by LJ Evans
She pulled away. “Please. Like ten is anything big. How many can you do?”
“As many as needed.”
It wasn’t a brag. It was a fact.
“Oooohhkay. How many is that?” she asked.
“’Til I’m told to stop or everyone else has dropped.” She didn’t roll her eyes again, but I was pretty sure she wanted to. I followed her question up with one of my own. “How many push-ups can you do?”
Her lips quirked. “As many as needed.”
That made my lips twitch in response. “Challenge accepted.”
She laughed sarcastically. “Please. I’m not insane enough to think I can surpass a SEAL in the push-up count.”
“You’ve already shocked me. Are you afraid you’ll sully the image with some lame-ass girl push-ups?” I goaded her, knowing she couldn’t resist. I wanted to see her in action more.
“Sure, challenge me after I’ve already done the pull-ups,” she said dryly, but she went to a mat in the corner of the room, and I followed her.
We got down, facing each other, some kind of twisted mirror of each other. Two people who didn’t give in or give up easily.
She smirked at me and said, “I feel the need to set some rules of engagement.”
“This isn’t an operation, Athena,” I said with a full smile hitting my face. “But what did you have in mind?”
“You have to do two for every one of mine,” she said.
“Only two?”
“Don’t get all cocky on me now, Pretty Boy,” she said, and I couldn’t help my eyebrows going up at her word choice that brought us back to the last challenge we’d engaged in.
She did a push-up, and I did two. They were nothing to me. I’d been doing push-ups since starting military school; they were second nature, like taking a step or lifting my arm.
We continued to count off, and her breath got rocky fairly quickly whereas mine felt like I’d barely woken up. She made it to seventy-five before she stopped, rolling over on her back to catch her breath.
But that put her face even closer to mine. Her lips a millimeter away as I continued to do push-ups. If she turned her head, our mouths would merge. It was a beautiful torture as I continued to press. Up and down. Lips close, closer, backing away. So tempting. Taunting me.
I’d stopped counting, mesmerized by her look, and I about broke apart when she put her finger in her mouth as I lowered once more. She pulled it out, moving it slowly toward me while I stared, before suddenly sticking it in my ear.
I collapsed onto the mat with a grunt of surprise and a chuckle in my chest. “Holy shit, did you just give me a Wet Willy?”
She was up off the mat, laughing, allowing the tension which scoured us to drift away momentarily. A break in the campaign of animosity and desire. But there was no way I was letting her get away without retaliating.
I was up and after her before she could get anywhere near the door. I crushed her perfectly defined body up against the wall, gazing into her face as her eyes went wide. I stuck my finger in my mouth and then dragged it along her jaw. She squirmed, but she was laughing at the same time.
She tried, reflexively, to get her hand up to defend herself, but I grabbed both her wrists in one hand while rewetting my finger and outlining her ear and dragging it down to her neck. It was childish. An immature prank. And yet, with her, it felt nothing like a joke. It felt like foreplay I’d never be able to finish. I pressed my thigh against her pelvic bone and was rewarded with a little moan.
The fitness room door slammed shut, causing me to pull away, the noise startling us back to reality as Marco came around the corner. Out of the entire detail, he and Trevor were the two I’d found any grudging respect for. Surprise registered in his reflection in the mirror. He hadn’t seen anything damaging. He hadn’t seen anything that couldn’t be played off, but his wheels were still turning.
“Thank God,” Dani said. “Finally, someone who can give him some real opposition. I don’t think I’d survive if he challenged me to a sit-up competition.”
She grabbed her water bottle and her towel, heading for the door.
“Don’t doubt yourself, Athena. You were competition enough.”
I watched her leave, her damn butt swaying in those tight yoga pants, her body perfectly sweaty in a way I knew would welcome me if we fell into bed together right at that moment. The heat between us was going to be impossible to ignore, but that was exactly what I had to do in order to keep her and everyone else safe. I couldn’t be distracted.
Dani
BACK TO YOU
“Overthinking every word and I hate it.
'Cause it's not me,
And what's the point in hiding?
Everybody knows we got unfinished business.”
Performed by Selena Gomez
Written by Allen / Van Elsas / Premnath / Warrington / Gomez
I headed out of the hotel fitness room with my entire body in flames. I didn’t even have to think about putting my earbuds in as the elevator door opened. I was already completely and one hundred percent in a different world. Even so, I was grateful the car was empty, allowing me to stand by the doors as my mind and body returned to the room I’d just left.
My heart had leaped into my throat when I’d seen Nash standing there, his loose workout clothes not hiding anything about him. His dark eyes hooded as he took me in. His face coated in a five o’clock shadow that had turned into 5:00 a.m. growth. Burn and boil had been Bee’s words, and that was exactly what he did to me just by examining me.
His hands on my body as he’d corrected my form during my pull-ups had the smell of him flooding my senses. It was something uniquely Nash. Like salty seawater and earthy pine trees. Air and water and land merging together just like the SEAL teams were so well known for. A heady smell that made me forget everything but the square cut of his jaw I’d kissed and the unforgiving lips which had bruised mine so beautifully.
It was the impressed look on his face mixed with the tone he’d used that had me accepting his challenge. I couldn’t resist the urge to match him that had filled me. My only wish being that I’d actually had enough muscle to keep up with him so I could have shocked him further.
When I’d finally caved, rolling over after the seventy-fifth push-up, I’d been lost, studying him as he continued to move. He’d looked like he could keep going forever. His words, “as many as needed,” had rung in my head. I’d felt like I’d lost my everlasting mind watching his beautiful body work. Muscles flexing and unflexing. Cuts that were always defined, outlined more, etching themselves into my brain.
It was what had me sticking my wet finger in his ear as a way to break myself out of the sexual tension he’d wrapped me in. I hadn’t expected him to give chase. I hadn’t expected him to push me against the wall, making my whole body light up like a flare being sent. S.O.S. I needed help, but no one was coming to rescue me.
The wet drag of his finger over my face and neck should have been gross. It should have been the most disgusting thing in the world, but it had only turned me on more, proving just how ridiculously senseless he made me. The pressure of his hands, the body that was slammed against mine with hard parts everywhere, including the part that had made me moan.
The elevator chimed, and I stepped off into the hallway.
My body was shaking, but it wasn’t from thoughts of Fenway.
Nash wasn’t anywhere near me. I’d left him floors below, and yet, I swore I could still feel those damn green lasers following me to my door. I was in serious trouble if he was going to tag along on this tour with us. I wasn’t sure I could continue to pretend to hate him.
But it was easier than allowing myself to like him.
♫ ♫ ♫
I successfully avoided any interaction with Nash for the rest of the day. According to Lee, he was holed up in the room with Tanner, arguing the ten pages of changes he’d suggested they make to their security. I wanted to smirk because, to Nash
, they wouldn’t be suggestions at all. They’d be requirements.
As I was packing up my computer to go back to my room before getting ready for our long night at the venue, Brady sat down on the tabletop, feet swinging, watching me.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Just wondering how ignoring the hottest man alive is going for you, babe,” he said with lips quirking.
“You’re not supposed to be calling anyone, babe, remember?” I scolded, ignoring the rest of the comment.
He tweaked his leather bracelets. “I’m mostly broken of the habit. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“Was there really a question?” I asked, putting my bag on my shoulder and heading toward the door of the suite.
He started laughing. “You do have it bad if you’re deflecting and running.”
“Please. There’s nothing between the Otter and me.”
There couldn’t be. Mac would hate us both, and who knew what Tristan would think.
Marco made a grunting noise from his position near the door, and my eyes narrowed on him. Brady picked up on it immediately.
“You have the goods and holding out on me, Marco?” Brady jumped off the table, walking to stand next to the large man with his arms crossed.
Marco’s eyes slid from Brady’s to mine and back again.
Brady wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and Marco stiffened, but Brady eased his body into Marco’s side. “Spill the beans,” he half-whispered into Marco’s ear.
I rolled my eyes and pulled Brady away. “Stop torturing the man. Not everyone is as comfortable as you with their sexuality, and I don’t want to deal with the publicity of a sexual harassment case. There’s nothing to spill, anyway.”
Marco choked, and I wagged a finger between the two of them as I opened the door. “You two play nice, or I’ll sic Lee on both of you.”
Brady smiled and headed toward one of the bedrooms in the suite, and I swore Marco’s lips were twitching.
Hours later, it was my lips that were twitching as I scrambled to catch a soft football with Brady’s name and the Ghost tour logo on it. The kid playing with me was trying desperately to make sure I couldn’t catch it, but I was keeping up halfway decently, considering I was in wedges. We’d been tossing the ball in the stadium’s VIP lounge for the last thirty minutes of the concert after his parents had asked me to show him around while they watched the concert unhindered from the balcony of their cushy box.
After a handful of throws, I’d discarded the lemon-colored jacket I’d worn for its shade of optimism and debated taking off my shoes. Not knowing what was on the floor of the room had me leaving them on.
Down onstage, Brady’s final song came to a crashing close. The crowd below was chanting and clapping, hoping Brady would come back onstage even as the overhead lights came on, signaling it was time to leave. I handed the boy back the football.
“Hang on to this, and I’ll have Brady sign it when he gets up here,” I told him.
He shrugged as if he didn’t care either way.
Tanner began letting people into the room who’d paid or been invited to see Brady after the show, and I went to work as we waited for Brady’s arrival. When he did show, Nash, Marco, and Trevor were with him. Nash’s eyes searched the room until they landed on me. He dragged them over my whole body, logging every detail of me again as if to see if anything had changed in the couple hours since he’d last seen me. His eyes lingered at the top of my flowered tank, and I reflexively pulled at it to make sure it hadn’t slid down to expose anything while I’d played catch.
I directed Brady to the worst of the privileged guests first. It allowed him to end his night on a good note as well as let the most decent people have more time with him. Tonight, the last couple Brady greeted had a child in a wheelchair with them. She had a cast that went from the bottom of her foot almost to her hip bone, and Brady knelt to talk to her. Everyone smiled while she told a very animated version of how she’d gotten the cast, waving her hands as if she wasn’t starstruck at all. Brady signed the cast and then gave her a sweatshirt which was a dozen sizes too big. It wasn’t until he kissed her cheek that the little girl flushed a thousand shades of red and almost keeled over.
Once the room was vacant of everyone but Brady’s team, Nash started a rolling check-in to ensure the path down to the bulletproof SUVs was clear. The limousines were a thing of our past due to Nash’s new measures. The team sent their responses back through the echo of the walkie-talkies, but I was positive they were also going off in the earpieces most of the team wore.
Marco and Trevor were cleared to leave with Brady, and I went to gather my things. As I went to pull my jacket off the leather chair where I’d left it, I froze. I blinked to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but then my breath caught somewhere in my chest. My beautiful jacket had a knife sticking out of it. A long knife embedded so harshly into the chair that I could see the tip sticking out of the other side where a piece of paper dangled.
I wrapped my arms around myself, turning to search the room with my eyes. They landed on Nash, and he frowned before following my gaze back to the desecrated chair and jacket. I backed farther away from the table, and then he was there, arms around me, pulling me to his muscled torso. Holding me, soothing me, while at the same time talking into his mic.
“Tanner. We have a problem. Get your ass up here, and call the police while you’re at it.”
I hadn’t even registered that Tanner had left the lounge. I swirled my eyes around the space, and they settled on the paper sticking to my jacket. The words in dripping red ink read:
No one replaces me. Daniella Whittaker, tag you’re it.
I gasped, and Nash’s arms tightened around me, turning me so I could no longer see the chair or my jacket, but it was too late. The words and the image were burned into my brain. A new attack. A new assault I hadn’t been prepared for, couldn’t control, and would never forget. My heart was pounding at a pace I wouldn’t be able to sustain without keeling over.
“Say that again?” Tanner’s voice sounded bored as it came over the walkie-talkie. It was an attitude he was trying to perfect after Nash had been pissing all over his detail for over a day.
“Get up here and call the police,” Nash said.
I tried to focus on the voices and the bodies in the room instead of what I’d seen. I tried to feel the push of my toes in my shoes and the hardness of the floor below them. I focused on the heat of Nash’s arm around me and the smell of fried food and beer. I concentrated on anything which would ground me to where I was at.
“Are we holding off taking Ghost to the vehicle?” Marco’s voice came back.
“Yes. Bring him back to the VIP lounge until we clear the building,” Nash said.
“No,” Tanner retorted. “Take Ghost as scheduled.”
“Guess what, asswipe?” Nash’s voice was cold. “Your little stalker has just changed your plans. Everybody back to the VIP lounge.”
I pushed away from him, but Nash pulled me back. “Don’t move. She could still be somewhere in the building.”
And that stilled me again. The knowledge she’d been there, on the same floor as me, while I was playing football and smiling at the VIPs. While I was doing my job…the one that had been hers.
Marco, Trevor, Brady, Lee, and two more of the detail returned to the lounge. Brady and Lee took in the jacket and the note with horror-struck faces. Nash moved the three of us into a booth while he gave orders for the team to clear the floor and the building.
Brady slung his arm around me, and the heat of his body did nothing to center me the way Nash’s had. I almost pushed away. I almost took off running but choked back the stupid fight-or-flight reaction I was having. I wouldn’t give in to it.
“Dani, I’m so sorry,” Brady said, regret in his voice. “I had no idea she’d come after whomever replaced her. It’s so irrational.”
It took a long time for the tea
m to clear the building. Nash never left the room, eyeing the doors with a scowl on his face until the majority of the detail made it back into the lounge, and then he stormed over to the table.
“NDA or not, someone needs to read me in on this entire situation.” It wasn’t a request. Everyone was quiet, uncomfortable.
Nash eyed me, and I said, “Don’t look at me; I know as little as you.”
“As you know, Fiona was my PR manager before Dani,” Brady said with a sigh, removing his arm from my shoulder and putting his head in his hands on the table, dragging his fingers through his hair. “Originally, because I was so small, Fiona was both my PR and business manager. Lots of artists have people with multiple roles when they’re starting out, but as my career took off, we had to add more staff. About six months ago, the new business manager approached Lee with some anomalies. There was money going out to some accounts in the Caymans that we didn’t know about.”
“She was stealing money?” Nash said, surprise registering in his voice.
Lee nodded and took over for an upset Brady. “We thought it was her, but we needed proof. We set up some scenarios and watched what happened. At about the same time, Alice came onboard, and she said items were disappearing. Guitar pics. Brady’s red, white, and blue mic he used on special occasions. Clothes he wore during concerts. She blamed herself at first then thought someone was stealing them to resell—which happens more than you know. One day, she walked into a dressing room to find Fiona with a bunch of items in her hands. When Alice called her on it, Fiona said Brady had sent her to collect them.”
“She started showing up in my hotel room.” Brady dove back in with a shiver. “I mean, she had a key everywhere we went, just like Lee. But this was weird shit. Like, I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and she’d be lying in the bed with me.”
“Holy hell!” I breathed out.
“Worse, we discovered she’d taken pictures while I was passed out, making it look like we’d been…”
“Fuck,” Nash said, and Brady grimaced.