by Zoey Parker
He’d also been an unfaithful, womanizing misogynist, but that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t dating him for his personality, but rather the eye candy effect. When it was clear that he was a little too wandering, to the point where my reputation had begun to suffer, I’d cut the cord and set him free. He’d called me a thousand times since then, but I didn’t bother returning any of them.
Most of my boyfriends had been like that. Gorgeous and sculpted like Greek gods, but every last one of them had been vainer than me—and I was a goddamned actress! Wasn’t I supposed to be the vain one?
Regardless, if I could resist the charms of the well-groomed, incredibly built male models of the world, then I was confident that I could handle the white trash appeal of a biker.
I thought all of this as I pulled down my large dark sunglasses to get a good look at the man who obediently followed April out onto the patio. Then those thoughts promptly fled as I saw the dark, smoldering eyes that were the only good memory I had of the night before.
Oh crap!
The man who had saved me last night, the one with the rippling muscles and the tight jeans and that dark hair that I wanted to rake my fingers through, that man was standing on my back patio staring at me with a deep hunger that I had a feeling originated between his well-muscled legs.
I froze, because it was the only way I could keep my cool. I hadn’t ever expected to see him again. He’d been a real ass last night, well, after the whole saving my life thing. I was hard pressed to remember why exactly in that moment, but I remembered my anger at him and my determination to not have anything to do with him.
That was the feeling I clung to now, desperately. I needed him to be just another asshole. Some guy I didn’t care about. Now I almost wished for one of those ugly, smelly, unwashed miscreants I’d been sure my uncle would send my way.
This guy? He didn’t meet any of that criteria.
Although he was still too far away to smell, I could tell just by the look of him that he was clean, if perhaps not well-groomed. His hair was thick and unruly, falling across his forehead to land in his dark, smoldering eyes. The shirt he wore was at least untorn this time and was dark enough to hide whatever grease stains he might have on it. His jeans, too, were a little better, though I could see wear and the promise of tears to come. They hugged his hips and thighs just as they had the night before, and I knew without seeing it that his ass looked just as good as it had when he’d walked away from me the night before. I had sudden, dirty desires where he was concerned and they startled me.
I wasn’t the type of girl to go for him or anyone like him. Yes, I loved my uncle dearly and would never say a word against him, but he lived and ruled in a world that I’d worked hard to get out of. Now that I was firmly in the lap of luxury, I was hesitant to do anything that might jeopardize that. Anything that might send me spiraling back down to the streets that I’d spent my young adult life on.
Caleb had taken good care of me, but we’d been dirt poor for a long time and he’d done some pretty shady deals while I was still a kid. He did his absolute best to keep me out of it, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew that when he sent me “to the park” with one of his guys, that meant I wasn’t supposed to see whatever was about to happen. I was grateful for the effort on all fronts, but I didn’t want to go back to any of that. Not even a little bit.
The memory of that was enough to push aside the strange yearning that was swirling around low in my stomach.
Letting out a bored sigh, I shoved the sunglasses back up on my face and said simply, “No.”
I didn’t glance over at them as I lay back down and pretended to close my eyes. Instead, I actually kept them open and out of the corner of my vision, I could see him—Mr. Johnson—glance at April for help. I could imagine her reaction. She wasn’t a stranger to my moods or my tantrums, though I did my best to keep them to a minimum. I didn’t need to be that kind of starlet, no matter how much money I had.
I just barely heard April whisper something to him, though I couldn’t make out what it was. Maybe explaining my temperament or maybe just telling him to be patient. Who knew? It didn’t matter to me. I didn’t want him here. Not as a bodyguard—or anything else. And I’d be happy to tell Caleb as much as soon as this asshole was out of my house and off my property.
“No?” This was Mr. Johnson.
I didn’t answer, pretending not to have heard him. The next time he spoke, he was much closer.
“Hey, quit being a diva and answer me. What do you mean no?”
I didn’t move, though I felt my cheeks redden at the diva comment. Anger flared inside me, but I shoved it down. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of getting a rise out of me. Letting out another sigh, I told him, “No as in not you. Is that clear enough, Neanderthal, or should I try and grunt it?”
By this point I’d caved and was now looking at him, trying to fix him with a piercing glare. Instead, I admitted only to myself that I was checking him out. My eyes, still carefully covered by my glasses, raked down his body, devouring the sight of his muscles beneath the shirt that clutched at them as desperately as I wanted to.
“I didn’t peg you as the type to grunt,” he told me, and my body trembled at the low, rough tone of his voice, like gravel rolling beneath the tires of my car. “You look more like a screamer.”
Oh, holy hell!
I tried to swallow down the sudden swell of desire as I had a flash of him on top of me, those large hands which had so deftly saved me the night before now raking themselves down my form harshly, leaving fire in their wake.
Forcing the image from my mind, I gathered up what indignation I could muster. I stood up, finding myself much closer to his hard frame than I had anticipated. Reaching my hand back, I cocked it and then swung it forward, palm open, prepared to deliver a resounding smack that would make me feel better and help disguise some of my unanticipated lust.
But it never made contact.
About an inch from his face, he stopped me. His large, rough hand grabbed my wrist, so strong that I felt as though he could break me in an instant. But he didn’t. Instead, he jerked me forward until I crashed against his chest. A shiver of desire ran through my body. It made me as angry as his hand around my wrist did.
“Easy, princess,” he rumbled.
I made a frustrated noise and jerked my hand from his grasp. It came free easily, though I knew it was because he let me go rather than him not being strong enough to hold me.
“Don’t you ever touch me,” I instructed furiously, because I was sure I would melt if he ever did again. “I don’t want to have to shower again today.”
His dark eyes narrowed at me and he opened his mouth to say something back to me, but I wouldn’t let him. I pushed past him, letting my shoulder catch his, which was all muscle. “April!” I called. She was still waiting by the door patiently and looked a little exasperated by my antics. I instantly felt a little guilty; she clearly thought I was being childish. But I pushed that aside and remembered that I didn’t want him here. “Escort Mr. Johnson out. I don’t want him here.”
“No can do. Caleb gave me very specific orders and you don’t get to veto them.”
I shot him a poisonous glare. “I said leave. April, show him the door.”
“No,” he told me, folding his arms across his chest, making the muscles stand out.
April briefly looked panicked, like she wasn’t sure what to do, and I felt kind of bad for her. Despite us being friends, I was her boss, yet I could tell that she didn’t want to escort him anywhere. Whether that was because she honestly wanted him here for his protection or because he was big and she was tiny, I couldn’t tell.
“Fine then,” I ground out. “I’ll call my uncle and then you’ll have to leave!”
As I stormed into the house to my phone, I heard him mutter something behind me that might have been, “You do that, princess.”
I furiously dialed Caleb’s number. It rang twice and then he picked up. Before
he could even say hello, I told him, “Recall your guy.”
There was a pause. “You have a problem with Kade?”
I had to assume that the Mr. Johnson on my patio was his Kade. I told myself not to bother memorizing his name, but it was already ingrained in my head. I didn’t think I’d ever forget that sexy man outside, though I told myself that he was just a man.
“Whoever he is, yes, I want him gone. He’s an ass.”
There was another pause and when Uncle Caleb spoke again I thought I heard a hint of amusement in his voice. “Has he done anything?”
“He’s here! Isn’t that enough?” I shrilled into the phone. “He’s a crude ruffian and I don’t want him here!”
This time there was definitely amusement in his voice. I could picture him leaning back in his chair, smiling as he spoke to me, smug and annoying as only he could be. “I see. Well, unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of Prince Charmings on hand, but I happen to have a wealth of ruffians. Trust me when I say he’s the best of a rough bunch.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard,” I tried, switching arguments because I was starting to realize that Caleb wasn’t going to give me someone else just because I said I didn’t like this Kade guy. “I’m fine on my own.”
“No, you’re not,” Caleb countered, and the amusement was gone from his voice. He wasn’t kidding. “You were attacked. You need someone to protect you. Period.”
“Fine, but does it have to be him?” I couldn’t help the whining tone of my voice.
“Sorry, but it does.” The smile in his voice was back and it pissed me off more than just about anything else.
“Just give me someone else!”
“Nope.”
I glared at the phone before yelling at him, “Ugh! I hate you!”
At this, Uncle Caleb actually let out a full belly laugh that lasted long enough that I was about to hang up on him when he finally said, “Love you, too, princess.”
Then the line went dead. I’d officially lost this battle. Caleb would give me anything in the world, whatever I wanted, if he could. Except someone else, and I knew there was a reason for it. It likely meant that this guy was the best of the best, equal parts dangerous and loyal. Someone my uncle trusted enough to leave with me when he wasn’t here.
It pissed me off because it meant that I wouldn’t be able to sway him. It pissed me off because it meant that I was going to have to deal with this Kade character for as long as Caleb felt I was in danger.
It pissed me off because, despite my anger, there was a hot and bothered part of me that wanted nothing more than to have him stay the night at my house. In my bedroom. Beside me. Naked. Sweating. Pumping.
I shook the thoughts from my head, because I wouldn’t let this man get to me. I was stronger than that.
I didn’t care how deliciously attractive he was.
Chapter Four
Kade
Day one was going rougher than I had thought, and I hadn’t expected a smooth landing in the first place. Start with a pissed off, prissy starlet who didn’t want anything to do with me, then add a dangerous biker gang leader for an uncle, and just for good measure throw in a hard cock lusting after her perky, smooth body.
Yep, definitely wasn’t going well.
Abby had spent the first hour of my arrival telling me all about how she didn’t want me here. How she thought that I was crude and awful, uncouth and everything she didn’t want in a man in general, not even a bodyguard. Although her words had stung a little bit, I wasn’t really all that offended by them. She wouldn’t be the first woman to tell me that I wasn’t her type—and a lot of the time they still ended up riding me until they were sweaty and boneless. Mostly, I tuned her out and let her rant, enjoying the view. She’d stayed in that little triangle bikini set, so there was plenty good to look at.
Pacing around the room—we’d moved into the massive living room at this point—I watched as her hips swayed back and forth and her breasts bounced. Her bikini turned out to be a string bikini, for which I was eternally grateful. The backside of her bottoms was little more than a tiny triangle that sat upon the tops of her ass cheeks before the string disappeared between them, leaving the rest bare.
Her ass was round and firm with those perfectly rounded bottoms that liked to hang out of booty shorts and panties. Seeing them just exposed like that was giving me a raging hard-on, but I couldn’t really say that I was upset about it.
Her long legs moved gracefully, like she was a model on a catwalk, as she paced back and forth. The pacing was nice because it let me watch her backside for a little bit, her hips rounded and full, her legs perfectly toned with that little space between them at the apex of her thighs where I knew her hot core was. Then she would turn around to walk back toward me again, and I could see her trim waist and her large, perky breasts, the nipples showing through the stretchy triangles of her bathing suit top. They bounced a little as she walked, pushing together and swinging just a little with each step.
Oh, yes, it wasn’t all bad despite the lecture.
“Are you even listening to me?” she half screamed at me.
She had stopped pacing and was now standing about a foot away from where I’d plopped down into one of her overstuffed armchairs. She had her hands on her full hips and was leaning forward slightly so that her breasts had come together, pushed by gravity, leaving a line of cleavage that was enticing and still a little shiny from whatever suntan lotion she’d used earlier. Her long blonde hair tumbled down over one shoulder looking like spun silk, urging me to reach for it and run my thick fingers through what I knew would be incredibly soft strands.
“Sure,” I said, my voice rougher than I’d intended. “You hate my guts, wish I’d get the hell out of here, you don’t need a bodyguard anyway, blah, blah, blah. Did I miss anything?”
Her bright blue eyes narrowed at me, reminding me that her face was just as sweet and beautiful as the rest of her perfectly shaped, tempting body. Her lips were full despite being pursed together and she looked like she wanted to try to smack me again.
Don’t do it, I thought, because I knew how that would go. I wouldn’t just stand there and let her slap me, not when I didn’t deserve it. And if she tried again, then I’d catch her wrist again. From there, things would deteriorate quickly.
I was already sitting and she was already leaning forward. My cock was hard and her body was all but screaming for lewd things to be done to it. I wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to pull her to me, to jerk her hand enough that she lost her footing and fell onto my lap, maybe with her legs spread to catch herself so that she’d straddle me. And then I’d have to pull her closer until her breasts pushed against me and I felt the nipples through my thin t-shirt. Her warm core would be poised right over the zipper of my jeans and I could jerk up into it.
I snapped back to the present when Abby pulled away a little, her cheeks flushed with anger. Her arms folded just beneath her breasts, making them push together even more. Hope flared when they looked like they might pop loose of those little triangles to show me her already pebbled nipples. I was willing to bet they were a rosy pink color.
Stop it, I admonished myself. I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me. I wasn’t usually this uncontrollably horny, but with her all bets seemed to be off.
Which was definitely not good. I needed to keep a healthy dose of distance between myself and her if only because I knew that Caleb was not going to be okay with me trying to get into her pants. And if she actually let me…well, that wouldn’t go over any better.
“You’re an ass,” she told me suddenly, turning away so that I could see her perfect behind again.
Focus, focus, I told myself. The problem was, her body seemed to be all I could focus on right then. Yep, I definitely need to find some horny chick to fuck. And soon.
While she was turned away, I adjusted myself in my jeans, hoping that my hard-on was discreet enough beneath the denim.
“Look, lady,” I st
arted, pushing aside my desire as best I could. How could such a bombshell be such a bitch? “I didn’t ask to be here, okay? I was told to watch you and that’s what I’m going to do because your uncle is my boss and I like my job. I like it enough to want to keep it. So it looks like we’re just going to be stuck with each other for a while.”
I saw her shoulders tense. There was a pause and I thought maybe I had gotten through to her—could we actually reach some sort of civility?—but then she opened her mouth again. “Right, I’m sure this is just torture for you. You have to stay in this big mansion and watch me, a famous movie star! It must be just horrible for you.”