82

2
CALL AN
“If either of you touches her, I’ll break your fingers,” Ethan said the moment the door closed behind Adrianne.
My God, did she have a sweet ass. The fabric of her dress clung in all the right places. His words didn’t register until after the click of the door.
That wasn’t a very LT thing to say. “Since when do you get jealous?” I asked. The three of us had shared more than one woman in the past, and being jealous had never been an issue.
Ethan’s jaw clenched so hard, I was shocked that there wasn’t an audible crack. “I’m serious, Cal,” he said. “If she signs the contract with us, then she’s our client. We don’t fuck clients.”
I bit back a groan. Damn him, but he was right. That was the rule that we had agreed on when we started the firm. “She’s a beautiful woman,” Foster said a little mournfully. At least, mournful for him.
A laugh punched its way from my gut. “Well, holy shit, if Foster says something about a woman, that means we’re obligated to seduce her,” I said half-jokingly.
Foster was closer than a brother, but the dude didn’t talk much. He hadn’t in all the years we’d known him.
When he gave his opinion on something, even something as innocuous as the obvious beauty of a woman, it was a big deal.
“Fuck off.”
“Shut up, Cal.”
They both spoke at once, and I had to shush them when the door pushed open again. Adrianne was even better coming than she was going.
She had a luscious, curvy body, wavy brown hair, and chocolate eyes that hid absolutely nothing. “Have you guys decided who’s coming home with me?” she asked.
I stood. “That would be me,” I said without waiting for either of them to say anything else. I’d known Ethan a long time, and if he had his way, we’d be treating this woman like any other Hollywood starlet we’d worked for . . . but I saw the way she reacted to us.
It was going to be impossible to ignore, whether Ethan wanted to ignore it for now or not. “That okay with you?”
She nodded. “Perfectly okay.”
Ethan held up a manilla folder. “We do need to sign the contract-”
I grabbed it from him, ignoring his death-glare. I had been the target of that look many, many times over the years. It didn’t affect me anymore. “I’ll go through it with her and give it to you tomorrow,” I told him, but my eyes never left her face. “Did you drive? Or can we take my car? Either way, I need to stop and get my go-bag from my office.”
“Go-bag?”
“Clothes and other essentials ready to go at a moment’s notice,” I explained and started leading her out of the office. “We never know how these jobs are going to pop up, and sometimes, going home first isn’t an option.”
“I took an Uber here,” she admitted. “I didn’t want anyone following my car.”
Over her shoulder, Ethan grinned. “That was smart, Adrianne,” he said, and her cheeks flushed the prettiest shade of pink I’d ever seen. “Callan will take you home, and then he can walk you through the contract. If you have any questions, he should be able to help, or he can call me, and I’ll go over things with you myself.”
His words were pointed, and as we walked out of the room, I raised my hand in acknowledgement. “See you in the morning, boys,” I called over my shoulder.
Adrianne had already made it to Ethan’s assistant’s desk when he called out my name. “Callan!” I looked back. “Watch yourself.”
“I got it, Merc.” I shut the door a touch harder than I meant to, and the slam echoed throughout the front office.
Adrianne stared at me. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“It’s fine,” I assured her, even as anger boiled in my gut. Ethan didn’t usually question my judgement this much. He wasn’t lying when he told Adriane that he trusted Foster and me with his life . . . so why didn’t he trust me with Adrianne?
It wasn’t like I was some kind of barbarian. I could behave myself.
“Do you need to run home?” Adrianne asked. “I don’t mind making a stop if there’s something specific that you’d like to grab.” She smiled, and it held a hint of a tease. “Pillow, security blankie.”
I had a moment to imagine taking her to my apartment, her sitting on my couch or perched on a stool at the counter, waiting while I packed an overnight bag . . . and the righteous confidence that I had in myself only moments ago disappeared.
If I had her anywhere near my bed, I’d never let her out of it. “Nah,” I said. “My go-bag is pretty well-stocked.”
Adrianne didn’t look quite convinced, but we stopped by my office so I could grab the duffel that I’d carried around in some form or fashion since becoming a SEAL. It was a tenement of being in the military to always be prepared, and once I got into the habit, I couldn’t break myself of it. Not that it’s been a bad thing, working here, I thought.
We rode the elevator down to the ground floor. “I’m in the parking garage across the way,” I said, pointing to the structure. “If you want to wait here, I can-”
Adrianne huffed and rolled those warm brown eyes. “I am more than capable of walking across a street with you.” A look must have passed over my face because she frowned, and even then, she was beautiful. “You’re all going to have to stop thinking about me in whatever way you are right now,” she said.
Her words were a challenge, and I couldn’t stop the smirk that turned up the corner of my mouth. “And how do I think of you?” I asked. My voice came out low and husky.
Adrianne shivered, and her eyes went round. Almost instinctively, she tipped her head up to me. This was a woman who wanted to be kissed, and she wanted me to kiss her.
I was so screwed.
“I’m not made of glass, and I don’t want to be treated that way,” she said. “I didn’t grow up as some kind of Hollywood Hills princess.”
I studied her. Half-defiant, half-yearning was written all over her face. “What if I wanted to treat you like a princess?” I asked.
It was a dangerous game to go against Ethan’s direct orders, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “You look like a woman who needs a little spoiling.”
Her eyes hardened a bit now, and she stood up straighter with her shoulders squared. “I don’t want to be spoiled.” She pushed the glass door and was out on the busy sidewalk before I could stop her.
Panic sizzled down my spine, and I bolted after her. She had made it all of three steps, but she had no idea what could happen in the blink of an eye. I wrapped my hand around her arm and tugged, swinging her around so that her back was pressed flat against the building. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I barked at her.
Adrianne was just as pissed. She wrenched her arm out of my grip. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hissed back. “You can’t put your hands on me!”
“I wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t run into a potentially dangerous situation.”
“Potentially dangerous?” She scoffed. “The sidewalk is dangerous?”
“When you have a stalker, yes!” I was shouting, but I couldn’t stop myself. “That’s why we tell clients not to ditch us . . . because we could end up ass-deep in alligators in a second.”
Her eyes softened as comprehension dawned on her face. My chest loosened, and I realized I had all but smashed her into the building, and I backed off. “You hired us as bodyguards, Adrianne. You’ve got to let us guard your body, or we can’t do our jobs.”
She ducked her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t my intention.”
I deflated. “I’m sorry for grabbing you,” I said. “That wasn’t professional of me in the slightest. I would understand if you’d rather Ethan or Foster took you home.”
Adrianne stared at me, hard, for a moment before she shook her head. “Let’s just get out of here.”
I tipped my head. “Yes, ma’am.”
We crossed the street to the park structure. Her footsteps echoed off the concrete as we walked halfway up the ramp to where my truck was parked. It was a brand-new Ford F150, but Adrianne looked out of place standing
next to a pickup. “If I ask you for help, will you respect me more or less?” she asked.
I took the key fob from my pocket and unlocked the truck, and then I moved around and pulled the passenger door open. I held out my hand for her. “More,” I said. “Definitely more.”
She rolled her eyes, but still, she put her hand in mine, and I braced her while she climbed the running board to get into the truck. As she stepped up, her dress rose and exposed a long line of luscious thigh. I snapped my eyes to the car parked across the way.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. I looked back. She’d settled herself-and pulled her dress back down-in my passenger seat. “Callan?”
I like her saying my name, I thought dazedly. “Nothing’s wrong,” I promised and grabbed for the door. “Watch out, now.” She kept her hands out of the way, and I was able to shut the door for her.
I threw my bag into the bed of the truck and went around to climb behind the wheel. As soon as I turned the truck on, Adrianne reached over and started adjusting the dials on the radio. “You’re not shy at all, are you?”
She shot me a glowing smile. “Job hazard,” she retorted. “I hope you don’t mind.”
I didn’t, and I told her so. “I do need one thing, though.” She looked at me. “What?”
“Your address.”
“Oh!” She flushed. “Duh, that makes sense.” Adrianne gave me her address. I put it into the GPS on my phone, and then we were off toward Mulholland Drive. We weren’t more than five minutes away from the firm when Adrianne started singing with the radio.
I grinned so hard that it actually hurt my face. For all of Adrianne’s talents-I’d seen her movies, and she was fantastic at what she did-she didn’t have a great voice. It was more like cats in a bag being hit off a brick wall, but she didn’t seem to care at all. It was adorable. She was comfortable in the truck, in front of me, and I liked that a lot.
Working in professional security, our clients were usually polite and distant. I had never had an A-list celebrity sitting in my passenger seat, let alone rocking along with the radio like she wasn’t one of the most well- known actresses in the world right now.
We rounded a curve and came to the gated entrance to her neighborhood. I pulled up beside the gate, and the guard eyed me,
unimpressed. “I think you’re in the wrong place, sir,” he said with the kind of imperial, high-and-mighty tone that was so common in Los Angeles.
I lived all over the world during my service with the SEALs, and there was no place quite like California. Foster loved it, but there were days I wanted to put my fist through someone’s face.
“I’m here for-”
The guard turned and at least met my eyes now. “What you’re looking for isn’t here, sir.”
“Now, look here-”
Adrianne leaned over my lap. Her breasts pressed into my leg, and my cock twitched inside my jeans. My body locked up, willing her not to feel me. “Sam?” she called, totally unbothered, and the guard’s eyes almost popped out of his skull. “Can you let us through, please?”
Sam scrambled to punch the button to raise the gate. “Right away, Ms.
Montoya! Right away. I am so sorry.”
The gate went up, and Adrianne sat back with a grin. I drove through the gate, and Adrianne pointed out the directions. “I’m on the second street on the left,” she said, nearly leaning over into my lap again.
The house sat on a corner lot, surrounded by a wrought iron fence and lush green hedges. It was pretty, had an old-Hollywood vibe to it, but it definitely wasn’t the largest house in the area. Under 2500 square feet, it looked tiny among all the huge manors. Adrianne pulled out her phone and tapped on it, and the gate opened. “That’s convenient.”
She smiled my way. “It’s an app. I can basically control everything in the house from it.”
That doesn’t sound secure, I thought. Ethan would need to know about it, but I didn’t say anything to her. She was so proud of it, and I didn’t want to be the one to ruin it for her. I parked in the space beside a white BMW. “Stay here,” I said.
“Why?” I stared at her, mouth pressed into a line, and she sighed. “I’m not trying to get away from you or anything, but I need things explained to me, okay? So I understand why I’m being told to do something.”
A woman after my own heart. I had said something similar to Ethan not too long after we were put together as a SEAL team. I needed to know the motivation for the order, or I had a hard time following what I was meant to be doing. I could have gotten a lot of people killed. “I’m going to do a sweep through your house to make sure there’s nobody there, okay? I want
you to stay here while I do that, in the truck, with the doors locked, until I come and get you.”
Adrianne frowned, obviously not happy about that, but she nodded. “Okay.” She set her teeth into her bottom lip. She tapped on her phone again. When she released her lip, I could see the indentations from her teeth. There was no way that didn’t hurt. “The door’s unlocked now. You’ll be quick, won’t you?” she asked.
I reached out and brushed her lip with my thumb, soothing the bite marks. Her breath hitched. “You don’t need to be afraid. I’m here to protect you.”
Her eyes met mine. “I’m not afraid for me,” she said. “What if there is someone in the house? What happens to you?”
“Sweet girl,” I breathed out, “I am more than capable of keeping myself safe. Don’t you worry about me.” Still, when she went to bite down on her lip again, I leaned forward and brushed a kiss to her lips. It was quick, just to stop her anxiety, but a wounded sound tore from her throat and her hands touched my face.
I flicked my tongue out, tasting that bottom lip for just a moment, before I tore myself away from her and practically threw myself out of the truck. I pressed the Lock button, and I stalked into the house.