I stand and walk over. “You don’t have a personal assistant?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not the easiest man to work with.”

“No,” I gasp, pressing a hand to my chest. “I never guessed.”

He narrows his eyes at me, and I flash him a happy smile. He spends the next hour showing me how to enter all his data, and it’s easy enough. It’s just laborious and draining, so I can understand why he doesn’t have time to do it. I sit across from him, entering away, passing time in a more dealable way.

We stop at around two and I order up some sandwiches. They arrive half an hour later, and we both sit at the desk, eating. Jax answers a lot of calls, and he also receives a shit load of e-mails. He’s a busy man. He stops only to eat or use the bathroom. Right now he’s got his mouth full, so he’s actually stopped for a second.

“So,” I say, swallowing a bite of my roast beef and mustard sandwich. “You and Tori?”

He flinches and shoots me a glare. “None of your fucking business.”

Sensitive subject?

“Don’t bite my head off, but I did walk out to you two getting it on.”

“We weren’t getting it on,” he snaps.

“Okay, handsome, whatever you say.”

I go back to eating and he sighs loudly.

“She’s in love with me. She has been for a long time.”

I look up and meet his eyes. “You feel the same?”

He shrugs. “I care about her, more than any girl in my life, but she’s my best friend. I grew up with her and Red. They’re the only family I have. I’ve seen how that shit goes south when you take it to the next level.”

“If you love her, there’s a good chance it won’t go south,” I point out.

He shrugs. “Don’t know if I love her, and I wanna stop talking about this now, yeah?”

“Yes, sir.”

He shakes his head on a sigh. “What about you, Delaney? Who is rubbing you up the right way each night?”

“Crude,” I mutter. “And no one. I don’t have time to date.”

His brows go up. “Surely you’ve got time to get laid.”

My cheeks go pink.

I’m not a virgin, far from it, but it’s been some time since I’ve had a man in my bed. I’m not ashamed of that fact, I swore I wasn’t going to sleep around again until it was with someone I wanted to date.

“You don’t get laid, do you, kitten?” he asks, his voice thicker.

“I do, just not … lately. Now, can we stop talking about it?”

He studies my face, then focuses on his laptop. “Shame,” he says. “You’re beautiful.”

I blink.

Did he just call me beautiful?

“I look like a man.”

His head jerks up. “Pardon?”

“A man, I look like a man.”

He gives me a disgusted stare. “A man?”

“Yes, a man. I’m huge.”

“You’re not huge.”

“I’m seriously huge. Like, the Hulk of the female world.”

“You’re tall, kitten. You’re not huge.”

“Compared to ninety-nine percent of other girls, I am.”

He mutters something, then looks at me again. “You’re tall, you’re slender, you’re slightly curvy in all the right places and you’re fucking hot. Now stop talking shit, I need to get back to work.”

Fucking hot.

Fucking hot?

He thinks I’m hot.

I fight a smile. I’ve been called pretty, sexy even, but never hot. Coming from someone that looks like Jax, that’s a pretty amazing compliment. I don’t say anything else, I just get back to work with a happy smile on my face.

It’s proving to be a good day.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The next two weeks pass rather event-free. Kyle and I get a steady schedule going, and it seems to be working for us. I do the days, he does the nights. He prefers nights, and likes to sleep during the day. I prefer days, because it allows me to go and visit people in the early evenings. Nak has said he wants us to start doing full-time shifts starting today, where Kyle does two days a week and I do the rest.

Day and night.

After a few more weeks, the job will be given to me 100 percent if I am doing well. Because I’ll be doing full time, I will be staying at Jax’s house when I’m on evenings—same as Kyle. That means during the night, I’ll be sleeping. An extensive new state-of-the-art security system has been installed, so Jax will no longer need someone outside his door during the night.

It took some time to get the security set up because the whole building needed to be equipped. But now the front door security is much more secure, and when we go to bed at night, Jax will turn on the system so that any movement in the apartment will cause an alarm to go off.

I have the code, so does Kyle, which means if we need to use the bathroom, we have to turn it off before we go. It has a thirty-second window to allow for it to be turned off when we leave our designated sleeping spaces, so it’s a bit touch and go. I’m sure we’ll get used to it.

So today is officially the day I’ll be on my own. It’ll be Jax and me most of the time, with Kyle relieving me a few days a week so I can have some time with family and friends.

I go through security at the door and then make my way up to Jax’s apartment. It’s only seven a.m. but Jax usually starts work around eight, so I’m not too early, I hope. When I get to his front door, Kyle is standing outside it, arms crossed. He looks my way and grunts. Kyle has barely said a thing to me since the incident with Nak, unless of course it’s to bark an order.

“Morning, happy,” I mutter. “Is he awake?”

“How am I supposed to know? I’m not his best friend, I’m protecting him,” Kyle grunts.

“So nice to chat with you, Kyle,” I mutter, pushing the door open.

I set all the alarms when I’m inside and then turn around, checking the room. Jax is obviously still upstairs. Sighing, I walk up and into his bedroom. He’s not in there, but I can hear the shower running. A moment later, a woman steps out. She’s fully dressed, and very beautiful. All busty and blond. I stop walking and wave a lame hand, not sure who the hell she is, but taking a wild guess and assuming Jax has had a great night.

He follows her out of the bathroom and stops when he sees me, and both of them stare.

“Who’s she?” she asks Jax in a lusty, sexy voice. Not at all bothered that there’s another woman in his room.

“She’s my bodyguard.”

I put up my hand and start counting on my fingers. “And his personal assistant, cook, cleaner and oh, his sex wrecker.”

Jax mutters something and the girl smiles at me, her expression slightly lusty. “Do you want to make that five and be his bed buddy? I like to share.”

I blink.

Wait, what?

“Pardon me?” I say.

“You, me, him … it’ll be fun. What do you say?”

She’s kidding, right? I stare at her, so shocked I have no idea how to respond.

“Trust me,” Jax says, grinning. I turn quickly, cheeks pink. “She isn’t interested.”

That gets my back up and I turn, glaring at him. “How would you know I’m not interested?”