Page 30 of Take Hold of Me

Wills

Ican’t help myself. I try, and fail, to repress my chuckles at what just happened. Two gorgeous women—barely dressed in the smallest pieces of fabric known to mankind—literally are screaming about a bug. Okay, it’s a pretty large bug, but still. A beetle. My hand covers my mouth to hide my mirth. I needed this after what happened outside.

After the kid leaves the room with his mom or grandma or whoever that was with him, my eyes return to Emilie. Damn. Her friend is hot, too, but still…all that flesh exposed in the confines of this little room. I need to get out of here. My mirth morphs into something more primordial.

I lick my lips to stop an embarrassing groan when her friend holding two little yippie dogs sidles up to me. “Howdy there, handsome. What a welcome sight you are.”

The juxtaposition of her words with her British accent are incongruous. I smile at her antics, although my eyes track my client. “I heard screaming and wanted to be sure Emilie,” I turn to look at the model next to me, “and you, of course, were okay.”

“What’s your name, doll? And why are you lolling about around here?”

Emilie’s at the table filled with drinks, her back to me. Thank God she’s covered by a robe. I rub my hand down my shorts and extend it to the model Emilie showed me in the magazine on the plane. “I’m Wills, Emilie’s bodyguard.”

“Are you now?” she purrs. Depositing the annoying dogs on the floor, she takes my hand in both of hers. “Val.”

She slants a look at Emilie who has turned to face us. Emilie shrugs. “The Agency wanted to raise my profile after Geonna…” her voice trails off and she opens a bottle of water.

“Hmmm.” Val flips my hand over and examines my palm. Her fingers trace some line and she exclaims, “I want to be a part of your love life. Look at his sex drive line, Em!”

My eyebrows raise as Emilie chokes on her water. Ignoring Emilie, Val undresses me with her eyes. “I’m pretty sure you could put that body to good use.” Her fingers slide up my arm to test my bicep.

I glance at Emilie whose cheeks are pink and lips pursed. “Are you sure you’re looking at the right line? Some of his wires get crossed.”

Ouch. I guess I deserved that frosty tone. She doesn’t know I was handling an intruder on the perimeter when I saw that asshole photographer trying to maul her. Before I was able to get to her, she handled him. Quite well. Afterwards, I warned Wade Block to keep his grubby hands off her, in no uncertain terms. Emilie doesn’t have to know all this, though.

Val’s eyes turn into slits and she faces her friend. Time for me to exit. Fast. I head toward the open door. With my hand on the doorknob, I offer, “Ladies,” and enter the hallway I’d been pacing in for the past hour.

The fact that Emilie’s pissed at me is a good thing. She’ll set her sights on someone more appropriate for her. My stomach sours picturing her with another guy.That’s what you want, right?

Two women in white coats come down the hallway, interrupting my internal debate. One carries a garment bag while the other rolls a suitcase of some sort behind her.

When they stop at the door where Emilie is, I address them. “Are you with theSwimsuit Annualshoot?”

They look at me like I’m a Titan Beetle but pull out their badges for me to inspect. All good. I motion them in and they mumble to each other, “they hired security for this shoot?”

Whatever. I’m here to protect Emilie. Even from bugs. Emilie, just like any of my other clients, doesn’t have to like me or the fact that she has a bodyguard. I only have to keep her safe for the duration of this trip. Which means I need to get through the remainder of today and the flight home tomorrow. And as soon as I land, I’m going to make a push to speed up my takeover of the gym. I need to get my head out of supermodel zone and into super stealth zone. I take a deep, cleansing breath. I can do this.

I resume pacing, stopping at the end of the hallway to look out over the beach. The crew is setting up what looks to be a fire pit on the beach. Since the sun is lowering on the horizon, I guess it’ll make an interesting setting. One that makes my job that much harder. Keeping track of all the crew members and onlookers in the daylight was trouble enough, but at night? My breathing accelerates as my brain memorizes the terrain, faces and possible openings for unwanted people to gain entrance.

I can’t let Emilie get hurt on my watch. She deserves my focus.

A runner from the crew enters the hallway. Since I recognize him from the shoot earlier, I salute him with two fingers and he nods in return, then points at the closed door. “Val and Emilie in there?”

I nod and he enters. After a half-hour, the door opens and the runner comes out, followed by the two workers with their suitcase and bags. Val enters the hallway next with her annoying dogs at her heels. Emilie comes out last. It’s as if someone punched me in the gut.What the fuck is Emilie wearing now? Or not wearing? Holy shit.

She’s in a thong string bikini. If I thought that piece of fabric she had on earlier was revealing, this one is downright indecent. She and Val, though, don’t seem to care that they’re parading through the hallway almost naked, as they switch robes and laugh.

One of the workers drops something—I can’t make out what—and Emilie bends down to pick it up.Crap. I should not have seen that. Now all I can do is replay that vision—her bare ass thrust in the air while her toned thighs contract and her equally toned arms reach out. Her fingers caress whatever she picked up and then—the final killer—she calls out with her French accent to get the attention of the lady who dropped it.

I swallow all the drool to prevent it from flooding the hall. Why does Emilie have to be so goddamn hot? Not just that, she’s considerate, too. And totally off limits. Gauging from her total dissing of me back there, I’m guessing she’s also totally pissed at me. That’s good. Right?

After going down a flight of steps, we exit the house and make our way toward the fire pit. My eyes scan the beach on a repeating loop to ensure it’s safe. Of course, I return to watch my client every minute or so. Just like this morning, only now there’s more people and less light. At least the intruder from earlier is nowhere to be seen.

Wade Block approaches the group of guys and directs them to their places, pointing in various directions until he’s satisfied. Then he comes over to Ems and Val and escorts the two ladies to their positions. His hands are all over Val, who playfully swats him away with a huge grin. He keeps his distance from Ems. Good. Maybe he’s not as dumb as he appears.

By the time the session wraps up, I’m exhausted from keeping watch. The worry, even without an explicit threat, eats me from the inside. To top it all off, Emilie’s prancing around in that bikini twists the southern part of my body into a pretzel. God, I just want this day to end.

I trail behind the group as they make their way back into the mansion, yipping dogs leading the way. Once inside, my breathing relaxes a bit as the possibility of a security breach has dropped to nearly non-existent.

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