A.C. Arthur - Guarding His Body

“Not a morning person, huh?” she said airily as she pushed past him and made her way into his condo. She instantly began looking around, surveying what was needed.

Renny closed the door, lounged against it, crossing his arms over his chest, and enjoyed the view for a moment. “Normal people don’t go around banging on doors this early.”

She shrugged, dropped her bag on the couch and moved to the windows. She was dragging her hands along the seals as if she was looking or feeling for something.

Renny watched her intently. With every stroke he let his detail-oriented eyes settle on her fingers. She had small hands, low-cut fingernails, no rings, no watch, no polish. Her touch was swift, methodical, yet he felt every stroke as if she were slowly guiding it over him, caressing him. He shifted his stance to relieve the tightness in his pants. “What are you doing?” he asked through a slightly cracked voice.

“I’m checking out your windows. I’ll need to wire the security system through here.” She moved from the patio door to the phone. She picked it up, put it to her ear and listened for a second or two, then put it down and lifted it to look at the underside. “No bugs.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I would hate to have to call an exterminator.”

She was moving toward the bedroom now and Renny felt his groin tighten.

“Don’t tell me you have a sense of humor.”

He tried like hell not to watch her butt as she walked in front of him, or to imagine that she was leading them right to his bedroom, to the bed where he’d dreamed of her only hours before. “Ah, yeah, something like that. But it’s still early.” He heard himself stumbling over his words. This was new for him. Of all the Bennett men he was the smoothest around the women, the charmer, the home-run hitter each and every time. “What exactly are you looking for?”

She was in his room now, turning her head this way and that, taking in everything he possessed. She paused at the bed. It was a four-poster Victorian antique he’d found on a trip to Paris. It sat on a platform in the middle of the floor, covered with cream-colored bedding that his mother had picked out.

“Wow! That’s a seriously big bed.” Bree was used to the military twin size. Even when she’d moved off base to her own apartment she’d purchased a full-size bed since it was only her. But this monstrosity looked like it could easily fit her, her two brothers, her sister and her two-year-old nephew.

“I like big things,” Renny said simply.

That remark poured over her as she found herself thinking he probably had a lot of big things in his possession. She couldn’t resist; she hadn’t wanted to, but it almost called to her. She stepped up on the platform, touched her hand to the thick dark wood and let it slide all the way down, then up again.

“How long have you lived here?” Bree asked, pulling her hand away from his bed. She wanted to sit on it, to feel what she knew would be soft against her back, but she digressed. She didn’t turn back to face him for fear he’d see the longing in her eyes, so she stepped down off the platform and went directly to the windows on the other side of the room.

“Ah, four years now.”

“And you haven’t done anything about security?” She turned to him then. “Americans are so gullible.”

Renny blinked quickly. “Excuse me?”

“We take our safety for granted. You simply believe you’re safe and trust that the local authorities will protect you from anything bad. When what you should be doing is ensuring your own safety. Protecting what’s yours.”

“Listen, Sabrina, why don’t you just tell me why you’re here? We can handle any business we have to and then you can be on your way.”

Bree blinked at his curt tone and hooked her fingers in her belt loops, an awful habit she had that drove her mother crazy. “You are my business,” she informed him. “I mean, you are my job. I have to secure your premises and then we need to go over your schedule and how we’ll be traveling for the next few weeks.”

“So, how long is this going to take? I have my own work to do.”

“Oh, you work?” She looked clearly surprised.

Renny tried not to take offense. “Yes, I work. What? Did you think I just sat around living off my father’s money all day?”

He looked angry now. His brow had scrunched together, his luscious lips growing into a tight line, and for a moment she felt concerned—for a brief moment. She moved closer to him. “Actually, I thought you spent your days scouring for what new woman you would take to your bed. Isn’t that what rich playboys normally do?” Who he took to his bed should not have concerned her, yet with a fierce certainty it did.

Now he was officially turned off. How dared she barge into his house at the crack of dawn insulting him at every turn? “You’re not a morning person. Your house isn’t secure enough.” And now, “You’re just an unemployed rich playboy.” In a minute he was going to lose all the good manners his mother had taught him and say a few things that would likely send little Miss Bodyguard running. “I’ll have you know I am very gainfully employed. Outside of Bennett Industries,” he said, lifting his head high and poking his chest out just a bit.

She raised a brow. “Really? And what is it that you gainfully do outside of Bennett Industries?”

She’d folded her hands over her chest, effectively pushing her plump breasts up a few inches so that he could see the smooth skin slipping into the crevice between them. Damn. He was turned on again. He clenched his teeth until he was sure he’d develop lockjaw. He’d never been this physically aware of a woman before. He preferred soft, compliant women. Women that wore ultrasexy, ultrafeminine clothes and treated their hair and makeup as if they were their only commodity.

So why was Sabrina Desdune getting under his skin so easily?

“I am a sculptor and I own an art studio.” For a minute he thought he’d had her stumped. She blinked quickly. Then the corners of her mouth upturned and she gave him a wry grin.

“Bored, are we? Or are you simply rebelling against Daddy?”

That was it! That was the last insult he was going to take from her without striking back. He moved to the soft Italian leather couch and sat down slowly, stretching one arm over the back of the chair while the other one rested in his lap. “I could ask you the same thing. Running around playing cops and robbers with your big brother. What’s the matter? You couldn’t find a man to marry you and knock you up?”

Without another word she scooped up her bag and turned her back to him.

Damn, he hadn’t thought she’d pick up and run. A part of him was enjoying their little sparring match. Besides Gabrielle, his youngest sister, he didn’t have this type of exchange with anyone else. He jumped up from the chair and was at her side before she could take another step. “I’m sorry, Sabrina. I was out of line. Don’t go.” He cupped her elbow, turned her to face him.

Her head tilted to the side, a few strands of her ponytail draping over one shoulder. Her eyes sparked and glittered with flecks of gold he hadn’t noticed before. Then she smiled. And Renny felt his chest tighten. She was quite simply breathtaking.

“Oh, you were way out of line, but I wasn’t leaving.” She tossed the words at him as she purposely turned quickly so that her duffel bag hit him square in the stomach. Then she moved to the matching couch he’d just vacated and plopped herself and her stuff down. “But I have a job to do and I plan to do it. We don’t have to like each other and we don’t have to know each other’s personal business. I’ll just need your schedule and then I’ll show you how to work some of this stuff. Then we should be set.”