“Enough!” She held up her hands. “I totally get the picture, but you don’t get to tell me how to wear my hair.”
“I’m your bodyguard.”
Staring at him, she gave a quick shake of her head. The man was insufferable—sexy, but incredibly insufferable. But within the matter of minutes, he’d yanked her out of her self-pity and the tight grasp of fear, and for that she was thankful.
Didn’t mean she had to accept any of what was coming out of his mouth or follow through with the crazy idea of her staying in his home. “You being my bodyguard doesn’t mean you’re my personal stylist, Chandler, and I can’t—”
“Speaking of personal stylist, you look better in my old clothes than you do in those God-awful suits you wear. And trust me, you look fucking hot in my clothes.”
Her cheeks tightened with a blush she wished would go away and die. “Thanks,” she gritted out.
“Thank God the clothes in your closet were destroyed. See? There’s a silver lining in every dark cloud or whatever bullshit they say. We can go shopping tomorrow and find you something that actually makes you look good.”
Too pissed to be hurt by his comments, she curled her hands into fists at her sides. There was a good chance she was going to punch him in the face. “First off, fuck you.”
His blue eyes gleamed with mischief. “I like where this is heading.”
Correction: she was going to kick him in the balls. “Secondly, I’m so glad that my entire wardrobe being destroyed is such good news to you. Thirdly, I’d rather run in front of a speeding city bus than go clothes shopping with you.”
“Well, that sounds drastic.”
Her jaw ached from how hard she was clenching her teeth. “And finally, I can’t stay here.”
The laziness in his posture vanished in an instant and he straightened. “You’re staying here, Alana.”
“I can go back to the hotel—”
“Absolutely not,” he interrupted, eyes flashing cobalt. “It is not safe for you to stay in a hotel.”
A dull shard of dread hit her in the chest, but she ignored it. “I’m fine at the hotel.”
“If you really believe that, then why did you come here?”
Ah, he had a good point. “That was a mistake, but there’re tons of people around and—”
He unfolded his muscular arms. “Exactly. There are tons of people who go in and out all day and all night long. It’s a major security threat, and I should’ve pulled your ass out of there the first night.”
It still struck her speechless for a moment to know that he’d been watching her when she’d thought he’d forgotten about her. “I’m not staying here. It’s absurd. It’s your home, Chandler. It’s so inappropriate.”
One dark brow arched. “Who gives a fuck about appropriate?”
“I do!”
A look of impatience crossed his face. “You worry about what other people think too much.”
“It’s my job,” she replied crossly.
“No.” He shook his head and several shorter strands escaped the ponytail. “It’s more than that. You job isn’t your life—it shouldn’t be.”
“It’s not yours?”
He laughed. “Hell no.”
Her mouth opened, but she found she had no idea what to say. Better yet, how did they get so far off topic?
“Besides, your inappropriate argument is moot. I’m your bodyguard. So if you stayed in that hotel, I’d be staying with you. But staying here is sure as hell a lot more comfortable.”
Once again, he had a point, but she couldn’t do this. Coming to CCG Security might have been the right thing to do, but she had been wrong in demanding that it be him. There had to be someone else, because she…she didn’t trust herself around him. The way he made her feel, even now when she wanted nothing more than to karate chop him into next week, was the same feeling she saw in her mother’s eyes every time she’d talked about a new guy.
“I’m fine with someone staying with me in a hotel room,” she decided, lifting her chin stubbornly. “But it has to be someone else. Anyone but you, because—”
One second he was standing by the bedroom door and the next he was in front of her, one hand on her hip and the other delving deep into her hair, cradling the nape of her neck. The words formed on her tongue, but he silenced them with his lips.
Chandler kissed her.
Shock radiated down her spine. That had to be the only reason she didn’t knee him between the thighs right off the bat. At first, it was barely a touch, but her lips tingled hotly, as if she’d dared to kiss the sun. His lips swept over hers once more as she placed her hands on his chest, prepared to push him away, but then he nipped at her lower lip. A tiny bite that brought forth a wave of tight lust that seemed to come out of nowhere. He nibbled at the corner of her lip as he pulled her against him, trapping her hands between them.
Good Lord, he kissed like a man starving for a taste.
Working at the tight seam of her lips, he pressed forward, demanding that she open up to him.
She couldn’t help her reaction to the kiss, no matter how badly she wished she wasn’t affected by it. She wanted to remain aloof to the sensual assault, to remain in complete control of herself, but a longing rose deep inside her, spreading like wildfire.
Her lips parted on a sigh, and Chandler delved inside, slowly probing the recesses of her mouth. He tasted of whiskey and something richer, deeper. The kiss deepened, and instead of pushing him away, her hands fisted in the shirt he wore, holding him in place. He kissed her like he could claim her with his tongue, and damn if he wasn’t close to doing it.
As his mouth melted against hers, her hands spasmed around his shirt, and then it happened. She tentatively flicked her tongue against his, kissing him back. His answering growl rumbled through his chest and his grip on her tightened.
When he finally lifted his head, she was panting and her stare was unfocused. “You taste just as I imagined,” he said huskily, loosening his hold on her and putting some space between them. “And I have a vivid imagination. You taste sweet.”
“Why?” she demanded, placing her hand over her lips. She felt unsteady, as if she’d topple right over if he hadn’t still been holding her by the nape of her neck.
One side of his lips tipped up. “I figured it was the only way to get you to stop arguing.”
Alana stared up at him, stunned that he’d used that tactic. “You kissed me to shut me up?”
“Basically.” The smug grin appeared as he tipped his chin down. Those shorter strands grazed his cheeks. “It worked, didn’t it?”
She jerked away, breaking his hold and stumbling back a step. Anger infused her cheeks, chasing at the pleasant pleasure his lips had given her. Now she was offended. “You kissed me just to shut me up? You overbearing, inappropriate son of a—”
Chandler caught her once more and kissed her again. This time there was no sweet brush of his lips or barely there touch. He delved right in, soaking her up and kissing her until she couldn’t breathe. A bone-deep wanting exploded, making her swollen and hot, but she cocked back her arm, punching him in the stomach.
A laugh burst from him as he caught her wrist and then her other, intercepting before she could get another indignant hit in. “Ouch, that could’ve hurt.”
“I hope it did!” she seethed, torn between being turned on and ticked off. “You just can’t go around kissing people to get them to stop talking.”
“And why not?” He hauled her toward him as he took a step back. The next thing she knew, he was sitting on the edge of the bed and she was very much perched in his lap. “I thought it was actually really fun.”
There had been times in Alana’s life when she’d wondered how she got where she was. Her work? Determination. Gumption. Balls-to-the-walls type of approach. But this? She had no clue how she’d ended up sitting in Chandler’s lap, her lips swollen from his kisses and her body burning for more while she seriously wanted to choke the ever-loving
crap out of him.
Chandler looped his arms around her waist, the hold not tight but firm. She wasn’t going anywhere, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to sit here. She raised her hands, ready to do bodily harm.
“It wasn’t the only reason I kissed you,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed as her hands froze on his shoulders. “It’s not?”
He dipped his chin, pressing his forehead to hers. His warm breath danced over her lips and her hands dropped to his shoulders, fingers digging into the tough muscle. “No, it’s not. I’ve wanted to kiss you since you showed up at my door looking for Chad.”
Surprise blasted through her like a bomb. He’d wanted to kiss her then? Alana knew she wasn’t the kind of woman men typically lusted over for any length of time, but she believed him. She’d felt it in his kiss.
“And I’m serious,” he continued, his lips grazing her cheek, eliciting a shiver from her. “You’re not staying at a hotel. You’re staying here.” He drew back, so that his gaze locked with hers. “It’s not going to be someone else. It’ll be no one else but me.”
Chapter Eight
Whoever came up with the idea to take this woman shopping was out of his fucking mind. Oh, yeah, that’s right. It was his astonishingly dumb idea.
Alana was worse than a guy.
Chandler had to drag her into the shops, which she conveniently argued didn’t carry the kind of clothing she’d wear. After about the fifth store, he refused to allow her to leave without purchasing enough clothes to get her through the week.
And then the arguing really began.
“That looks like a man’s suit.” He curled his lip in disgust at the black, drab suit she held in one hand.
Her eyes rolled. “It does not.”
Poking at the blazer, he frowned. “Does it have shoulder pads? What year is this?”
Alana moved around a rack, muttering under her breath. He picked up words like “dick” and “asshole,” among other sweet nicknames. “I guess you think I should be in skirts?”
He fought a smile as he cornered her between two more racks. “What’s wrong with a skirt? I bet you have beautiful legs.” He leaned in, and when her breath caught, he didn’t mistake the sudden light in her dark eyes. Catching her gaze, he tipped his lips up as he reached around her and gently tugged on a loose strand of hair. It was soft as satin. “You wore your hair down today.”
Her eyes flashed furiously behind her glasses. “Not because of you.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” As he straightened, he scanned the store for any oddballs. No one really looked out of place. The only man in the store was up at the counter, his back to them.
She tightened her fingers around a hanger until he thought she’d snap the plastic. By the looks of it now, he wouldn’t believe that she’d actually sat in his lap last night for a few moments, calm and serene.
“The only reason I’m wearing my hair down is because someone came into my room while I slept, like a total freak, and took my bobby pins and hair bands.”
Barely resisting the urge to laugh, he widened his eyes. “Really?”
She snorted, shoving that horrific suit back onto the rack. “You must have a small critter in your home that has an affinity for pins and rubber bands, because they were also missing from my purse.”
He couldn’t help it then. He laughed, and one would think they were knee-deep in a debate about politics or something actually relevant, based on how flushed her cheeks were. She shot him a glare that would have most men cupping themselves. It only made him hard as steel.
It took another thirty minutes to load her up with jeans, linen pants, suits, and so on, and he finally saw the end in sight.
Guiding her back toward the dressing rooms, he kept an eye on their surroundings and a hand on her shoulder. Normally on his assignments, he made sure those who were under his protection were kept out of the public. He couldn’t very well do that with her. She seriously had only the clothes he was lending her.
Hell, he really liked seeing her in his clothes. So this was a double dumb idea.
“Why are you scowling?” she demanded, the pile of clothes almost as tall as she was. “You’re not the one being pushed around.”
He leveled a mild stare at her as he pushed open an empty dressing room. “There you go.”
“I do have two eyes in my head,” she spat back, unceremoniously dumping her load on the floor. “Captain mother fucking obvious.”
Raising a brow, he grinned. “Man, you really did wake up in a great mood this morning.”
It was true. She had been as prickly as a hedgehog since she grumbled into his kitchen, her hair in cute disarray and her clothing rumpled. He should’ve been the one pissed off because he’d found her actually cute, like he was a girl or something, but she stole those rights right away from him. Instead of responding to his comment, she slammed the dressing room door in his face.
Chandler growled low in his throat, startling the woman sitting on the bench behind him.
“You don’t scare me,” came Alana’s muffled voice through the door. “Make all the animal noises you want. It’s not me who comes across as needing a rabies shot.”
“I beg to differ,” he muttered, dropping onto another bench directly across from her room.
Today was the longest Saturday ever.
He’d already avoided two calls from Chad, which told him that the first thing Chase had done when Chad’s game was over was call him and gossip like a woman. He’d have to talk to Chad at some point, but right now, there wasn’t a pressing need for it. Hours had also passed since he’d spoken to Murray and asked him to check out Alana’s apartment and gather as many personal items as he could. He hadn’t heard back from him yet, so he wondered if Murray got himself arrested sneaking into Alana’s apartment.
He was also tired, hungry, and horny. So fucking horny it was like being sixteen again. He went to bed hard, woke up hard, and was now sitting outside a dressing room, hard.
It had been a long time, if ever, since he’d wanted a woman this badly.
Tipping his head back against the partition wall, he scanned those shopping in the store. Last night, he’d barely gotten any sleep knowing that Alana was across the hall, and now he was paying for it. Half of it was his fault. He’d put the moves on her yesterday, kissing her. At first, she had frozen against it, but when she’d gotten into it, damn if she hadn’t responded. Just thinking about Alana sliding her tongue against his had him bursting at the seams. He wanted to bust into the dressing room, take her home, and get her on her knees. Maybe even tie her wrists, spread her legs…
“What the hell?”
Chandler’s head jerked up in time to see a scrap of red lace fly over the dressing room door. His lips split into a grin. When Alana had been busy arguing over the jeans he’d picked out, he’d slipped the teddy into her pile of clothing.
A second later, the door cracked open, revealing Alana’s glare and pink cheeks. Her shoulders were bare with the exception of two tiny ivory straps. “You pig! I’m not sleeping in something that a stripper would wear when she’s working the pole.”
Now he was picturing Alana in the teddy working a pole. With her glasses on.
Her eyes narrowed dangerously, as if she knew the direction of his thoughts.
“That’s okay.” He stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles. He’d been wrong before. The end was nowhere in sight. “You can just sleep naked. I honestly like that idea better.”
…
It was in the evening when Murray swung by, and Chandler’s temper had been stretched thin. The whiskey he was nursing wasn’t doing much to help.
“About damn time,” he muttered.
Murray huffed. “That’s not how you should answer the door.”
Not in the mood to bullshit, he cut the crap. “Find anything?”
Edging past him, Murray carried in two large tote bags. “I brought whatever personal girlie stuff I could find. It took a whi
le. The place was a complete mess.”
“So it’s as bad as we thought it was?” He led Murray into the kitchen, the farthest away from the stairs. He hoped Alana didn’t come down, because rehashing the condition of her apartment surely wouldn’t put her in a better mood.
Murray deposited the totes on the counter. “Absolutely fucking destroyed. Took a knife to anything that could be torn apart, even the walls. The fucker even emptied out her fridge. That’s some major kind of rage.”
Chandler rubbed an ache along his shoulder. The old wound gave him trouble from time to time. “Did he get inside the way I thought?”
He nodded. “Right through the sliding glass door. The woman needs an alarm system and needs to replace that door. Those are the worst possible pieces of shit ever.”
“Find out anything else?” He picked up his glass of whiskey.
“Spoke to William Manafee. The man didn’t have anything really nice to say about Miss Gore.”
A flash of unexpected anger zinged through him. “What did he say?”
“Other than Miss Gore being a bitch of the highest order and that she destroyed his marriage?” Murray crossed the kitchen. “Nothing else. But I don’t think it was him. Even though he’s not a fan of the little publicist, there was a level of reluctant respect in his voice.”
That did little to soothe his rising anger. From personal experience, he knew Alana was hard to deal with, but she helped these people, even his brother, and at great cost to herself. Was he the only person who seemed to understand that?
“I also went ahead and tried Van Gunten’s agent,” Murray continued. “She said that Jennifer wouldn’t be available to speak with me until two weeks from now. She’s on a movie set in Australia or some shit. Wasn’t able to search down any of her friends, except the Ryan fella. It’s definitely not him.”
“How so?”
“Because he overdosed about three months ago.” Helping himself, Murray grabbed a beer out of the fridge and propped a hip against the counter. “Did she mention anything about a message?”