Page 24 of Guarding the Shadows (Pulsetunes Rock Gods #5)

B eth

“What are you doing here?” I asked, sounding too animated. Raff flared his eyes at me, warning me that I sounded too enthusiastic.

“I know Raff’s more than capable of taking care of you but knowing that fucker was still out there … well, I decided I had to come and see you were okay for myself,” Levi remarked, shifting me from behind his chair and pulling me onto his knee.

“Where are you staying?” I asked my brother, sweetly.

“In here … with you. Bernadette booked two more rooms for Bodhi and Benny,” Levi explained.

My heart sank because I thought Raff and I might spend the whole night in bed together.

“You don’t mind moving your stuff through the connecting door to Benny’s room, do you, dude?” Levi asked Raff. Obviously, from the way Raff’s mouth twisted, he minded a lot … because we had just been getting started on our first night of debauchery.

“Of course not,” Raff mumbled, while he tried not to make eye contact with me or Bodhi. “It’ll be good for you two to spend some more time together.”

As rock stars didn’t keep office hours, Levi sat talking to me until almost 4:00 a.m. “Is that Raff’s belt?” he asked, his eyes immediately suspicious. He pointed toward the offending object curled up where I’d placed it on my bedroom nightstand.

“It is,” I confessed, mostly because I was a terrible liar, and probably because what Raff and I had didn’t feel like a one-time thing. Plus, the belt had a distinctive, initial R on the front.

“Did my bodyguard fuck you when he was supposed to be taking care of your safety?” Levi muttered in that growly tone that scared the shit out of people when he got mad.

“Stop. I’m an adult. What I do on my time is my business,” I argued.

“Not when it’s with my security detail,” he snapped. “Wait until I get my hands on that bastard. In fact, I want to speak to him now,” he demanded, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

“He is not in trouble. I’m the one who started this. Raff has always been completely appropriate toward me.”

“Until he wasn’t. What the fuck was he thinking? Oh, that’s right, it wasn’t his big head that was in charge here tonight, right?” he ranted.

“That’s it. I’m not having this conversation with you,” I barked.

“That’s fine. I don’t need to talk to you about it. Raff on the other hand …” he said, determinedly punching his password into his cell phone.

“If you fire him, I’ll never speak to you again,” I warned, sounding distressed.

“Oh, he must have taken good care of you when you’re defending him over your brother,” he goaded.

I knocked his cell phone out of his hand. It hit the floor and disappeared under a heavy cabinet.

“What the fuck, Beth? And they say it’s us guys that think with our dicks. Looks like it isn’t only men after all.”

“Don’t be obtuse. Let me ask you this. Do you really understand the sacrifice your security men make when guarding the Shadows?

You couldn’t live safely without them. They know this and would take a bullet for you, but you can sit there and think you own them?

Shame on you. We might have the same dead-beat father, Levi. But I expect better from you.”

Levi fell quiet and stared for so long, I considered whether he was conjuring up special ways of torture for Raff after having sex with me, or if he was mulling over what I’d said.

“And what if I let this happen?”

“Again, you don’t own Raff or any of the other guys.”

“I’ve known him a long time,” Levi argued.

“What the hell does that mean? Was he faithful to Gwen? Or-or, is my perception of him as a good man wrong? I mean, is he a manwhore like you were?”

Levi huffed out a breath, scooped his hair in a man bun and held it on top of his head. “You’re my sister.”

“And you’re my brother. What are you saying? Is me having a relationship with one of your bodyguards beneath me?”

Levi snorted. “Now who’s being obtuse?”

“Am I? Would it have been better if I’d found myself a rich rock star like Esther did?”

“Stop it,” Levi ground out. “Raff knew messing with family was a sackable offense.”

“He did, and he made sure I knew it. If you want to blame anyone for what we did, blame me … and yes, I hope we do it multiple times in the future,” I confessed for good measure.

“Right, I get how you feel. What does he think?”

“Do you need to ask? He thinks I’m worth the risk of losing his job. What does that tell you, Levi?”

Levi sighed. “I don’t know how this is going to work.”

“That’s the most reasonable thing you’ve said since you saw that belt.”

“I’m still getting him out of bed. If you’re hell bent on doing this with him, you at least owe me a word.”