Page 2 of Billionaire Bodyguard

What? That almost sounded like…

He saw me as a woman? Finally. When he’d rescued me, I’d been seventeen, but that was four years ago. The way he treated me hadn’t changed over the years—except we argued more.

“Adler, do you—”

He was off the bed and on his way to the door before I even finished turning over, leaving me with a view off his bare torso and the way his pajama pants, though loose, clung to his perfect ass.

“I’ll go start coffee,” he said, without looking back, and closed the door behind him.

I groaned, flopping onto my back, hard enough to bounce.

That man frustrated the hell out of me.

Turning my head, I stared out the windows that lined one wall of my bedroom, a balcony on the other side. This was the city that didn’t sleep, yet…this time of morning, it was almost as if it were napping. The streets were quieter, without the incessant sound of cabs honking, and the buildings were all darker than normal, most of the interior lights off or heavy curtains drawn over the windows. Even the sky was still dark, without even pre-dawn gray seeping into it.

In an hour, maybe a little less, bit by bit, the city would come awake and buzz with the life it was renown for.

Climbing from bed, I walked to the windows and peered out before pulling open the door and stepping outside to let the cool spring air wash over me. Adler would hate it if he knew I was out here, but what he didn’t know would keep him from annoying me. And lately, everything annoyed me because… Well, I wasn’t sure. But I thought it was sexual frustration. And maybe, that meant I was healing. Or maybe, it meant, I wanted Adler, the one man I wasn’t scared of. Well, not just him. I wasn’t scared of Connor, the bodyguard who sometimes covered for Adler, and Booker, my brother-in-law.

But Adler. He was the only one I wanted.

My hands closed on the cold iron running the perimeter of the balcony. From twelve floors up, I felt like a princess held captive up in her tower. A movement down below caught my attention,and I turned my gaze toward it. A man stood down on the sidewalk, and I could swear he was staring up at me.

Impossible. He was too far away for me to know that, even in the pool of light from the street lamp. And I didn’t have any lights on, making me an inky blob against the building.

Just my overwrought imagination…more shadows from my dream.

And when I looked back toward the man, he was gone. But no matter what I told myself, I couldn’t shake the foreboding that settled in the pit of my stomach as if it would never go away.

Two

Adler Fredriksen

Protecting people often resembled a tactical video game. Or Tetris. Sliding all the pieces into place to eliminate threats or create barriers around clients. Coordinating schedules to make sure protectees were always secure.

With most clients, anyway. I rarely had to Tetris pieces for Linzey since I was with her all the time. But at the moment, while she was in the penthouse’s library, I stared at my computer screens to work out the protection detail for a pop star who’d be touring the US this summer and fall. I’d been working through details for over an hour and the flickering of the screens, though imperceptible to the eye, was beginning to give me a headache.

Just another day of living with a TBI. In reality, the symptoms I had were minor compared to some guys, but they still caused me discomfort and issues day to day.

Standing, I turned away from the monitors and pushed my thumb and forefinger into the inner corners of my eyes until the pain subsided. It would be momentary, but it was enough relief to clear the screaming in my head.

Leaving my office, I strode through the great room. and toward the wide corridor near the dining room. The penthouse took up the whole floor, with the private elevator access and service entrance in the center. The hallway ran next to and behind it, giving access to the kitchen then all the bedrooms, the media room and the library. The dining room, great room and my“borrowed” work space took up the whole length of the wall that faced the lift. My office, which doubled as a security room, was directly across from the elevator and just around the corner from the library. But I went in the opposite direction because I needed to move. And stretching my legs gave me a good excuse to get eyes on my girl without being too obvious.

Yeah…my girl. My woman. I’d given up on thinking of her as anything else. She was mine—even if I might never be able to claim her as more than the one I protected. I had too many enemies in my past and she had too many demons in hers. It wouldn’t be fair to have her take on my issues.

But when we were here, enclosed in the bubble of this twelfth floor mini-mansion, high above the streets of NYC, I could pretend none of the problems mattered. I could pretend she belonged to me.

Which was one reason I needed eyes on her now. To refresh my well. To keep me going. To calm the dominant monster inside me that wanted to drill her into the nearest surface. I had to control that urge. This morning, she’d almost discovered how I craved her. The second she’d started to turn, I’d had to practically dive out of bed to keep her from seeing or feeling my hard on.

It’d been a close call.

My phone rang before I got a dozen feet from my office space and I pulled the cell from my pocket.

“Ghost,” I greeted my friend as I headed back to the privacy of my desk. If he was calling me midday, someone had died or he had intel for me, a security clearance loosely granted mebecause of my association with Booker, Linzey’s brother-in-law and an honest to God prince.

“Cyber,” he returned, using my SEAL call name. “I have information.”

“Go.”

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