Page 39 of Flirtatious

What I really liked was spending time with her, but I can’t say that.

Her eyes light up, and she smiles up at me. “Well, then my work is done here.”

We stand there for a moment saying nothing, and then before I know it, she stands on her tiptoes and kisses me. It lasts for only a second, but that’s all it takes to make me feel like I’ve been hit by a bolt of lightning.

Before I can say a word, she hurries down the hall toward her room, leaving me staring at her as she runs away and wondering why the hell I keep letting her get so close to me. I know better.

Why the hell can’t I seem to follow my own rules with her?

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

Liam

Thankfully,Jonah made sure the guys I requested to add to Mia’s security staff are available. The last thing I want to do is have to bring four guys I don’t know up to speed with this madhouse.

By lunchtime, they all arrive, so I take them out around the grounds to introduce them to what we’ll be doing. As usual, Jack Newsom barely lets me get a full sentence in before he starts talking.

“Hell of a job, if you can get it, I guess,” he says with a chuckle that tells me he thinks I have some special in with the owner of VIP. Jack’s not terribly subtle nine times out of ten, and this isn’t the tenth time.

As the five of us pass by a topiary that’s either some kind of dolphin or a mermaid, I roll my eyes and look back at the other men. “Nice to know good old Jack here never changes. As I was saying, it’s Mia who we’re guarding, not the myriad of other people who seem to mill about this estate twenty-four seven.”

Turning around to face us, Jack walks backward with a shit-eating grin on his face and runs his hand through his light blond hair that makes him look like he should be at the beach instead of here with us. “And why would I ever change? Perfection is as nature intends it to be.”

Barely twenty-five, he’s got the confidence of a guy who’s been on the job half his life. One of these days, he’s going to learn some humility.

The one person in the group I’m closest to, Drew Larson, nudges my arm with his elbow. “These kids today. You’d swear they think they’re God’s gift to the world.”

I can’t help but laugh at his reference to a man just five years younger than him as a kid. Then again, Drew’s always seemed like an old soul.

“Says the thirty year old,” I joke to my friend.

“Thirty, but you try doing ten of those years with the family I had. You know what I’m talking about.”

I do, and I nod my understanding. Drew’s seen some shit and not only on the job. He watched his father get gunned down in his front yard when he was only seven, and then he saw his mother fall apart for the next five years. By the time he was twelve, he was in the foster care system, and I know from what Wilder’s told me about his time in there that it’s nowhere you want to be.

“Yeah, I guess you get to call Jack here a kid. You still look pretty young, though,” I say with a laugh as he pats his very short black hair.

“Of course I do. I’m the twenty-first century Denzel, man. You can’t beat that,” Drew says with a wide grin.

“Well, Denzel 2.0, what do you think of this place?” Jack asks as he turns in a full circle to admire the grounds. “I think I might have died and gone to heaven. How is it you always get the sweet assignments, Liam?”

I don’t bother answering him because he doesn’t want to hear that maybe if he wasn’t a clown so often that Jonah would like him more. Behind us, another new guy in the group Kip Jones stays quiet as he takes in the surroundings. Practically the polar opposite of Jack, everyone calls him Kip because he refuses to answer to his given name, Trevor. He says it’s a dick name, so he won’t even turn his head if you say it. Someone once joked that it sounded British like Kip, and from that day on, he’s been Kip. Very much an American, he says little and I’m pretty sure he hates Jack, which hopefully won’t cause any problems.

“Doing okay back there?” I ask him and turn to see him nod his head and smile.

“You know, I don’t ordinarily agree with Jack up there, but I have to think you did something nice in a past life to get this assignment, Liam. I’m a little confused why we’re all needed, though, if she has her own security in addition to you.”

Just like Kip to cut to the chase. He says little, but when he does speak, it’s to the point, unlike with Jack and his constant jokes and chatter.

The last guy I’ve brought on, Brett Marshall, nods as Kip voices his confusion about why Mia needs more protection. The largest of the four of them, he’s the one you put up front to let everyone know there won’t be any fucking around on a job.

“I’m with Kip. You’ve said she doesn’t leave the estate much, except to go on tour. But she’s already got a damn legion of people protecting her, so what are we for?”

Before I can answer, Jack laughs and says, “You mean, what are we four for.”

Everyone groans at his attempt at a joke, and Drew levels his gaze on me with nothing less than disgust. “I trust you. You know that. I’m just wondering why you brought Bozo here onto the team.”

As Jack begins to protest being called a clown, I explain, “Because I need people I can trust on this job. It’s not that Mia doesn’t have security everywhere she goes, but it’s been pretty fucking lax in the past. I needed to know I have a crew I can depend on, and even though Jack here is a bit much with his humor, I can rely on him like I can rely on the rest of you.”

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