Page 37 of Dangerous

“Mmmhm,” he hummed. “Does it come at any specific times?”

“Usually the mornings. Why, do you need to know to book my appointment with the doctor?”

“Yeah,” he said, not taking his eyes off the road. “It’ll help. Okay, love, looks like we’ve landed.”

I ducked my neck to look out the front window just as we drove underneath a big professional-looking building and into its parking basement.

“Blaine’s got an actual office?” I asked, somewhat surprised by the grandness of the location. Somehow, I’d expected us to drive up to a seedy motel room with stains on the carpets and the blinds pulled.

Rob chuckled. “Yeah, the Steels like to keep up appearances for the law and such. We do most business meetings here. At least, the pleasant ones.”

I shuddered at the implication that the “less pleasant”business meetings needed to be somewhere else—somewhere the law wouldn’t know about.

Rob parked up and waited for me to fumble the seatbelt off so he could escort me to the elevator. He pushed the button for the fifth floor and, when the doors opened a few moments later, stepped out as if to check the floor was clear of threats. Then he nodded to me and waved a few fingers at me, motioning for me to join him.

I smiled broadly at him. “You’re taking your bodyguard duties very seriously, huh?”

He snorted. “Love, if something happens to you under my watch, I’m dead. Can’t leave the missus as a widow with two wee ones, now can I?”

“I’m sure Blaine likes you a whole lot more than me,” I said, patting his arm reassuringly. “You’ll be fine, even if some rival family suddenly decided to burst through the Steel’s office building and kidnap me for no apparent reason.”

Rob gave me a long glance. “Yeah. Sure. I guess you don’t know what happened to the two men who were on guard duty the night you decided to slip out?”

My heart gave an uncomfortable lurch. I hadn’t even thought about it. “W-what do you mean? What happened to them?”

“Nothing they won’t recover from,” he said, giving me a small shrug. “But then, they didn’t let someone snatch you—you went off by your own choice. Don’t underestimate him, love. He’s fiercely protective of you, and has a bit of a nasty temper.”

I opened my mouth to ask him what the heck he meant by that, but just then Blaine walked through the door leading into the hallway and I lost my train of thought. He’d changed into a black, tailored suit that fit him like a glove and a blue striped tie, and I was completely taken aback by my own body’s reaction to the sight.

My heart sped up, making my pulse hammer in my throat, and my traitorous ovaries seemed to melt in my abdomen, making my nether region clench with sudden and intense desire. To my excruciating embarrassment, I felt my panties start to dampen.

For fuck’s sakes! He was just a man in a suit. Okay, an incredibly handsome and sexy-as-hell man, but still. There was no excuse for my body to react this way at the mere sight of him.

“Thank you, Rob. I’ll take it from here. You go home to your family, I’ll drive her home later.”

It wasn’t until he spoke, his voice unusually gruff, that I realized his forehead was locked in a deep frown and his gray eyes seemed darker than normal. Clearly, he wasn’t happy about something.

“Sure thing, boss.” Rob nodded at us before retreating to the elevator. When the doors shut, Blaine turned to me.

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” I croaked, willing my body to calm the heck down.

He put his hand on my shoulder, which didn’t exactly help matters, and guided me through the door and into a lavishly decorated waiting area, complete with a busy-looking secretary in her mid-forties.

“I had no idea you moonlighted as a respectable business man,” I joked in an attempt to alleviate my own discomfort at his closeness. Even through my clothes, I felt his hand on me like an electric pulse that heated my skin and made my heart pound heavily behind my ribs.

Blaine didn’t answer, but stepped back and motioned for me to shrug out of my coat. I obeyed, and he helped me out of it and handed it to the secretary, who seemed to magically appear by his side the moment he held out his arm.

“I’ll have to warn you that this might not be a very pleasant experience for you,” he murmured once she’d disappeared through another door with my coat. “When my father set up this meeting, I didn’t realize who the contact would be.”

I looked up at him, suddenly feeling less eager about this whole arrangement. Who on earth would make Blaine Steel seem so on edge? Was there some rival mafia trying to encroach on their territory or what? “What do you mean?”

Again, he didn’t answer me, but once again he put his hand on my shoulder to lead me to to what I assumed was the door to the conference room. My suspicions were confirmed when we stepped through into a room dominated by a large, oval table. Four chairs were set out, two of them empty. In the two closest to the door and with their backs to us sat two male figures, waiting.

When the one furthest to the right turned around to look at us over his shoulder, my heart dropped.

No.No, no, no.

---