Lisa Childs - In The Bodyguard's Arms

Even now he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

He was just going to take what was his. She was his and his alone.

Even though he would pass, he couldn’t wait for a background check to clear him to own a firearm. He would have to find another weapon to use to eliminate her bodyguard. He would not tolerate anyone trying to come between him and what was his. And if he couldn’t have Teddie, well then, nobody would.

* * *

“I’m so sorry,” Teddie said, blinking against the sudden light as Jordan flicked on the power again. She stared down at the knife lying on the hardwood floor next to his gun. She had nearly stabbed him. Well, maybe not nearly. He had disarmed her quickly and easily.

Jordan closed the cabinet of the electrical panel. “You have no reason to be sorry,” he said.

Now she stared at him in shock. “I pepper-sprayed you,” she reminded him.

Not that he would have needed the reminder. His eyes were still red, still watering.

“And I could have killed you.” She gestured at the long knife.

He chuckled as he leaned over and picked up the knife and the gun. He slid the gun back into the holster he wore over his black T-shirt. The cotton was molded to his heavily muscled chest, and his arms bulged.

And she almost laughed, too, at the ridiculous notion that she could have hurt him. He held the knife, handle out, toward her.

But she shook her head. “I don’t want it back.”

“If you don’t want to hang on to it, at least keep it close,” he advised her. “You were smart to arm yourself. I should have told you I was at the door.”

“You had a key,” she said, and she tensed at the sudden realization. “I didn’t give my keys to the Payne Protection Agency.” So how was it that he had a set?

“I found them,” he explained, “when I found your stalker’s campsite in the woods.”

She shivered, as she was thoroughly chilled again. For a little while, when she’d realized the intruder was her bodyguard, she had felt safe—especially in his strong arms, pressed against his hard body.

She had felt things other than safe, too. She’d felt an attraction, a need for closeness, that she hadn’t experienced in a very long time and maybe never at that intensity.

But his words had completely shattered her brief sense of security.

“You found his campsite?” she asked as fear skittered throughout her again. “He’s camped out close to here?”

Within sight? She felt as if he was always watching her—no matter where she was, no matter how far she’d gone to try to escape him.

Jordan Mannes’s massively broad shoulders moved up and down as he shrugged. “I don’t know how close the camp was. It was so damn dark out there, I got turned around. I couldn’t tell you now exactly where it was.”

She moved nearer to him and touched his face, which was almost as red as his eyes. His skin was burned from the spray, as well. Beneath her fingertips, it was warm and a little rough from the stubble of his beard.

“That’s because of the pepper spray,” she said. Her eyes had finally stopped burning, but that was because she’d washed her face after he’d left her alone in the cabin. “You need to get all of that off you.”

She moved her hand along his hard jaw to his dark hair. She could see droplets glistening in it. Maybe he’d brought the fog inside with him, or maybe she had gotten the spray in his hair, too. “You need to shower it all off.”

He shook his head and dislodged her hand. She curled her fingers against her palm. Her skin was tingling. Maybe it was from contacting the spray again or maybe it was from touching him.

“I have to keep watch,” he said. “He got away from me.”

“You saw him?” she asked.

“Not much of him,” Jordan replied. “He tried hitting me over the head. Then he ran off. That was when he dropped the keys.” He pulled a ring of keys from the pocket of his worn jeans.

She stared down at them, but they didn’t look familiar to her. They didn’t look like her set of keys, but then, a copy didn’t have to look the same as long as the notches were identical. Her head began to pound as she tried to think of how that was possible. “I don’t know how he would have gotten those.”

“Have you given out any keys?”

She shook her head. “I don’t give out keys.” She had never had a relationship that had been serious enough to exchange keys. Except for one. “Only to my mom.”

He stared down at her as if he was skeptical. He had probably read some of the tabloid articles about her. For years there had been a new one every week, claiming that she was involved with some actor or rock star.

“I hope you don’t believe everything you’ve heard about me,” she said.

He cocked his head as if searching his memory. Then he shrugged again. “What would I have heard?”

“Plenty of stuff that’s not true,” she assured him. She didn’t date famous people. She didn’t want to be famous herself. She had never wanted to be; she’d started modeling only to help out her mother.

“I’ve just been back in the States for a few months,” he said. “So I’m not caught up on my celebrity gossip.”

“I’m not a celebrity,” she said, but then grimaced when she heard how sharp her voice sounded.

He snorted. “Yeah, right. I haven’t been gone that long. It took me a little while to put it all together. But I know who you are.”

Nobody really knew who she was. They only knew what she looked like.

She was sick of talking about herself. She was far more curious about him, and now she had an opportunity to satisfy her curiosity.

“Where were you,” she asked, “that you’ve only been back a few months?”

“My Marine Corps unit was deployed,” he said.

Marines. Of course. That was why he was so muscular. She knew male models who had spent thousands of dollars on personal trainers and performance products trying to achieve Jordan Mannes’s impressive physique. They’d never come close to his masculine perfection.

Being a Marine would have definitely qualified him to be a bodyguard. She should have felt safer with him protecting her. But her interest—and attraction to him—unnerved her. She had never been so fascinated with anyone before.

But maybe she was just desperate for something to get her mind off her own life, off her stalker.

“Thank you,” she said.

He arched a dark brow. “For what?”

“Your service.” To their country and to her.

He nodded. But he didn’t look comfortable with the gratitude. “Just doing my job.”

She knew that being a Marine was much more than just a job. She wanted to talk to him more about his life.

But he reached for his weapon.

And she tensed. “What is it? Did you hear something?”

He shook his head. “No. So maybe now’s a good time to take that shower you suggested.” He squinted as his eyes continued to water. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

She shook her head.

He cocked it and handed it to her. “If someone tries to get in here, you squeeze the trigger.” He wrapped most of her fingers around the handle while he stretched one finger along the barrel. “You’ll need both hands to hold it.”

It was cold and heavy. And she was terrified of accidentally firing it.

“Move this finger to the trigger if you hear anything,” he advised.

“But...”

“He knows I’m armed,” Manny said. “I nearly shot him. So I don’t think he would be stupid enough to burst in here. But I want you to be ready in case he does.”

He walked over to the hallway leading to the door, his broad back toward her.

And afraid of shooting him, Teddie lowered the barrel. “Why are you trusting me with this?” she asked. “Didn’t I nearly kill you enough times already?”