Page 14 of Her New Bodyguard: Colton

COLTON

Leaving Julia alone in bed was almost impossible. I could have held her forever. Her sweet body curled against my chest made me feel more like a man than all my years of military training.

I needed to be her man permanently.

But for now, my job was to care for her. That started with breakfast.

Sneaking out of bed quietly, I had coffee on and breakfast almost ready by the time Julia appeared. She was wearing nothing but my t-shirt. It hung on her like a shapeless dress, but she was still the sexiest vision I'd ever seen.

"Come here," I commanded gruffly, wrapping her in my arms for a hug. She snuggled right in, her hands running up the backs of my arms as I kissed her lightly.

"Do you treat all of your clients to breakfast?" she asked.

"No. You're the first."

Luckily she loved my scrambled eggs with mushroom, spinach, and mozzarella, and we chatted nonstop throughout breakfast, and while doing the dishes together after.

Once we were done, Julia sat me down in a kitchen chair.

"Three deep breaths, then we'll start." She grinned, giving me a look that said I had better play along.

Over the next few minutes she ran me through a series of neck, shoulder, and arm stretches.

I'd never done yoga in my life, but I was familiar with physiotherapy stretches from a couple of old injuries. Julia's style of naming and directing the stretches both made them easy to remember, and turned it all into lighthearted fun.

"Okay, you're right," I said, after our final cleansing breaths. "I could definitely see office people doing this on their breaks."

"Or students," she said. "Anyone hunched over a computer. Some people think they can't do yoga because they don't have the floor space, or a special mat or whatever."

I pulled her to sit in my lap. "Thank you, gorgeous," I said, giving her a heartfelt kiss. "Unfortunately, now that we are all fed and stretched and grounded, I have to start figuring out our problems."

"I can help, right?" she asked.

"If you want to, sure."

Julia paused, then gave me a searching look. "Please don't think that I'm some fragile girl that you have to hide the truth from. I need to know what's going on." She stared down at our joined hands. "Even if there are guns and bad guys, and who knows what else."

"That's problem number one. I don't know what's been going on with the other guards."

"So ask them," Julia said brightly. "You're all supposed to share information, I assume?"

"Excellent point."

An hour later, we drove up to the local hardware store that sold everything from nuts and bolts to liquor to electronics. Once I'd acquired a burner phone we went back to where I had parked at the far end of the lot.

Julia whipped out a notebook and pen from her purse. "Hold the phone so I can hear," she said. "You get them talking, I'll take notes."

Leaning in, I gave her a long, slow kiss. "You're amazing," I whispered softly. "Open minded, ready to help, and steady in the face of danger. You're like an adorable superhero."

She rolled those gorgeous eyes. "Please. I'm a sidekick at best."

I dug in my wallet for the card full of phone numbers written in code.

Since Julia's dad had refused protection a bit longer than the other two bank vice presidents, I was pretty sure that their daughters were already well into hiding.

So I was surprised when Jackson answered.

Holding the phone between us, Julia took rapid notes describing how Jackson had noticed that Warren was taking an extra hands-on approach with this project, and always seemed to know what the bad guys were going to do. And apparently the two men who had briefly kidnapped Ashley sounded afraid of their boss "Smith."

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