Page 16 of The Brat and the Bodyguard

The redhead rolls her eyes.

“Don’t even get me started on Patrick,” she says in a droll tone. “Besides, he’s not exactly a saint himself. You know he won his wife in a bet, right?”

I stare at my sassy temptress.

“What? Really?”

She nods.

“Yeah, my sister in law was desperate for money. Ashley came to Vegas to be a ballerina, but then her ballet company went kaput, so she needed cash. She sold her body to Patrick, and I think he even had her chained up in his bedroom for a while.”

I stare at her.

“No fucking way.”

“Yes way,” my beautiful redhead says in a playful voice. “So don’t blame yourself, Karl, because the man who hired you isn’t exactly the Pope. In fact, my brother is a fucking asshole, so we shouldn’t listen to what he says.”

Still, I feel guilty and drop my gaze as my hand continues to rub circles on her back. Ainsley senses my hesitation and lifts my chin with one small finger before staring into my eyes.

“What is it?” she whispers. “No regrets, Karl.”

“But it was your first time—” I begin.

“And I loved it,” she finishes before leaning forwards to kiss me. “You took me the way a man takes a woman. Hard. Possessive. Relentless. I loved every second, and I want to do it again. And again. And again.”

That makes me stare at her for a moment.

“Are you on birth control?” I ask in a low voice.

She shakes her head, cheeks flushing.

“No, and we didn’t use a condom. But I’ll call the concierge and see if they have Plan B on site. It’s fine. Even if they don’t, we can go to the drugstore and get it. It’s over the counter now, so it’s no big deal.”

I stare at her plush lips before circling up to meet her gaze.

“It’s a very big deal, sweetheart. I might have impregnated you already.”

Ainsley blushes, and is it my imagination, but do her green eyes sparkle a bit? She merely smiles at me.

“Would that be so bad, Karl?” she purrs, trailing one finger down my chiseled chest. “A baby, I mean?”

My jaw drops.

“Sweetheart, you’re what? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

“I’m twenty-three,” she murmurs with another slight smile on her lips. “Old enough to be a mother.”

My mind rushes with all sorts of thoughts because this is not the way I envisioned this conversation going.

“We just met,” I say in a low growl. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Ainsley merely shrugs before reaching for a croissant and biting into it with a satisfying crackle.

“I know you’re hot, gorgeous, and will do anything to protect me. I know my brother hired you, which means you went through an extensive background check because Patrick would never send just anyone to guard his sister. So you can’t be a criminal.”

My brows lower.

“The shit I want to do to you is positively criminal,” I rasp. “You’d be surprised, baby girl.”

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