Wild on You (19 page)

“No, but he was suspicious, keeping a sharp eye on me,” Addie said, still defending him. “The goats did take him off guard, I have to admit. But he forced my whereabouts out of Shirley like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And he was there within a short time. He saved my life, Chase.”

But it had been close, too damned close. Just the memory of her beneath that cretin made Risk curl his fingers over the edge of the leather chair. He relaxed them before he inflicted dents.

Addie leaned forward, facing Chase. “I’m comfortable with Risk. I want him.”

Those last words washed over him, too, as forceful as that wave.
Yep, screwed
.

“As my bodyguard,” she added quickly.

Chase set the pen down. “Then it’s settled. Risk stays on this job.”

Relief and tension twisted inside Risk. He and Addie were bound to give in to this heat raging between them. Then things would really get sticky.

Oh yeah. Very screwed
.

* * *

He couldn’t believe that Addie Wunder hadn’t encroached on his property in search of her precious tiger cub yet. He’d been ready for her and the bodyguard, but so far, not a whiff of them.

Could it be that she didn’t suspect him?

He walked up to the cub’s cage and knelt down to its level. The critter mewled, cocking its head at him. “You fed this thing today?” he asked Alan, who’d followed him in, along with Doug.

“Yep, boss. Just like you said, we’re giving it all the meat it wants. It’s starting to fatten up.”

The boss tapped the cage bars. “You, my furry friend, are going to pull double duty. You’ll be bait first, a commodity later.” But he was getting impatient. He needed to move things along.

Alan rubbed near his shoulder wound. “What’re we gonna do with Wunder once we have her?” He snarled, showing his crooked yellow teeth. “I know what I want to do with her.”

The boss came to his feet. “What’s that?”

Doug’s smile was more of a leer. “Cut off her tits and—”

“You don’t get to do anything to her.” Alan interrupted what no doubt would have been some gruesome scene inspired by all those horror flicks Doug was always watching. “I got shot because of her.
I
get to punish her.”

The boss shook his head. “It’s my operation she’s been messing with. What did you call me a minute ago?”

Alan swallowed. “The boss?”

“That’s right.” He jabbed at his own chest. “Which means I call the shots around here. I have something very special in mind for Miss Wunder. A very fitting kind of punishment. She’s going to become a commodity, too. But just for me.”

All through his youth, he’d been looked down on. Ridiculed. He’d been as poor as dirt and not much better-looking. Every day he’d walked two miles to school in shoes on the verge of falling apart, whatever hand-me-downs his mother could wrangle. Even
though most of the kids in town didn’t have a lot of money, they laughed at him. Made fun of his greasy hair, his ragged wrong-sized clothes, and the dust he accumulated during that long walk. Called him Pigpen, dammit.

He’d worked hard to get to where he was, to gain the respect and cooperation of those around him. Addie Wunder had almost toppled it all with her holier-than-thou antics. He had the perfect way to regain his self-respect. She was going to pay in spades.

* * *

Someone was gently shaking her shoulder. Addie slowly swam up from the depths of a dream. A hand caressed her shoulder, and a soft male voice said, “Time to wake up, sunshine.”

Risk. She smiled and snuggled a little deeper into the sheets. He had a great voice, strong and gentle at the same time. Why wasn’t his hand moving lower than her shoulder? She remembered how it felt down there—

Her eyes snapped open. Not a dream.

Risk sat on the edge of her bed, grinning. “You look so damn cute in the morning.”

“What are you doing in my bedroom?”

“I knocked twice, but you didn’t answer. I got worried.”

She pushed up to a sitting position, orienting herself to her current reality. Chase’s estate. By the time they’d arrived, she’d been so blasted tired—she’d fallen asleep on the plane—she hardly remembered arriving at the airport. “You carried me in, didn’t you?” Or was that a dream, how his strong arms had scooped her up effortlessly and carried her first to the limo, then down a lit pathway to a house?

“You were out. Even murmured in your sleep.”

She sat up straighter. “What did I say?” Hopefully not how good it had felt with his arms around her.

He rolled his eyes and said in a high-pitched voice, “ ‘Oh, Risk, don’t leave me in
this big ole bed all by myself.’ ”

She threw the pillow at him. “Did not.” She hoped. It was a big bed.

He caught the pillow just before it smacked him in the face. “Maybe
I
was dreaming.”

His grin walloped her harder than any pillow could. He smelled clean from the shower, like soap. His freshly shaved face begged her to run her fingers across the smooth skin. His hair was damp, and she wanted to fluff the short strands.

As if reading her thoughts, he ruffled her hair. “Come on, sleepyhead. Chase called a meeting at oh-ten-hundred. That’s ten o’clock in the civilian world. We gotta get some chow before then.” He scooted off the bed and headed to the door. “Do you realize I’ve seen you first thing in the morning, twice, without having spent the night with you?”

“Just think, you skipped right past the fun parts and straight to the awkward morning-after ‘where is this going?’ conversation.”

He laughed. “You remembered. I hope you don’t remember everything I say. Sometimes things come out of my mouth without me checking to make sure they’re appropriate.”

“Things you don’t mean?”

“No, I mean everything I say. I just don’t always know better to keep them inside.” He tapped the door frame. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes to get you for breakfast.”

She shivered. He didn’t mean to
get
her for breakfast.
Sheesh. Now look who’s thinking of nothing but sex
.

She’d accused him of being a player when he’d told her about the morning-after conversation. And maybe he had been, but he sure didn’t act like one. When he looked at her sometimes, the intensity wasn’t just sexual desire.
I like playing the part of the boyfriend
. She was liking him in that role, too, and she didn’t want a boyfriend.
But you want Risk
. She stepped into the shower and closed her eyes. My, did she want him. Fear and panic coiled in her tummy.
Don’t give in! Think about Animal Huggers. Think about—

Her mother’s image popped into her mind. First the vibrant woman who always seemed to have a dozen things going at once. Then the sickly woman who spent all day in bed, an ever-growing collection of prescription medicines on her nightstand.

I’ll live up to you, Mom
.

Exactly twenty minutes later, a knock sounded on her door. “Boy, are you punctual,” she said when she opened it.

He gave her a bright smile. “Why, thank you.”

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment. Give me three more minutes.” She ducked back into her bathroom and ran some eyeliner beneath her eyes. Fluffed her hair one more time. Rolled her eyes at her reflection before stepping out.

She hadn’t noticed what he was wearing earlier, too caught up in his smile. Now she did. Khaki shorts that came to midthigh showcased muscular legs dusted with golden hair. His black tank top did the same for his shoulders and arms. She actually had to check to make sure she wasn’t drooling.

“It’s already hot and muggy out there,” he warned, sliding on a pair of sunglasses as he stepped out the front door.

“Ew.” A blanket of moisture, tempered only by an ocean breeze, wrapped around her. She looked out to that ocean, several steps from the back of the house. Across the bay was the city of Miami, all sparkling and shiny in the morning light. “Are we on an island?”

“A man-made one, according to Chase.” He led the way down a stamped concrete path that wove through a profusion of lush green plants and a riot of blooming flowers that perfumed the air. “He told me that this little island was the home of some Mafia don back in the seventies. When his empire fell apart after he was assassinated, it sat derelict for a few years. Chase bought the whole island for a song. He showed us pictures; it was a jungle. The main house, which looked like a castle, was literally crumbling apart, and the flora and fauna had taken over everything. The house we’re staying in is one of the two buildings he didn’t tear down. He restored it to accommodate guests and new operatives who haven’t figured out where they want to live yet. Like Sax, and Knox, and
me. Julian’s here checking out TJA—The Justiss Alliance.”

She ran her hand through the bright papery flowers of a bush, only to pull back when a thorn pricked her finger. “Julian? I haven’t met him.” She stuck it in her mouth to nurse her small wound.

“He’s one of the boys on my team. He and Rath—short for Rathmusen, if you can believe that—hit the remaining parts of Route 66 on their Harleys to run off some steam and clear their heads. A lot of military guys do that after they’re out, and we all needed it bad. But Julian’s starting to feel restless to get back to work.”

“Must be nice, having some of your team around.”

His smile was genuine and breathtaking in the morning light. “Yeah, it’s boo-coops of cool. No one gets you like the guys you lived with, fought with, and almost died with a time or two. We’re like brothers.”

Suddenly she wanted to get him. To be someone he could confide in. “Must be hard to integrate back into civilian life.”

“It’s a bitch. You spew out all of this lingo that no one gets. Civvies give you this confuzzled look”—he imitated it, which was oh so adorable—“and then you realize, oh, they don’t know what you’re talking about. Doesn’t everyone know what MREs, booger eaters, and poodle shooters mean?”

She laughed. “Sometimes I’d overhear my father talking and think he was speaking another language. An alien tongue of acronyms.”

He chuckled. “I’ve learned to curtail my use of lingo so I don’t spend half the conversation explaining.”

She took him in, with his scars and memories and the gait of a man who had lived a life most people couldn’t even imagine. She would never get him, not really.
Which is all right, since you can’t have him anyway
.

Better to direct her attention to their surroundings. The island was a jungle no more. Everything was trimmed and pruned. Some trees and plants even sported signs with both common and scientific names.

“Is Chase a botanist?” she asked, pausing by a pond where pink spoonbills and
great blue herons hunted for breakfast.

“I think the guy just likes showpieces. From his cars to his house to everything here. It’s like his own personal paradise. He’s got pink flamingos and other exotic birds I’ve never even seen.”

“He’s a man who likes to control his environment. That happens sometimes when your life spins out of control. You want to go the opposite way. Is he a controlling boss?”

Risk shook his head as they continued down the path. “He gives us a lot of leeway, at least compared to the military. But I don’t know much about him personally. He keeps his past on the down-low.”

Addie knew Chase’s past because of her father’s long friendship with him, but it wasn’t her place to reveal his secrets. They came up on a large metal building. Only the second floor had windows. “What’s in there?” she asked.

“A shooting range and indoor pool, though not for leisure activities. It’s for practicing water maneuvers in the dark. And over there beyond those mango trees is a derelict house for hostage rescue training. There are paper targets with a man holding a woman, and you have to identify who’s who. You go in, clear the house, and try not to accidentally take out any hostages. Reminds me a lot of SEAL training.”

“And you love doing it,” she said.

His face glowed, probably not unlike the glow he’d noticed when she was introducing him to the animals. Right before he kissed her.

“It’s in my blood.” He slid her a grin. “If I’m not shooting something, I’m just not happy.”

Which reminded her how different they were. But with his smile, it didn’t matter at the moment.

They wound through more foliage and approached a newer house. Though it wasn’t ostentatious, it spoke of quality and luxury. Covered in wood siding, it blended perfectly with the landscaping. Out front, a rock waterfall splashed into a large pond that barely revealed the orange koi swimming in its depths. A leopard-spotted frog rested on a lily pad that floated next to an enormous purple flower. Frothy tree ferns stretched out
over the water.

They went up the stone steps to the front door, which Risk opened for her. “Even though we have a kitchen at the house where we’re staying, we all come here. He has a cook.”

“Must be nice.”

Risk sniffed the air, which was filled with the scent of … “Bacon,” he said, a sigh in his voice.

Well, she knew the way to his heart. Should she need to know, she quickly added. Which she didn’t.

She imagined a lush woman or an austere French man at the stove; a burly Mexican man didn’t even make it to the short list. Especially when he smiled as they entered the well-lit kitchen and showed several gold teeth.

“Hey, Mr. Risk!” He did a high-five with Risk, then turned to her. “And you brought a pretty lady with you.” He wagged thick dark eyebrows. “Ooh, you get lucky last night, eh?”

Risk put his hands on her shoulders. “This is Addie, and she’s a client. Addie, this is Montezuma, as in the revenge of. But you won’t have that, because his cooking is phenomenal. Chase found him on a trip down to the Caribbean and hired him on the spot.”

Montezuma reminded her of a Mexican version of a sumo wrestler, big and square, with a handshake to rival her father’s. “Nice to meet you, Montezuma,” she said.

He didn’t bother to look chagrined at his faux pas, which, oddly enough, made her like him more. Especially when he said, “It’s a pleasure, my lady. And please, call me Monte. What can I make you for breakfast? Anything you like. Omelet. French toast. Chorizo and scrambled eggs. Bacon, ham—”