Page 10 of Billionaire Bodyguard

“What?”

“We’re going out with the guys. Have you ever been toBradford’s? It’ll be so fun. We can dance—”

“No dancing,” Booker interrupted. “It’s too hard for your protection team to keep you safe while you’re gyrating in a crowd of drunk suits out to forget the workweek. Someone might touch you.”

She trailed a finger along the placket of his shirt.

“You could come dance with me,” she murmured, a promise in her words. “And Adler can dance with Linz. She deserves to have some fun—even if her partner is her stiff, stone-faced bodyguard. No offense, Adler.”

Shock hit like lightning when Adler almost—almost—rolled his eyes at her.

“No offense taken, I’m sure,” he countered, smirking at her taunt.

What? What the heck? Who was this guy?

“We’ll talk about dancingafterLinzey eats,” he added. “She…forgot…to eat today.”

“I didn’t say I forgot,” I whispered between gritted teeth, looking away from everyone.

“Right. You didn’t forget,” he growled, catching my chin and making me look at him. His stare probing into me. “Youchosenot to have anything.”

“What difference does it make anyway?” I shot back, tugging out of his grasp. “To you? What difference does it make to you?”

His lips parted and again, I saw his response right there, itching to escape, but he snapped his mouth shut and suppressed whatever it was. His customary expressionless mask dropped back into place. Damn it. Just when I’d been on the verge of seeing him worked up. Was it actually possible to agitate my bodyguard?

His hand clamped around my upper arm, and he drew me closer to him, his lips near my ear. “When we get to the bar, you will eat,” he growled, low enough that neither my sister nor her husband could hear him. “And if you don’t, so help me God…”

“So help you what?” I whispered. I glanced toward my sister, only to find the other couple had suddenly disappeared, leaving us alone. So this wasn’t my imagination. Therewassomething going on here.

How farcouldI push him?

“Little girl, do you really want to see what happens when you push me too far?”

Oops. Did I wonder that out loud? Shoot. I might have an unspoken obsession, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to know about it.

“Well?” he prompted, his dark challenge caressing over me, wrapping around me, tormenting me before he tightened his noose.

And damn it if a masochistic side of me didn’t want that.

“Yes,” I said, the word barely more than a breath. “I do want to see that. I do want to know what you’re like when you go over the edge.”

His fingers tightened on my arm, and I halfway hoped I’d develop a bruise there, proof that this fever-dream moment had actually happened. My breath caught when he suddenly let go. He didn’t move away, though.

He leaned even closer, and his lips brushed my temple as he spoke. “Haven’t you heard: be careful what you wish for. The consequences might not be what you expect.”

I licked my lips and looked up into his eyes. He should scare me. I should be scared. Terrified. I wasn’t. Of all the men in the world, Adler made me feel safe. There was nothing he could do to change that.

I’d trusted him from the moment he’d turned from rescuing Marigold and seen me chained to that wall.

It’ll be okay,he’d said, crouching next to me.You’re safe. No one’s hurting you; no one’s touching you without your permission. Never again. I swear to you.

Since that day, he’d kept his word. Probably a little too well.

“I know exactly what I’m asking for,” I ventured.

Adler quietly snorted his single laugh. “Oh, little girl, no. No, you don’t.”

Six

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