Page 26 of Act Like You Don't Care
"Even to the bathroom?" Tam made a face.
"Even there. You never know where you'll be approached."
Tam looked thoughtful at that and the next ten minutes of the drive passed in silence. "I used to dream about being famous enough to have a stalker," he said softly. "It's not all it's cracked up to be."
"You don't need to worry. You've got the best security firm in the city looking after you." I wanted to reach across and pat the man's shoulder to comfort him, but we were in the car, not really out in public. And it wouldn't be professional to touch the client intimately unless the situation called for it, so I kept my hands to myself.
Tam, however, didn't have the same compunctions. One of his fingers drifted into my hair, twisting it in tiny circles as he frowned in thought. "How did you end up in that pile anyway? I thought you were the shrink in the group?" His body tensed and the finger disappeared. "Just what exactly is your training? I mean, for the protection bit, not the predicting what the nut-case will do part?"
"I'm the youngest of five, to start with. I had to learn how to defend myself early." I grinned at Tam, making a joke out of the situation, but Tam wasn't having any of it. Quickly, I tucked my sense of humor away and considered how to convince Tam that he was safe. "I have a black belt in judo and another in aikido. I've done courses at Quantico and my master's thesis was on the verbal and behavioral signals that indicate likelihood to re-offend among convicted criminals. While I was in school, I worked with a man in New York whose entire business is predicting escalation in relationships of all kinds."
"So what doesmybody language say?" Tam asked. His voice was odd and his eyes, when I glanced over at him, were intense.
"Can we do this when we get to the studio?" There was too much traffic at this time of day and he was far too distracting.
"How do I know we'll make it to the studio?" Tam leaned against the door, his hand sliding away from the back of my seat.
"We'll get there," I promised. "That red car two behind us? That's an Astra employee. The guy on the bike to our right, with the bright yellow shorts? Another one. And there's a blue car up ahead and one lane over too."
"Really?" Almost like a kid, Tam sat up and peered out through the windshield, whatever it was that had sparked the odd behavior forgotten. "Oh, I see the bike guy!"
"Don't blow his cover."
Tam sat back, his expression thoughtful. "Are they really yours?"
I nodded. "You saw the file for the guy on the bike."
"I did?" Tam turned his head and stared out the window, but this time, more like he was bored than anything else. "That's him? No, wait. He changed his hair color?"
"It's just wet. You'll see—he's supposed to follow us right to the studio."
"Oh." The actor seemed disappointed somehow.
"If you want, I'll take you out driving on the practice course. I'm not as good as my brothers, but I'm no slouch."
Tam perked up. "Really? I've done some stunt driving, but they didn't let me do anything at high speed because of insurance and having to film the rest of the movie."
"I'll have to check our insurance, but you can't really hurt yourself on our course." You could, but I would make damn sure Tam couldn't. "After we're back from the location shoot, though."
Tam made a face but didn't protest.
Security waved us through with a quick glance and Tam directed me to a parking lot not far from where they'd be filming. "Perks of being a name in the movie," he joked.
Tam changed completely as soon as we were outside the SUV. The casual, friendly man disappeared, replaced by the showy, possessive omega-alpha hybrid that I recognized from TV and blogs. He slung an arm over my shoulders and pulled us so close our hips bumped with every second step. "This way," Tam said, and directed me through a nondescript door into a long narrow corridor. "We usually do our reading in here."
It was the room we’d had the original meetings in. Before the door could close behind us, Tam pulled me close, whispered, "Take one for the team," then kissed me soundly and groped my ass.
That same feeling from yesterday flowed over me, that urge to press him up against the wall and see who really was the alpha here. I took a breath to say something—I wasn’t sure what—but the taste of him was in the air, dancing over my tastebuds and setting off reactions I had no business to be experiencing on a job. Tam and I were going to have to have a talk about these little public exhibitions, if only for my sanity.
The kiss ended and he watched me for a moment, his eyes strangely unreadable. He tucked a stray wisp of hair back behind his ear in a very omega-like gesture before the alpha Tam reappeared and sent me off to a chair at the side of the room with a friendly pat on the cheek he'd just squeezed. I went, a little dazed, and a little more worried. He was going to be a difficult client, but not at all in the way that I’d expected. And my own reactions weren’t helping.
"He wanted to see what I really did all day," Tam said to the room and took a chair about halfway down this side of the table. "Oh, we're still waiting for Grady?”
The man in question blew through the door at that precise moment. "Sorry, traffic." He scanned the room, his eyes resting briefly on me in my chair in the corner, then he grabbed a seat not far from Tam. "Why do we have these right in rush hour?"
"For my amusement," Pete said dryly. "We ready?"
"Yep."
