Out of habit, Hawk stopped outside Lana’s door to remove any mud or dirt from his boots, and then took them off in the splash room just inside the front door. He made a mental note to put a pair of tactical shoes down there for when he stayed around the house. The Western boots were nice, but they were a bit stiff around his toes, and he needed room if he wanted to run. For now, though, he followed his client into her drawing room.

“Wait there for a moment, I’ll bring the stuff down here.” She looked away and hurried up the stairs.

He nodded and waited. Sighing, he pulled his hair back and tied it into a loose knot at the nape of his neck. That probably wasn’t the best introduction to a client who feared for her life. Perhaps he should have waited to chastise Jake for the horse, but when he’d spotted Jake hurriedly releasing the horse from its tethering, he’d seen red.

He’d asked Hank and Swede to let him look over the land before he met Lana because he’d wanted to know a bit about her current security. It would be much easier to offer advice or make changes if he hit the ground running. It was why he’d studied her file and knew all about the letters she wanted to show him and the different ways her stalker had gotten to her. He supposed it wasn’t such a bad thing, since it helped give him the cover he needed. But as her foreman, he’d be expected to move around her ranch, even without her, so they may have to adjust things a bit.

“Here you are,” she told him, breaking him from his thoughts.

She looked him right in the eyes, but her pinched mouth alerted him that something was wrong.

“What is it?” he asked.

“What?”

“You look upset, beyond the horse. We should be able to talk about anything. If I’m going to protect your life, it means I need to be in the middle of it, as uncomfortable as that may be.”

At least, that was his take on bodyguarding, anyway. It wasn’t because he just wanted to get to know her. Of course not.

“That was a total cock up,” she said.

He frowned. As sexy as her accent was, he wasn’t exactly sure what she meant, even after dealing with Cry Baby’s woman, Tiffany, a former SIS Agent from Britain.

“Come again?” he prompted.

Lana chuckled, and it changed her face. Her eyes went shiny and bright, and her perfect white teeth peeked from behind full lips.

“I messed up, with the letters,” she explained.

Taking the stack from her, Hawk looked down. Each page was covered with words cut from magazine or newspaper clippings. The culprit most likely had gloves on and left no fingerprints behind. That didn’t explain her previous statement, though.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I thought reading them every day would help me. That I wouldn’t be as afraid, but it didn’t work. I’ve only pushed myself around in circles.”

“I can understand that. It’s the same way before a mission sometimes,” he said.

She crossed her arms under her breasts, and damned if he couldn’t stop his gaze form traveling down to them. “That’s right, you were in the Navy. A SEAL, right?”

Hawk cleared his throat. What was wrong with him? “Yes, I was a Navy SEAL, and we would go over the details again and again before a mission. You want to know it like body memory. But sometimes, it doesn’t help. You find yourself anxious and worried, especially if it was your first mission.”

“You were scared.” When she dug her fingers into her arms this time, he didn’t drop his gaze.

“Every mission. It didn’t matter how long I’d been a SEAL, or what I’d gone through. Fear is a good indicator to stay sharp and pay attention. The difference is, I had confidence in my team and my skills to push beyond and never fall into terror. It’s terror that is crippling and keeps you from acting. SEALs are trained to be able to rely on body memory during the fight or flight reaction.”

Lana’s gaze slid over him, heat following where it touched him. He shouldn’t have wanted to take her into his arms, but he did. Hawk wanted to see what her lips tasted like under his, feel the beat of her heart against his chest. God, how long had it been since he’d touched a woman? Two years? Three? He couldn’t remember. All that mattered were his missions and his team, and he didn’t have time for more than that. Once the nightmares had started, he couldn’t think beyond the next morning. The night had become a battlefield he couldn’t conquer. Nothing he did—whether he stayed up too late, drank, or worked himself to exhaustion—stopped the nightmares from filtering in. He couldn’t risk having someone lying beside him when he got caught in one of those dreams.

And he definitely shouldn’t have pictured his client there.

“You don’t look injured, so what took you from service?” Lana asked.

How stupid had he been to say he needed to protect her, no matter how uncomfortable that may be? He’d said it without thinking she may want to know about his life as well. And it wasn’t an answer he could hold back from her. The reason he was booted from service could be the exact reason she wouldn’t want him protecting her any longer. He sighed, dreading that he brought this conversation on himself, and he might not be able to escape it.

“Because I suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

He said nothing else. If Lana decided to boot him out the door, he wasn’t going to give her his history. As it were, he didn’t want to tell anyone about the mission that had broken him. The decision he’d made to have caused such terrible consequences. The day he’d learned to smile when inside he was breaking. Warm hands cradled his cheeks as the scent of citrus chased away the darkness and the iron tang of blood exploded on the back of his tongue.

“It doesn’t make you any less qualified to be my guard. Do you have triggers I need to be aware of?” she asked, searching his eyes with her gaze.

Hawk wanted to shrug it off, to pull from her touch and act like this had never happened. It would have been so easy. In fact, it was what he should have done. Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. Since the first flashback and nightmare, no one had ever been able to keep him from sliding into the abyss. He breathed her in, using her calm to keep his heartrate from climbing and his anxiety from kicking up.

“Don’t approach me from behind without making noise first. Don’t wake me from a nightmare by shaking me. Stand at the door and call my name, or call Welsh. I’ll give you his number, in case you should ever need it. I keep my phone next to me, and his ringtone breaks through the waves.”

She nodded. “Anything else?”

“I don’t know. Those are the only things that have messed me up.”

“No loud noises?”

Hawk smiled softly at her and opened his eyes. “No. I still went on missions until recently. Gunfire never bothered me, nor did explosions.”

“Then how did they figure it out?”

He swallowed. “Confinement. It’s a long story, but they saw my nightmares and I was ordered to go under a psyche evaluation.”

He let himself grip her wrists a moment before pulling her hands away from his face. Her skin felt like heated satin, and he didn’t resist the need to rub his thumbs over her skin.

“Seems like the introductions are underway nicely.” Bear was standing at the front door, interrupting their moment.

Hawk jumped back and released Lana, realizing he’d still held her wrists. “It’s not what it looked like,” he told Bear.

“He was telling me about his PTSD,” Lana finished.

“It’s never what it looks like. It only usually is when one of the parties wishes it was like what it looked like,” Bear taunted, a smirk on his face.

Hawk rolled his eyes. “I already got rid of one jokester. I know where to hide the bodies.”

“Look, Frogman, you have to be able to find me first.”

Hawk jolted at the SEAL name and narrowed his eyes at Bear. “Look, Grunt, just ‘cause there’s no water here, doesn’t mean I still couldn’t find a way to drown you.”

Bear burst into laughter, and Hawk followed. It felt good to laugh, to have the comradery that came with military service, no matter what branch they served in. Hawk had once told someone different branches treated each other like siblings, they could pick on each other, but no one else could. Bear walked into the living room and thumped Hawk on the back.

“You’ll do well. Did she show you the letters?”

“Yes, but I haven’t had a chance to read through them all to see if they’re different than the ones in the file.”

“They aren’t. We copied all of them for the file so you’d have a chance to look over them.”

“It seems the stalker has gotten progressively worse since March of last year.” Hawk stated.

“How can you tell?” Bear asked.

“They didn’t mention killing her before then, just taking her away or making her theirs. After March, they started adding the death threats. What happened?” Hawk prompted.

“It was an event for Curve Appeal and I took a date. I’d done it before, but there were some hecklers who said I never seemed to actually do anything sexy considering all my talk about sexual freedom for women,” Lana explained.

“Why does that even matter?” Hawk asked.

“Because I’m a model, and I’m billed as the face of feminism and activism. They expect me to live how I’m preaching. In response, I kissed my date, and it was splashed all over the media. The kiss was pretty … involved, apparently.”

“The stalker saw this and found it offensive,” Bear interjected.

“It seems so. He keeps mentioning that kiss. It was a breaking point,” Hawk agreed.

“It makes no sense. It really doesn’t. While I’m behind sexual freedom, equal rights, and the fight against beauty by status quo, it shouldn’t mean that I have to be sexualized as well. It goes against everything I represent, but I am the face of a business, too, and my job allows me to have a public platform.”

“So it’s safe to assume you aren’t sexually promiscuous, and those close to you know this?” Hawk forced out.

“Not exactly,” Lana hedged. Fidgeting and twirling her thumbs for a moment, she didn’t elaborate on her answer.

“Lana, we talked about sharing your life, even if you aren’t comfortable. It may help me keep you safe.”

“I’ll step outside. Get with me, Hawk, when you’re finished here. Hank said you have ideas for security,” Bear said.

Hawk waited until Bear left the house before he spoke. “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

“No, I’m not promiscuous. In fact, I’ve never had sex, but my team doesn’t know it. Once they demanded what I needed to do for public relations, I didn’t argue anymore and had some friends of mine help me with the charade. The two I used most often would be the only ones who could verify it.”

Hawk’s mind imploded. Never had sex. No one on her team knew about it except for two friends. Lana had effectively opened the narrow list of suspects he’d been trying to make, obliterating the ideas he’d formulated while looking over her file. The woman made his heart pound. A virgin. Hell, if that didn’t make him want her more. A chance to claim her, to make her his. Put his stamp on her in ways he’d never experienced. Hawk left the house without a word, afraid he’d caveman her and drag her upstairs.

Three years without sex had turned him into a Neanderthal, and he needed to stay as far away from Lana Augon as possible. That was going to be easy, as her bodyguard and all.

Or not.