Chapter Five
The night ended better than it started. Skyler just needed a man willing to show him what’s what, and fuck, he was a fast learner and had the cock and endurance of a horse.
I peeked at him out of my peripheral vision as I hurried around my room gathering my things and packing them in my suitcases.
Oh, what I would do with him if I had the time.
Skyler was officially no longer a novice, and it didn’t matter how long he’d been living gay, that’s what he had been when he first stepped into my suite. Now the only thing that still looked like a ravished angel or a virgin innocent was how Skyler curled on his side around my pillow, his long limbs languid and pretty-guy perfection mussed as he watched every move I made. The lust-glazed eyes staring at me while he stroked himself contradicted the sweetness of the picture he made. Yep, Skyler was on his way to a more pleasurable sexual reality.
If only I had the time—but I didn’t.
I shifted my gaze away and ordered myself not to watch him masturbating because each time I looked my cock swelled a bit more and I was late. I’d already told him the night was over, that I had to leave, and either he wasn’t listening or he didn’t want to. Fuck, he should’ve had a shower and been out of here by now.
I told myself not to be such a hardnose about his lingering. Skyler was just feeling good about being a man today. A warm current spread throughout my body, but it wasn’t arousal—it was that feeling you sometimes get when something went well and ended beneficial for someone when you didn’t expect it to.
I went to the bathroom one last time to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything and discovered that I’d left my suit coat on a hanger. I lifted up my black slacks; backup piece strapped to leg, check. I adjusted my shoulder harness and then shrugged into my coat—fuck, groaning from my bed—and I struggled to ignore the soundtrack of the a.m. jerkoff as I tidied my hair with my fingers.
When I went back into the bedroom I found Skyler collapsed on my pillow, cum coating his abs and his body glistening with his sweat.
Our eyes locked, his mouth curled seductively and my lips in a tight line. It was going to be hell leaving this room with a boner and, fuck, as if the room hadn’t already been heavy with the lingering scent of our sex, the fresh addition made it doubly potent.
Was that cum on his lip?
I planted my hands on the bed at his sides and immediately moved in for a taste test. My tongue lapped up the bead, and as my lips moved against him, deepening the kiss, his tangy flavor moved down my throat and straight to my cock.
Prompted by the limited time left, the heightened effectiveness of his newfound confidence combined with his antics to keep me here, and the sudden liftoff in my trousers, I pulled back from him and said, “You’re insatiable. And you’ve made me late. Get up. Get dressed. You can’t just lie around here all day enjoying yourself in my sheets.”
Laughing, he stretched out like a lazy, contented kitten. “Oh, I could definitely do that. Just thinking about last night gets me hard. Don’t even get me started on what the smell of you does to me.” His eyes widened just a tad. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay a little longer? It’s the last day. What the fuck are they going to do? Fire you?”
His fingers did a slow walk over the bulge in my pants, and if that wasn’t excruciating enough, he placed a kiss there, pushing heat through the fabric as his hands slid around to caress my ass.
I stepped away from him, biting back a grin as I checked my watch. “You’ve got to be out of my suite by eleven.” I surveilled the room one last time. Damn. I’d forgotten to pack the lube. I set it on the pillow next to him. “Make the most of my sheets, but be out by eleven,” I added, but the smile broke through this time when I spoke.
He made a long exhale that sounded blissful and then sat up against the headboard while I phoned down to the front desk for a bellhop to come to the room for my bags.
I grabbed my cell and started checking my notifications. We were on schedule for the day. The car was waiting out front. Alan and his family would be ready to be on the move in ten minutes. Perfect.
“Where do you go next?” Skyler asked.
Without looking up, I said, “Newport Beach. Then hopefully back out on the road soon.”
“Newport Beach? Why?”
“I have a home there,” I mumbled, continuing to thumb through texts and reading them quickly.
“I live in Manhattan Beach,” he announced cheerfully. “We’re practically neighbors.”
Oh shit. Why did I tell where I lived?
He’d been an enjoyable surprise, but we had no future, he wasn’t my type, he was still too young and hadn’t lived enough to be interesting, and I had made it clear up front that this was a one-night thing—hadn’t I?
Oh fuck, maybe I hadn’t been direct enough with him.
I grabbed the room service menu from the bedside table and held it out to him. “You should order yourself some breakfast. Whatever you want. I’m reasonably sure my meal per diem is better than yours.”
I leaned in, brushed his jaw with my thumb, and kissed him lightly. “Behave, babe. Out of my room by eleven. Shoot me a text when you’re back home in California.”
The way his eyes glowed at me made me feel like a shit for having done that. When you spend the majority of your life hopping from city to city, hooking up with whatever catches your eye, it’s essential to cultivate the drama-free parting—the clean “it’s over” technique of the room service menu with a light kiss followed by shoot me a text. But, shit, I could tell by his expression that he didn’t realize that had been my official that’s all folks. As in forever. Fun though he had been, Skyler Mathews had no place in my future.
* * * *
My phone vibrated and buzzed in my pocket and my entire body stiffened. Damn you, Skyler. Two dozen texts since I’d left the room. If he sent me one more message, first thing back in California I would go to Manhattan Beach to see him—to wring his neck.
Fuck, I was on duty here. I knew I was an exceptional lover—it wasn’t just me bragging. Plenty of men had said it to me—but Skyler’s morning after was bordering on Fatal Attraction obsessive.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand his a.m. enthusiasm. The guy had only surrendered to his true sexuality, admitting to himself and the world he was gay—and yes, I’d been right. That event had happened little over a year ago, hence his novice, almost virginal, status in bed—and he hadn’t experienced the glorious heights of having been liberated by it until me.
He’d jumped into the safety of the first relationship offered to him by an older law school professor, and while Skyler didn’t give me the details—and, in truth, I hadn’t wanted them—he shared enough for me to read between the lines. Older controlling man. Abusive. Selfish. That was my read of Skyler’s former lover, and it hadn’t ended well. It had ended with Skyler dropping out of Bolt Law School.
On one level I understood his lovesick attentiveness this morning. It was motherfucking intoxicating the first time a man unlocked the pleasure centers of your body and let you soar. But this shit had to stop. It was over the top. Did I seem like the kind of a guy you’d send love notes to? Yes, the cock shots did have a role, in the right time and place, just not while I was working. And definitely not when I was surrounded by kids.
Christ, I’d almost had a heart attack when I’d opened the first message. Alan’s nine-year-old daughter, Krystal, had been standing beside me, trying to catch a peek with her sharp eyes at what was on my cell phone, and it had been a picture of Skyler making the most of his time in my bed.
Christ, what the hell was wrong with him?
He knew where I was.
He knew I was working.
When my cell buzzed again, I wanted to hurl it from the car. There was nothing left to do: I took it from my pocket and shut the damn thing off like I should have done after the first message.
When I looked back up Kaley was staring at me with an arched brow and a poorly concealed smirk. Somehow she’d learned Skyler spent the night in my hotel suite. And she was unrelenting in her questioning, humorously over-interested and teenage-girl determined about getting the details, and your basic pain in the butt today.
Were all eighteen-year-olds so nosy?
What was it Alan liked to call her—cheeky?—not the word I’d use to describe her this morning but, yep, that was it.
I shoved my cell into my breast pocket, closed my eyes and took a few deep, cleansing breaths hoping to purge the Skyler Mathews effect from my system.
We were almost to the airport. I needed to be focused. Sharp. The stalking by text didn’t matter; I could always change my number when I got home.
The SUV pulled out onto the tarmac, parked, and the kids went into instant motion.
“Stop,” I ordered softly but firmly. All four of them sat back in their seats and fixed their eyes on me. “Thank you. Are you all messing with me because this is our last day together? Knock it off. You know the drill.”
Kaley rolled her eyes, but she was smiling at me.
Krystal flushed and nodded.
The twins—Ethan and Eric—well, there was no help there. Six-year-old boys never listened.
I tapped on the door. “Don’t move an inch. You know the drill. First your parents out and onto the plane. Then you in your assigned order. Learn it. Live it—”
“—remember it,” Krystal said cheerfully and then she grinned.
I gave her a wink when I shouldn’t have and stepped from the SUV. I moved briskly to the car with Alan and his wife. As I escorted them across the tarmac to the plane, I was feeling that wash of melancholy again.
Maybe it was because I knew when we landed in LA this part of my life would be over. Or maybe because heading for home reminded me of the changes waiting there for me. Or maybe it was because I was hurt Alan had hired Dillon instead of me and for the first time in my life I didn’t have a job. Or maybe it was because the ritual of the airport was a tame affair this morning. No press on the private airstrip. No fans. No one else from the tour. Just the family. I wasn’t sure what was getting to me but, fuck, I was getting a return of the blues.
I waited until Alan disappeared onto the plane with Chrissie before I walked back to the car for the next load. Lourdes, their housekeeper, holding baby Khloe. Then the twins—you could only make little boys sit so long—with Krystal. And saving the best for last today when I should have moved her right after her parents, Kaley.
She had just climbed from the car when she said for about the fifth time since I’d collected her from the penthouse suite, “So you and Skyler, huh?”
“Stop. You’re being obnoxious.”
I kept carefully scanning the tarmac because if I looked at her I would smile—I liked that she gave me shit and I liked that she cared—and that would just make her more determined to get the full 411.
“What are you going to do after we reach LA?” she asked.
“Take some time off the road. Be home for a while before Black Star sends me out on my next assignment.”
She stopped at the bottom of the metal steps. “Don’t take anything dangerous. No black ops or any of that mercenary-for-hire stuff. I don’t want anything ever to happen to you.”
My expression cracked for the first time since she alighted from the car. “I don’t do dangerous, baby girl. Not anymore. I do celebrities.”
Her entire face brightened. “You’ve never called me that before.”
“What?”
“Baby girl. My mom’s pet name for us girls.”
Oh shit, what had made me do that?
“Get on the plane, Kaley. I can’t board until you do, and we have a schedule to keep. Remember? I am first off the plane—”
“—and last on,” she finished and leaned in to me to kiss my cheek. “It was nice you calling me baby girl. I liked it. You can do it anytime you want to.”
Jesus. H. Christ.
Not now.
I was tearing up out of nowhere.
“Board the plane. Go.”
I listened to Kaley climb the steps as I struggled against the tidal wave of emotion. Once she disappeared from sight into the cabin, I counted to ten inside my head, did one last scan of the runway, and then followed her.
* * * *
It was a seven-hour flight from Toronto to California and everyone seemed subdued. I expected them to be more rowdy, going home and all after spending four months on the road. But the children were surprisingly well-behaved even without their mother near. Alan and Chrissie had disappeared into the jet’s private sleeping room immediately after takeoff.
I didn’t like the silence. It gave me too much time to think about the shit-out-of-luck circumstance I was in, and for some reason, somewhere over the Midwest I’d started to check my phone half-expecting a text from Zac saying he wanted me to come home. Nothing—well, not unless I counted the recent notifications from Skyler.
Sighing, I shut off my phone and put it away.
It was stupid to have checked it at all. It wasn’t going to happen and, if I was honest with myself, I didn’t really want that. It was right that we were over, I had never been who Zac needed me to be, and I just wanted to get back to California, meet up with Jared, get another job assignment, and head back on the road.
Being a bodyguard was all I knew and it was the only kind of life that suited me. I didn’t need a home or a partner/family waiting for me—I reached under the table to stop Eric from kicking Krystal’s seat—and I sure as hell didn’t need kids in my life 24/7.
Eric glared at me because I kept hold of his leg and lowered it back to the position it should be when he sat. “Don’t do it again,” I ordered firmly.
His golden brows lowered on his face. It was hard not to smile, the kid was cute as hell, but smiling would have been a disaster. The kids would stop minding the second I was anything but a hard ass and then I’d be trapped in the cabin with them as they went wild.
One smile breaking through on my face.
That was all it would take.
It was like blood in the water with sharks.
The back cabin door opened four hours into the flight and everyone—including me—turned to look. Interesting. Alan was leaving the privacy of his cave and making his way to my seat.
He stopped, standing above the circle that included me and three of the children in face-to-face chairs with a table between us—and yes, I sat at the kids’ table on the jet instead of up by the cabin doors, but it was freaking impossible to keep them quiet on a long flight any other way. I wasn’t going to sleep onboard no matter where I sat, so why not sit with them and at least keep the sound level less than earsplitting?
He patted me on the shoulder. “How are you doing, Graham?”
I nodded. “Hanging in there.”
He laughed. “This tour hasn’t been exactly what you signed up for, has it?”
I shrugged. “I would say that’s true for us both.”
Alan grinned over my audacity of that comment, but he wasn’t irritated, he was amused, and then he shifted his gaze to his daughter. “Kaley, grab the kids and take them back to your mother. All of them. Please. Now.”
OK, what’s up with this? Clearing the cabin to talk to me privately. Good sign, bad sign, or neither? Oh fuck, I hoped it meant another job was soon to come my way.
Alan waited until we were alone before he settled in Krystal’s recently vacated seat across the table from me.
“We haven’t had a chance to talk,” he began. “And you’ve probably been wondering why I selected Dillon as part of the team that stays on fulltime with us and not you.”
That dashed all hope in me that this conversation was going to end in something positive. I took a moment to collect myself, but in truth I was disappointed. I’d worked hard for Alan. I’d been loyal and I knew he valued that. And I was the one being cut loose.
However, these types of moments were the kind I excelled in—being on the receiving end of the subtly delivered shit-boot in the face without reacting so as not to destroy future possibilities.
“I would like to think it isn’t because you’ve been displeased with my job performance.”
“No. Of course not,” Alan quickly countered. “In fact, you’ve done your job too well. It’s become a liability.”
What the fuck—I was being let go for doing my job well? Had I just heard him correctly?
“My wife thinks, and after much discussion I agree with her, the kids are too close to you. Especially Kaley. She runs to you with everything, and Chrissie is concerned it will interfere with the relationship I’m trying to build with my daughter. Understand?”
Oh fuck. And yes, I understood and I couldn’t fault his reasoning. I had in a lot of ways overstepped the bounds with these children, especially Kaley, but I’d done it because it was the only way I could do my job effectively. But there was no denying I’d broken a cardinal rule of being an exceptional bodyguard: I’d lost emotional and professional distance. I made them like me so they’d listen to me and I could protect them. That was like spiraling downward into a rabbit hole with kids and before you know it you care about them.
Fuck. Irony was a bitch at times. I’d still be employed if they disliked me and ignored me the way they did every other member of the security team. Fuck.
“You don’t need to explain to me, Alan. I’ve enjoyed working for you. Truly, it’s been a highlight of my life.”
Alan nodded and stood up. “If you ever need anything, call me. I don’t forget my friends. Not ever, Graham.”
He started moving toward the back of the cabin, and I was sitting there in semi-shock. I was being fired because the kids liked me. Unbelievable. Before Alan’s kids, I’d never even spent any time with children and I’d been far from wanting to.
* * * *
Last one onto the plane and first one off. Today I was grateful for it. The second we rolled to a stop on the tarmac in southern California and the cabin doors were opened, I was out before anyone could say anything to me. I didn’t need a drawn-out goodbye and in fact I wasn’t in the mood for it. I wouldn’t see these kids again and I most likely wouldn’t see Alan either.
That was how these things worked out. End of job, end of knowing you.
I quickly scanned the private aviation runaway—no threats there—and took a strategic spot between the plane and the car. I fought to shrug off what I was feeling because it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t change a thing, and it was a clear indication that I had lost perspective over the last four months being hurt by this.
I was just an employee, nothing more.
They were just a job, nothing more.
It was time to wrap this up and move on.
I stood rigidly unapproachable, alertly scanning movement around me and making mental notes of what I was seeing. Bags being moved to car. Driver standing by open door. Less than a half dozen airport employees. Pilot exiting the plane. Handsome young man leaning against the hood of an Aston Martin parked on the other side of the locked security area.
My eyes locked on that target and did a rapid assessment. Blond haired. Young, maybe eighteen. Beautiful green eyes and tanned body. Hot, very hot.
I sank my teeth into my lower lip to stop myself from smiling because I didn’t have a doubt that was Kaley’s ex-boyfriend, Bobby Rowan, and one of us was about to have things start looking up for her.
Yep, I’d called it. First face Kaley would see when she stepped off the plane. A girl like Kaley was one a guy didn’t let go of.
A sound from the plane made me turn. I might have managed to remain impassive except I could tell by Kaley’s expression that she hadn’t seen Bobby yet, and that was rapidly followed by a sudden need to say goodbye to her.
I told myself to let it go and found myself waving up at her instead. Fuck, total abandonment of professionalism. It wasn’t like it mattered, anyway.
Today was my last day, and damn it, I was not leaving without a proper farewell to Kaley. I’d done that once before in my life—left without saying goodbye to someone I loved—when my parents had precipitously shipped me off to military boarding school without letting me see Olivia before I left, only never to see her again.
Nope. Not happening today.
Kaley trotted down the steps, crossed the tarmac, and stopped in front of me. “I’m glad my dad picked you to stay with us this flight. Don’t take this the wrong way. It doesn’t mean I’m not happy to be done with having you as my bodyguard everywhere I go, but I’m going to miss you.”
I laughed. “Believe it or not, I’m going to miss you, too, Kaley.”
“Thank you for everything,” she whispered. “You’ve been a really good friend.”
I dropped a fast kiss on her dark curls. “Everything is going to be all right. I’m not worried about you anymore. Things look like they’re going well with you and your dad. Just—”
I checked my words. Fuck, I was doing it again. Getting too personal and saying things I shouldn’t. No wonder they didn’t want me as part of the full-time duty at the house.
Kaley’s inky brows shot up. “Just what? Spit it out, Graham. No need to stop being overbearing now.”
The sudden sparkle in her eyes shot straight to my heart. I tapped her nose. “Try listening to your dad. He won’t steer you wrong. He’s a good man and he loves you.”
She groaned, shaking her head at me. “And here we were, doing so well, and you had to get one last one in, didn’t you?”
I grinned. “I had to try.”
Smiling, she turned as if to walk away from me, and before I could stop her, her arms were around me in a firm hug.
“Kaley…” I growled.
“Graham…” she countered in a heavily exasperated way, but she didn’t let go.
I was more choked up by her parting gesture than I wanted her to see, so instead I warned sternly, “I’ve already told you. Never do that. Drop your arms. Step back. We’re in the US. This time your fingers really are on my gun.”
She made the cutest little grimace and jerked back from me. I could feel my eyes were smiling and couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
“Very funny,” she muttered. “Ha, ha, ha. You don’t carry a gun. You’re only for show. All looks. No heat.”
“Really? You think no heat?”
Shit, that wasn’t appropriate.
She shot back, “Then show me your gun.”
This probably wasn’t appropriate either—but what the hell? “I’m not showing you my gun, sweetie. I’ve already told you, you’re not my type.”
She exploded into laughter. “You are so obnoxious. I really am going to miss you.”
I could tell she hadn’t spotted her boyfriend yet. I jutted my chin toward the Aston Martin. “You’re not going to have time to miss me. I think you’re about to have something better going on real soon. Definitely hot. Damn. I don’t think he’s here for me.”
She turned in the direction I was looking and froze. I almost could feel her heart jump. Even I was moved by how they stared at each other, and in honesty, I was a little jealous because young love was a beautiful thing and I was sure I’d never experienced anything even close to what I was seeing on her face. I felt something akin to pure joy that things had worked out for Kaley and knowing that in small part I had helped it. A moment to be proud of, undeniable, and one I knew I’d remember for a life time.
Nope, I wasn’t worried about anything anymore. Not over her. No guy could look at a girl the way Bobby did and not have it end wonderful.
From the car, Alan called, “Kaley, let’s roll.”
We both turned to see that the bags had been loaded into the black SUV and everyone was in the family car except her.
I gently squeezed her shoulders from behind. “Steady, soldier. Try not to run. Go talk to your dad first. Take your time. Play it cool. Don’t make it too easy for Bobby. He did break up with you, remember?”
She sighed heavily. “I won’t run. I’ll talk to my dad first. Jeez, you’re as big of a pain as my dad is sometimes.”
I watched her walk toward the car, stayed long enough to see Alan leave without her, and then hurried into the small terminal to give her some privacy since she was obviously waiting for that before approaching Bobby.
A part of me wanted to stay and keep an eye on her. A greater part of me said it was time to let her go it alone.
Yep, I’d lost emotional distance. Alan was right to terminate me. But I would never make that mistake again. Kids: they were the ruin of even bodyguards. Did it always hurt so much to let them go?