Page 44 of Sweet Temptation

“That is so not what I asked you. I asked you if you carry a gun.”

“Sometimes.”

“Like… when it’s legal for you to do so?”

“Yes. But I’m not carrying one now.”

She made a little Hmmm noise, then shrugged off her jacket. She hung it in the coat closet, but didn’t offer me a hanger.

She sat down on the step up to the living room, and started unzipping her tall, sexy boots. But she was still eying me.

I looked away, pretending to be absorbed in examining the lock on her front door.

“Who do you intend to have in and out of this house, besides Maddox?” she asked me.

“Like I said, he’ll be bringing a guy from his brother’s alarm company. I’ve already checked them out. You can believe me when I say I’m thorough.”

“Uh-huh.”

I looked at her. She’d removed the boots and now stood on the step, looking up at me. Even elevated on the step, she was a little shorter than me, though it put her much closer to my eye level.

I tried not to stare at her pale-blue eyes, but they were pretty damn mesmerizing.

Shit, I needed to get myself together. I couldn’t afford to be getting lost in her eyes every five seconds.

“Anyone else?” she asked.

“I’ll have some of my guys here. Sometimes.”

Usually, on a twenty-four-hour detail, I’d have three guys on the client in rotating eight-hour shifts. On this one, for now, it was gonna be me, me, and me, as much as humanly possible, with other guys filling in only when necessary.

I told myself that was because of the recent, and very possibly ongoing, threat to her safety, and the fact that she was a VIP client.

But my company had a lot of VIP clients. And if I was being honest with myself… if it were anyone else, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be here at all.

Wasn’t sure I wanted to examine that too closely, though.

“You don’t need to worry about anyone stepping on your toes,” I told her. “My guys are the best in the business. They’ll be discrete and unobtrusive.”

She made a grudging noise in her throat and crossed her arms, which was at least better than the hands on the hips.

“I’m here for your protection, Summer,” I reminded her. “And if Brody or Jude or any of their guys were here, they’d be telling you the same thing I’m telling you right now. You need to call the police about that restraining order.”

She listened, but she didn’t say anything.

I was coming to learn that that was possibly a good sign. At least she wasn’t serving up sass.

“What you want is called a peace bond,” I went on. “It’s a type of restraining order you can get against anyone, and you can definitely get one against a man who’s been stalking you.”

She looked away. She didn’t seem to like that word.

Stalking.

Couldn’t say I blamed her. But I was just gonna go ahead and call the situation what it was, based on the minimal evidence we had so far.

“If you don’t call it in,” I told her, “I will on your behalf.”

She threw me an annoyed look.

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