipples he was touching.
So why did her chest hurt hearing him say what she’d fantasized about for months? Because he was lying. For all his smooth words, he was trying to find some lame ass explanation to weasel out of having her as his lead op.
“That’s why I asked Chad not to assign you. Not because I don’t trust you to guard me. But because I don’t trust myself to leave you alone.” His voice dropped an octave. “I want you, Rosie. And not as my bodyguard.”
“I don’t…I don’t believe you.” Why wouldn’t her knees support her? What had happened to all the oxygen in the room?
“You want proof?” He pulled her until her breasts mashed into his chest. Before she knew it his lips were pressing against hers in a hard hungry kiss.
His tongue lightly stroked the seal of her lips. One of his hands cradled her head, holding her in place, his thumb toying with the skin below her ear, rhythmically stroking, calming her. His other hand kneaded her behind, pressing her against his erection. “Do you feel what you do to me? Do you believe I’m not lying when I say I want you?”
The hoarse entreaty melted all her objections like they were snowflakes at a Fourth of July barbeque. The moment she relaxed, he slipped his tongue between her lips. As he plundered deeper, he made a sound deep in his throat, of approval, of desire, of need. His hand dropped from her neck and slid to the front, brushing the side of her breast.
When his thumb flicked across one nipple, it was her turn to moan.
“Rosie,” he whispered. He moved the hand cupping her behind to between her thighs, his fingers stroking her clit through her jeans, setting off a firestorm of sensation. “Do you know how many times I’ve imagined going down on you, how I’ve wondered what your sweat cream tastes like? Did you know that after I watched you doing your stretches in the gym this morning I had to go back to my shower and pretended my cock was inside your pussy instead of my own palm.”
While her head was screaming to run, reminding her of the thousand ways this would come back and bite her in the ass, her hips arched into his touch.
She wasn’t aware he’d moved at all but she found herself laying down on the bed, with him kneeling over top of her just like she’d fantasized. Except this was real. She hoped it was because if it was a dream, her vibrator would need a new set of batteries by morning.
To her surprise, her blouse gapped open, exposing her lacy beige bra.
When had he undone her buttons?
He broke their kiss, his warm breath heating the side of her neck, the roughness of his beard abrading her skin. A tug at the clasp of her bra, and he exposed her breasts, their cinnamon nipples cinched into tight points.
“Baby, you’re so beautiful.” His tongue laved one, then the other in a tender stroke. Seconds later he latched onto one and pulled it into his mouth, suckling it deep.
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. She had to stop him. She had to… Oh, sweet Lord, it felt so good.
Her fingernails dug into his shoulders when his fi
ngers unsnapped her jeans, drew them down over her hips. His fingers, long and blunt, snaked beneath the thin band of her thong and teased her labia apart, setting fire to her as her juices drenched him.
One finger penetrated, stroked deep inside her while he sucked harder on her breast. Another finger joined the first.
The hell on him stopping, she had to help him. She had to have him inside her. All of him.
He was murmuring now, telling her what he wanted to do to her, what he wanted her to do to him. Things she’d never before thought she’d wanted. Things she’d never considered. Things she now had to try. With him.
The heat built as his fingers pressed deeper, his thumb whisking over her clit. The room darkened as she squeezed her eyes shut, concentrated on the sensations building within her. She arched her back, moaning as he teased her, tormented her by bringing her to the edge before slowing his movements, taking away the precipice she wanted to plunge over.
“Please.”
His lips left her breast and feathered over her stomach. They lingered on the spot right above the thin patch of hair before tasting first one hip, then the other. Her breath left her in a rush when his lips fastened onto the spot his thumb had been avoiding. His teeth rasped over her sensitive clit, his tongue licking on either side. Slow and then fast. Her body tensed as everything focused on where he touched her, inside and out.
“So sweet, just like I knew you’d be.” His words set a vibration through her tissues that rebounded until they touched the aching spot teased by his fingers.
She pushed his head back down and changed her “please” from a request to a demand.
Whether he touched her with his tongue or his thumb she never knew but the full body orgasm that erupted drove her breath from her and sent every muscle quivering.
She drifted off the bed, out of the room, floated high in the sky, among the stars that exploded on the back of her eyelids and left her to flutter back down to the soft silken covers beneath her.
Chapter Eight
Rosie’s sigh as her body relaxed was a soft caress and a damning slap to Sam’s conscience.
“Damn.” He retreated several steps, one broad hand splayed over his temple briefly before dropping it. “God damn, I’m sorry, Rosie. I didn’t mean to take it that far.”
Her eyes shot open and with a look of horror on her face, Rosie grabbed the pillow and covered herself as she bent over and retrieved her pants from where they’d fallen to the floor. He noticed she carefully kept her face averted. “You said you’ve been fantasizing about me. Did you mean it?”
Uh oh. The breathy murmurs had changed to crisp speech; she sounded like a lawyer questioning a hostile witness. Was he about to face a lawsuit? Not that he could deny what he’d just done to her—he’d definitely shattered the employer/employee boundary.
“Have you really been fantasizing about me?” she demanded again.
“Yes.”
She pulled on her pants, her head bent over as she fastened the clasp at her waist. “Does that explain why Miss Stewart and you are no longer together?”
“Nope. Cynthia and I…well, let’s just say we were never exclusive.” Tread carefully, Sammy, Rosie’s not ready to know about the club or its members. Not that he could tell her if he wanted to without permission from the board.
Rosie slanted him a strange look as she fastidiously did up every single one of her blouse’s buttons, including the two she’d left undone when she’d first met him at the limo. “So why did you keep seeing her?”
Because Cynthia was a damned good fuck who let him enjoy some of his kinkier preferences while he fantasized about another woman didn’t seem to be the right answer.
He realized Rosie was holding her breath, realized what she was asking.
“You’re askin’ why I never approached you before.”
She gave him a stiff nod.
“I’m your employer. I couldn’t treat you as anything other than an employee without risking a lawsuit.” Until tonight when his dick definitely had taken control of his brain.
“Is that honestly why you told Chad to assign someone else?” When she finally looked at him, he was surprised at the anger spearing out of her eyes.
Oh yeah, this was no wilting lily waiting for a man to validate her existence. She hadn’t let whatever had happened just now distract her the way it had him.
He shouldn’t have let his frustration get the best of him, he shouldn’t have taken her the way he had. Hell, he shouldn’t have kissed her, even that was way over the line. But he didn’t regret it either. His fantasies hadn’t come close to matching her in reality. She’d tasted like strawberries and rain and heaven rolled into one enticing package.
He wanted to see her eyes unfocus again. And often. Now. Without thinking, he stroked her cheek. “Believe me, baby, I wasn’t objectin’ to you guardin’ me because I think you’re not good enough. I know you’re one damned good protective officer.”
With precise movements, she tucked her shirt into her pants. “Then we’ll forget this happened. I’ll tell Andy and Kris one of them will be staying with you from now on.”
She was out the door and in the foyer before her words penetrated the haze of his lust.
Forget this happened? She could do that after the full-body orgasm he’d just given her? He scrambled from the bed, having to fight his way out of the comforter that had tangled about his feet. “Hell no, we won’t forget this happened.”
The front door was just closing behind her as he reached the foyer. He yanked it open and stalked into the hall following Rosie. “You think I’m gonna just let you walk out of here after what we just did?”
He pulled up short, shutting his mouth when he saw Kris and another man standing in the hallway by the door to 1202. Kris’s eyes went wide, then his lips pressed together until they were nearly white. His scowl deepened, and he muttered something under his breath. Though Sam couldn’t hear what he said, he had a pretty damned good idea the newbie had just lost any respect for his lead op. Or more likely him. The other man—Scott Phillips, the guy Troy had assigned to the cause—went from a look of surprise to a carefully blank look. From beneath lowered lids, his eyes narrowed as he assessed Sam, lingered on the woody Sam was still sporting.
Rosie’s hands clenched as she slowly turned back to face him. She stabbed her fist toward him, one finger pointing at the door to his penthouse. “You. Get back in your apartment.”
“Rosie—Ms. Ramos—”
“Now! And lock the door behind you.”
Aware of the two men watching them, Kris with overt hostility, Sam considered grabbing Rosie and pulling her back into his apartment where they could continue the discussion in private. Until he saw her move into a defensive position as she anticipated his thoughts. He settled for a dignified retreat.
—
Rosie waited until she heard the deadbolt click before turning back to her co-worker. Co-workers if the man carrying the khaki duffel bag was who she suspected.
Kris cleared his throat. “Hey, I guess I should introduce you two.” He hooked a finger in Scott’s direction. “Scott Phillips, I’d like you to meet our lead op—Rosie Ramos.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Ramos.” Phillips hefted the duffel and headed toward her, his eyes flickering down. “You might want to, um,”—he waved his fingers over his chest—“check your buttons.”
A glance down at her blouse revealed she’d misbuttoned her blouse and a large gap had displayed her bra to all and sundry. Aw, crap! She wheeled around and hurriedly redid the buttons. When she turned around Scott had disappeared into the apartment.
“He’d just arrived when…” Kris waved toward Sam’s door. The questions she knew he wanted to ask hung so heavy in the air she needed a forklift.
“Kris, about what just happened—”
Kris held up his hands though he spoke through clenched teeth. “Hey, if you and Sam are having an affair, it’s no skin off my back. What happens in Vega
s stays in Vegas, you know?”
Except it wasn’t Vegas, and she’d just lost the respect of two of the men she needed to respect her right now. Not to mention her self-respect had just taken a nosedive, especially since ninety-seven percent of her body was screaming at her to march right back into Sam’s apartment.
“Look, we’re not having an affair.” No, she’d just let her boss strip her naked and go down on her. It wasn’t an affair when the pleasure had been so one-sided, was it? Didn’t it take her returning Sam’s attentions for it to be a proper affair? Which she would have done—willingly, eagerly—if Sam hadn’t pulled away. If she hadn’t walked away.
A second passed, then another before Kris spoke again, “Did Sam…he didn’t force himself on you, did he?”
She looked up in surprise, and saw Kris’s jaw was locked, a fierce look in his eyes. He wanted to protect her, she realized. For all his joking and tricks, deep down he was the stereotypical knight in shining armor.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked again. “Did he threaten you, or your job?”
Hurt her? He’d told her he’d fantasized about her the same way she’d fantasized about him. Right before he’d given her a mind-blowing orgasm. Which definitely hadn’t hurt. Well, okay, maybe her ego hurt that he’d pulled away and apologized. But that wasn’t exactly something she could confide in Kris. Or anyone.
When she didn’t answer, Kris turned on his heel toward Sam’s door forcing her to grab his arm. “Kris, stop. We got in an argument over his schedule and how we’re going to protect him. You saw how he was fighting it this morning. It was just more of the same.”
Though she couldn’t speak for Sam, it was as far from normal as possible for her. The whole scene in that bedroom seemed more like a dream than reality. But she hadn’t decided if it was a fantasy come true or a nightmare in the making.
Kris hesitated. Then, even though he knew she wasn’t telling him the truth, he relented.
“Listen, I know I said I’d take the watch tonight, but could you stay in Sam’s apartment instead?”
“Sure, Rosie, anything you want.”