For His Protection (2 page)

In and out, that’s how you breathe, Brooke.

There’d been a time once when she enjoyed dancing. She could
pretend, pretend it was still okay. They moved around then around again. Music
itched through her veins. His shoulder was firm and steady under her fingers
and she held on to it. She could do this, just as she’d learned to do so many
things again. She was Boot-camp-Brooke. She had grown men leaping at the blow
of her whistle in her Sunday classes. She wasn’t afraid of a little dancing. He
tugged and her waist pressed into his.

The contact sent shards of ice into her belly.
Fear
.
But fear wasn’t something that controlled her anymore. She didn’t let it. His
warmth seeped through his shirt, through her dress and into the cold pit inside
her. There was something else here, something more instinctive than fear.
Something that gripped her frantic heart because it begged her, just begged her
for things she’d given up on. His neck hovered above her face, the skin at the
base flickering. Fast, so fast. But why should
he
be nervous?

“There’s one thing I won’t tolerate in my employees,
Brooke.”

Her heart skipped. What the hell did that mean? Did he sense
the way her usual professionalism dissolved around him, how so much of her
seemed to be dissolving? “And what’s that?” It wasn't him, not this flashy
prick getting to her. It was the damn dancing, the freaking touching, the
pushing of her boundaries.

“Lies. You lied to me.”

She tore her gaze from his throat. “What are you talking
about?”

“You said you couldn’t dance. Now look at you.”

He spun them for effect. Once, twice, three times. Her waist
hooked to his like an anchor. He stopped and the room spun a little. Then he
dipped her.

She arched her back and the fairy lights flickered above her
face. His belt dug into her abdomen. Ice crashed over her, spikes of fear that
sank into her like teeth. Bodies moved, a beaked masked flashed in the corner
of her vision, the room swirled, her chest heaved. He pulled her up. But now
all she could see were flashing lights. All she could feel was that rub on her
abdomen. All her body could remember was pain.

Pain she’d never escape.

Her legs had no muscles, her lungs had no air. Suddenly arms
were around her. The crisp, warm scent of man. Yet it didn’t scare her, it
surrounded her, gave her something to hold on to. She pressed her face into
that warm skin. Were they still spinning? She couldn’t tell, she couldn’t
breathe. Then there was more air. Warm summer air.

“Brooke?” A husky voice called, sounding so far away.

She tore the mask off her face and threw it to the ground.
No
more flashing lights, no more flashing lights.
They still blinked behind
her eyelids. Someone pressed something cool into her hands. She gasped,
realized she was breathing like a lunatic.

“Try drinking some water.”

She raised the glass to her mouth and drank, drank without
stopping, drained the whole glass and held it out. He crouched in front of her.
She’d somehow gotten outside, sat—or had been seated—on a stone bench.

“Are you all right?” His voice was warm and thick with
concern.

Oh shit, what have I done?

She leaped to her feet. “I’m so sorry, this is so unprofessional.”

He rose slowly, lithely, in a way that proved there was an
athlete somewhere under that suit.

“I assure you I’m not usually like this.” She shook her head
and pressed her palm to her hot cheek. “I’m supposed to be here to look after
you and instead you had to look after me.”

“I’m capable of looking after myself—”

She cut in. “I understand if you want to request someone
else.”

He stood still in front of her then bent and put her glass
on the bench. When he turned back to her his eyes were as luminous as stars.
“No, it’s you I want.”

Her pulse rose. There was something to his words. Something
far more than a stranger should mean. His words sank in and she shivered then
pulled on her Boot-camp-Brooke persona—so much better at dealing with crap than
she was. “If you’re capable of looking after yourself, why am I here?”

He glanced out at the gardens. “Since Black Trident acquired
a local community building we’ve been getting some threats. Enough to prompt us
to revise security. Enough to prompt my overprotective president to reconsider
my
security.”

“So that’s it. You’re forced to have a bodyguard but don’t
want to look like a wimp.”

“Something like that,” he whispered.

She frowned and watched him stare out into the distance. “So
how do we do this then? You want me to blend in?”

“At work you’ll be my new PA; the rest of the time we let
people assume what they like.”

He finally turned back to her. His gaze swept over her from
head to glittering heels. Her gown may as well have been made from sparkling
cling-film the way that look made her feel.

Boot-camp-Brooke snapped straighter. “Just remember, while
you allow people to assume what they like, I’m a bodyguard, and I have
boundaries, especially when it comes to touching.”

“What if I need to touch you?” He lowered his face toward
hers. “I mean to play a part?”

She swallowed. “Then you ask. No one touches me without my
permission. Period.”

“But I have your permission.” His long straight nose flared
under his mask.

She frowned and shook her head. A heavy, sinking feeling
mixed with inexplicable heat flowed down her center. “What are you talking
about?”

His breath touched her lips, he leaned so close. She should
move back, she should strain away but something held her still, the sense that
something massive was about to unfold before her eyes.

“You told me once that my hands were made to touch you. That
touching you was my purpose in life.” His fingers curled around her upper arms.
“Or have you forgotten that, Brooke? Have you forgotten the things you said to
me?”

Her lips tingled and heat blasted its way through her heels,
up, up through her body and into her chest. Those brown eyes, she’d seen them
before. She snatched the mask from his face and her lungs seized.

Him
.

Time melted, folded and instead of a Seattle breeze she
tasted burning rubber.

Five Years Earlier

She flew across the pavement as if she had wings. The air
puffed from her lips in streams of white. She could be on fire—she ran so fast.
Pumping arms, pumping legs. She’d never be caught. Each week she got a little
faster, ran a little longer. But running wasn’t the first thing she’d mastered
in these long painful months of recovery.

The corner loomed and she sprinted around it. A man jogged
to the crossing, his steps slowing as he approached the road. She stopped
mid-stride. Her knees jerked in their sockets. He flicked a look over his
shoulder and his gaze found her. She stumbled back toward the corner, ready to
turn the other way.

It’s too damn early.

She should wait until later to run. When more people were
around.

No
.

This was the best time to do it, when she’d be less likely
to freeze every time someone turned in her direction. One thing she’d learned
lately—fear was something that had to be chipped away in degrees. It couldn’t
simply be hacked out with an ax. It just didn’t work that way.

He smiled a slow smile that stretched the breadth of his
whole face. A wide-open, youthful smile. Some of the fear leached from her
bones. He brushed scruffy brown hair from his face. Not quite a man—a boy. A
boy about her own age.

Not a man.

Just a cute boy. She made herself smile back but didn’t
move, wouldn’t until he jogged on. He held her gaze, a questioning look pushed
between his brows. She smiled wider, showed some teeth. She might look like a
lunatic frozen at the corner but she’d managed one thing. One very, very
important thing.

She’d smiled at a stranger. Smiled at a boy.

He grinned and for a brief moment she remembered a time when
she’d liked boys. It seemed like years not months ago. He turned toward the
flashing crossing signal and jogged onto the bitumen. His long strong thighs
tightened with each step. His calves contracted into upside-down hearts.

A screech broke through the silence of the morning, violent
and brutal over the gentle melody of birds. A car slid around the corner,
swerving out of control. She stepped forward, a shout of warning bursting from
her chest. The boy turned, his eyes flared and he shot toward the pavement.
Smoke billowed from tires and a screen of black and gray cloaked the street.

She gasped and tasted acrid tar. A bump then a sickening
fleshy thud escaped the smoky veil. The sound of the engine dissolved down the
street. She ran through the fading smoke to the other side. A shadow lay on the
pavement, curled on its side. She fell to the concrete, barely noticing the
scrape on her knees through her black running pants. The last of the smoke
floated away on the breeze. She reached trembling fingers for his shoulder. He
didn’t move. She tugged and rolled him over.

He groaned and blinked long-lashed eyes at her. She scanned
his body, not knowing where to look first. Blood coated him like oil. A white
T-shirt lay sticky and torn over his chest. Her gaze traveled to his legs and
her racing heart shattered.

Holy fuck
.

Bone protruded from skin below his knee. Blood spurted from
the broken flesh. She didn’t need to be a doctor to know this was freaking bad.
She glanced at his face. His eyes rolled. She patted his chest.

“It’s going to be okay, it’ll be all right,” she whispered.

Her heart threw itself against her ribcage. How the hell it
would be okay she didn’t know but she would do her best to help him. She
glanced down at herself and grasped the edge of her baggy shirt. Her fingers
shook but she whipped it over her head. Cold air hit the bare skin on her belly
below her exercise tank.

She moved to his wound. “I’m going to touch your leg. I’m
sorry.”

Her hands shook.
Can’t.
Blood spewed. Nausea twisted
her belly.
Can’t.
She took a breath, held it and lifted his knee.
Fuck,
can’t.
He shouted a long low keening sound. She pushed the fabric under his
leg above his knee then knotted it as quickly as she could. The ends were
barely long enough to pull tight. She stared at the wound—what she’d done
wouldn’t be enough to stop the bleeding.

Movement caught her eye and she glanced up. An elderly woman
wandered out of her house and stood holding her mouth. Brooke sat up straight.

“Call the paramedics,” she shouted.

The woman turned and ran back into her house, leaving the
door open behind her. Brooke looked back at the still-flowing blood. The
tourniquet needed to be tighter. She looked around.
Shit
. She stroked a
hand over the back of her head. Her fingers brushed the elastic holding her
pony tail. She yanked it out and stared at it then at his leg and stretched the
ponytail holder wide. There was no way she’d be able to guide it over his
wound. She stretched it wider and tugged at the join until it snapped open. She
went back to his leg.

“I’m really sorry.”

It wasn’t easy stretching elastic while maneuvering him but
adrenaline must have helped her along because in seconds she grasped one end on
either side over the knotted T-shirt. She pulled the broken elastic out wide
then stretched it up and knotted it tightly—really freaking tightly. The blood
slowed…became a trickle. He groaned.

She fell back onto her heels, trembling from fingers to
lips. Blood smeared from scrapes on his belly but nothing like his leg. She
hovered over him. His eyes blinked, slowly drifting shut. A lump rose from his
temple, round and puffy and the size of her palm.

Alarm streaked through her system.

“Hey, look at me,” she said and patted his cheek. “You’re
going to be all right.”

He blinked. His eyes focused unsteadily on her then he
smiled. A soft, dreamy, delirious smile. A smile so beautiful it made her want
to cry. His big brown eyes roamed over her face. They looked at her with
something she recognized, something that would normally have her fleeing in
fear—desire. But these eyes were sweet, non-threatening eyes. He was helpless,
couldn’t hurt her if he wanted to and for the first time in six months she
wasn’t afraid.

“I didn’t think heaven would hurt so much,” he wheezed.

She’d have laughed at his cheesiness if he didn’t look as
though he might actually be serious. She took his hand and squeezed it. “You’re
not dead and you’re not going to die. You’re right here with me and I’m not
letting you go anywhere.”

“Then all this pain is worth it,” he whispered.

His gaze moved over her, over her face, down her neck and lingered
on her sports top, lingered where her nipples hardened to beads in the chill
then he lifted his eyes back to her face. Her cheeks warmed. Even at the edge
of death it seemed boys had a one-track mind.

“You sure look like an angel to me.” He smiled again then
his lids drifted closed.

Her heart thumped and she leaned over him, shook his
shoulders.

“Wake up. Don’t close your eyes, look at me.”

They opened briefly. Warm brown-velvet eyes. He couldn’t
die. She couldn’t let him die.

“Stay awake, look at me.”

“I’m tired.” His lids drooped.

Panic reared up from her belly and lodged in her throat.
“Don’t you dare go to sleep. Look at me right now.”

“Tired…” The word was almost indecipherable.

Her gaze darted over his softening features and she grasped
his hand, pressed it over her breast. “Look at this—look at your hand touching
me.”

His eyes opened then widened and focused on his hand. She
had his attention. “Don’t you dare look away from me. If you close them I won’t
tell you—”

Her voice quivered and he looked from his hand to her face.
She swallowed harshly.

I can’t let him die.

“
I won’t tell you all the things I want you to do to
me.”

She leaned in, let her breath brush his face, forced him to
hold her gaze while she spoke. “Do you feel your hand on me?”

His fingers moved over her sports top, his thumb gazing her
hard nipple. She didn’t think his eyes could have gotten wider but they did.

“That’s what you do to me.”

His hand moved stronger, more purposefully against her. An
answering warmth curled in her core. She’d said the words to secure his
attention but somehow saying them made it true. Her nipples beaded tighter.

In the safety of the moment she spoke more. Said low, dirty
things that shocked her. He watched her, grew more alert with every word. He
traced her lips with his gaze. Her body woke from its coma. Moisture pooled in
a place she’d avoided altogether these past many months.

She kept talking, knew she said too much. Not just about
things she wanted him to do to her body but things from her heart. Things she
couldn’t want but still had some echoing memory in her soul. Things to do with
love. The need to have it. The belief that it existed. Her chest ached. His
hand moved from her breast and his palm flattened over her heart. In that
moment, in that fantasy she almost believed he held the beating organ in his
hand. Words flowed, poured out every hungry need she’d ever had before her
dreams had been snatched away. Poured them out as if they could still become
real. Poured them out as if they were made for him.

His attention fixed on her, drinking in every fevered word.
Her blood pumped fiercely; it was liquid desire. She felt everything.
Everything. Impossible but there it was—desire, need, lust. From rushing blood
to the hard points of her nipples to the skin heating under his palm.

In those moments she was sexy—a fucking enchantress. Fierce,
fearless, in control. Her core pulsed with tension, damp with need, a tight,
hungry feeling her body had given up. She wasn’t broken. Not then. Not while she
was pretending for him.
Pretending in order to keep him alive.

Sirens droned in the distance but she kept speaking until
there were black boots standing beside them. She told him how much she needed
him, how much she wanted him, how he’d been born to touch her and how long
she’d been waiting for him to do just that. How if he just lived, she’d give
him everything he’d ever dreamed of.

Hands tugged her away and someone else bent over him.

“It’s okay, we’ve got him now.”

Her ears rang and she blinked up at the paramedic.

“What’s his name? What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

Her chest squeezed and she looked at the injured boy. He
stared at her, his hand stretched toward her as one paramedic held her back and
another worked on him. She didn’t know his name. How could she say that? Her
breath caught and all she could do was cry. The paramedic patted her shoulder
then helped his partner lift the beautiful boy onto a stretcher.

They let her ride in the ambulance and hold his hand. He
crashed twice on the way to the hospital. They used their paddles on him,
brought him back two times. The whole time all she could do was cry—sob as she
hadn’t done in months. Not only for him. Not only for this beautiful boy. But
also for herself. That she had felt something she never thought she’d feel
again for someone who would most likely die. She cried for the knowledge that
even if he lived, she’d never have the courage to do a word of what she’d
promised. And she sobbed, sobbed because there was now no denying there was
something raw and wanting and lustful inside her, and she didn’t know how she’d
bury it again.

* * * * *

Present Day

Her gaze focused on the rugged features in front of her. She
breathed but it was without satisfaction, as if she were gasping underwater.
Straight nose, wide shaved cheeks and those same velvety-caramel eyes. A tiny
slash cut through one sideburn, arched over his ear and disappeared into his
hair. His harsh breath rushed over her lips, fresh and intoxicating. She
breathed it in and let it slide over her tight throat, clogged with longing and
other more tempting things. Age had stripped the youthful padding from his
features, making him harder—more male—less innocent.

“I remember every word…”

His dark, seductive whisper seeped into her skin, kicked her
pounding heart into overtime.

The hands holding her arms became bands, shackles. His mouth
lowered over hers. Instinct rose swiftly and violently. Brooke twisted and
lifted her arms, breaking his hold then shoving his chest. Her palms hit the
muscled wall hard enough to send him into a stumble. Then she ran. Across
cobblestone and onto grass.

“Brooke, wait.” The voice called behind her.

Her heel sank into dirt and she stumbled. She jerked her
shoe free and ran again, under tree branches, around bushes. Fingers closed
over her wrist and her mad pulse spurted a chemical response through her blood.
She spun, using the hand on her wrist for leverage to roll his much larger body
over her back, sending him flying over her shoulder. He hit the ground with a
thump and a groan. She didn’t give him the chance to recover, just leaped on
top of him to land on his chest. Brooke drove her forearm into the middle of
his long throat.

In the narrow patch of moonlight she could make out the
widening of his eyes, his panting chest, which matched her own. Her thighs
clamped around his waist. She’d straddled him. Not the way she normally
executed a pin but she’d done it instinctively. Slid on top of him, held
herself above him. Maybe it was just the need to look down into his eyes, find
out what in the fuck he was up to.

She exerted deeper pressure onto his throat, knew he must
feel it but he didn’t struggle, didn’t flinch, just stared up at her as if he
was the one
letting
her sit on him.

“What the hell are you doing?” she breathed.

She’d meant to sound enraged, commanding even. Instead the
words came out in a shaken whisper. She eased her arm off his windpipe.

“I wanted to see you.” He held her gaze but the edges of his
face softened. There was something about the way he said it that reminded her
of the first time she’d met him. Something innocent and guileless. Like when
he’d thought she was an angel. He remained still, didn’t move. She stared down
at him, watched a flicker of something cross his eyes.