Page 1 of Body Heat
Chapter 1
Sera
“Another hotshot athlete? And I’m the one stuck on close protection detail again? Seriously?” I dropped my head low and squeezed the bridge of my nose between my index finger and thumb. A deep sigh puffed out of my mouth as I thought about how much of a pain in the ass the jock we’d protected last month had been. And I didn’t just mean that figuratively. He’d literally been a pain in my ass because he’d taken every opportunity he had to pinch it. Hard.
Since my cover required me to be his date at public events, the douchebag had plenty opportunity to put his grubby hands on me when I couldn’t react. By the time the threat to him was over, he’d even left a few bruises behind on my ass. The only reason I hadn’t broken his fingers was because I damn well knew it’d end up being front page news. He was a major league pitcher whose hands were worth millions, after all.
The media coverage wasn’t the problem in and of itself. It’s what it would’ve triggered that was the issue. If my boss found out exactly how much of a slimeball the client had been around me, the guy would have had more than a few broken fingers to worry about. Even though he and the rest of the team knew I could take care of myself, they were still protective of me when it came to guys. They had no problem treating me as an equal when we were on assignment, but it wasn’t rare for them to act like I was their little sister during our downtime. Having three pseudo big brothers who’d been trained to kill wreaked havoc on my dating life, that was for damn sure.
Not that I wasn’t just as protective of them—in my own way—as they were of me. I’d taken the crap dished out by the douchebag client in stride and had only allowed myself a small measure of payback. After the threat to him had been neutralized, I visited his hotel room and rammed my knee into his balls hard enough that he was going to sing soprano for a while. I hadn’t said a word about it to anyone because I hadn’t wanted the guys to run the risk of getting caught when they made him pay for it. As skilled as they were, he was too high profile for the kind of vengeance they’d want to rain down on him—no matter how much I would’ve loved to see him writhe in pain. Besides which, if I’d really wanted him to pay, I could’ve done it myself. But just because I’d let it go didn’t mean I wanted to go through it all again.
“He’s the client. His job shouldn’t matter, not when he’s paying us to keep him safe,” Brecken chided as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest.
I clenched my teeth at the idea of disappointing him. Brecken was more than just my boss; he was a friend. Our paths had crossed during my last tour overseas, and we’d quickly learned to rely on each other in some pretty fucking bad conditions. When he’d heard I was leaving the Army three months after he had, he’d looked me up and offered me a job working for the security firm he’d started with Whit Baker as his right-hand man. Boot camp and eight years of active duty together had forged an unbreakable bond between the two men.
“Rowan Charles isn’t justanyhotshot athlete. He’s the best damn quarterback to have ever played the game,” Whit chimed in.
I tilted my head to the side to look at him. He was sitting in the chair next to me with his legs kicked out. His twinkling eyes and shit-eating grin made him look like a little boy who’d just found out he was getting every item on his wish list for Christmas. “Since you’re such a big fan of his, maybeyoushould be the one assigned to close protection detail instead of me.”
Whit gestured down his long body with a sweep of his hand. “As gorgeous as I am, I just don’t fill out a cocktail dress half as well as you do.”
“The last thing I need to picture in my head is you in a dress,” Brecken grumbled.
Whit leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. I was familiar enough with the wicked gleam in his eyes to know that whatever came out of his mouth next would be dirty. “I can think of worse things. Like—”
“Don’t,” Brecken cut Whit off before he could get started.
“But—”
Brecken glared at Whit until he settled back in his chair with his lips pressed together. My lips tilted up in a smug grin until Brecken aimed his scowl my way. “Don’t you start with me, either.”
I put my hands up in surrender. “Hey! I didn’t do anything!”
“And that’s exactly why I’m pissed at you.” His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the top of his desk. “Because you should’ve spoken up the first time that cocksucker took advantage of your professionalism and touched your ass. I put you on close protection detail because his team wanted to keep the situation under wraps, and it was easier for them to spin the presence of a new woman on his arm. It wasn’t so he could treat you like shit.”
Dammit.I should’ve known at least one of the guys would’ve noticed him getting handsy with me. I might’ve been the one assigned to be close to the douchebag, but it wasn’t like I’d been on the assignment by myself. Whit and Devon, the other member of our team, were too damn observant for my own good sometimes. When neither of them said anything about it, I assumed that I’d managed to keep a lid on it. And as the saying went, I’d made an ass of myself because of it.
“You’re right, I should’ve said something. I’m sorry.” I kept my apology short and to the point, figuring that my explanation would come across as an excuse more than anything else.
“We’re a team. We don’t keep shit from each other,” he added. “That’s why we’re the best at what we do. We trust each other, one hundred percent.”
“Fuck.” The last thing I ever wanted to do was give Brecken any reason to think I didn’t trust him. Even though I’d known it was time to get out, I’d had no idea what I would do as a civilian. His offer of a job helped keep me sane and eased the transition for me big-time. “It had nothing to do with not trusting you and everything to do with having your back. I didn’t want you to wind up in jail. Not over something as insignificant as a few ass grabs, and definitely not when Hadley already has her hands full running around after Quinten while she still can before her belly gets any bigger.”
Bringing up his pregnant wife and toddler like that while he was pissed at me was a dirty trick, but I knew it would work to defuse the situation because my boss was head over heels in love with Hadley. And crazy protective of her, which was understandable considering how they’d met.
His eyes softened like they always did when he was thinking about Hadley. Shaking his head, he growled, “Don’t think for a second that I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“You always do,” I laughed.
“Keep that in mind the next time you try to pull the wool over my eyes,” he ordered before picking up the remote for the large monitor on the wall to my left. When the screen powered on, he pulled up the quarterback's dossier. As soon as I saw his picture, an inappropriate thought popped into my head.If the pitcher had been half as gorgeous, I might not have minded the ass grabbing quite so much.
Chapter 2
Rowan
“Do you really think this is all necessary? It’s not like I’ve never had an obsessed fan before.” I glared at Carl as the SUV we were riding in pulled into the parking lot next to the building where we had an appointment in about five minutes. It wasn’t so much that I was angry with him as it was the situation.
“You know I’m not in the habit of scheduling appointments just for shits and giggles.” I thought of the meeting as an unnecessary hassle, but Carl viewed it as being vital to my safety. I was fairly certain he was overreacting, but I felt I owed it to him to take this seriously based on how freaked out he was. He’d been my agent ever since I first declared my intent to enter the draft during my senior year of high school eight years ago, and letting him take the lead on business decisions had made me wealthy beyond my imagination. If meeting with a security expert made him feel better, then it was the least I could do. Especially after I’d crushed his dreams two weeks earlier.
