Page 3 of Dangerous Obsession
The art of working herself into a state of physical exhaustion had long been a daily part of Jade’s routine. After all, if you were physically exhausted, your mind stopped running in pointless circles. Or lusting after the man you were supposed to protect.
That was what Jade wanted these days: either inner peace or to train until she was too wobbly to move. Then maybe the sexual tension in the air wouldn’t drive her insane.
Her staff slammed down against the ancient marble floor, and in Jade’s mind, she had just flattened an opponent and crushed his chest. The impact vibrations traveled up the hickory staff and into her hands.
The force sent shivers up her arms and caused her muscles to bunch up with even more tension.
Tension. It was her constant companion these days. She swept the staff up and pivoted to swing it skillfully at a second imaginary foe.
Tense. Her whole body was tense. She was drying up like an old husk, and her resolve was beginning to crack. She could not take it anymore.
Sweat stung her eyes. She spun a graceful circle in her bare feet, her toes splaying against the cool white floor as she extended the staff to its full reach and leaped into the air to execute a perfect spinning kick.
It was a moment of release. A moment of flying into the air and allowing her body to soar free while she imagined the impact of her foot against something solid and alive.
Maybe it’s Max I’m kicking.
The thought gave her a perverse jolt of amusement. She’d be kicking his ass because he made her life so wonderful and so insufferable at the same time.
Her feet landed squarely on the ground, and she kicked backward with every ounce of frustration in her body. The channeling of emotion into a physical expression of power.
Except this time, instead of kicking an imaginary attacker, her foot made contact with something very solid. She heard the thud of impact and the coughing exhale of breath as her foot hit square in a man’s solar plexus.
A man who should not have been there.
The man staggered backward from the force of her kick. She recoiled and planted her staff on the ground. She used it to pivot herself around to face the stranger who’d managed to get so disturbingly close. She couldn’t believe she’d been that sloppy.
And who the hell was this guy?
He was a big man. Six feet and a bit. Good-looking and dressed like a Westerner—Canada or the States, maybe.
Solid, fit, and well-muscled. Brown hair, tanned face, dark eyes, and now toppling backward as though she’d just handed him a death blow.
The guy hit the marble floor with enough force to make Jade cringe.
He lay on the stone floor, his eyes round with shock as he began to gasp for air. He was clearly no longer a threat.
“Don’t panic,” Jade said in a voice that was all-business as she set down the staff and knelt beside the stranger. “Just try and take slow breaths. It will pass.”
She wasn’t about to tell this trespassing stranger how disturbed she was that he’d managed to sneak so close without her spotting him. Clearly, she was off her game. The isolation, quiet, and beauty of the island were making her soft. A bodyguard couldn’t afford those kinds of sloppy mistakes.
The stranger nodded, still clutching his chest. He really was handsome. And built. His biceps and shoulders could give Maxim a run for his money. Right now though, he only looked surprised and winded, wincing in pain.
It was silly, but she felt guilty. She felt guilty even though he’d been foolish enough to sneak up on her when she’d been in the middle of a martial arts weapon kata and spinning her staff around like a ceiling fan.
“You’ll be okay in a second,” she reassured him, studying his face. She’d never seen him before. She would’ve remembered. “Why are you here?”
“I’m lost…” The man wheezed the words as he held his arms around his midsection. He was flat on his ass with his legs sticking out in front of him. He had on hiking sandals and khaki cargo shorts. His button-down shirt was vacation awful, so ugly she actually admired it a little.
“You came from the spa?”
He nodded, his face turning red. “Have to get back.”
“Yeah, I think you need to relax a bit before hiking back,” Jade told him, not unkindly.
She went to a small cooler and snagged a water bottle.
She returned to the man’s side and handed it to him.
“Take a drink. When you feel like you can move, I’ll give you a ride back to the spa so you don’t have to walk. ”
After she headed inside to get her Glock 17 and holster, that was. She was paid to take no chances. Not when Maxim’s life was on the line.
The man took the water bottle and lifted it to his lips. Before he drank, he fumbled the bottle, swayed a little, and suddenly collapsed to the white marble floor. He lay there unmoving, his eyes closed.
Jade stared at him in shock and rising concern. What in the hell was going on? If he was from the spa… Had she just kicked a sick man to death?
She dropped to her knees and checked his pulse points at both his wrist and his neck. He had a strong heartbeat. Thank God. He was just unconscious.
So, why had he passed out? He must have some kind of medical condition even though he looked like he was in top-tier shape.
Medical conditions weren’t her department. They had professional medical staff at the spa, but she couldn’t just leave him here. He didn’t have a neck or spine injury, so she decided to risk moving him. She would have to drive him to the village.
Jade braced his weight against her bare midriff and began to pull him toward the stairs and the golf cart they sometimes used to transport things around the property when a wheelbarrow wouldn’t work.
There was no way to bring the golf cart directly to him, and that only left one option.
Hauling his heavy ass around by herself.
He was dead weight against her, but Jade could not help but again notice how firm and well-muscled this stranger was. His hands were calloused and his nails trimmed short as if he worked with his hands. Still, he certainly didn’t seem sick.
She’d just finished thinking that when his hair came off.
Jade stared at it in horror, as if it were a giant hairy spider that had jumped from his head to the marble floor. Then she finally realized it was a wig.
She looked back at the stranger. He had short blond hair shaved so close he must’ve been bald just a day or so ago.
Carefully, she grabbed the wig and put it back on his head as best she could. He didn’t complain. He was still out.
Jade grunted as she got to the steps and carefully eased his heavy lower half down each one without any unnecessary jarring. She was in great shape, but she was still breathing hard by the time she managed to drive the golf cart over and drag him onto the golf cart’s rear seat.
She kept expecting him to come to, but he didn’t. His breathing was steady though, even if his heart rate was elevated.
She had to wrap her arms nearly all the way around the guy’s waist in order to anchor the seat belt without choking him. Her breasts pushed against his side as she invented a new and creative way to secure a body in the back of a golf cart.
By the time she was done, her long, sun-streaked brown hair was coming loose from her ponytail.
She probably should’ve cut it all off last time she’d been in Athens.
It was usually in the way. But it was her one vanity.
Too many memories of letting her hair trail over Max’s naked skin as they made love in the sun…
No. She was not going to go there. She checked the stranger’s pulse one more time.
Gently lifting his eyelids, Jade found his eyes rolled back into his head.
Maybe he had some kind of blood sugar problem.
A chunk of the health spa visitors were diabetics.
He didn’t look diabetic, but A1C numbers didn’t always follow the obvious physical signs.
Or maybe the wig and shaved head indicated cancer?
Of course, what did she know? She was a bodyguard, not a doctor.
Jade swung into the driver’s seat and set off in the golf cart. It was hard not to floor it and race down the sandy path between the house and the temple terrace like she usually did.
She needed to find Max and let him know they had a problem, and she needed to find him right now.