The Bodyguard's Baby (Billionaire Bodyguard Series) (5 page)

“So it’s the two of you against the world.”

She let out a short laugh. “I’d rather think we’re flowing along in the Cosmic Grand Scheme of things.”

“Don’t go all Zen yoga,
or whatever, on me. We were having such a nice conversation.”

When she rolled her eyes, the firelight tipped the thick fringe of her lashes in gold. “Okay, great warrior, it’s me and my sister against the world.”

He nodded. “Better.”

“I take it your experiences in the military didn’t give you any philosophical perspective on life.”

“On life, nah. On death…yes.”

She turned forty-five degrees toward him and rested her chin in her palm.  “Like what?”

On the receiving end of those hypnotizing eyes, he felt his heart lurch. He arched an eyebrow. “You really want to hear my philosophy on death?”

“If you have any philosophy at all, I want to hear about it. Go on, surprise me.”

He snorted. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She didn’t say a word. Her face looked soft and open, eager to hear his thoughts. Now that he’d gained her undivided attention at last, he wasn’t about to let go. “I believe whatever’s on the other side is a damned sight better than what we have going on down here.”

A divot formed between her eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

“I’ve seen men die. Some I’ve even held while their light goes out. Just before they go, there’s a peace that settles over them, like dawn cresting the horizon after the darkest night. The best I can describe their expressions is joy—pure, undefeatable joy.”

“How beautiful,” she whispered, her gaze unfocused and dreamy. It almost hurt to look at her, she looked so lovely in this moment.

“A medic on my team during one of my Black Ops deployments told me something. He said the human body weighs two-thirds of a pound less after a person dies than right before death. Two-thirds of a pound is the weight of a human soul. I believe him.”

She tilted her head adorably. “I never would’ve guessed you to be a spiritual man. Are you still a practicing Catholic?”

Shrugging, he stared into the fire, as the log he’d placed there crackled and hissed. “I believe in purgatory. It isn’t just for the afterlife. It can be experienced here and now. I definitely know for a fact there is evil in this world. I’ve looked it in the eye and killed it, knowing it’ll come back in another form, in
some other person who’ll perpetuate it. So if I believe in evil, I guess I believe in a benevolent power, too.”

She smiled sweetly. “I’m sure the Almighty appreciates your overwhelming vote of confidence.”

“I haven’t been to Confession in twelve years.”

Scooting closer to him, she rewrapped the blanket around herself, the ends brushing the tops of his feet like an intimate caress. What he would give to feel her touch on his skin. He craved her softness, her radiance, wondering what level of deliverance she’d offer with her body pressed against him.

“Why not?” she asked.

It took him a moment to regain the thread of their discussion. “Because ten thousand Hail Mary’s won’t make up for the shit I’ve seen and done.” The roiling vat of self-disgust he carried deep inside him bubbled toward the surface. He shoved it back down and locked it away where it belonged.

When he glanced at her, he saw the pity on her face. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I don’t want your pity.”

Her eyes rounded, but she didn’t draw back as he’d expected. “It’s not pity, Slone. It’s compassion.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it. And I never want to see that look on your face again. Not for me.”

Abruptly she shifted her position and lay down perpendicular to him, cocooned in the blanket, her head resting on his thigh. “I like you much better when you’re being real.”

“You mean emotional.”

“No, just…human. Now I know you bleed like the rest of us mere mortals.”

He stared down at her. “What made you think I didn’t?”

She lifted her shoulder. “I’m just saying it’s nice to know the real you. Not the external you, who uses sarcasm to keep people at arm’s length.”

He pressed his hand on her shoulder and assessed the distance. “Don’t worry, you’re still outside my range.”

She giggled and moved two inches closer. “There, tough guy.” She looked up at him in challenge. “Now what are you going to do?”

Oh, hell. His mouth went dry, his muscles froze, and his erection throbbed beneath the draw string of his pants. Damn, he hoped she didn’t notice the last physical alteration. That would definitely make her leap away and run in the opposite direction. His voice came out gruffly. “If I bend my elbow, we’re still good.”

When she laughed it filled his soul with music. “Don’t worry, you’re still impossible.”

“Good. That’s what I was going for.”

She sighed. “You have to admit, some parts of the religion we grew up with will always be ingrained in us. Can I ask you something?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

“Do you think what I’m doing is wrong? I mean, from a spiritual standpoint. Trying to become pregnant without a partner, a ring, or a wedding.”

He played with a curl at the end of her hair. “Of all the things wrong in this world, bringing life into it—however you go about it—is pretty far down on that list. And if it’s a child who will be wanted and loved, I don’t see how that could be wrong.”

She wriggled her shoulders up against his outer thigh, snuggling into him. “I appreciate your thoughts.”

He tamped down the urge to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to his bed. “You don’t need my approval or blessing for anything you do.”

“I know. I just liked the way you said that. It makes me feel better about everything.”

“You’ve been so stressed about the baby stuff, since the week after I moved in with you. Sometimes I give you grief about small crap just to help you let off steam.”

Her chin tipped up and their eyes met. “You do?”

“Yeah.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “You have a short temper, but once you get it out of your system you’re back to the girl I met at Devon and Trey’s Halloween party.”

Suddenly she sat up, her face red, her features stern. “Are you saying you deliberately bait me? Just to get a reaction?”

He held up his hand. “That’s not what I meant—”

“I guess you stick around for your own amusement. No surprise,” she said acidly. “Since you’ve been cloistered here day and night, you never go out. You barely watch TV. You exercise and read. That’s it. You have no life and nothing to entertain you. So why not take out your frustration on the closest target?”

How had their discussion veered so off track? “Hold on, Lindsey.”

“I’m sick of being your entertainment. Just go out sometime. Meet a woman. Screw your brains out. Find a girlfriend. Maybe then you’ll get off my back.”

Darting away, she disappeared up the staircase, stomping to her room then slamming the door.

What the hell?
His shoulders sank.

Eyes pinched at the corners, he stared unblinking into the fire until his retinas hurt. “Because the only woman I want to be with is you.”

Wide awake the next morning, having barely slept at all the night before after Lindsey laid her head in his lap and then falsely accused him of baiting her for his entertainment, Slone tucked his arm behind his head. He watched shadows shift across the ceiling above him as the sun rose.

He had to find a way to let Lindsey go.

Any thoughts he’d entertained about being her man, he needed to bury. Deep down. They could keep company with the rest of his disappointments in the bottomless pit he called a soul.

Obviously she wasn’t interested in a relationship, or him. Hell, she wanted to get pregnant by a completely stranger. That advertised: “Don’t even think about it, douche bag. I’m off limits. You’ll only complicate my life. Keep your distance, and I’ll keep mine.” He could almost hear the words falling from her lips.

Problem was, he didn’t have a high success rate when it came to letting go.

Doing something he hadn’t done in a long time, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and padded to the old trunk that sat under the smaller of the two windows in his bedroom. He brushed aside the brown suede curtains Lindsey had picked out, and opened the heavy lid. The hinges squeaked in protest.

According to Uncle Jimmy, this trunk had sailed from Ireland across the Atlantic to America, finding itself in the back hill woodlands of Kentucky, where his family had lived and made moonshine for eight generations. Though the Mason-Dixon Line might’ve run through his backyard, he might as well have grown up in the Deep South. He came from a long line of drunks, lawbreakers, rednecks, and fighting Irish. Fortunately, his mother and aunts and uncles had mostly broken that illustrious chain of his ancestry, raising him, his half-brother, his half-sister, and their cousins with open minds, better manners, and unquestioned loyalty to their family and country.

In the summers Uncle Jimmy still ran the moonshine distillery out yonder in the woods at an undisclosed location. Uncle Jimmy was also a little addled in the brain and was missing at least half his teeth. But damn could that man tell a tall tale. Half of Slone’s material he used to keep up morale and get his team laughing had come from his infamous Uncle Jimmy. They included countless stories that started with, “This one time in ’Nam,” referring to his draft into the Vietnam War. The way he said it, ’Nam rhymed with ham.

Reaching into the trunk, Slone withdrew a batch of letters. Some from Mom, a dozen or more from his half-brother James, and two from Adele. All were precious, two were heartbreaking.  They offered the only remaining connection he had with his family.

When he scanned the first from James, revealing his brother’s enthusiasm and praise of Slone’s heroism and military adventures, Slone found his eyes prickling at the corners, his vision blurring, his chest aching. If only he’d written back and told James not to enlist. The heroism his brother admired so much came at a price, and James had paid the ultimate one.

Slone released the letter. It drifted down onto the stack like the last fall leaf before winter. He pinched the bridge of his nose until the dampness went away, requiring more effort than he expected.

Then, for added torture, he picked up one of two letters from Adele. A glossy professional photo dropped out of the folded page. He held it reverently at the edges to keep his fingerprints from messing up the pristine finish.

The photo captured a moment of pure happiness and endless possibilities frozen in time. James held his arm around his wife Adele, the two smiling with undiminished joy. Perched on Adele’s knee was a drooling, grinning six-month-old, with chipmunk cheeks and huge, innocent gray-blue eyes just like her daddy’s. Baby Grace.

Pulling in a heavy breath, he turned the picture over. The message scrawled on the back in permanent blue ink ravaged him every time.
See what you took from us?

As his fingers shook, a blast of emotion exploded n his chest. He didn’t need to read Adele’s letter. The words were branded into his mind. Angry, hateful, broken hearted, accusatory words she’d lobbed against Slone. And he deserved every one of them. He hadn’t encouraged James to join the Marines, but he hadn’t discouraged his brother either. He regretted that every since day of his life that he continued to breathe, while his brother lay six feet in the ground.

Breathing deep, he shook his head to clear it. The memory reminded him it was the end of the month, time to send another check to Adele.

Behind him the knob of his door turned. Lindsey.
Shit.
He shoved the letters and photo back into the trunk and slammed the lid right as she walked in.

“Sorry, am I interrupting?”

“No,” he said with curt irritation. “But knocking before you barge into someone’s room is a decent gesture.”

“I was worried about you.” She tugged the turban-shaped towel from her head, the wet dark blonde layers falling around her face. “You always get into the shower before me. I’m just making sure you’re okay.”

“Fine,” he said through a tight jaw. He narrowed his eyes at her.
Don’t sit on my bed, Lindsey. Don’t sit on the—

Damn.

She bounced down onto the edge of his mattress, drying the ends of her hair with the towel. “Listen, I want to apologize for last night.”

“Don’t.”

“I need to.”

“Not necessary.”

“Yes, it is,” she said firmly. “While I was showering, it gave me time to think.”

The image of her naked body covered in water, surrounded by steam, gave him an instant hard-on. He swallowed a groan.

“I realized you’re right.”

“Probably.”

She snorted. “At least let me finish. You were right about you being the only person I interact with, so you see the good and the grumpier sides of me, and I’m sorry I’ve been such awful company.”

“You’re going through a lot.” He couldn’t look at her on his bed without wanting to lay her down on it and kiss her from her lips to her toes. Glancing around for something else to occupy his attention, he went around his bedroom picking up dirty socks and clothes, tossing them into the laundry basket in his closet.

Meanwhile, she talked and dried her hair, oblivious to how much she affected him. How desperately he wanted to be wrapped in her softness to blunt the sharp edges of his secret pain. “I texted Kylie,” she said, “and my sister invited us over to Cade’s penthouse for dinner tonight.”

“Sure. Whatever you want.”

“Before that, I thought we could get out of the house for awhile. Just you and me.”

He paused. “And do what?”

“Well, there’s an ice skating rink about twenty minutes away. Since we’re stuck with each other, we might as well enjoy ourselves.”

He could think of better ways to enjoy themselves. He shot a glance at his rumpled sheets. A moan slipped out and he covered it with a cough. “Yeah, we could use some fresh air. Have you ice skated before?”

She shrugged. “No, there’s no
ice in Las Vegas. But how hard could it be?”

Now this could offer some serious entertainment. He smothered a grin. “Right. How hard could it be?”

Forty-five minutes later, he found the day turning out to be far more enjoyable than he’d expected. He discovered plenty of built-in excuses to keep his hands on her at all times, since she fell against him every other glide.

This was by far one of the best days he’d had in ages. He soaked in every second of it.

They managed one whole lap around the ice skating rink about every ten minutes. He found her frustration endearing, and he couldn’t stop smiling. A foreign sensation he embraced without question.

A quarter of the way through their third lap she fell for the hundredth time, and he scooped her up before she hit the ice. She was cute even when she scowled, like she was doing right now.

“This is nothing like roller skating,” she mumbled, her knees knocking as she fought to keep upright with his help.

“Two skinny blades versus eight chunky wheels. You do the math.”

“This was a stupid idea.”

He grinned. “I’m having a great time.”

She relaxed a little in his grasp. “How did you learn to ice skate?”

“My Uncle Jimmy had a pond out back of his house. One year for Christmas, Santa brought all us kids a pair of ice skates. I think old St. Nick was in collusion with our parents, because that winter ended up with record-breaking cold temperatures, and we skated on that pond for hours. Sometimes we’d come back and find the grownups had locked the doors.”

She blinked, appalled. “That’s child endangerment.”

He shrugged. “They left a thermos of hot cocoa, mugs, and bags of marshmallows out of us. We were happy campers.”

“If you say so.”

“Not much else to do during winter in backwoods, small-town Kentucky. Ice skating kept us out of trouble when we weren’t snowshoeing or hunting.” He winked. “The adults eventually let us back in around dusk, and we warmed up by the fire while Uncle Jimmy told stories of winters when he was a kid.”

“Let me guess,” she said with humor in her eyes. “Your uncle had to walk to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.”

“Yep. He battled through miles of briar patches, and outran a few bears while he was at it.”

“Quite the busy guy. God, I miss family gatherings,” she whispered.

“Me too.” He suddenly realized he’d shared more than he meant to, and changed the subject. “Listen, don’t lock your knees, Lindsey. It’s like when you’re lifting weights, you want to let your muscles do the work, not your joints.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do I look like I lift weights?”

Oh, hell. He’d talked himself into one of those traps women set that guys hated. No matter what he said, it would come back to bite him. Shrugging, he smiled and replied honestly. “I think you look perfect.”

She rolled her eyes, but a little smile curved the edges of her lips.

Inwardly he breathed a sigh of relief. Well, he had told her the truth. Her lush body felt like the perfect fit in his arms. Even though she wore a puffy coat, and had on an insulated leather jacket, each time he caught her waist, the shelf of her ample breasts rested beautifully on his forearms. She was curvy in all the right places, sexy as hell, and she completely turned him on. He was grateful he’d worn jeans, and that his bottom of his coat stopped below his waist.

“Remember to keep your knees slightly bent,” he said, returning to his instruction. “Now, use the toe of your left skate to push off and glide with your right.”

She seized his wrists. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. I’ve got you.”

“You promise?”

A warm sensation curled in his chest. “I promise. Just try it. I won’t let you fall.”

For some reason she turned her face to look up at him. Their gazes locked for a timeless moment.

A series of emotions played out in her huge, stunning eyes. He found it hard to breathe.

His throat worked as he swallowed. “I’m not going anywhere,” he vowed. “Come on, you can do this. A little faith goes a long way.”

She faced front. “Here goes nothing.”

Following his directions, she dug the toe of her left blade into the ice and coasted on the right a good five feet all on her own. He never had a doubt.

“Oh, my God, I did it!” Her excited squeal rang across the rink.

He grinned proudly. “Try it again. I’m right behind you.”

More than succeeding, she actually switched from skate to skate, gliding along like a champ, her arms spread eagle. “Check me out!”

“Oh, I am,” he said low, his eyes glued to her juicy backside.

“Are you even watching me?” she demanded.

“Can’t look away,” he assured.

Then he saw her wobble. He quickly skated forward and held out his arms just as her right skate slid out from under her.

“Shoot. I almost had it.”

“You did have it. Nice job.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “Stephen Hawking could ice skate better than me.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t go that far, but you did make progress.”

“True.” She sighed and wiped her forehead. “A little progress, I guess. Hey, want to go get ice cream at the concession stand?”

He chuckled at her roundabout way of saying she was done. “Sure. Want to try skating back to the exit on your own?”

“
No.
” She clamped her hands down on his, ensuring he didn’t let go.

He muffled a laugh. “Okay, we’ll take it slow and steady.”

“I like it better that way.”

Though he knew he shouldn’t, he dipped his head and his lips brushed her ear. “Then I’ll do it however you want me to.”

Shock sizzled through him when she laced her fingers through his. But her sultry tone stunned him even more. “Are you always this considerate of a woman’s needs?”

Strategically he skimmed his lips along her jaw. “Try me and find out.”

She sucked in a breath, letting him draw her back against him, so she understood the full arousing impact of her words. “You’re very convincing,” she whispered.