Protecting His Assets (10 page)

“My parents did all the time. Mostly for the frou-frou cocktail parties they liked to host on Saturday nights.” He reached across their makeshift picnic and tapped her scrunched-up nose, smiling when she glared back at him. “But Sunday was the maid’s day off, so my sister and I would have to raid the party leftovers because our mother and father went to brunch at the country club.”

“They didn’t take you with them?”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Do
you
know any kids who want to spend their afternoon with the old folks at the country club?” He grimaced as if that was the worst torture a child could be forced to endure.

She took the artichokes from him, making a face at the prospect of dipping her fingers into the oily preservative they’d been packed in. He took the jar back and did it himself, waiting for her to hold out a cracker. “Baby,” he teased.

She happily chomped on her cracker and had to admit that artichoke hearts weren’t that bad. Weird, but not bad.

Almost like this thing they were doing right now was weird…but not bad.

“Dad took me to the gym every weekend, and I had to meet him there after school during the week,” she offered, a little hesitantly. She supposed if he could share, she could, too. “We had a vending machine with chips and stuff, but when the guy came to refill it, he never took the leftover product out, so the old ones just kept getting older and older. I always laugh when I see someone eating hickory sticks, because both my dad and I hated them, and that was the flavor that stayed in the machine the longest.”

“Hey, hickory sticks are awesome,” he protested, eyes bright with mirth even as he shook his head. “It sounds like heaven.”

It hadn’t felt like anything special at the time, but when her mother died, her dad had certainly stepped up and attacked the single-parent thing with a vengeance. He’d quit professional boxing and taken a delivery job, but God, he’d been horrible at it. She’d been the one to tell him that he could still do something he loved and be a good dad at the same time, so he’d started training other fighters.

A lot of people might look down their nose at a guy who raised his kid in a boxing club, but at least her dad had been around. April had never gotten away with anything that he didn’t find out about.

“Why doesn’t your dad want you at the hospital to help him through his treatments?” he asked softly.

She swallowed and glanced away. This was going too far. All this talk of their childhood, asking about her father… She couldn’t go there. Not with him.

After a long moment, she simply said, “So, we’ve got crackers, sardines, and artichoke hearts.” She tried to ignore the fact that her throat was tight with unshed tears. “That’s got to be at least three food groups right there. What are we still missing?”

Nolan just looked at her, but when she refused to meet his gaze, he finally leaned into the pantry and reached for a box from one of the shelves. She sucked in a breath as his shoulder brushed hers again.

He sat back down and waved a box of chocolate chip cookies in front of her. “Don’t forget dessert.”

She noted the gourmet label and lifted a brow. “Those are pretty expensive cookies.”

“Nothing but the best for my bodyguard.” He smiled and opened the box.

Since coming home to be with her father, there hadn’t been a lot of time for the strict workout regimen she’d maintained at Quantico or even while she’d still been boxing. For the first time in her life, she’d had to really watch her calorie intake. “I don’t know…”

“Come on, we both need these cookies. Your rockin’ bod can handle it, trust me.” He looked her up and down with a gleam in his eyes.

She knew she was blushing. She liked the way he looked at her. Unrealistic and probably nothing more than idle flattery, but it made her weak in the knees. Thank goodness she was already sitting.

As they finished their impromptu midnight snack, the discussion stayed pretty easy and lighthearted, but the threads of awareness only strengthened, wrapping around her waist like warm hands and around her throat like silk ribbon. They stayed away from personal subjects and talk about Nolan’s stalker. Sitting cross-legged together half inside the shadows of the dark pantry, knees almost touching, she started to wonder if it wouldn’t be so bad to explore this attraction that seemed practically unavoidable anyway.

Nolan held out the box of cookies. She took two then watched him devour four in about three seconds flat. “You really like those,” she said with a grin when he reached in for more.

“Don’t get me started. Last week, there were three of these boxes in the pantry. I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to sweet things.” He dropped his gaze to her mouth for about the hundredth time.

Was she just another sweet thing? And when the next one came along, would he have just as little willpower to resist?

She ducked her head and brushed the crumbs from her legs. He got to his feet and held out his hand for her. She looked at it for a second, but it would be ridiculous to refuse. She reached up and let him pull her to her feet before she quickly tugged her hand back.

“I need to apologize,” he murmured, still so close that the hair on her arms stood up in reaction to the magnetic field he was throwing off. That’s what it felt like anyway, magnets pulling her in.

“For being an unprofessional, inappropriate jerk?” she replied with a grin. She shouldn’t talk to him like this. Even though it was long past midnight, they’d just shared a meal, and he looked so tempting her mouth watered just thinking about kissing him again. She had to keep reminding herself that this was a job. And a serial-dating playboy was not her type. Would never be her type.

“Something like that,” he agreed, suddenly serious. “I didn’t intend to kiss you before.”

“Oh.” Her heart lurched. She should be glad. This assignment had gone off the rails almost from minute one, and it would be good to clear the air and reset some boundaries—

“But this time I want you to know it’s completely intentional.” His hand slid up her arm. “There’s nothing I want more than to kiss you and keep kissing you until neither of us can breathe, or stand, or think straight.”

She already couldn’t think straight. The hand on her arm was light, like he wanted to keep her from bolting without actually restraining her. But she was the furthest thing from afraid, at least of him.

His hand tightened on her arm as he leaned closer. His lips moved barely a whisper from hers, she swore she could already feel them tasting her.

“If me kissing you again with absolutely carnal intentions goes against some code of professional bodyguard conduct that you’re really determined to maintain, then you should probably—”

“Stop.” Her voice croaked, her body protested, but they had to stop.
She
had to stop. No, she wasn’t afraid of him, but she
was
afraid of what his touch could do to her sense of self-preservation.

She put her hand up between them against the hard planes of his sculpted chest. He pulled back, his eyes dark pools.
What are you doing? Kiss him!
But nothing good could come from losing herself in Steve Nolan, as much as she ached for that very thing.

Chapter Five

S
he left like the hounds of hell licked at her heels, slamming the pantry door behind her and leaving him alone in the dark. He bashed his forehead against the door panel and swore.

When he came out, she was already halfway to the apartment door. He caught up to her and held her back. She glanced down at his hand on her arm, and he immediately let her go.

“The guys outside will watch the building overnight. There shouldn’t be any danger. You don’t need me here.” Her voice dripped with ice-cold professionalism as she threw his earlier assurances back at him. “I’ll let the doorman know to be extra vigilant until I return in the morning.”

And then she was gone.

He wanted to go after her and apologize, but when he almost tripped over his overturned chair and looked at the disaster that used to be his only sanctuary, his home, he let her leave. He was almost as much of a mess as this place and needed to pull himself together.

He was not what anyone would consider a consummate professional on the best of days—life was too short to be so stuffy and serious all the time—but when it came to April Porter, he seemed to lose what little sense he did have. After swearing that he would never give another woman the opportunity to screw him over, he’d gone and shared a family memory with April—whom he’d known for less than twenty-four hours. If the internet was buzzing tomorrow morning about Steve Nolan’s fucked-up childhood, it would be exactly what he deserved.

The trouble was, when she’d let down her guard and showed him that brief glimpse of herself, he’d been struck by her humor, her intelligence, her compassion.
That
April Porter had been absolutely irresistible.

He needed a fucking distraction. The apartment walls were closing in. He wasn’t going to get any sleep here, didn’t want to look at this shit a minute longer…

He grabbed his wallet and keys and headed for the door.

When he exited the parking garage, a car pulled in right behind him almost immediately. He wasn’t worried. It had to be April.
April
. She couldn’t be Ms. Porter to him anymore; it just didn’t feel right. Once you’d had your tongue down someone’s throat, it was first names after that, no matter what.

He should have realized the woman wouldn’t actually give up and leave. He engaged the vehicle’s hands-free system and dialed her cell. “Why the hell are you still here? I thought you were going home.”

“Hello Mr. Nolan.” Her uber-professional voice was velvety smooth, echoing from the confines of her own vehicle. “Would you like to tell me where you’re going at two thirty in the morning?”

What he wouldn’t give to have that voice murmuring naughty promises through the line and into his ear. He sighed, focusing on the road. “I needed to get out of there, so I’m going to the office for a while.”

“All right.” She didn’t complain and ask him to turn back around. She hung up without further chitchat.

This time of night, traffic was light, and he was pulling into a space on the street around the corner from the building fifteen minutes later. She’d obviously obtained a parking pass for the building that morning and pulled in behind him as he was getting out of his car. Her hair was down, her jacket was off, and the top two buttons of her shirt had been unbuttoned, like she’d settled in after leaving his apartment, planning on a long night in her car.

She looked deliciously disheveled, but not for long. He watched as she shifted in the driver’s seat and looked up into the rearview mirror. She tilted her head back to gather her long hair together and deftly rewound it all back onto her head and secured it in what seemed like one fluid move, before exiting her vehicle and retrieving her suit jacket from the backseat.

Finally she turned to him, eyes flashing. That rock-solid composure of hers must be a bit harder to maintain on almost twenty hours with no sleep. On an average night, even
he
probably would have crashed by now, but the events of the evening had put him on edge, ramping him up even tighter than usual. He needed an outlet, and he needed it bad or his mood was going to go south soon, and hard.

“I didn’t intend for you to follow me here. I thought you were going home.”

“If you had been able to stay put for more than ten minutes, I might have. But it’s a good thing I hadn’t left yet because you weren’t going to tell the night guards you planned to go out on a midnight excursion, were you? Why didn’t you say anything before I left the apartment?” Her words were still crisply formal, but her tone was scorching.

God, she was gorgeous like this. Why would she want to hide such a dominant, fiery personality beneath all that stuffy, businesslike reserve? When did she actually unwind? When was she really, truly herself? With her friends? With a lover?

He wanted to be the one she trusted herself to let go with.
That kind of trust takes time, commitment.
That kind of trust was impossible for Steve to give…so how could he expect someone else to grant it to him?

“You were so busy stomping out on me, you didn’t ask.” That wasn’t fair, and he knew it as soon as he said it, but the devil was riding shotgun over his attitude again. Maybe later he’d feel guilty for baiting her, but at this moment he’d do anything to keep April Porter the Amazon from disappearing behind her mask of cool disdain.

She looked like she might bite right through her tongue to keep from snapping at him. If she was holding back out of fear for her job, she needed to know that he would never hold their professional positions against her. “Listen, I want you to feel free to speak your mind. What happened back at the apartment was—”

“Is it your intention to remain in the parking garage for the rest of the night?” She crossed her arms.

He debated the wisdom of having this out with her right now and finally shook his head. He was too keyed up. The last thing he needed was to lose control and make another move on her and have the papers painting him as a dirty, sex-crazed deviant in the morning. She’d made her feelings clear. He had to get control of himself.

“Let’s go,” he said.

After hours, all employees used a key card to access the building, which included the elevators. This time they rode up in complete silence, perched at opposite ends of the car. Her jaw was clenched tightly. He’d noticed earlier that her stiffness in the elevator wasn’t only because of his presence. When the door slid open and they stepped out, she seemed to take a deep breath, as if she’d been trying not to breathe at all while locked up in the box.

He unlocked his office door, but let her slip in ahead of him. She motioned for him to stay put while she entered and looked around. Impatient, he did what she asked and waited.

Finally, she turned to him and nodded. “All clear. Thank you,” she said.

He understood that she was thanking him for letting her do her job and felt a rush of guilt. She veered wide as she walked past him, heading for the door. “I’ll wait outside until you’re ready to leave.”

He spun around. “Why don’t you stay?”

She stopped with her hand on the door and shook her head. “You were right. I don’t need to sit on top of you to do my job.”

He reached for her hand. She jerked her head up, eyes wide. “Stay,” he repeated. “I could use the company.”

She hesitated.

A rueful smile pulled at his lips. “I promise I won’t try to kiss you again…tonight.” He couldn’t promise more than that.

He made his way behind his desk and sat down, leaving the decision to her. He fired up his laptop and felt a zing of hope when she turned away from the door and went to the big windows of his office instead.

With a last look at her incredible silhouette against the backdrop of New York at night, he knew he had to focus on the economic projection report Harrison needed for Monday, or else he
would
end up kissing her again.

When he blinked and glanced away from the computer screen hours later, he realized it was five a.m., and April wasn’t standing by the window anymore. He stood abruptly and started for the door before noticing that at some point she had lain down on the couch across the room.

She was fast asleep.

He stopped as close to her as he dared without waking her. Her arms curled around herself and her knees were drawn up. Her chin tucked in, as if she felt the need to protect herself even in sleep. But her features had softened, her forehead smoothed out, and her lips parted slightly. She looked so young, so soft, like a fairy princess. The fact that she was really an Amazonian
warrior
princess made him smile.

Protection was more than just an occupation for April Porter. This was a woman who had given up her bright future to care for her dying parent, and then taken a crappy job watching out for an ungrateful jerk like him because she needed money to pay the medical bills.

They might seem like complete opposites, but he understood her. On a dark and stormy night ten years ago, the first anniversary of his father’s death, he’d found his mother crying in her room, the same as every night, and promised her that one day he’d be able to fix it all. He’d promised she wouldn’t have to lock herself in the house alone anymore, that Grace would be able to come home from school and not be the subject of gossip, and they wouldn’t have to be embarrassed to carry the name Nolan. He was going to fix it so she could hold her head high.

It might not have looked like he’d done anything about it in the years since, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. But that was because he hadn’t wanted anyone to know how much he wanted it. Showing desperation or need was the kiss of death in the kind of circles over which the Nolan family used to reign.

And now here he was on the cusp of financial success the likes of which his father could never have accomplished. He could walk into any country club in the city, and he could have any number of women with powerful social connections. His mother had finally stopped crying.

He looked down at the tough, defensive woman who threw a punch like a pro and stood up to him like an equal. The beauty sleeping on his couch who wouldn’t last a minute in that world.