I grinned so hard that it actually hurt my face. For all of Adrianne’s talents—I’d seen her movies, and she was fantastic at what she did—she didn’t have a great voice. It was more like cats in a bag being hit off a brick wall, but she didn’t seem to care at all. It was adorable. She was comfortable in the truck, in front of me, and I liked that a lot.
Working in professional security, our clients were usually polite and distant. I had never had an A-list celebrity sitting in my passenger seat, let alone rocking along with the radio like she wasn’t one of the most well-known actresses in the world right now.
We rounded a curve and came to the gated entrance to her neighborhood. I pulled up beside the gate, and the guard eyed me, unimpressed. “I think you’re in the wrong place, sir,” he said with the kind of imperial, high-and-mighty tone that was so common in Los Angeles.
I lived all over the world during my service with the SEALs, and there was no place quite like California. Foster loved it, but there were days I wanted to put my fist through someone’s face.
“I’m here for—”
The guard turned and at least met my eyes now. “What you’re looking for isn’t here, sir.”
“Now, look here—”
Adrianne leaned over my lap. Her breasts pressed into my leg, and my cock twitched inside my jeans. My body locked up, willing her not to feel me. “Sam?” she called, totally unbothered, and the guard’s eyes almost popped out of his skull. “Can you let us through, please?”
Sam scrambled to punch the button to raise the gate. “Right away, Ms. Montoya! Right away. I am so sorry.”
The gate went up, and Adrianne sat back with a grin. I drove through the gate, and Adrianne pointed out the directions. “I’m on the second street on the left,” she said, nearly leaning over into my lap again.
The house sat on a corner lot, surrounded by a wrought iron fence and lush green hedges. It was pretty, had an old-Hollywood vibe to it, but it definitely wasn’t the largest house in the area. Under 2500 square feet, it looked tiny among all the huge manors. Adrianne pulled out her phone and tapped on it, and the gate opened. “That’s convenient.”
She smiled my way. “It’s an app. I can basically control everything in the house from it.”
That doesn’t sound secure, I thought. Ethan would need to know about it, but I didn’t say anything to her. She was so proud of it, and I didn’t want to be the one to ruin it for her. I parked in the space beside a white BMW. “Stay here,” I said.
“Why?” I stared at her, mouth pressed into a line, and she sighed. “I’m not trying to get away from you or anything, but I need things explained to me, okay? So I understand why I’m being told to do something.”
A woman after my own heart. I had said something similar to Ethan not too long after we were put together as a SEAL team. I needed to know the motivation for the order, or I had a hard time following what I was meant to be doing. I could have gotten a lot of people killed. “I’m going to do a sweep through your house to make sure there’s nobody there, okay? I want you to stay here while I do that, in the truck, with the doors locked, until I come and get you.”
Adrianne frowned, obviously not happy about that, but she nodded. “Okay.” She set her teeth into her bottom lip. She tapped on her phone again. When she released her lip, I could see the indentations from her teeth. There was no way that didn’t hurt. “The door’s unlocked now. You’ll be quick, won’t you?” she asked.
I reached out and brushed her lip with my thumb, soothing the bite marks. Her breath hitched. “You don’t need to be afraid. I’m here to protect you.”
Her eyes met mine. “I’m not afraid forme,” she said. “What if there is someone in the house? What happens to you?”
“Sweet girl,” I breathed out, “I am more than capable of keeping myself safe. Don’t you worry about me.” Still, when she went to bite down on her lip again, I leaned forward and brushed a kiss to her lips. It was quick, just to stop her anxiety, but a wounded sound tore from her throat and her hands touched my face.
I flicked my tongue out, tasting that bottom lip for just a moment, before I tore myself away from her and practically threw myself out of the truck. I pressed theLockbutton, and I stalked into the house.
3
ADRIANNE
Callan was gone for a small eternity that all-in-all lasted less than five minutes. But those minutes stretched on endlessly for me. I kept touching my lips.He kissed me. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t some fantasy that I’d dreamed up.
When the locks on the truck popped, I startled and had to bite down on a shriek. Then, Callan opened my door and offered me a hand to get down.
He wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he focused his gaze at the hedge on the far end of the driveway. “Does everything look okay?” I asked as I braced my hand in his and climbed out of the truck.
He nodded, but he still wouldn’t look at me directly. “All the rooms are clear,” he said, voice stiff and far too formal for someone who’d just had their mouth on my mouth.
I put my feet on the ground and smacked his arm, bringing his eyes down to mine. “You kissed me,” I said. “We kissed. Stop being weird about it.”
Callan’s mouth dropped open. “I’m not—”
“You are,” I said, cutting him off. “And stop it. It’s not a big deal.”It isn’t?The words coming out of my mouth did not match the fluttering in my chest at being this close to him.
It didn’t match the intensity ofwantthat I felt this morning in Ethan’s office. It didn’t match the butterflies that I got from Foster’s smile. I hadn’t wanted any man—let alone three of them—like this, and so quickly in a very long time. If ever.