Page 29 of Guarding Grace (Hawk Security #2)

Grace

First thing after Terry’s sister left, I raced into the bathroom and threw on clean clothes.

My phone rang less than a minute later.

“Did you forget something?” I answered. It was Deb.

“Tell me what happened,” she said breathlessly. “I know I won’t get anything but a watered-down version from my brother.”

I put her on speaker while doing my makeup and gave her a quick rundown on the attacks.

“Elliot must have royally fucked up this time to have the mob after you. Good thing you have Terry by your side now.”

I nodded along with that, which was a terrible idea while I was applying mascara. “That’s for sure.” I grabbed a cleaning wipe to deal with the mascara failure.

“That Victor what’s-his-name?—”

“Russo,” I added.

“—is one sick puppy, but he’s also a dumb fuck. My brother and all the guys he works with are lethal with a capital L. If the guy is stupid enough to take on Hawk, he’s not long for this world.”

I cringed, remembering Terry’s sniper bullet comment. Then I reapplied my mascara with my head still this time. “I’m worried they’ll bring more men. ”

“Did I tell you about the time my friend Tina and I thought we were grown-up enough to go to The Broken Spoke?”

This time, I lifted the brush before shaking my head. “The biker bar?”

“That’s the one. We were young and wild without a clue, and plenty drunk. Anyway, a pair of guys got real handsy with Tina, and I got scared, so I texted Terry. Luckily, he was nearby. Actually, I think he’d followed us because he was worried about me.”

“That sounds like him.”

“Anyway, he rolls in, tells the bikers to leave her alone, and this biker the size of a dump truck and his buddy came at him.”

I moved to the other eye. “Holy shit.”

“After Terry put the big guy down, a bunch more jumped him. My brother laid six of them out cold on the floor, and the whole place went quiet. That’s when he dragged us out.”

I put my mascara away. “That’s some story. I saw something similar when the goons attacked me. It was pow, pow, and the bad guys were down.”

“Then he proceeded to yell at us for a half hour for being so reckless.”

“Sounds about right,” I agreed as I added my necklace. “I gotta go to work. Catch up later?”

“Sure thing. Be careful, and keep Terry close.”

“I will.” I grabbed my handbag, planning on keeping Terry very, very close.

“We gotta get together,” she added. “I want to hear how you reeled in my brother. Should we do Mexican or Italian?”

I changed my mind twice as I walked out toward Terry. “Mexican.” Terry had cooked me Italian and might be planning more of the same. Was it weird that I was already looking forward to another of his meals?

“You got it.”

“I gotta go,” I told her again. It wouldn’t do to have Terry hear me planning a girls’ night to talk about him. “Bye.” I stashed the phone in my big bag.

“Ready?” Terry asked when I turned the corner.

“As soon as I feed the cats.”

“Make it quick.”

Once he heard the can open, Clyde bounded in, followed by Bonnie.

I slapped the food in soup bowls and put them on the floor.

“Ready now?” Terry asked.

I nodded and followed him down the stairs, wishing he’d been asking if I was ready for more action. It had to be the biker-bar story Deb had told me, but something had me hot to trot again for this man .

He locked the door behind us and opened the door of the Porsche for me.

“This is Duke’s car, right?” I asked after he buckled in and started the engine. “What are you going to do about your car?”

“It was a company car. They’ll bring me another one.”

“Nice perk.”

He shrugged and opened the garage door.

Out on the street, I should have been nervous after the shootout yesterday, but I looked over at Terry and felt at ease. I had the right bodyguard. A biker as big as a Mack truck and a half dozen others? Definitely the right man for the job.

“What?” he asked, catching my stare.

I laid my hand on the center console in invitation.

He took it.

“I can’t express how happy…” I was going to say I am that you’re my bodyguard , but I adjusted. “I am that you’re mine.”

He chuckled. “You mean that you’re mine, Kitten?”

Feeling the warm strength of my man’s touch, I agreed. “That too.” A second later, I added, “It was a bit of a shock to have your sister walk in on us.”

“Agreed. But at least her timing was good.”

I cranked my head to look at him. “No way.”

“If you’d gotten down to the kitchen earlier, I had plans.”

A tingle went straight to my lady parts. “Plans?”

He smiled as he looked straight ahead. “Plans involving you and the table.”

My cheeks flamed. On the table in front of the window wasn’t exactly public sex, but it was riskier than anything I’d ever done. “In front of the window?”

“Sure. Or maybe the one on the terrace.”

“Terrace?” I squeaked. The terrace table sounded so taboo that I got instantly wet. Last week’s prim and professional Grace Brennan didn’t do danger. What the hell had this man done that it excited me today?

“It’s going on the list.”

The hood of his car and now the terrace table. This was becoming one hell of a list.

After the morning staff meeting, Peyton and Marci followed me to the ladies’ room .

Zane’s eyes also followed us, though he seemed focused on Peyton.

Terry stopped at the end of the hall, as if I needed a guard to keep the bad guys from sneaking past Zane and down the hall to abduct me from a bathroom stall.

I shooed him with a wave of my hand, and miraculously, he complied. Nice, but odd .

Once inside, the girls were on me. “You lied,” Peyton accused. “You’re totally banging him.”

“Don’t deny it,” Marci added. “It’s so obvious. Terry the lion watches you like you’re a gazelle he can’t wait to take down.”

“And,” Peyton added, “when he said you couldn’t go out to get coffee, you didn’t argue one bit. That’s not you.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “I don’t need to add to everybody’s stress level by yelling at him.”

“Last week, you wanted to cut his penis off,” Marci noted. “And this morning it’s obvious to anybody watching that you want to lick it instead.”

“Did I say that?” I’d actually used the word dick , but Marci’s vocabulary was more proper than mine. I blushed.

“And if you don’t,” Marci said. “Maybe I do.”

Over my dead body. I raised my hands. “Hold on… One.” I looked at Peyton. “I did not lie. As of yesterday, I had not slept with him.”

“I knew it,” Marci shrieked. “You are sleeping with him.”

“That’s still one hell of a turnaround from the way you’ve always talked about him,” Peyton noted.

I nodded. “Surprised the hell out of me too, but having a guy save your life a few times can have that effect. I’ve always known he was a decent guy inside.

It’s been about the way he talks to me, ya know?

But, it turns out he was intentionally trying to keep me away because of Pete.

” I kept myself in check. I didn’t want to sound too slobbery over my man.

But he was a lot better than decent in my book.

Peyton rolled her eyes. “The bro code can suck sometimes.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but what can you do? He’s a man, and they can be stupid.”

“All man, if you ask me.” Marci got a dreamy look in her eyes. “He’s got so much masculine energy—you know, strong, gruff, and rough around the edges, like he’s ready to throw you over his shoulder and carry you off to?—”

Peyton grabbed her shoulder. “Hold it right there. Grace has dibs.”

Marci nodded. “Yeah, Zane is a close second.”

Peyton looked away .

I didn’t say anything, but the way Zane had been watching Peyton, I didn’t think Marci was in the running.

My bladder yelled at me to get into a stall. “We’re a couple. Satisfied?” With these two, Terry and I would be common knowledge in a nanosecond, anyway.

We finished our business, and when I passed Terry on the way back to my office, I whispered, “They know.”

He rolled his eyes and shrugged as he followed me. Closing the office door behind us, he locked it. “Good.” He advanced on me.

I put a hand up. “Oh, no you don’t. We’re not doing anything in the office.” I escaped around the desk.

Terry patted the desktop. “I think this will do nicely.”

His words sent damp desire straight to my core. But as tempting as it sounded, my business had to come first. “Not while I’m working and my people are here. It wouldn’t be professional.”

“You only say that because I haven’t explained what I plan to do to you yet.”

That only made me hornier. I didn’t dare ask him for details. “On a weekend when nobody is here,” I proposed, because it sounded so naughty.

“It’s going on the list.” He backed away and adjusted himself in his pants. “I’ll be outside, because if I stay another minute in here with you, I won’t be able to control myself.”

I settled into my chair after Terry left. I was definitely the gazelle to his lion, and Marci was right. The man was pure masculine energy. With all the havoc Elliot had brought into my life, he seemed to be the only thing going my way.

Terry

The morning at SpaceMasters had been quiet, and Grace and I were now eating lunch in her office.

Remembering what I’d brought in my backpack, I pulled out Clyde’s collar. “Fresh battery.” I set it on her desk.

She grabbed it and her face lit up. “Thank you. I’ve been worried about him getting out. I mean, finding him in the marina would be impossible. What if he jumped on a boat?” She put it in her monster purse .

I heard the zipper as she secured it in an inside pocket, while I pulled out my real surprises and slid the first across the desk to her.

She picked up the phone. “What’s wrong with the one I have?”

“This is a backup. It has an extended-life battery, and it’s encrypted. If you need to reach me, I’ll always answer. And no matter what you’re doing, if that one rings, you have to answer it.”

“Have to?”

“Yes. Drop anything else you’re doing.” I slid across the second item, still in its plastic bag. “And this.”

“I have plenty of pens already.”

“Not like this you don’t. It’s called a Pain Pen, like a mini stun gun.”