Captured by the Bodyguard (14 page)

“Alexandra…”

“What the hell do you want?” she spat. Her body was trembling. Dammit! This wasn’t how she’d planned it would go if she saw him again. But she couldn’t think, couldn’t process. He was here. She didn’t know how or why, but he was. Nothing made sense but her anger and pain. Her loneliness and loss of self-pride. And now
he was here
, looking so gorgeous and tanned, with no sign to show he’d even suffered like she had. Hence, the cad name-calling in her head.

His eyes were skimming her face the way she remembered he liked to do. His grip tightened on her wrist, and for a moment he just stayed like that, as if time was standing still. Until she jerked her hand from his grasp.

“What in damnation are you doing here, Cane?” she asked heatedly, and he drew in a long, deep breath, that little smile she adored playing on his curvy, deliciously full lips. It wasn’t fair. He was just standing there and she was already frothing between her thighs. Just seeing him had tightened every bolt inside her belly and she was virtually gasping like she’d run a freaking marathon.

For the third time, all he said was her name. This time, so softly it sounded like a caress. She shook her head, squeezed her eyes tight to blink back the sudden tears and looked away with a hidden sob. This time when she felt him take her hand, she didn’t snatch it away.

“I don’t want to talk here,” he added huskily, his other hand reaching up to cup her face. “There’s so much to say and I feel like if I don’t get you alone now, I’m going to do something really crazy out here on a public beach. Come on…”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said in a quiet, though very clear, plain voice. Her body was stiff and unresponsive and she was ready to dig her heels in the sand if he tried to make her move anywhere with him. She felt her senses slowly return and she looked up at him with defiant eyes. “And I want you to let me go.”

“Let you go?” he repeated with a half-smile, half-wince. “I’m not sure that’s an option I’m ready to take right now.”

“Why not? You took it quite well three months ago when you calmly
walked out
of my life. And stayed away without a word,” she gritted out accusingly.

“I was never that far away, Alexandra. I was never really gone,” he told her softly. His eyes were trailing over every inch of her now. She felt that look like a laser beam. Other men ogled her and she never got even a twitch. But when Cane did it...damn. She felt like a pornography poster.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked in an accusing voice that sounding squeaky.

He took his time before finally lifting his eyes above her neck. “Forgive me,” he said in a voice she noted was totally unrepentant. “When protecting you was my job, I never allowed myself the luxury of looking at you the way I wanted to; and when I did, I never let myself fully give in to savoring the beauty of you simply because I was afraid I’d snap out of control; go past the boundaries and break the rules.”

His words made the heat shoot right up between her kneecaps. But she stemmed the steamy pleasure she felt, pursing her secret inner lips before they’d seep further. She didn’t want to want him. She shouldn’t. Ever. “And you hated that, didn’t you, Mr. Perfect? Everything has to be straight and narrow with you. Maybe I
wanted
you to break the rules. You losing control would have at least shown me that in some degree, I mattered more than your so-called boundaries.”

“I’m not perfect,” he corrected in a calming voice. “Alexandra, I’ll admit to being as fucked up as you can imagine. Yes, I was much too concerned about control. It’s all part of my honor code and I hated how it would feel if I broke it. But most of all, if you must know, I was afraid.”

Now he was messing with her, thought Alexandra as she huffed and flicked her hair over her shoulder. Cane, afraid? A guy like him couldn’t even recognize fear. Fear was afraid of
him
. But then he grabbed her by the shoulders and she turned to him with a glare that seemed to bounce right off.

“I was afraid, Alexandra,” he repeated firmly as his eyes pinned to hers. “Scared witless that I’d give in to the way I felt about you and then find out I wasn’t really the one for you. That you’d suddenly wake up and realize your feelings were just an infatuation, brought on by your close contact with your bodyguard. Any other woman and I wouldn’t mind. I’d have that fling or whatever we’d have had and then when the job was over or when you got fed up, it wouldn’t matter to me anyway. But I couldn’t risk that with you, Alexandra. And that was where I fucked up. I’m not a risk-taker; and normally that’s good for a man in my line of work. Zero risk means zero casualties or mistakes. Jeopardize nothing, and nothing will be lost. Obviously that mantra doesn’t carry over well when it comes to love between a man and a woman.”

“Obviously,” she retorted with a comical rolling of her eyes. “So let me get this; you held off because you were scared my feelings were fickle? Because you weren’t sure I knew what I was doing, right? You thought I’d hurt you,” she added with a tone less tinged with the sarcasm she’d been using so far.

“Yeah,” he said with a rueful twist to his lips. “I guess that’s the bottom line, in a nutshell. The breathtakingly beautiful and sexy Alexandra Duke, the hottest woman I’d
ever
seen, could bring me to my knees…so for the first time in my life, I wimped out. I held on to the rules like a life-line. I did my job and swore to keep the professional stance if it killed me. But guess what, sweetie? That didn’t save me.”

Alexandra’s eyes were quizzical as she looked up at him, but she couldn’t speak. She still hadn’t stopped shivering since the words ‘breathtaking and beautiful Alexandra’. He thought she was the hottest woman he’d ever seen? Whoa. The thought warmed her belly, tripped her heart up and made her want to sing. So basically, she was left speechless. A flipping sex god thought she was a sex goddess. She’d need to float down a bit from that first.

Cane smiled tenderly, almost like he could read her mind. Alexandra felt warmth spread over her cheeks and down to her neck, until beads of perspiration formed in the dusky hollow of her cleavage in the white bandeau she wore over her tie-dyed sarong.

“Remember when you asked me…when you wondered if I was ever curious to find out, even just once, how it could be between us?” Cane asked softly, moving so close his body warmth radiated all over her and made her head spin. He smelled so good, as always. Like nothing she could describe; just all male, fresh and inviting. She looked up into those mesmerizing eyes and wanted so much to fall into them – fall into him. But her heart felt wary, even terrified. How could she open the door and get kicked in the chest again?

She could only nod in reply to his question, and he stroked his thumb over her cheeks as he added, “Well, you were right. I was curious; I thought about it every freaking day and night while I was assigned as your bodyguard. Thinking about it, wanting and needing it, only made it worse. And when I left you, I felt like I was ripping out my own soul. I kept wishing I had taken that one kiss, that one night with you in my arms, letting me claim you like a lover should. With you out of the picture, I went so crazy that I was dangerous to have working on a mission. It was like I was slowly losing it and it felt just as it would have done if you had broken my heart, or if it didn’t work out between us. So either way, I was fucked.”

Alexandra drew in a shaky breath, her mind confused, eager to understand yet…cautious to give in. That too-good-to-be-true feeling that she couldn’t shake off. She looked up into his searching eyes and said, “But that doesn’t explain how you’re here, now. How come you just happened to be jogging down the beach, to me?”

Seeing him, identifying his face and that killer body making its way to her from across the pristine beach…it had felt like she’d conjured him just by her aching thoughts. Alexandra felt like she was still in shock from the fact that out of nowhere, her dream man, the one who’d got away…had found his way back to her.

Cane’s smile sobered slightly as he told her, “When I said I was never really gone, I meant it. Sure, I did go on that mission, but in three days I finally convinced myself I couldn’t cope and Noah agreed to let me off the case.”

“But I called him and he told me you were on assignment,” Alexandra blurted out accusatorily.

“Well he was right,” Cane said ruefully. “That assignment was you, rosebud. I came back because I was still worried about you and I wanted to be sure you were okay. So I started to keep watch on you; I followed you to your classes, I was there when you let Malia drag you off to some play or outings with friends, and I generally wanted to be certain that there really was no more threat to you, not from your father’s business rivals or anyone. But it’s become pretty clear now that Vincent really was never the threat; your ex Lamar had been the one who broke in that night at your apartment. But it wasn’t all just a job for me, in case that’s what you’d think. I did it because I couldn’t bear to be far from you, not so soon. I told myself I’ll let you find your heart, maybe meet someone in a normal situation and have a normal relationship. But you never dated and hardly left the house. I was worried about you even as I realized that my feelings were not going to fade away after a while like I thought. Instead, they became so intense I felt ready to face you with the truth.”

“So why didn’t you?” Alexandra choked, so dazed that all this time, Cane had been in the background, watching, looking out for her. “I was dying, Cane. I missed you and sometimes it was a trial to even get out of bed every morning. And you’re telling me you were right there all along?”

He let out a shuddering breath. “I was your bodyguard, Alexandra. And you were the daughter of this mega-billionaire. At first I was worried about what people would say – not about me because I wouldn’t give a shit, but about
you
. ‘Beautiful young heiress Alexandra Duke falls for or is seduced by her bodyguard’…the tabloids would make a meal of it and cook up the kind of tales that would probably tear your heart to pieces. I was afraid to risk that. I didn’t want anyone thinking you’re the kind who could be taken advantage of, or deceived – like Lamar tried to do.”

Cane’s lips pulled closer and Alexandra caught her breath, thinking he’d go for her lips, but instead he traced the kiss along her jaw line, his breath snagging. “So when I couldn’t take it anymore, I confessed to Noah how I really felt about you. And he told me he’d always suspected, especially when I changed my mind about being taken off your security detail – and of course when I volunteered afterwards to carry out the constant surveillance on you. And then that was when he told me you’d just called, asking about me. Damn…that day I think my heart just stopped and then imploded. I told myself that I couldn’t dare believe that meant anything…I told myself that sure, you’d grown attached to me as your bodyguard; you still felt some gratitude that I’d saved your life…I warned myself off in all these ways and yet, that didn’t stop me from going to see your father at his office and telling him I wanted to be with you.”

“Wait…what?” Alexandra asked in shock, breaking out of her mesmerized daze of listening to his voice as those last words shattered through her brain. “You went to see my dad?”

“I guess you’ll say I’m old fashioned that way,” Cane said with a lop-sided grin. “I said to him, Sir, I’m in love with your daughter and I want to be with her. I told him I just wanted to lay it on the line that it had nothing to do with who you were; this wasn’t about Donel Duke the billionaire’s daughter, but about Alexandra Duke the beautiful, gifted and adorable woman and what she was to me.”

“Oh my God,” Alexandra gasped, mortified yet joyous at the same time. “I’m almost afraid to ask what he said.”

Cane smirked, his cocky grin showing through. “He chuckled and said he’d been wondering when I’d fess up, considering that I’d already undertaken the duty of following his daughter around. You see, of course Noah had to tell your father about me tailing you and making sure you’re alright since Noah handles all his security matters anyway. Well, to cut the long story short, he handed me a few brochures for St. Maarten and told me, ‘go get her’.”

Alexandra still had that ‘Oh God’ embarrassed look on her face. To think that everyone, including Noah and her father had been in on everything and she’d never even suspected, made her face hot.

“So that’s why I’m here. I came to get you, petal,” Cane said softly, making Alexandra’s throat go dry with the melting look in his eyes coupled with his soft endearment. “
Now
will you let me sweep you off somewhere romantic where we can kiss for hours and possibly, tousle up some sheets?”

His rakish smile was paired with his eyebrows wriggling suggestively in a comical way that was so different from his usual cool demeanor that Alexandra had to guffaw, covering her mouth with a hand to hold in the mirth.

“Hmm, I don’t know about that, Mr. Smooth. I happen to already have a date,” she finally managed to say while twisting her lips coyly.

“You mean the dashing doctor,” Cane surprised her by saying while his expression crossed between a frown and a scoff. “Yeah, I’ve watched him hover around you like a hawk for some time.”

Alexandra rolled her eyes. “Oh my goodness, just how long have you been here keeping me under
more
surveillance?”

“About three days,” he confessed, his smile rueful. “I love watching you, Alexandra. I could never tire of that but now I want to do it up close, where you can feel my love.” His fingers trailed down her cheek, sliding past her throat to dip into the soft yet firm hollow of her cleavage. Alexandra’s breathing hitched.