“You give lap dances to strange men,” he bit out. “What do you call that?”
She flushed in embarrassment. “Fun,” she snapped back. “Just think, Daddy, that could have been the son-in-law you’ve been pushing so hard for.”
She clamped her mouth shut the minute the words left her lips. Angry words. Accusations. Dammit, her nerves were just about pushed to their limit and he expected her to keep her mouth shut and just accept his condemnation once again. And he expected her to do it in front of the man assigned to protect her.
She shook her head abruptly, turning her back on him and lifting her hand to forestall the chilling response she knew would cut into her soul.
“You’d have to get off your high horse and give him the time of day first.” The words came anyway. They stabbed into her, causing her to flinch in shame because the man she had given that lap dance for was watching, listening.
She inhaled roughly, blinking back her tears, determined that she wasn’t going to be hurt this time.
“So.” She turned back to him. “How long are yo
u allowing Kell to stay?” She glanced at Kell’s thoughtful expression, striving to keep from meeting his gaze. “Two weeks? Four?”
“As long as he can control you,” he snapped back.
Her lips thinned. “Then you might as well take him with you when you leave, because no man controls me, Daddy. You should have figured that one out on your own by now.”
Five
BY TIME HER FATHER LEFT, Emily was drained. She could feel the suffocating feeling that came with each bodyguard change, and the feeling of helplessness she couldn’t seem to shake.
It was worse this time, though, because Kell was more than just a bodyguard. He was a mysterious friend, a part of her life since she was ten years old, and a part of her dreams since she was a teenager. She had been half in love with him for as long as she could remember, and now, she was supposed to pretend he was her lover. That he touched her. That she knew his kiss and the stroke of his hands.
God help her, she couldn’t even write the fantasy to that one. She had no conception of how it would feel, but she knew the hunger for it. A hunger that left her shaking when she pulled herself from the dreams of his touch, always so close and yet never actually on her flesh.
She could feel it now. It rippled through her bloodstream and reminded her that Kell was part of the reason why no other man had ever measured up to her idea of the lover she wanted. Because she had wanted Kell. Wanted him with a stubbornness that didn’t leave room for other men.
“The rules in this house are simple,” she stated as she forced herself to turn and face her too-wanted houseguest.
She might as well start as she intended to finish. “Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”
He stood in front of her patio doors, the lengthening shadows of evening filling the house and gathering around him like a cloak of danger.
He looked dangerous. He was dangerous. More so than she had remembered. She had a feeling that even if she had been inclined to try to run him in circles the way she had the others, it wouldn’t be possible.
“Stay out of your way?” He smiled suggestively as his gaze raked over her body. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible. Bodyguards have a purpose, Emily. They guard the body. And I take my job very seriously.”
His gaze settled at her thighs for a long second before lifting to her face with a wicked smile.
“I just bet you do, but I believe I’m safe enough in the house. The security system alone is better than Fort Knox, so we shouldn’t have any problems staying out of each other’s way. Now should we?”
She was shaking. Shaking and certain that he could read her nervousness in every move she made. She had never been good at hiding her thoughts, and hiding her desires were even harder.
Every time he had looked at her since she became a teenager she had seen the knowledge in his eyes. The certainty that he knew the hungers building in her. Of course, that was why she hadn’t seen him in five years. He had been avoiding her. And that was just damned humiliating.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he stated calmly.
There was no frown. There was no flicker of calculation in his gaze as he tried to decide how to handle her. They all had that moment of indecision, as though they weren’t quite certain what to do with a client who didn’t really want them there.
“Why doesn’t it work that way?” She kept her voice reasonable. “School starts again within another month and I’ll be busy working on class plans and so forth, as well as some writing I do. I know how to entertain myself, and I do it quite well. I hope you know how to do the same.”
“Some things are better taken care of together though,” he pointed out, pacing closer, his emerald eyes snaring hers and holding them against her will. “You made a promise to me earlier, Emily. Do you intend to renege on it?”
“What promise?” She could smell him. She wanted to moan at the scent of hard, impossibly powerful muscles and male sensuality as he began to invade her personal space.
She should retreat. Step away. But she was locked in place, staring up at him, feeling invisible bands of heat wrapping around her body.