Lisa Childs - In The Bodyguard's Arms

At least this way she had the element of surprise on her side. Maybe—just maybe—she could hurt him before he could hurt her.

She shivered as she waited for the attack. But this time she would not be the one getting attacked. She was going to be the attacker.

* * *

Manny cursed at the darkness. He’d almost gotten used to it outside. But the lights of the cabin had guided him back to her—after he’d chased off the stalker. He had dodged the guy’s second swing and jerked the tree limb from his grasp. Then Manny had turned the gun toward the man, but before he had been able to fire, the stalker had slipped back into the darkness outside the circle of light the campfire cast.

But it wasn’t just dark now. The air had turned so thick it was like quicksand, sucking him deeper and deeper. Fog had rolled in along with the night, getting thicker as the night grew later. He didn’t know how late it was or how long he’d been gone.

Too long.

He had left Teddie Plummer alone for far too long.

What if the stalker had circled back after Manny had run him off from the campsite? He obviously knew these woods better than Manny did. He had hurried back as fast as he had been able to move through the trees—toward the lights he had barely been able to discern through that thick blanket of fog and night. But was he too late?

He fumbled with the keys he’d found on the ground shortly after the stalker had run off. The guy must have dropped them when he’d picked up the stick he’d swung at Manny. He tried them all until he found the one that unlocked the door. But just as he was about to push open the door, the lights went off inside the cabin.

He glanced around outside. Was the stalker out there? Had he cut the power line? Or had nature caused the outage?

This wasn’t a storm, though—just fog. Hell, maybe it wasn’t even that. Maybe it was his damn eyes blurring everything around him. They burned yet, tears streaming from them.

He needed to wash out the pepper spray completely.

But more than anything, he needed to make sure Teddie was safe. He opened his mouth to call out to her. But what if the stalker had slipped around him and headed back to the cabin?

What if he was already inside with Teddie?

It was better that Manny enter as quietly as he could. And despite his size, he was good at being quiet since his and his friends’ lives had so often depended on being as silent and invisible as they could during their missions.

He worried that his and Teddie’s lives depended on it now. He pushed the door open just wide enough for him to slip inside—not that much light could spill into the house from the outside or from the inside out.

It was too damn dark.

He hunched over as he moved through the cabin, trying to make himself a smaller target. Whoever was inside had had time to get used to the darkness—while his irritated eyes were still trying to adjust. Maybe it wasn’t that dark, though; maybe he was just blind.

His knee bumped against something soft. It must have been the couch. The tiny kitchen was situated behind the living area, so he turned. And just as he turned, he noticed a glint of something in the darkness.

He recognized the blade of a knife as it swung toward him. He didn’t want to fire his gun in the dark, but he swung it toward that blade. Metal clinked against metal. Using the barrel of his gun to hold off the blade, he propelled his body forward—into the body of the person armed with the knife.

The damn stalker would not get away from him this time. And if the man had already hurt Teddie...

Where the hell was she? Tied up in the darkness? Or worse, already dead?

When he settled his body onto the body of the person he had knocked to the floor, he realized where Teddie was—lying beneath him. Her soft curves cushioned his muscles. And he was struck dumb for a moment at the intimate contact between their bodies. Her hips cradled his, her legs tangled with his, and her soft breasts yielded to the hardness of his chest. The contact set off a reaction inside him.

Adrenaline had already been coursing through him from his earlier encounters with the stalker and with her, but another kind of adrenaline entirely gripped him now. His pulse raced, his heart pounded and his mouth had gone so dry he couldn’t speak.

The guys would laugh if he ever admitted that. They wouldn’t believe that Manny Mannes had ever been speechless. Hell, he couldn’t believe it, either.

Teddie squirmed and struggled beneath him and tried to swing the knife at him again. He dropped his gun and instinctively grabbed her wrist, closing his fingers around the delicate flesh.

He could feel the fear and the desperation in her, and he could hear it when she released a scream like the one that had first drawn him from the cabin and into the darkness.

“Shh,” he said, finally finding his voice, which sounded strained even to his ears. “It’s me. Jordan Mannes.” He cleared his throat. “It’s just me...”

Her body went limp beneath his as her breath escaped in a gasp that warmed his skin. She dropped the knife, then threw her arms around his neck. Pulling him close, she arched against him, molding their bodies even more intimately together.

“Oh, thank God, thank God,” she murmured, “you’re all right.”

He wasn’t all right, though. He was the furthest thing from all right that he had ever been. And it wasn’t because his eyes still streamed from the pepper spray or he’d been attacked by her stalker and now by her...

He wasn’t all right because his body was reacting to her. Every muscle was taut, and he had an intense ache in his groin. A tension gripped him that had nothing to do with the threat her stalker posed.

Manny was experiencing another kind of threat entirely. He was attracted to his client. And with a crazed stalker on the loose, that attraction was a distraction that neither of them could afford, not if they were going to survive the night.

He strongly suspected the stalker would come back to the cabin to try for her again. After she’d escaped him earlier that night, the man hadn’t gone far away from her—just to his campsite.

He was determined.

And Manny’s presence had seemed to do little to faze him. In fact, it might have made him even more intent on getting her. Manny had no backup. It was up to him to keep her safe. So he had to stay focused—to keep them both alive.

Chapter 5

Who the hell was that muscle-bound giant? And where had he come from?

Anger coursed through him, and he kicked one of the rocks around his fire pit, sending the stones into the flames, which flickered as sparks shot everywhere.

He jumped back, not wanting to get burned, not so soon after nearly being shot. The guy had a gun. He’d swung the barrel toward him, could have shot him if he hadn’t moved faster.

Then he remembered the conversation he’d overheard as he’d crept around the house where Teddie had grown up, the house where her crazy mother had nearly shot him. Didn’t she realize who he was?

That he was her daughter’s destiny? Her soul mate?

She was supposed to be with him. And only him...

But her mother, that crazy gun-wielding bitch, had suggested that Teddie hire a bodyguard from the Payne Protection Agency.

Was that supposed to be some kind of joke? Nobody could protect anyone else from pain. He’d felt it his entire life, growing up with parents who’d never considered him good enough. And now he felt it every time Teddie ignored him and what they could have together.

Did she not think he was good enough for her, either?

How could she not see that they were perfect for each other? Why did she keep fighting him?

And now she had someone else to fight for her—another idiot with a gun, just like her crazy mother. Maybe he needed to get a weapon of his own. He wasn’t certain how long it would take, but he would have no problem passing a background check. He had never done anything wrong to be refused the right to carry a weapon.