Chapter Six
“Oh good, the chocolate peanut butter cups must have arrived.” Lucy walked to the table where a large, brown package sat.
“Here, let me get that.” Jack pulled his knife from his pocket and went over to open the package for her.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him.
“You’re welcome.”
“This is what should be a month’s supply of peanut butter cups,” Lucy said, looking into the box. “Good. This should be enough for our stay here. By then, hopefully, the stalker will have been caught.”
“Hopefully.”
“Then what, Jack?”
“Then I move on to guard the next client.”
“Lucy!” Angelica’s shrill voice came from upstairs, interrupting what Jack would have said. “Come up here now!”
With a deep breath and a sigh, Lucy headed for the stairs. Angelica had gone to change into a swimsuit and would want suntan lotion applied before she set foot outside.
Jack watched her go, and then headed for the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.
After the ladies came back downstairs, Lucy moved to take the box of Reese’s into her room to store them. When she stopped with a gasp, Jack spun to face her.
She stood on the other side of the room, holding a solid four-inch chocolate penis, her cheeks turning red.
Angelica burst out laughing and rushed over to her. “Darling! How absolutely delightful!” Taking the chocolate penis from her, she moved about the room, waving it. “Why every woman should have a solid chocolate penis to enjoy! Wherever did you find it?”
“I didn’t find it.” She shook her head. “I mean, I did find it, but,”
Ignoring her, Angelica moved to back in front of Jack, waving the penis in front of him. “I know just what to do with a nice solid treat like this,” and then she licked it.
Embarrassed, Lucy’s face turned bright red.
”Don’t eat that,” Jack snapped, and he walked up to Angelica and took it from her. He turned to Lucy. “Who sent this? Did it come with a note?”
“A note? Let me look.” She reached into the box and moved packages of chocolate peanut butter cups around. “No, I don’t think so. Oh wait.” Seeing an envelope on the table, she opened it and pulled out a white piece of paper. “There is a note. Like the others.”
Holding it by the tiptop corner so her prints wouldn’t get all over it, she read the note.
Can’t wait to watch you lick, suck, and swallow.
She wasn’t reading that out loud. Not with Angelica in the room, along with Jack. She really didn’t want Angelica to know what they’d been doing in the pool the other night.
Her cheeks turned pale.
“What?” Angelica had stopped laughing and crossed her arms. “What is it? What does it say?”
“I’m not reading it out loud,” Lucy said.
“Let me see it,” Jack said.
“Oh for Christ’s sakes.” Angelica marched over to Lucy with her hands on her hips. “Give it here, you stupid girl.” Angelica yanked the note from Lucy’s hands, ignoring Jack completely. “It’s just a stupid note.”
Lucy dropped her hands to her sides and sent a worried look to Jack, who stood scowling deeper than she’d ever seen before.
“It’s not just a stupid note,” Lucy said in a low voice.
After Angelica read the note, she frowned too. “It’s the stalker again! Who is this creep? And how did he find me here?”
“Give me the note,” Jack demanded, holding his hand out.
“You don’t tell me what to do!” Angelica screamed at him.
Lucy sucked in a breath and watched them wide-eyed as the fight she’d dreaded was happening right in front of her.
Angelica tossed the note on the table in defiance, on the side farthest away from him. “What good are you? You didn’t catch this guy and he’s obviously come into this house. Got in and left this stuff for me to find. You didn’t keep him out. You’re a waste of money. I didn’t want you in the first place. You’re fired!”
She marched back across the room to the phone and picked it up. “I’m calling Monroe. It’s past time I went back to L.A. That creep found me here, so it doesn’t matter where I am.”
Jack pulled out his radio, ignoring Angelica as if she hadn’t been screaming at him. “I’m calling this in. We’ll track the package and check the note for fingerprints.”
“But she just fired you.”
“She’s not the one who hired me. Not the one who can fire me.”
Lucy’s answer was a soundless, “Oh.”
****
Swede, Montana, and Jack had checked the grounds and found nothing out of the ordinary. It appeared the box had been delivered with the chocolates Lucy had ordered like any other normal delivery, and had been left on the porch with two other boxes of supplies. No one knew how the extra chocolate piece and the letter had gotten inside that box. Now things had quieted down again and Jack was sitting with a laptop, looking things up.
Lucy sat next to him and quietly said, “I’m glad you’re still here.”
“Why wouldn’t I still be here?”
Maybe this wasn’t the time to talk to him.
Jack looked pissed off as he sat looking up chocolate penises on the laptop. Lucy’s cheeks heated as she realized what he was doing. She was more embarrassed right now than afraid of Angelica’s stalker at this point, simply because new images kept popping up in her head, making her think of penises and what Jack looked like naked. Her libido was in full overdrive sitting next to him and she’d started to squirm. As heated as her face was, she knew she must be beet red.
As Jack sat in front of the computer looking up chocolate penises and where to buy them, the uncomfortable woman by his side was making him embarrassed too. Something he rarely ever was.
Damn, it was like it was catching. What the hell is this?
He was never embarrassed around a woman. Every time she’d blush and look away, he was both attracted to Lucy and embarrassed for her. He couldn’t help but picture her sweet face as her lips closed around his…
Moving suddenly to look him straight in the eyes, showing him how turned on she was, Lucy then stood abruptly, saying, “I’m going to bed.”
Damn. I’d love to follow her up to her bed. Damn. Keep your mind on the job. Focus. She’s uncomfortable about that damn chocolate dick and probably scared of the stalker, and you have work to do.
Angelica came over to them and said, ”Go. No one is keeping you up. I’m sure Jack doesn’t need your help.”
Lucy turned to go and Jack watched her, his thoughts on the job again where he’d force them to stay.
He called to her. “Lucy.”
She turned.
“Sweet dreams tonight,” he said. “No worries.”
She nodded. “Good night, Jack. Angelica.”
“Night.” Jack watched Lucy go, thinking of how he wished he could wear her out thoroughly with enough lovemaking to be sure she’d sleep all through the night. But he had a job to do and was on duty. Kissing her and touching her had to wait until he was off duty. He turned back to the computer.
The last thing he’d have guessed he’d be doing as part of this bodyguard job was looking up chocolate dicks. The guys were really going to razz him about this one once the job was over and the stalker was caught.
Figures a guy who was a dick would literally send a dick to a chick.
He snorted at the thought. Yeah, that was stress relief if his sarcasm suddenly kicked in or the jokes that had gotten him through much tougher situations did. The shrink at the VA said it was actually a sign of good mental health. He knew it had helped members of his squad more than once, and he wished he could get Lucy to laugh.
Once you lost the ability to laugh, you were in deep shit.
Lucy had begun to lose her sense of humor. That sweet woman was stressed by her job and by the stalker. She was starting to develop dark circles beneath her eyes and he’d heard her moving about often enough at night to know she wasn’t sleeping much. It didn’t help that Angelica was often not nice to Lucy, and he suspected from the way Lucy jumped to do her bidding that Angelica was even worse when he wasn’t around.
Lucy needed to stand up to her because that shit had to stop.
He’d talk to her about that later.
After about an hour of internet searching, he’d made a list of places you could order chocolate penises from, but he’d also learned there were molds you could buy to make your own. Which meant the stalker could’ve made the candy himself or bought it from an individual, not a store. Apparently, there was quite a demand for chocolate penises because of all the bachelorette parties and he suspected as joke items at other times. Though the security team would pursue this road as far as it took them, he had a feeling in his gut that this one was a dead end.
Chasing the chocolate penis. Damn. What a night.
He closed down the laptop abruptly and stood. His relief would be here in five minutes so he could sleep. He’d do laps in the pool to work off stress before he even attempted to try and sleep. Too bad every moment in that pool would remind him of sweet Lucy and the way she looked, felt, and tasted. Likely, he’d dream of her again tonight.
****
Angelica had just finished losing her shit. Again. She’d been screaming abusive words at Lucy, who’d ducked her head as usual and had just taken it, waiting until Angelica was done.
This was the third time since they’d arrived that Angelica had verbally abused Lucy within earshot of Jack. He hated to hear it. Time to have a talk with Lucy.
“Come on.” He put his hand on Lucy’s elbow and guided her from the room. “Let’s go for a walk.”
She nodded and went along with him without speaking.
He noted she was near tears.
“Why do you put up with her talking to you like that?”
“I have to. She’ll fire me if I don’t.”
“Yes. I know she holds that threat over your head. It’s how she manipulates you.”
“She does. She’s fired other assistants.”
“Why do you want this job?”
“I’m just doing this job until a costuming job at one of the theaters opens up. That’s why I came out to Hollywood.”
“Costuming is your dream? Do you design clothes in your spare time?”
“Yes. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since high school when I worked on the costumes for our stage plays. But spare time?” She laughed. “What spare time? No, I mostly just make my jewelry. Pieces to go with my clothes and sometimes Angelica’s, if she sees something of mine she likes. Though hers will be more elaborate.”
“I imagine so.”
“It’s easy to take my jewelry making things with me if we’re traveling. And it’s a good stress reliever as well. Being able to create something pretty and not think about anything else.”
“Good.” He smiled. “Then you’re not popping those aspirins as if taking Ranger candy.”
“Ranger candy?”
“Huge 750 milligram tablets of acetaminophen. Candy is the strongest stuff you can take without having to go on profile.”
“On profile?”
“Restricted duty.”
“Oh wow.”
“You take a lot of aspirin, sweetheart.”
“More than I’d like to.” Lucy rubbed the back of her neck. “It’s just the stress.”
“Got to find some ways to relieve that stress.”
“I know. You’re pretty good at relieving it for me.”
Just when both their thoughts had drifted to how they could both be relieving that stress right then, Angelica’s voice came from the other room. “Lucy. Where are you?”
Lucy sighed, rolled her neck, and stood. “Coming,” she called as she walked toward the door.
Jack watched her go and saw the tension moving right back into her body. She needed to stand up for herself, but until she saw that she needed to do that, there wasn’t much he could do. “Hey Lucy,” he said quietly, and she turned at the doorway to look back at him. The unhappy look in her eyes upset him more then he’d have admitted to anyone.
Being a bodyguard and maintaining that professional stoic expression was difficult when it came to someone you cared about, and the way he was feeling right then told him he cared more about Lucy than he’d admitted, even to himself.
“I’ll see you after dinner. We need to check out your phone.”
“Okay.” She gave him a brief smile, which while it did not wash away all her unhappiness, it at least took away some of it.
****
After dinner, Jack placed his hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “I need to look at your social media accounts. How protected are they?”
“Oh, I have passwords on everything,” Lucy said.
“Sweetheart, you need more than password protection. You’d be surprised the things someone can find out about you without even digging hard. And if he’s determined and digs…”
“I don’t want that. But I have to be able to do my job and be out in the public with Angelica, making posts and sharing things with her public.”
“Neither of you have had anyone work on your social media accounts to strengthen the security?”
“No.”
“Well,” he held out his hand, “give me your phone and let’s start fixing that.” She handed it to him. “The first thing I see is your phone isn’t password protected. So anyone picking it up can look around all they want.” He touched a few screens and frowned. “You’ve got your location and everything turned on. Real easy to find you.”
“I’m the only one who uses my accounts. No one else ever uses my phone. I have to have the location on in order to post where we are, share pics, and talk about what Angelica is doing. That’s part of my job.”
“And my job is to make sure you are secure. You’d be surprised the things they can do, sweetheart. I’d like to wipe your phone using the factory-reset option in settings. Then start fresh. Set you up with a secure phone.”
“Will I lose everything in my phone?”
“Yes.” He handed her phone back. “Look it over and pull what you want off of it, then I’ll wipe it for you.”
She started looking through the phone. “I have so much on here. I’ll give it back to you in a few days. I’m not ready yet.”
Back in her room, Lucy logged into her online Etsy store where she sold her jewelry and other creations. The stress of her job was getting to her, between the tension from the stalker and her boss screaming at her for things that weren’t her fault.
At least there were her creations, and she’d just finished a pair of turquoise earrings she needed to take pictures of and upload. When she looked to see if there were any orders, Lucy looked at her messages.
Bejeweled, you are just the person I am looking for. I want you to make me a bejeweled cock ring- silver with red and black stones. My circumference is six inches. Here, I will show you.
Attached was a picture of his dick. Lucy’s jaw dropped. Oh my God. Another perv. They’re really coming out of the woodwork. Why would this guy think I’d make one of those? None of my jewelry is erotic in any way. I make pretty things for pretty little girls and for women who like custom pieces, which have sentimental and representational value for my clients. There’s nothing on my site that would make anyone think of what he described. Nothing. What a perv.
She reached for the delete key and hit delete, delete, delete. Overkill, but she really wanted to kill it.
Turning off all her electronic devices, even her phone, she put on her nightgown and climbed into bed, hoping she wouldn’t think of dicks any more tonight. She felt overloaded with the images and with the advances of men.
Why can’t I attract a nice, normal man? One who isn’t so disturbingly aggressive in pursuit? One like Jack.
The moment she closed her eyes and thought his name, she forgot about anyone else and her mind was totally on Jack. The simple fact was, she’d attracted him and he wasn’t a weirdo. When he kissed her … it was like magic. And his touch sent her over the moon.
Touching her first two fingers to her lips, she relived every moment of the times he’d kissed her, and longed for him to do it again.
***
Angelica was feeling the strain of being in Montana so long and away from all the things she loved in L.A. The more that strain built, the more she picked at Lucy. Finally tonight, Lucy had burst into tears and run from the house to the stables.
Jack caught up with her and pulled her into his arms. That was all it took for her words to start flowing.
“Oh, I can’t stand it any more. I just can’t.” She sobbed for a minute as he stood and held her in his strong, muscular arms.
“Shh,” he murmured as he rubbed her back, getting her to settle.
“It’s gotten worse since we came here.”
“She’s under a lot of strain and taking it out on you.”
“I wish she treated me like she does you. She treats you differently than she treats other people. She doesn’t get you to do things for her or constantly need your help. She doesn’t pick at you night and day.” “Because that’s not what I’m here for. My job is to provide protection.”
“You’re so strong. You’re certainly stronger than me. Hardly anyone stands up to her. I think you’re the strongest man I know. You’re amazing.”
“A lot of people are strong. You could be too if you wanted to be. Why do you let her talk to you like that? She pays you to do a job, she doesn’t own you.”
“I need this job. What will I do if she fires me?”
“Find another.”
“She needs me. I make sure she doesn’t take too many pills or drink too much. She can’t function without me.”
“That’s not your problem. Take care of you.”
“But my job is to take care of her. ”
“Not at the expense of yourself. If you’re going to keep this job, you have to take care of you first, and then take care of her.”
Lucy sniffed once and was quiet now. She stayed very still, listening.
“You know how on the airlines they say take your oxygen first?”
She nodded against his chest.
“Well, that’s what you have to do, sweetheart. No matter who you’re taking care of, you can’t do it at the expense of yourself.” He took his finger and tipped her head up to look at him. “Promise me that.”
She blinked the tears away, out of her eyes, and smiled up at him. “Okay. I promise.”
Jack looked down into her eyes and placed a gentle kiss upon her lips. She responded, but not like she would have if she wasn’t under the stress Angelica dished out to her and whatever was still on her mind. He broke away from the kiss and held her, looking down into her eyes.
“What are you really afraid of? What keeps you running to check on her all the time?