Master Unchained (Stealth Guardians Book 2) (4 page)

“Why the fuck do I bother giving you advice when you don’t even listen?”

“I
was
listening,” he lied.

She looked him straight in the eye. “So what did I say then?”

“To give her chocolates.”

“And?” She pressed her lips into a thin line.

He scrambled for an answer. “Say something nice to her.”

Clearly surprised, Enya arched one eyebrow. “So you do listen occasionally.”

Lucky guess.
After all, he wasn’t born yesterday. He had been with enough women to know how to pacify one: pay her compliments, and shower her with gifts. How hard could it be?

“Just don’t lay it on too thick. Women can smell it when a man is insincere.”

“Enya?”

“Hmm?”

“Get the hell out of here! My capacity for listening to bullshit advice has reached its limit for today.”

Chuckling, Enya eased back, walking through the metal door without opening it, while her body turned invisible. “She’s got spunk. Maybe I can learn something from her.”

He couldn’t let her have the last word and swung the stall door open. “You’re supposed to just follow my fucking orders. If you can’t comply—”

But Enya was already gone. Instead, a man in a suit had entered the restroom and stared at him, shaking his head.

“Man, just do the deed in private. And for God’s sake, don’t talk to it.”

Cursing three ways to heaven, Hamish hurried past him, embarrassment and anger sweeping through him in equal measure. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Having to play boyfriend to this bossy woman, who didn’t know what real danger she was in, was by far the bigger problem. Cinead had been wrong: the betrayal he’d suffered hadn’t inoculated him against being attracted to a woman he had no business desiring.

But he wasn’t taking the blame for this. No, he had a very convenient scapegoat up his sleeve:
rasen
. Every Stealth Guardian experienced the mating call the closer he got to his two-hundredth birthday.
Rasen
, the need to find a mate and procreate, influenced a Stealth Guardian much in the same way a dog was affected by a bitch in heat. But Hamish was determined to ignore it—even if that mating call came in the form of the most delectable female he’d ever encountered.

Rasen
could kiss his bloody ass!

5

When her assistant Collette, a leggy black woman in her mid forties, popped her head into the office, Tessa looked up from her files.

“Tessa, I’m leaving now,” Collette said. “And so should you if you want to make it to the party on time. Traffic is hell out there. Did you hear they had to close off Park Avenue because of a demonstration?”

“Oh, crap!” Tessa shut the file and jumped up from her armchair, glancing at her wristwatch. “I didn’t realize it was that late already. Thank you, Collette. Is Poppy still in the building?” Maybe Poppy could ride with her so she wouldn’t have to be alone with her new bodyguard, who’d texted her that afternoon to tell her he’d be picking her up at City Hall to take her to the event.

“No, she left long ago. Said she had meetings outside the office. I believe she was planning to meet you at the party.”

Tessa pasted a fake smile on her face to hide her disappointment. “That’s perfect, thanks. Have a great night, Collette.”

“You, too, Tessa,” her assistant replied and left, easing the door shut.

“Damn it,” she cursed as she collected her handbag.

It was time to get ready to leave. She quickly checked her clothes, making sure there were no stains on her blouse, then slipped into her gray suit jacket. She’d chosen this outfit especially this morning, because she could wear it both to the office and the event and wouldn’t have to waste any time by stopping by at home and getting changed.

Tessa pulled out her compact and perused her reflection. Did her cheeks look a little red? She shrugged. So what if they did. She wasn’t going to the event to win a beauty contest.

Her stomach growled. No wonder. She’d skipped lunch in order to receive several concerned constituents who had family members embroiled in the recent riots downtown. They’d been beside themselves, begging her for help, claiming their sons had nothing to do with the fights that had taken place at a demonstration. After two hours of listening to the same story over and over again, she’d been exhausted and close to tears. Something had to change in this city.

Switching off the light on her way out, she closed the door and locked it. The antechamber, which was shared by four assistants, all working for one council member or another, was empty. She was crossing the room when she heard a noise behind her. Spinning around, she instinctively gripped her handbag tighter, hoping to use it as a shield against an attacker. She froze. There was nobody behind her, just the closed door of her office and Collette’s tidy desk a few feet to its left.

Heart beating into her throat, she cast frantic looks in every direction, but she was alone.

“Shit!” she cursed under her breath.

She was definitely losing it. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it until now, but the death threat two days earlier had rattled her, and the arrival of the bodyguard had driven the reality of her situation home. She was in danger because somebody didn’t like her political agenda, when all she wanted was to bring peace and prosperity back to this city. The people of Baltimore needed her, and therefore
she
needed to win this election. And that’s why—even though she didn’t like Hamish’s macho attitude—she would just have to play along with her overbearing bodyguard.

And her bodyguard was already waiting for her when she reached the lobby. He’d changed clothes and was now wearing a dark blue suit with a lavender-colored tie. But even the elegant attire couldn’t disguise his muscular physique or the fact that he looked like he could overturn a tank singlehanded. To her surprise he smiled at her as she approached him, and when she reached him, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

“You look great, Tessa.”

Shocked at the physical intimacy and the compliment, she froze, unable to form a coherent sentence. She felt him lean even closer, his hand on the small of her back now, his mouth near her ear.

“This is where you say, thanks for picking me up, Hamish,” he whispered.

He wore no aftershave that she could detect, and he smelled more masculine than any man she’d ever been near. Trying to get her rapidly beating heart under control, she pulled back a few inches and stepped out of his almost-embrace.

“Hi, Hamish, I hope you didn’t have to wait long.”

He offered his arm, and she had no choice but to accept it, allowing him to walk her past building security to the large double doors leading out of the building.

“You’re worth waiting for,” he said.

She cast him a sideways look and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You don’t have to lay it on that thick. Nobody’s watching us.”

He graced her with a devastatingly charming smile. “You never know.” Then he winked at her. “Besides, I need the practice. We both do.”

She had no comeback for this.

At the bottom of the stairs, he let go of her arm and opened the passenger door of a black Mercedes and helped her in. She slunk into the elegant interior. Moments later, Hamish got in on the driver’s side and started the engine.

He motioned to the controls. “If you want the air condition on, feel free. Or if you’re too cold, I can switch on the seat warmer.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Why so friendly all of a sudden?”

He pulled away from the curb and eased into the evening traffic. “I think you got the wrong impression of me earlier.”

“Did I?”

“Apparently. And I know that’s partially my fault. I’m not used to my charges refusing protection.”

“And I’m not used to somebody telling me where I can and cannot go.”

“I realize that. That’s why I propose a truce.”

“What kind of truce?”

He looked at her briefly. “The only kind of truce there is: where both parties lay down their arms and agree not to start a fight.”

She shrugged. “I never started a fight with you.”

He opened his mouth, but then closed it again. For a moment he said nothing, then, “Well, then I guess it’s up to me to apologize for the argument in your office.”

“Guess it is.” She wasn’t going to make this easy on him, because she had to set one thing straight: she was the client.

“I’m sorry if I came on a little strong earlier,” he started, his voice a little gruff, as if it irked him that he had to apologize—or as if he’d never done it before and was entirely unfamiliar with the concept. “But all I’m concerned about is your safety, and I’m not going to make any compromises when it comes to that. As you may have guessed, I’m not too wild about having to pretend to be your boyfriend, but from now on neither you nor anybody else will notice that. I guarantee it.”

While she appreciated his apology, he’d practically negated it with his last words. He wasn’t too wild about being her pretend-boyfriend? “And you think
I’m
wild about it?” She blew out an outraged breath and looked out the side window. “If I had time to date, you wouldn’t be my first choice either.”

“Ouch,” he said, accompanied by a barely suppressed chuckle.

She whirled her head to him and saw him grinning. Damn, why did that annoy her so much? Or was it not the smile that riled her up, but the fact that he didn’t like the idea of dating her? As if she wasn’t good enough for him. Or pretty enough. Or—oh screw it! Why did she even care? Well, she didn’t!

“Hmm, now that we’ve cleared that up, I’m sure we’ll get on famously,” he prophesized. “Nothing helps a relationship flourish like low expectations.”

“Aren’t I lucky?”

6

Hamish took a deep, calming breath, stopping himself from replying to Tessa’s comment.

Keep it together, man!

Fuck, he wasn’t good at this. It had been hard enough to apologize, and he’d be damned if he made any more concessions. Maybe she could treat a real boyfriend like this, but not him. And everything had started so well. He’d paid her a compliment, kissed her on the cheek, led her to the car like a gentleman. He’d even opened the car door for her. What else did she want from him?

If I had time to date, you wouldn’t be my first choice either.

Her cold words echoed in his mind. She’d made it pretty clear that she didn’t like him. He should be happy about it. After all, didn’t that make things easier? At least he wouldn’t be tempted to act on his inexplicable attraction to her, knowing she would reject any advances anyway. But instead of welcoming her indifference toward him, it pissed him off.

“We’ll be there soon,” he said into the silence.

“There’s a lot of traffic,” Tessa said, her voice sounding doubtful as she pointed to the intersection ahead of them.

By the time they reached it, it was clear why no one was getting through. On the street to their left, an angry mob had formed. What or whom they were angry at wasn’t immediately discernible. After all, random riots seemed to break out pretty much every other day lately. And this mob was armed with baseball bats and stones.

“Shit!” Hamish cursed and looked for an escape route. He was already blocked in by traffic behind him. And while he had enough space in front to do a U-turn, oncoming traffic had blocked that lane too, preventing him from turning around the way they came.

Crossing the intersection wasn’t an option. The police had already barricaded the street. His only option was to turn right. When he glanced at Tessa, he noticed her apprehensive look.

“It’s getting worse every day,” she murmured.

“I’ll get us out of here.”

Turning the wheel sharply to the right, he pulled them out of traffic and jumped the curb. They drove down the broad sidewalk, two wheels on the street, two on the sidewalk. Good thing that all the pedestrians had fled, not wanting to be caught up in the angry mob that was now bashing in windows and throwing rocks at cars, shouting and yelling unintelligible things.

The moment he saw an alley to his right, he took it and raced through it faster than he should. But he’d managed to get his precious passenger out of the danger zone. That was all that mattered.

Now his mind was free again to think of other things. Such as how lovely Tessa had looked when she’d walked toward him in the lobby. There’d been a glow about her, and her lavender eyes had looked even more brilliant than they had earlier in the day. And the closer she’d gotten, the more vibrant they’d become. At that thought he caught his own reflection in the windshield and noticed the same color reflecting back at him. But the color didn’t come from Tessa’s eyes, it came from his tie.

He did a double-take. Had he accidentally chosen a tie to match her eyes? What the fuck was wrong with him?

Annoyed at himself for not making more of an effort to suppress the effect
rasen
was clearly having on him, he tried to concentrate on driving until they arrived at the event.

Just barely on time, he pulled up to the curb where a valet was already waiting to take the car keys. He jumped out and snatched the ticket from the guy, grunted a quick “Thank you” and walked around the car. But he wasn’t quick enough. Tessa had already gotten out. He closed the car door behind her and took her elbow.

She whipped her head around to him. “What?”

“Careful, the stairs are uneven, and there isn’t really enough light.” He pointed to the steps that led up to the entrance of the industrial-looking building. This was definitely not one of those fancy hotel fundraiser events that politicians liked to attend. This looked a lot less elegant. “Take my arm, please,” he said in a softer tone, back in pretend-boyfriend mode now.

When she finally hooked her arm under his, he placed his hand over hers, pressing down gently. He felt a corresponding shiver race up his arm and down his spine, reminding him of how long it had been since he’d touched a woman.