Clothes were hung in the closet and pushed into the dresser. Within minutes he was unpacked and staring around the room with a vague sense of discontent.
What was it about Emily Stanton that had always cal
led to him? From the day he’d realized what a beauty she was growing into and how the fire was barely banked within her, she had made him hard. Hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to scare the hell out of him and keep him running in the opposite direction for the past five years. There was something fresh about her, something wild and untamed. But it was restrained. Driven down and simmering beneath the surface as it fought to survive amid the life her father, loving though he was, was trying to force her into. Emily was never going to give her father what he needed from her. Senator Stanton wanted a pretty little dress-up doll who followed his commands and never thought to question them or her own happiness.
The problem as Kell saw it was that the two of them were too much alike. If Emily had been born a man, she would have made a hell of a Navy SEAL. But she hadn’t been born a man. She had been born soft and gentle, easy to break and easy to scar.
He knew exactly how easy it was to break something that soft and delicate. Fuentes had already destroyed one woman in Kell’s care. He wasn’t going to let the drug lord destroy another.
He felt something twist inside him at the thought of his wife, Tansy, and the son he had never known. Tansy hadn’t been wild. She had been gentle, ethereal, as though her body knew she would be on this earth for only a short time.
She had made him laugh. She had made him see himself as something other than the heir to the combined Krieger and Beaulaine fortunes though. She had opened his eyes and taught him how to begin maturing when his family would have continued to convince him he was perfection and that everything in his life had to be the same.
He could barely remember her face now. He hadn’t dreamed of her in years, and the burning lance of pain had dimmed over the years. He felt regret. Fury at the evil that had taken her away from him and the knowledge that Emily had the power to hold him with a strength that he now knew Tansy never would have.
He had loved Tansy as a boy. If Emily stole the man’s heart, then the risk to his soul could be that much greater.
He would never survive losing her.
She was like the little fox he always compared her to. Inquisitive. Stubborn. Sensual.
She was determined. She might not always know what she wanted, but she was working her way there, and Kell intended to become what she wanted. All those wild impulses, all that heated hunger was going to be his.
A man learned young that he couldn’t tame the wind, so instead, he learned to become part of it, to channel it. That was the key to Emily. Channeling all that frustration and pent-up need for adventure. Like a vixen, like the wind, there was no taming her. But he could enjoy her. And that he definitely intended to do.
Six
“YOU DIDN’T TELL ME THAT the elusive Kell Krieger was now your lover, why?”
Emily restrained a sigh as she stared across the small patio table at her best friend, Kira Porter, the next day and gauged the suspicion in her eyes.
Heavy suspicion. She wasn’t fooling Kira in the least, and she damned sure couldn’t tell her the truth.
She had tiptoed around Kell the night before, watching him warily, trying to get an idea of the best way to handle him. She hadn’t come up with anything yet. Of course, it would have helped if she actually knew a bit more about him than she did. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. She knew he could be trusted, depended upon. He was a friend to her father, and in the back of her mind she had always known she could call on him if she needed him.
Though she never had.
“He can hear you, Kira,” she pointed out with a frown instead. “Keep your voice down.”
The other half of that coin was the fact that he didn’t know her as well as he thought he did either. She didn’t need to give him any added information.
“Emily, the man just pulled you out of your bed, fixed you coffee, and somehow procured cinnamon rolls before you awoke, all without a single kiss or tussle. He’s another bodyguard, isn’t he, and you’re just too ashamed to admit you gave in to your daddy again.”
“He’s not a bodyguard.” Emily kept her voice firm and free of frustration with a struggle. “Really, Kira, you’re making too much of this. I don’t tell you everything.”
“When it comes to men you do.” Kira snorted. “I’ve listened to you rant for hours.”
“Only when they fail to please me,” Emily pointed out with a smile. “Maybe Kell pleases me.”
Emily kept the smug smile on her face as she sat back and savored the coffee Kell had made. It was excellent, damn him. And somehow, he had managed to get fresh cinnamon rolls without leaving the house.
“Yeah. Right.” Kira propped her chin on her hand, her gray eyes staring across the table mockingly as her shoulder-length black hair fell forward and gave her face an exotic slant.
Kira was quite simply gorgeous. Perfect facial features, pouty lips, seductively tilted eyes, and perfectly arched brows. She considered herself the ultimate seductress with just enough mocking amusement to assure a person that she didn’t take it seriously.
But more than one of Emily’s bodyguards had fallen half in love with her, while the others had been panting like wolves after a prime slice of meat.
“Yeah, right.” Emily nodded, wishing her friend would drop the subject, and much too aware of Kell sitting in the living room just inside the door, pretending to watch CNN.