She wasn’t that bad, Kell thought silently. He had been watching her for days. She was impulsive, intelligent. And haunted. He had seen her face when she thought no one was watching, in the middle of the night when she sought sanctuary in the little courtyard outside her condo. She had looked lonely. Lost.
“She’s going to be a problem?” Reno asked. “Lieutenant Krieger’s cover depends on her cooperation. Without it, he’s no more than another bodyguard they have only to wait out.”
“She goes through bodyguards like water,” Stanton griped. “Two months max and she has them wrapped around her little finger. They would die for her, but the problem with that is that they start getting enmeshed in her little fiascoes and adventures. The girl hasn’t realized yet that she needs to settle down.”
“Sir, the question remains, will she cooperat
e?” Reno asked again.
“One thing about Emily Paige is the fact that she has the heart of an adventurer,” he growled. “She’ll go along with it and try to twist your man into so many knots he won’t know if he’s coming or going. For a girl who refuses to find a husband or a lover, she sure has a way of making tough men melt in a puddle at her little feet.” He glared at Kell.
Kell refused to flinch. He respected the senator, he was damned wary of the power the man held, but he had never agreed with him where Emily was concerned, and he hadn’t hesitated to inform him of that fact several times.
“You think you’re tough enough to handle her, don’t you, Kell?” The senator’s smile was understanding, if disdainful. “You’re sitting there telling yourself you’re tough enough. You’re hard enough and you’re cold enough. I give you a week before you’re panting after her like every other male I put in her vicinity. And like all the others, she’ll wave with a smile when you walk out the door.”
No, he was smart enough. That was the difference.
Kell allowed the corner of his lips to quirk at the senator’s words.
The senator shook his head pityingly in reply. “I’m going to do you a favor, son, simply because I hate to see a good man go down too fast and because I like you. Do whatever it takes to keep her safe. I don’t care if you have to lock her in her own damned closet, because God help you if you let anything happen to my daughter. Do you understand me?”
“No interference,” Kell said then, ignoring his commander’s warning look. “If she calls crying, you don’t pull back. If she gets pissed because she doesn’t like my rules, you don’t change them.”
Stanton’s gray eyes narrowed at the challenge in Kell’s voice. He stared back for long moments, his expression thoughtful.
“No rough stuff,” he finally stated. “I won’t have her mistreated.”
“You know better than that, Richard. She won’t be mistreated.” He was a lot of things but Kell didn’t hurt women.
Stanton watched him a moment longer before nodding slowly. “Agreed. You have control.”
Something Stanton had never given any of her bodyguards. Kell restrained his feeling of triumph but he had to admit to a twinge of wariness at the satisfaction that filled the senator’s gaze.
Stanton sat back in his seat then, turned to Reno, and began discussing the protective detail Reno would be leading. Not that it appeared Reno was going to have much control over it. The senator had definite ideas on how to run the show, but he was willing to listen to Reno’s suggestions. As the limo made its way through Atlanta toward Emily Stanton’s condo, the plans were argued into a viable operation.
Laying the groundwork to catch Fuentes’s spy within the committee the senator chaired would be handled by Reno, Clint, and Macey, while Kell and Ian had the responsibility of protecting his daughter.
“Emily has various functions, charity and political, that she attends throughout the year; a couple are scheduled during the next few weeks,” he informed Kell. “She can’t miss those. No matter what. They’re too important. And Emily isn’t to know that Ian is involved in this. She’s to know nothing more than that he’s her new neighbor.”
“Why?” Kell asked. “Knowing the full extent of the danger could help her in determining how far to push her own safety.”
Stanton’s eyes flashed with rebuke.
“Emily’s different,” the senator snapped. “A writer. A dreamer. She’ll never understand how much her life is in danger so there’s no sense in trying to explain it, and it could endanger Ian’s cover if she pulls one of her tricks and tries to slip away from you. Let’s not give her more to worry about than we need to. You just keep her out of the strip clubs and off strange men’s laps, if you don’t mind.”
Kell omitted the fact that the lap dance had been for him. But as he listened to the finalization of the plans, he began to draw his own conclusions about the senator and Emily’s relationship. He was betting money the coming meeting wasn’t going to go smoothly.
Emily had a strong dislike of control, and Senator Stanton, formerly Captain Richard Stanton of the Navy SEALs, was all about control. It was there in the thin line of his mouth, the frosty hue of his gaze.
And he wanted his daughter controlled. No matter what it took. No matter how much fire burned inside her at the action. No matter how little of the woman she was would remain. As far as the senator was concerned, nothing mattered but restraining the life inside her. A fire Kell intended to stoke in far different ways than Miss Emily Paige Stanton could ever imagine. Ways her father would likely kill him over.
Four
A COLD SHOWER DIDN’T HELP. Pacing the floor didn’t help. Changing from the sexy underwear to her normal loose cotton pants and overly large T-shirt didn’t help. And listening to Chet Dyson pack, and watching him load his car, sure as hell hadn’t helped.
Because she couldn’t forget one man, a breath of air, and a fear unlike anything she had ever known in her life.
She was more aroused than she could ever remember being. All she could remember was the feel of warm breath between her thighs a millisecond before pleasure pierced her clit and sent vibrations of ecstasy racing through her body.