Lisa Childs - In The Bodyguard's Arms

How close is too close for a bachelor bodyguard and his alluring client?

As a supermodel, Teddie Plummer is used to being wanted. But a stalker? That’s terrifying new territory, so Teddie hires a professional to guard her. The moment she and Payne Protection Agency bodyguard Jordan “Manny” Mannes collide, searing attraction introduces a different brand of danger.

Former Marine Manny knows his boundaries. He’ll put his life on the line for Teddie, but won’t risk his career on a client—no matter how unbelievably sexy she is. The rules blur once Teddie ends up in his arms. He won’t hesitate to face hell itself to defend her, but will he be willing to let her walk away?

Jordan Mannes stood strong and steady now, unlike her, whose legs still trembled with exhaustion and...

She wasn’t sure what she was feeling anymore. Fear. Excitement. The adrenaline rush had yet to leave her; her pulse raced and her skin was flushed.

“You need to let me take you to the clinic,” she said. “Or at least try to wash out your eyes.”

“No,” he said. “There’s no time. I have to find the guy who grabbed you.” He touched his red face and grimaced. “Did you think I was him—coming back—when you sprayed me?”

“I didn’t know who you were,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting the bodyguard to arrive for a couple of days yet.”

“I flew here.”

Teddie’s skin chilled as a wave of doubt crashed over her. “There’s no airport for over a hundred miles, and that doesn’t take commercial flights.”

“I didn’t fly commercial,” he said. “I didn’t want to waste any time getting here.”

Which had been damn lucky for her if he was telling the truth.

If he was who he claimed he was.

Could she trust him?

* * *

Be sure to check out the previous books in the exciting Bachelor Bodyguards series.

Dear Reader,

I am so excited to bring you In the Bodyguard’s Arms, the next book in my Bachelor Bodyguards series. I love writing about the Payne Protection Agency and the Payne family. Just like the Paynes, I have a big, boisterous family. I am the youngest of seven. So I understand family dynamics very well. I especially understand this family who treats their friends and employees like family, as well. The hero of In the Bodyguard’s Arms doesn’t understand or appreciate that, though. His family is not close or supportive like the Paynes, so their loving meddling in each other’s lives makes him very uncomfortable.

This is “Manny” Mannes’s story, although I feel like he stole the show in Single Mom’s Bodyguard, even though he wasn’t the hero. He is the funniest of the former-Marines-turned-bodyguards. He is also the most determined to avoid falling in love. Of course, he has no way of knowing that the next client he will be protecting is the pinup girl of his fantasies. Supermodel Teddie Plummer has a stalker who is making her life miserable. She’s already tired of the spotlight and just wants to finish her education and build a normal life for herself. But someone’s trying to cut her life short—very short. Can Manny save her and himself?

Happy reading!

Lisa Childs

In the Bodyguard’s Arms

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Mills & Boon story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Mills & Boon, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, www.lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Fear gripped Jordan “Manny” Mannes—fear like he’d never felt before, not even when he’d been on those top secret missions with his former Marines unit.

He shook his head. “No, I won’t take that assignment. No way.”

“You don’t want to guard a lingerie model?” his boss, Cooper Payne, asked from the end of the long table in the conference room of the Payne Protection Agency franchise he owned. This room and the entire office had been repaired after a recent shoot-out. Redone in dark brick and thick wood, it was a little more bulletproof than all the glass had been.

“Really?” Cooper asked, his blue eyes gleaming with amusement.

Manny didn’t think there was anything funny about the assignment. Guarding a model sounded like a nightmare to him and should have sounded like a bad idea to his boss. His guarding a model was like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. He would be the one getting eaten alive, though.

Sweat broke out on Manny’s back, beads trickling down between his shoulder blades, but instead of feeling hot, he felt chilled. “No...”

That would be his worst nightmare: letting himself get distracted because of a pretty face and, since she was a lingerie model, probably a killer body. He knew how shallow he was, that he’d let himself mistake infatuation for something more. Then he’d wind up like the fools from his unit or, worse yet, his hapless family members.

He glanced around the table at the guys with whom he’d served. Lars Ecklund and Dane Sutton were the tallest, most muscular guys he’d ever met. Maybe that was why they had fallen the hardest—so hard that they looked brain damaged. Their eyes glazed like they were drunk. They wore sappy grins nearly as big as they were. They were the “before” pictures.

He glanced farther down the table to the “after”—to Cole Bentler, who’d fallen in love and been betrayed. He didn’t look happy; he looked bitter and miserable.

Given Manny’s luck, that was how he would wind up—like the “after.” Or worse yet, he’d wind up serving like the men in his family: time behind bars.

The Mannes men were legendary for their poor judgment. In women and life decisions. His dad had left his mom for a younger woman he’d later caught cheating on him. That was how Manny had learned, at eight years old, what a crime of passion was.

Then there were crimes of stupidity, like his brother letting his pretty girlfriend talk him into robbing a liquor store. Jeremy had gone to prison while Manny had gone off to the Marines. He’d enlisted in the hopes of escaping the family curse.

He had felt safer carrying out dangerous missions overseas than he did here. He had had fewer distractions over there.