Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 168121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 841(@200wpm)___ 672(@250wpm)___ 560(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 841(@200wpm)___ 672(@250wpm)___ 560(@300wpm)
Nathan droned on about blah snipers and blah blah tampered police reports and who the fuck cared? Her tits overflowed their red laced prison as she dug through the luggage. Any moment they would spill out in perfect servings for the cups of his hands.
His dick hurt. Could he slip a hand beneath his leather pants and make an adjustment without being obvious?
She stood, fumbling for the neck hole in a drapey-shaped shirt. Her leggings hung low on her waist, highlighting her fuck-me curves. With all that sleek skin stretching over her flat stomach and the arches of her tits, yeah, the chubby in his pants required some realigning. He reached for it.
“Charlee.” Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please hurry. Your rock star’s about to rip through his thirteen-year-old-slut pants.”
What was wrong with his pants? Besides the painful nut-hugging?
Her eyes flew to his hand on his dick and widened. Then she looked down at her bra and tensed as if just realizing she was baring her assets to everyone in the room.
She righted the shirt and shoved her head and arms through. The ivory tunic hugged her ass and hips and hung loosely off her shoulder and around her tits. She was a fucking knock-out, which did nothing to cool his erection.
Face red, she scooped up her plaid Doc Martens and strode toward the kitchen nook. The apologetic look on her face shriveled him right up. She hadn’t been teasing him on purpose. Something was wrong.
He side-stepped Nathan to follow, but the bastard blocked him again and leaned in.
“She was stripped of her modesty a long time ago,” he whispered, low and stern. “Two months without clothes. She’s immune to nudity.”
Slivers of what Nathan had shared that morning about her captivity pierced through him, stabbing his heart. A lesser person would’ve hidden her pain in shame, but she bared hers with a grace that outshone everyone. “She’s so fearless; it’s easy to forget.”
“I know.” Nathan let out a sharp huff, but a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t beat yourself up too badly. I’ve had three years to get used to it, and sometimes…” He glanced over his shoulder and watched her rummage through the refrigerator. “I’m still a man.”
That pissed him the fuck off, but the tension retreated when Nathan’s eyes strayed to Tony. It was a lingering look he hadn’t seen on the man before. Okay, Nathan wanted to fuck his bodyguard. That he could live with.
“What’s the plan?” Charlee asked around a spoonful of yogurt and leaned her butt against the counter. Her posture exuded a deliberate calmness, but the way her jaw stiffened around each bite exposed her fear.
He closed the distance and rested his palms on her hips, empting his face of his own fears. There could be men on the surrounding buildings with sniper rifles, hiding in dumpsters, riding by in passing cars. Hell, they could’ve been waiting in the apartment across the hall. If they couldn’t trust the police, they truly were on their own. “The protective team will be ready to move us soon.”
Charlee rubbed her temple. “How many bodyguards?”
“When we’re traveling, they’re a five-man team.” He had another five on reserve at home. Lot of good that did him. He pulled her against him and a quickening buzzed through his body, making him gasp. Maybe it was the stressful energy bouncing between them. Maybe it was just Charlee and the pulse of life itself.
“So there are three of us…we’re principals?” She glanced up at him, arms folded behind her. “That’s what your bodyguards call us?”
He nodded.
“Three principals and five bodyguards.” She unlocked a hand from her back to chew a fingernail. “That’s doable, right? I mean, there are four in your band with five bodyguards.”
He tugged her finger from her mouth. “Guarding the band means holding back energetic crowds and photographers, not snipers and kidnappers.” He thought back over the worst scenarios he’d been in. “I’ve had moments, trapped at the center of closely packed crowds, when I thought I would die, actually thought I would keel over and stop breathing, but my team always escorted me out unharmed.”
What a coward he was, buckling under something as benign as an enthusiastic mob. How many times had she held her shit together while looking in the eye of a rapist and murderer?
At that moment, he realized he could change their current situation by changing himself. There were no easy solutions. But there was an obvious one. “Tony, contact the paparazzi agencies and tell them where I’m at.”
Tony glared. She didn’t like it, but she would follow his orders.
He looked down and floated in the depths of Charlee’s huge eyes. “You’ve been hiding for a long time. You ready to start living?”
“When you have to hide to live, you’re ready for anything.” Her jaw set.