“He deals in important people’s security. At least they think they’re important. They pay Dane enough for him to consider them so. Because of this, he keeps their data secrets. Whatever they have in the way of emails, banking, business content, anything they don’t want to share gets protected by Dane.”
A knife flew over the garlic, chopping it into little bits. The pungent scent of it drifted over to me.
“I’d think they’d want to keep him safe if he knows—or protects—all their secrets.”
She walked to the stove, turned the knife over, and scraped all the garlic into the pan with the shrimp. Adding oil from a large bottle with a fancy liquor spout, it started to sizzle.
I shifted on the stool because I was getting hard. Ridiculous, definitely. I was getting hard watching her cook fucking shrimp. My mouth wasn’t watering for a taste of it, but for her.
She wasn’t dressed fancy; yoga pants, a long-sleeved white t-shirt—which did nothing to hide her gorgeous curves—and a black apron over top. Her hair was pulled back into a low, messy bun at the nape of her neck and she wore black leather clogs on her feet.
“He’s not worried about his clients. He’s worried about his clients’ enemies. An easy way to harm them is through Dane’s company. Or Dane himself.”
My phone chimed, alerting me of a text. Speaking of Dane, he wrote, Almost there. Don’t shoot me when I come in.
Yeah, he knew me too well.
She turned her head to look at me, a large wooden spoon in her hand.
“Has it happened before? Someone trying to hurt him?”
I nodded, but didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to know the fucked up stuff.
“The office building’s secure,” I said. “And he’s secure within. There’s building security and his own small group. With me here, he’ll have two guys on him. At least until he’s with me and I take over.”
“And this is what you do? Protect people? Lead security details? Aren’t you scared?”
“That’s a lot of questions. Yes, this is what I do. Head up Dane’s security department. My main job is to be his bodyguard, sticking close to him, but I’m responsible for about thirty men and women.”
She eyed me slowly. My dick twitched. “I don’t see you as the management type.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that one. “I’m not. Hell, I didn’t even go to college. After graduation, I went into the military. Six years with two tours in the Middle East. Fighting in the sand is good practice. Then, when I got out, I went into fighting. MMA.”
“MMA?” she repeated.
“Mixed martial arts. I was pro for a while, but I had one too many concussions. I’d done my time and Dane needed protection. Worked for me.”
“Impressive.” She eyed me again. “I remember the tattoos from last night. The scars.” She pointed to my nose. “The broken bones. I can see you as an MMA fighter.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t.
“I know the bad shit, Harper. I know what can happen when things go wrong. You might think we just met, but that doesn’t matter. You’re ours and we’re not letting anything happen to you.”
Her mouth fell open when I said you’re ours, but she didn’t ask. Instead, she said, “Jane came in without warning.”
“I’ve got a guy watching the door. The gun’s backup.”
“That’s serious backup.”
I shrugged. The gun was the only weapon on me she knew about. She hadn’t seen the knife.
“I’ve had people die on my watch. Fellow soldiers. We might not be at war here in the city, but there are bad guys everywhere—like on the street or even at the party last night—where he might be liable to a threat. Except the penthouse. That’s locked down. That’s why we took you there last night.”
She stirred the shrimp. The smell of it was incredible. She reached for a lemon, grabbed the knife and sliced it in half, then squeezed each half over the pan.
“I thought it was for a different reason entirely.” A slight smile curled her full lip.
Ah, she was flirting. Good.