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  He moved his head back and looked deeply into my eyes before placing one more slow, sensual kiss on my wet mouth. As always, his taste was beyond compare. I wanted it to linger on my lips forever.

  Chapter Twenty

  NATALIE

  After getting our clothes back on, I reached forward and pressed the button. The elevator motor whirred back to life, and we started up again.

  Neither of us said a word, though I did catch a sly smirk on his face, as if he was pleased as hell at what had just happened. I felt the same way. My pussy still throbbed from the pounding he’d given me, and my limbs were weak and wobbly from the orgasm.

  Wordlessly, we went back into the apartment, and I plopped, exhausted, onto the couch.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Garrett as he made his way over to the bar and poured himself a whiskey.

  “Like a new woman,” I said. “That was just what I needed.”

  A drink in his hand, Garrett picked up the bottle of vodka and raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Nah,” I said. “I think I’m good for the night.”

  Between the cocktails that I’d had earlier and the afterglow of the orgasm, I was plenty intoxicated. Garret stepped out of his shoes and took a place on the couch next to me. His eyes lingered on my face, and I could tell that there was something on his mind.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just like looking at your face, is all.”

  “How sweet,” I said. “Yours isn’t so bad either.”

  I glanced in his direction. A smile curled my lips, but as I regarded his expression I noticed that there was something else to his look, something deeper than him simply liking what he was seeing.

  “Let’s hear it,” I said.

  An expression of surprise and shock flashed on his face for the briefest of moments before turning stony.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’m a lawyer, remember? Knowing when people are holding something back from me is part of my job.”

  “True,” he said. “But I’m not holding anything back.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Promise?”

  He sipped his whiskey, and I could tell that he was doing his best to keep stoic.

  “Well,” he said after swallowing. “Maybe there’s something.”

  I kicked off my heels and draped my legs over his lap. “Shoot,” I said.

  “Just this,” he said. “This is all new to me. I’ve never gotten involved with a client like this before. Makes me feel like I’m slacking in my job, like I’m letting my personal feelings get the better of my professionalism.”

  I scanned him for a few seconds to see if that was indeed what he was holding back. Sounded right to me.

  “This is what you’re thinking about less than fifteen minutes after we screwed?” I asked with a smile. “You sound like a college girl wanting to having the what-are-we-doing-here conversation with her emotionally distant boyfriend.”

  He smirked as he fished a shard of ice out of his glass and tossed it in my direction. I let out a laugh and swatted it away right as the wet, cold chunk bounced against my skin.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “But like I said, it’s not a matter of emotions. This is my job, and I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  That answered the question of whether he’d been running through a line of cute trust-fund girls during his years as a bodyguard. I didn’t know how to feel about what he’d just said. I didn’t have a low opinion of myself, of course, but what was it about me that made him break his professional conduct?

  Was there really something special happening between us?

  “And,” he said, “the first time this happened we made it clear to one another that it would just be a one-off. And here we are, breaking our own rules.”

  “Nothing wrong with rule-breaking every now and then,” I said, curling my toes and rubbing them along his chest.

  “There is when your life’s on the line.”

  I stopped my foot still. “Yeah,” I said. “There’s that.”

  “So,” he said. “That makes me wonder what the hell you and I are supposed to do.”

  He had a point. We were joined at the hip and were going to be so for the foreseeable future. That was how it had been before, but now the delusion that he and I would be able to keep our attraction compartmentalized and walled off was shattered.

  “That’s a good question,” I said. “And one that we should definitely sort out.”

  “But...” he said, knowing right away that there was a “but.”

  “But I think that should wait until we’re both well rested and not drunker than we ought to be.”

  He nodded, conceding the point. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right about that.”

  I sat up and reached for his glass. Once it was in my hand, I took a quick sip.

  “Ugh,” I said. “Don’t know how you can drink that crap without any Coke in it.”

  “Very easily,” he said with a grin as he tossed back the rest of it.

  “Cute,” I said, matching his grin.

  He hopped up from the couch and set his glass in the sink.

  “So,” he said, “we’re tabling the issue for the time being.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “At least until the morning. Maybe even a little longer than that. You know, in case we wake up and get a little distracted.”

  “I like the sound of that,” he said. “That mean we’re sharing a bed tonight?”

  I hadn’t even thought about the logistics of what I’d said. But I liked the sound of it.

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  “OK, then,” he said, striding over to me. “Then I’ll do the gentlemanly thing and make sure the lady doesn’t have to dirty up her feet walking there.”

  Before I could even make a crack about how my apartment floor was very, very clean thank-you-very-much, he scooped me off the couch and threw me over his shoulder. I let out a squeal of delight that was so happy and girlish that I was surprised to hear it come out of my mouth.

  “Hey!” I said through laughs as I drummed on his back. “What are you, some kind of caveman?”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  We soon stepped over the threshold of my bedroom, and Garrett didn’t waste any time tossing me onto the bed.

  As I lay there, my hair splayed out all around my head, another highly sexual thrill ran through my body. Garrett stood looming over me, and I felt my pussy clench at the sight of him. I couldn’t believe it, but just like before in the elevator, the way he effortlessly carried me had turned me on beyond belief.

  “Come here,” I said, undoing the button of my jeans. “I need a little something before bed.”

  I didn’t need to explain it any further. Garrett, a grin on his face, pulled his shirt off over his head and climbed on top of me.

  Twenty lovely minutes later, I was ready to pass out in exhausted bliss. My head rested on Garrett’s smooth, sculpted chest, his hand in my hair.

  I was happy. Beyond that, actually—totally blissed out. A smile on my face, I closed my eyes and settled in for a deep, restful sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  NATALIE

  A crash from another room jolted me awake. I scanned around the bedroom with frantic eyes, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked, keeping my voice quiet.

  Before I could even get the last word out, Garrett was out of bed and into his slacks. He reached down into the heap of clothes near the foot of the bed and pulled out a small, black gun. Through the panic I caught myself wondering how the hell he had that on him without me knowing it.

  “Stay put,” he said in a low, calm voice.

  My heart pounded in my chest as I watched him inch toward the door.

  “Who is it?” I asked, realizing instantly how silly of a question it was.

  “I’m goin
g to find out,” he said. “But stay here. Don’t move a muscle unless I say so.”

  The calm, professional tone of his voice managed to ease me somewhat, but I was still mostly freaking out. There was someone in my apartment, I just knew it. And now Garrett was going to go out and face him—or them—down.

  He opened the door slowly, wearing nothing but his pants. I couldn’t believe it, but even in the midst of my fear, I made a mental note of how hot he looked.

  Garrett slipped out and into the hallway, his steps silent as he moved like a shadow. He shut the door softly behind him.

  I felt helpless as soon as he was gone, and helpless was a feeling I didn’t take to kindly. Sure, he was the trained killer, but there was no way I was going to sit there like a damsel, not if there was a chance that I could help.

  I slipped out of the bed and quickly got into my jeans and a nearby T-shirt. No time for underwear. I moved as slowly and carefully as he did, worried that at any moment a gunshot would crack through the air and I’d run out to see Garrett dead in a heap.

  Right as I approached the door, another crash sounded out.

  Something was happening.

  I pulled the door open and stepped out into the hallway just as a grunt sounded out, followed by the hard smack of flesh on flesh.

  I rushed to the end of the hallway and peered around the corner, my heart dropping as I saw what was happening.

  There was someone in the apartment, all right. It was burly man dressed head-to-toe in black, a huge knife in his hand as he grappled with Garrett.

  “Garrett!” I shouted, not able to hold back my shock.

  “Natalie!” he called back, the man’s forearm pressed against his neck. “Get out of here!”

  The man, his face obscured by a ski mask, shot his gaze up and locked eyes with me. Fear covered me like cold water as I stood frozen.

  The man tossed Garrett aside, throwing him into the glass coffee table with a deafening crash, the glass shattering and spilling out all over the floor in a glittering mess.

  His eyes still locked on me, the man strode over Garrett as he writhed in the glass. I had no idea what to do, and knew I only had a few moments to react. I searched around me for something, anything that I could use as a weapon.

  My gaze landed on a nearby sculpture on a shelf a few feet away. It was some expensive thing made out of marble I’d bought at an auction a few months back, but how much money it had set me back was the furthest thing from my mind as I picked it up with both hands and launched it at the thug.

  The sculpture arced though the air toward the man. He swiped his hand as it neared him, evidently expecting it to only weigh a few pounds. His hand hit the sculpture with a hard, fleshy smack and sent it driving down onto the ground in front of him.

  Right onto his foot.

  A thud echoed through the living room as the sculpture landed, and a howl of pain burst from the man’s mouth, muffled slightly by the fabric of the ski mask.

  Down on the ground, Garrett scrambled to his feet and took advantage of the situation. He rushed over to the man and wrapped his arms around his neck, putting him into a tight hold.

  It was then I saw how freaking huge this guy was. I’d pinned Garrett as an inch or two shy of six and a half feet, but this guy managed to make him look diminutive. The thug stood up straight and thrashed around as he tried to buck Garrett off of him.

  But Garrett stayed on him, his thick forearms flexing, the veins tight and swollen. I watched as Garrett held onto him, the thug’s movements becoming groggier and slower as his brain was deprived of oxygen. Finally, he fell back onto the couch, Garrett moving on top of him and delivering one last hard punch to his face that sent him into unconsciousness.

  Garrett stayed on top of him for several long moments, his massive chest expanding and contracting, each muscle in his perfect body taut and tense. When he determined that the threat was taken care of, he stepped off the man and turned to me.

  “You got something I can use to tie this asshole up?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but I could barely form the words. Finally, they came. “Yeah,” I said. “I think I’ve got some nylon rope or something.”

  I rushed over to my supply closet and grabbed a coiled length of orange rope leftover from moving in. I tossed it to Garrett. He went to work, getting the man’s limbs bound to the arms and legs of the couch.

  Then he turned to me, his eyes flashing.

  “Are you OK?” he asked, cutting the distance between us and putting his hands on my arms.

  Right as his hands landed on me, the tension in my body melted away. His touch was like magic, calming me, easing my nerves.

  “I, I think so,” I said. “I got him with the thing before he could touch me.”

  I gave him a quick up-and-down to see if he was hurt. Sure enough, a few surface gashes covered his body, smears of blood here and there on his fair skin.

  “You’re hurt,” I said.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Just a few abrasions.”

  “But you’re bleeding,” I said. “I don’t like that.”

  “We’ve got bigger things to worry about,” he said, sticking his thumb toward the tied-up man. “He’s going to be coming to before too long.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I call Stan,” said Garrett. “He’ll be able to handle this.”

  “Then do it,” I said. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

  He nodded and went for his phone. As he did, I rushed to the bathroom and grabbed the kit from under the sink. I hurried back as quickly as possible to see Garrett still in the living room, tucking his phone into his pocket.

  I hated to admit it, but he looked hot as shit—even more than usual. He was in nothing but his slacks, the waistband hanging off his toned hips. His upper body was sheened in a thin layer of sweat, his muscles glistening in the silver moonlight that poured in through the windows. Even the few streaks of blood here and there added to his appeal in some strange, undeniable way.

  And he was OK. I could tell. The cuts looked to be nothing more than a few scratches from the glass. Still, I wanted to get him cleaned up.

  “Stan’s on his way over,” he said. “Kate will have him here in a few minutes.”

  “Good,” I said. “Then what?”

  “Then we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

  “What?” I asked. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious,” he said, turning and locking his blue eyes onto me.

  He pointed to the still-unconscious man bound up on the couch.

  “You see that?” he asked. “That means that not only is Joey still keeping the heat on you, but that he’s coming into your home. I have no idea how the fuck he got in here, but there’s not a chance in hell that he’s going to be the last.”

  “Joey had a card to my building,” I said. “I canceled it when we broke up, but he must’ve still been able to use it somehow.”

  “Maybe he copied the encryption from it,” said Garrett. “Or maybe he just paid someone at the front desk a shitload of money to look the other way. Doesn’t matter. The only thing that does is the fact that you’re not safe here.”

  “Then where are we going to go?” I asked.

  “My place,” he said.

  “Your place?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I’ve got an apartment in Brooklyn. Place is set up just how I like it—able to be locked down at a moment’s notice, and there’s not a chance of anyone getting in without me knowing about it.”

  I hated the idea of leaving my apartment behind, of fleeing it like a scared animal. But being in a place Garrett trusted made me feel a little bit better.

  Before I could think about it too long, the chime indicating someone at the front desk sounded. I pressed the button by the front door to signal to the front desk to let him up. I stepped over to the front door to open it up for Stan and saw that the fancy, high-tech lock had been broken open like it
’d been made of papier-mâché.

  Down the hall I spotted the short, stocky, and muscular frame of Stan stepping out from the elevator. He quickly made his way to the front door, giving me a grunt of acknowledgement as he entered the apartment. He had a large sack of something slung over his back.

  Garrett and Stan nodded to each other as Stan entered.

  “Damn,” said Stan as he looked over the tied-up thug. “Joey’s got some fucking bruisers on his payroll.”

  “No shit,” said Garrett.

  “The girl OK?”

  Garrett nodded in my direction. “Ask her yourself,” he said.

  Stan turned his small, dark eyes to me and looked me over.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  He gave a quick nod of approval as he squatted down and plopped the bag in front of him and began going through it.

  “You knock him out with a head injury?” asked Stan.

  “Nope,” said Garrett. “Just a choke hold. Figure he should be out for another five minutes or so.”

  “Good thing I showed up when I did,” said Stan as he took out a small black pouch.

  He unzipped it and revealed a carefully arranged array of syringes and small vials of liquid. He took out a needle and one of the vials, jamming the tip into the end of the container of liquid.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Giving him a sedative,” said Stan. “Just enough to keep him out while I get him to where we’re going.”

  “And what’s going to happen there?”

  “I’m going to work him over with the rest of the crew, see what he knows. And once that’s done, I’ll drop him off with the NYPD.”

  “Damn,” said Garrett, looking over the syringe. “Sure you’re not going to kill him with that?”

  “You see the size of this fucker?” asked Stan. “Need enough of this shit to knock out a Clydesdale.”

  Stan went to work, and when that was done, they loaded up the thug into a large bag that Stan had brought with him with the rest of the gear.