Page 14 of Defending Love
After doing a sweep from my shoes to my hair, his green gaze was set on mine. “Larry is a few minutes away. He’s driving us to the airport.”
I closed the zipper on my suitcase. “I’m ready.”
His eyebrows arched. “Only one suitcase?”
“I have my laptop and other electronics in the leather satchel.”
His brow furrowed. “Laptop?”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“You didn’t mention it yesterday. I didn’t look through your laptop, only your desktop and phone.”
Placing the suitcase on the floor, I secured the satchel over the extended handle. “I told you Melinda went through them all.”
“You should have mentioned it.”
Squaring my shoulders, I pointed to the leather bag. “Feel free to inspect it at the airport after we go through security.”
I spun my suitcase and moved toward the doorway.
“Dani, I can get your luggage.”
“So can I. I’m not sure if you remember, but I’m not one of your spoiled, entitled assignments. I’m capable of doing most things on my own.”
My nipples hardened as I recalled touching myself last night, thinking about the man now only inches away.
Capable was not always the better alternative.
Eli’s timbre lowered an octave. “I remember many things about you.”
Ignoring the way his lowered tone reverberated through my body, sending mini explosions throughout my nervous system, I pushed the suitcase past him out into the living room. My gaze went to the large windowpanes, taking in the gray clouds and drizzling rain. “At least it should be sunny in Florida.”
“The flights are booked primarily under my name with a Guardian credit card,” Eli said. “The same with the villa at the resort. It’s more private than hotel rooms and safer with private parking.”
I wasn’t about to fight him on any of those fronts. Damien hadn’t told me how much he paid for the services of the Guardian Security Company, but I was confident that Guardian wouldn’t come out on the short end of the deal.
Despite my willingness to steer my own luggage, Eli took both my bag and his own and wheeled them to the door.
Ten minutes later, I was seated in the back seat of a large black SUV, and Eli was sitting shotgun. Speaking of guns, flying commercially made it more difficult for Eli to carry his weapon. Last night, after we’d ordered delivery and were eating chicken cordon bleu from a small place on East New York Street, he mentioned the dilemma.
It wasn’t like I couldn’t have cooked. I had when he was assigned to me last year. It was that through the trauma of the last two weeks, grocery shopping was low on my list of priorities, and my cupboards were bare.
The dilemma, Eli explained, was that in the case of flying commercially, TSA made transporting a weapon difficult. The solution—a member of the Guardian team would pick us up from the airport and assign Eli working weapons for our time in Florida. I knew from my limited experience that his arsenal would be more than simply a gun. Besides the firearms, the team would have Eli’s hotel room set up as a home-away-from-home computer base.
Was it wrong that merely having him with me, even without a gun, settled my nerves?
My phone vibrated. I opened the screen to a text message from my mother. I spent over an hour talking to her last night trying to settle her angst at missing Dad’s funeral.
* * *
“I was just informed they’re moving me at 2 pm today to the physical-rehab facility in the Villages. What time did you say you expect to arrive?”
* * *
I couldn’t blame her for not remembering. She had more than enough on her own plate. I replied.
* * *
