My Hot Bodyguard Page 7

  So I’m relieved the next day when he goes with Tom and Tessa to see a divorce lawyer in Inverness.

  I feel down about everything, for Tessa and her failed marriage, for losing a guy I could care about, for Grant in his closed-off world without emotion.

  I’ve been worried about the contract, too. I eventually asked Tessa if she wanted me to continue working on the house, but she said it was the only thing keeping her going. Her and me both right now.

  Despite everything, I’m making good headway with the plans, each one cheerful and fresh, but still sympathetic to the age of the building, and I’m starting to look at the smaller rooms now.

  Brenda asked me at breakfast if it was okay if she left something cold for my lunch. Her friends are visiting from Edinburgh, and she wanted to meet with them, and I said that was fine. Mrs. Hanson has gone to run some errands, so I have perfect peace to get on with things, without fear of bumping into Grant around every corner.

  I get out my tape measure to make a plan of the little linen closet, though it’s big enough to serve as a bedroom in a normal house if it had any windows. I want even the small spaces to be perfect for Tessa, and I think we could make one of the walls a cheerful deep color, something she likes, maybe deep turquoise or even orange, to contrast with white shelving and white raffia baskets for the linens.

  I don’t know what makes me turn around. I sense their presence, or maybe there’s a slight noise, but suddenly two guys wearing balaclavas with only the eyes cut out grab me. I try to scream, but nothing comes out. My limbs turn to jelly, and my feeble struggles do nothing against these guys. While one holds me, the other tapes my mouth and hands.

  “Lock her in. Someone will find her later,” the one with the tape says.

  “Might want to enjoy her before we’re done,” the other one says and reaches out with one hand, grabbing my breast from behind where he’s holding me. I shudder, and find the strength, despite my shaking legs, to dig my heel into his foot.

  He yells and shoves me over. I land on my behind, and he slaps me hard across the face. The sting takes my breath away. “Feisty, too. You’ll pay for that, you fucking bitch,” he snarls at me.

  “Come on. we’re not here for that.” The first guy pulls him away, and they shut the door to the linen closet and turn the key in the lock.

  What do I do now?

  My heart is thudding. I want to kick at the door, but I’m terrified they’ll come back. I don’t know what time it is. My phone is in my room, not that I’d be able to call anyone taped up like this. My arms are hurting the way they pulled them together, and the tape on my face is itching like mad.

  Will anyone be back soon? Tessa has only been gone a few hours. Chances are she will have gone on one of her shopping trips, and not just to see her lawyer. Brenda won’t arrive until she has to make dinner. Who knows how long Mrs. Hanson will be? I hope the intruders are gone soon and the others don’t run into them.

  What do they want, anyway? Tessa?

  Then the door opens, and they’re back.

  “Get up,” the one who called me a bitch says, giving me a kick in the side. “You need to show us where the safe is.”

  I don’t know where it is. My heart drops. They’re thieves looking for something valuable, and I have no idea.

  I point to the tape over my mouth, and the thug who kicked me rips it off with relish, hurting me in the process. “Squeal and you’re toast,” he sneers.

  “I… I think it’s behind a painting.”

  “Very funny; the place is full of them. Which painting?”

  “I don’t know. I just heard them talking about it. I think the woman who owns the house said something about taking her necklace out, and it was behind… the stag?”

  “Where was she when she said it?”

  “In the dining room, but she could have been talking about another room.”

  All I know is that there are a lot of pictures with stags which Tessa hates, and I’m not that keen on either. They make me think that the proud animals were probably hunted down and shot by the landowners after they were painted.

  I don’t think any of the paintings are particularly valuable, otherwise the former owners would have taken them. They probably didn’t like the art, either.

  In any case, the thieves can do what they like with them. I hope they spend ages taking them all down. Anything to put off the moment when they don’t find a safe behind any of them.

  “No funny business,” the one who seems to be the leader says. “You’re coming with us. We’d better find that safe fast, or you’ll have us to answer to. And you won’t like that one bit.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Grant

  Tessa wants a drink when we come out of the lawyer’s office. “I did something for myself in all this mess, something positive. We should celebrate that.”

  But I want to go back to the house. I’m in no mood for celebration, and I don’t think Tessa really is ether. I persuade her to go home, and I offer to have a drink with her there.

  She says, “It would be nice if Paige would join us.”

  “Yes, maybe.” Where’s she going with this? Paige must have told her what happened by now, and Tessa knows I’m leaving in a couple of days.

  “I’m sorry that it didn’t work when I tried to get you two talking again. It was silly of me to do that, but I felt responsible for you breaking up. The day I heard from Jeremy…”

  “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It would have happened anyway.”

  “At least you didn’t get as far as having to get lawyers on the case.”

  That’s about the only good thing you can say about it. It takes another hour to get home, and by then, given Tessa is a bit subdued, too, I’m definitely ready for a drink rather than a celebration.

  But when we get to the house, and she’s ready to run in, I stop her. “Hang on, there’s something not right here.”

  “What’s not right?”

  “Look at all the lights. They’re on in almost every room.”

  “Paige is there,” Tessa says.

  “I don’t think she’d leave all those lights on in the rooms where you hardly ever go. Wait here while I go in and check.”

  I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit. If Paige is there and something has happened to her…

  And I’m right to be concerned. The first thing I spot as I go into the hall is a menacing-looking guy in a balaclava. I’m ready to take him out when I catch sight of another punk with Paige in his grasp. He’s holding a knife to her throat.

  “Who’s he?” he asks her.

  Paige is shivering, her voice uncertain. “Grant,” she says.

  I want to rip the knife from the thug’s hands and stick him with it, but he could kill her. He could slash her throat with one slip of his hand.

  “What do you want?” I ask. “Whatever it is, take it and go.”

  “We came for the necklace,” the other guy says, who seems like the boss. “We know it’s here. Heard a gentleman going on about it. How much he paid for it, like it meant nothing to him. How his wife was rattling around in this place. Didn’t take much to find out where.”

  “Whatever the necklace is worth, it’s not worth the twelve year stretch you’d get for manslaughter. Let the girl go.”

  Paige looks at me, terror in her eyes, the knife teasing her throat.

  “Give us the necklace, and we’ll let her go.”

  “I’ll give them the necklace,” Tessa says. I turn and give her a look of despair. I told her to wait in the car. Now I have two of them to worry about, as well as these two thugs.

  “The necklace is in the safe,” she says.

  “Don’t tell us it’s behind a stag painting, because this bitch just led us down a merry dance around every stag in the place,” the boss guy says.

  Good for Paige delaying them, but just as well we came back instead of staying in Inverness for that drink.

  “It’s under the rug,” Tessa say
s. “Behind a painting was just too obvious a place to put a safe.”

  “What rug is that? Or do you want us to lift every single fucking carpet?”

  “It’s under this one.” She indicates the large Chinese rug under the heavy round oak table in the center of the hall. The flowers in the large urn on top of it are replaced with a fresh arrangement by Mrs. Hanson every week.

  “You’ll all have to help. That table is not going to shift itself.” Tessa has taken on a strident tone, like Mrs. Thatcher in the Falklands war.

  The crooks don’t know what to make of her. The boss says, “Leave the girl to me and help.” He signals for me to assist. “You, too.”

  I check Paige is okay. The boss of the two men has her captive, but at least the knife is no longer at her throat. I have a chance if I play it cool.

  I bide my time and help lift the table off the rug, while Tessa deftly moves the flowers onto the floor at the side. Crook number two rolls up the rug. There’s a hatch in the ground that he lifts.

  While they’re focused on the safe, I size both of them up to see if I can take them out. I see Tessa watching me, and she gives a slight shake to her head as if to say don’t, it’s not worth it. But nothing would give me more satisfaction right now than flattening both of them for frightening Paige. If they harm her, I won’t be answerable for my actions.

  The man who was wielding the knife lifts the boxes out from under the floor. “Which one?” he asks.

  The boss man shrugs. “Let’s take them all, Dumbo.”

  “Dumbo” takes the boxes out one by one. There’s a pile of five. Tessa looks on, her lip curled in disdain. It doesn’t look like the kind of stuff that has sentimental value. It can all be replaced, but the boss man looks excited.

  “We’ll just take the girl and be on our way,” he says. “For insurance. Otherwise you’ll have the police onto us as soon as our back’s turned.”

  “You fucking won’t,” I yell. I’ve had enough of this. And I launch myself at him. He lets go of Paige to defend himself against the ferocity of my attack, and I’ve got him. I know just where to strike—the vulnerable spot at the throat that incapacitates.

  Tessa shrieks, and I spot the second guy coming at me with the knife. He’s over my shoulder and flat on his back on the hard flagstone floor before you can say concussion. I might just manage to give them a kicking as I cuff their hands with the cable ties that I always have handy when I’m on duty. They make great makeshift handcuffs.

  “Ouch. What’s she to you, anyway?” the boss guy protests. “She’s just some stupid bitch.”

  He earns another kick for that.

  “Shut your mouth. She’s everything to me. Everything.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Paige

  Grant didn’t let them take me. He said I was his everything. His everything! And he saved me. Despite the shock of all that has happened, I’m walking on air.

  The police come and take the guys away. I have to make a statement about what they did and said, and how they threatened me. When the police release me, Grant holds me tight because I can’t stop shaking. And he looks after Tessa and me with blankets and his whisky hot chocolate until bed time.

  But I don’t want to go to bed. As soon as I shut my eyes, I’m sure the nightmares will come, nightmares of a knife at my throat, of being taped up, of no one returning home for ages as stag painting after stag painting comes down from the walls, and the thugs get angrier and angrier.

  “I’ll take Tessa upstairs, and then I’ll come back for you,” Grant says. “Are you okay with that?”

  I nod and smile. I remember another time when he did that, a happier time.

  When he comes back into the room, in no time at all, he gathers me in his arms. “If I’d lost you…”

  “You’d lost me anyway,” I say. “You didn’t want me.”

  “I always wanted you, right from the first day in here with the ridiculous lampshade on your head. I was just too blind to see it. The thieves, much as I hate them, woke me up to how stupid I was being. They made me see what life would be like without you in it.”

  He kisses me, and it’s as good as I remember, the feel of his lips, the male scent of him, his arms surrounding me as if he never wants to let me go, the way he sends a tremble of anticipation right down to my core.

  “I don’t know how this is going to work out,” he says, “but we’re going to be together, somehow.”

  “Will you hold me tonight?” I ask him.

  “Of course. I’m going to hold you and never let you go.”

  There’s a whole lot of holding going on that night, and more. Once I persuade him that I want more than holding, that is. Once I show him how much I want him with my hands, my mouth, my body until he can’t resist, and he takes me hard, just the way I like it, over and over until we both come.

  In the morning, I’m surprised to wake up and see how long I slept with him protecting me. He makes me feel safe, even after an experience like the one I just had. I kiss his chest and he smiles down at me. “I’m still your friend, but I want to be more than that. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I think so.”

  “I want you to know so. When we get back to London, will you move in with me?”

  “No. I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know how it was for me with Ian. I need to rent my own place. I’ll get a mortgage, buy a place eventually, after I save up six billion trillion years for the deposit.”

  “Don’t do anything rash,” he says, and laughs. “Six billion trillion years will be over in the blink of an eye.”

  “You’re not mad at me turning you down?” I kiss him. I don’t want him to be angry with me. It’s probably a big thing for him to be asking.

  “No, I understand. But I still want you to move in with me, so get your own place for a while if you must, but move in with me anyway. I inherited my house from my parents years ago and I never really lived there. Just existed. I want to share it with you. To make it our home, and if it helps, I’ll get my lawyer to put you on the deed as soon as we get back to London. You’ll never be homeless again.”

  “You’re crazy, Grant. I can’t accept that.”

  “Then I’ll keep asking until you do say yes to it.” He laughs. “And I’m very determined.”

  “You really are crazy. You can’t just gift me half a house.”

  “Well, there’s a catch; I’ll be living there, too.”

  “That’s the only thing making me hesitate about turning you down. My own hot bodyguard right there.”

  He laughs. “I’m your hot bodyguard wherever you live, princess.”

  “I hope so.” And then he shows me, again, just how hot he can be.

  EPILOGUE

  Paige

  After the incident, Tessa says she would like Grant to stay longer, and of course, I have no objections to that. He stays on in Scotland until the end of my contract.

  We get to know each other more and more, and he gets used to the idea of being in a relationship. He even tells me he loves me. I never tire of hearing that, and I tell him I love him, too.

  The first time is between the sheets a few days after he agreed to stay on. Where else would it be with Grant?

  I’ve gone to bed early after a busy day in Edinburgh, looking at furniture and fabrics with Tessa, and he comes to join me after patrolling the walls.

  “You’re freezing,” I grumble as he gets in beside me.

  “Warm me up then,” he says, and he puts his cold hand between my thighs, cupping me. I don’t bother with night things now. Experience says I won’t be wearing them long, so I’m naked under the bedcovers. I squirm against him and laugh.

  “I love you,” he says.

  “Just because I warm your hand up?”

  “It’s the way you warm it up I like,” he says. “The other one is cold, too.” He swaps hands.

  I giggle. “What other parts of you are you going to put there
? I’d just like to be prepared. This part?” I ask, reaching for him. He’s already hard.

  “You’re too presumptuous,” he says. “I need to keep you in check.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  “Would you now? I might have to take you over my lap and give you a good spanking.”

  “Oh.”

  “You like the idea?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You do,” he says. “Noted.”

  I think that’s that, he’s just kidding, but he isn’t.

  Two nights later, I complain again about how cold he is.

  “Are you getting mad at me again?” he laughs. “I can’t help how cold it is outside. We’re in Scotland and it’s winter, in case you hadn’t noticed. Over you go.” And he pulls me over his cold naked thighs.

  My heart is in my chest. Am I going to let him do this? I am!

  He spanks me hard, much harder than I expected. That stings! My cheeks burn from the very first stroke, but it does something to me I don’t quite understand. It excites me. It makes me wet. It makes me want more. It makes me want him.

  “I love you,” I say when he pauses to soothe my burning skin.

  “I love you, too, baby. You want me to stop?”

  “No.” Surprisingly, I don’t.

  A few strokes later, and I want something else. “Fuck me.”

  His fingers play with my wet folds. “Are you sure?” he teases.

  “Yes, please. I need you,” I beg, wild for him.

  I lose all sense of time and place. The sting in my bottom mixes with the delight of his fingers on me, taking me to the edge again and again, as he hammers into me from behind. I am all sensation, lost to the joy of giving myself to him, of his touch, and then to the ultimate pleasure of coming surrounded by his arms as he bucks and thrusts against my hot behind, and empties deep inside me.

  “You need to live with me,” he says afterwards, stroking my hair as I lie against his chest. “I can’t imagine ever being apart from you.”