Page 8 of Echo, the Sniper (Men of PSI #2)

The Bodyguard Crush

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Rory

A S ECHO AND I LEFT Casa Taqueria, I knew three new things.

One, their enchilada sauce wasn’t anything like my mom’s—too thin and tomato-y, but not bad.

Two, I’d wasted three years of my life not dining at one heck of an amazing Mexican restaurant.

And three, I was still more than capable of getting all hot and bothered—and straight-up turned-on—by the opposite sex.

No, not the opposite sex.

Echo .

Had he felt anything when he’d reached his fork across the table and held it up to my lips?

Heaven knew I had. My heart had hammered away so hard it was a wonder the entire restaurant hadn’t heard it.

Like an idiot I’d looked into his eyes while taking that bite, only to wonder if I looked as ridiculous as a cartoon cocker spaniel sharing a spaghetti meal with her canine heartthrob.

I couldn’t even remember what I’d eaten or how I’d reacted to the bite of food he’d offered up; I’d been too busy struggling with a wave of awareness that was so sharp and feverish I half-feared I glowed with it.

All I knew was that I’d babbled something inane to cover how I wanted to crawl across the table and sample how his mouth tasted, rather than his food.

Talk about a productive morning.

To be honest, I’d never given my libido much thought.

I’d done the usual boy-ogling when I was a wide-eyed teen.

I’d giggled and gotten tongue-tied when I’d gone on my first date with the captain of Kingsbury Boarding School’s lacrosse team, and I’d let that relationship unfurl naturally until he’d gotten way too handsy one night while we’d made out in his spiffy BMW Roadster.

When my father had introduced me to Dane at my graduation party, I’d been flattered and excited that an older man, ten years my senior, paid so much attention to me.

I had been more than grateful to Dane when he’d proposed marriage two years later when I was a sophomore at University of Colorado, when my father begged from his deathbed for me to get married before he died.

He’d been convinced a woman couldn’t take care of herself and needed a man to lock down her security.

He’d actually cried from his hospice bed as he told me he wanted to be at peace in his final days, and he swore he would be if he knew I was settled with the man of his choice and financially taken care of.

If only my father had been born in this century instead of during the days of black and white TV, my life would have been so different.

Bottom-lining it, no one could say no to a dying man’s request, least of all me.

That had been the reason I’d dropped out of college and married so young.

It hadn’t been a sizzling love match, though I’d told myself at the time that I had affection for Dane and could fall in love with him over time.

Ha.

The truth was that I didn’t know what love was, then or now, and I sure as hell didn’t know that raw animal attraction to a man could make your heart pound, your body sweat, and your panties grow damp with a heat I barely understood.

Thanks to Echo, I was learning fast.

All of which made absolutely no sense. Not now, because I was in no shape—mentally or emotionally—to let some crazy physical attraction rule me.

I was the widow of a murdered criminal who’d done terrible things to innocent people, myself included.

The only home I’d ever lived in as an adult had been set on fire by some crazy arsonist-slash-killer, and I literally had nothing left on this earth to call my own.

I needed time to heal. I needed space to figure out why there was so much chaos in my life.

I needed to feel safe, and I needed to learn how to stand on my own and thrive in life all by myself.

The one thing I didn’t need?

Wet panties caused by my mysterious bodyguard.

Too bad one traitorous thought kept plaguing me.

Dane had never made my panties wet.

Having Echo to focus on helped me cope when he pulled up to what was left of Dane’s McMansion house.

Local news crews were all in attendance, with their satellite trucks and earnest reporters sprinkled all along the sidewalk.

Yellow caution tape had been strung out along the property line, keeping back the media and several curious rubbernecking neighbors.

I recognized a few of them as Echo hustled me toward Chief Sims, like my neighbor from across the street, Muriel Bittenger.

Ugh.

Of course Muriel just had to be the lead rubbernecker, standing so close to my property line she was touching the yellow caution tape, her pinched, fifty-something, hangdog face obscenely excited as she took in the smoking wreckage that was once my house.

She had been one of the first people to publicly snub me at the grocery store after Dane’s arrest, cutting in front of me at the checkout because she, “as a non-criminal element of this prestigious community,” had every right to do so.

She’d gotten me kicked out of the gardening club we both belonged to and crowed about this accomplishment to me as if she hoped it would wound me all the way to my soul.

Whenever she turned her saggy face my way, she looked like she smelled something bad.

That was exactly how she looked at me now, like I deserved a flogging for upsetting the neighborhood by daring to have my house burn down while I was inside of it.

A flogging she’d be happy to deliver.

Humiliation spasmed through me while I tried to turn a blind eye to her and others who followed her lead and judged me.

Instead I consciously held my head up high as the fire chief miraculously produced my purse for me.

Wonder of wonders, my wallet was perfectly intact, as was my phone.

It had less than ten percent charge on it, and Chief Sims warned me it might not hold much of a charge anymore due to potential heat damage to the battery.

I nodded my thanks, grateful that anything had been salvaged and told him so.

The one thing I wouldn’t do was think about all the scrapbooks of my youth and the family photos I’d lovingly framed of my parents throughout all the stages of my life, or my mom’s recipe box that had been in the now-gutted kitchen.

No.

Now more than ever I needed to lock myself into survival mode. At the moment, survival meant money and internet access. I’d cry about all the irreplaceable things later.

After checking in with the cops and the fire chief to let them know I could be accessed at any time through my stoic bodyguard—for whom they all seemed to have a deep amount of respect the moment PSI was mentioned—I glanced around one last time.

Strangely enough I felt nothing as I took in the place where I’d spent some of the worst years of my life, and I knew in my bones I’d never see it again.

When my gaze ran slam-bang into Muriel’s disdainful sneer I couldn’t help but jump.

What I wouldn’t give to tell off that saggy-faced witch once and for all.

“What?” Echo was by my side in an instant. His hand clamped around my elbow as if readying to pull me behind him while he no doubt scanned the crowd for blow darts and ninja assassins. “What is it?”

Man, this guy was seriously on top of his game, if he noticed stupid little things like a flinch. “It’s no big deal.”

“Mark my words now, Rory—anything and everything that makes you uncomfortable is a big deal to me. What is it?”

For a heartbeat, profound gratitude moved through me that he cared so much, before I realized he wasn’t talking from a man’s perspective.

This was the bodyguard who looked at me now, not some hot guy who found me as attractive as I found him.

Horrified, I bit my lip and tried not to die of embarrassment.

If I wanted to keep my sanity, I had to make sure I didn’t let my hormones get confused about this man’s professional protectiveness.

“Leave it, Echo.”

“Not going to happen.”

“I told you, it’s not a big deal.”

“Whatever brings you discomfort is a big deal to me.”

I sighed noisily. Wow, this guy was seriously dedicated to the job.

“I just caught sight of a neighbor—former neighbor now, I guess—who hates my guts because I had the bad manners to have terrible things happen to me. You know, like having a criminal for husband, only to have him be very publicly murdered right in front of me. Now, she clearly has her nose out of joint because my house burned down. Like, poor her for having to endure literally nothing. Luckily, though, I’ll never have to see her stupid hangdog face again, so she’s just going to have to find someone else to torment now that I’ve been burned out of Cherrywood Creek.

For all I know, she’s the one who set the place on fire just to get rid of me. ”

His sharp, mirrorlike gaze zeroed in on Muriel’s basset hound face. “Uh-huh. Okay, copy that. Come with me.”

“What...?”

Before I fully registered what was happening, he’d laced his hand with my uninjured one and dragged me like a child’s pull-toy behind him before crashing to a halt in front of Muriel Bittenger, the flimsy crime scene tape the only barrier between us.

Oh, crap.

“Lady,” Echo said in such a low rumble it could have easily been mistaken for a growl, “I want you to be grateful I’m giving you this opportunity to be a good fucking person, and apologize for whatever shit you’ve pulled with Aurora Grant.”

Muriel’s gasp mingled with my own.

Whoa.

Then Muriel’s saggy eyes bugged while her jowls quivered in outrage. “I beg your pardon, who do you think—”

“I know who I am. I’m a flawed goddamn monster who nevertheless has the guts to own his shit.

Question is, do you? All the terrible things you’ve done, all the petty torments and all the dark glee you’ve indulged in when you’ve inflicted pain on other people.

.. did you really think no one was ever going to call you on your shit? ”