Page 7 of Hunted Hearts (Black Heart Security #6)

W ith the box tucked in her arms, Juliette leaned against the bedroom door. Her stare fell on the authentic cotton mat for meditation that she’d picked up in India. But she wasn’t seeing the colorful patterns woven across it.

She could only see those gray sweatpants, hanging low on Theo’s hips, riding just above a ridge of muscle that had her stomach fluttering to a beat she rarely heard.

And those bare abs . God. His gorgeous, muscular body looked like it was carved out of some primitive mountain right after the world sprouted into creation.

And he bought her a present. An expensive one. What mattered even more to her was that it was a thoughtful one.

She braced harder against the door, trying to unscramble her brain. But when she heard the quiet throb of rap music through the door, at a volume much lower than it was before, her insides woke up and thumped to the beat.

Since seeing her bodyguard jumping rope—shirtless, with those ovary-exploding gray sweatpants hugging his abs—she could hardly locate a brain cell in her head and she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with skipping her supplements.

She wondered if he would notice if she just took one more peek at him while he was working out, but then thought better of it.

She had to stop thinking about the new member of her team. The one she never wanted.

The one who bought her supplements to replace the ones he confiscated, as well as a new one to try, and a dispenser to help manage them.

Turning her head, she strained to hear the soft thump of Theo’s feet as he skipped rope, imagining those sculpted muscles tensing and releasing and pushing and pulling—

She swallowed hard and pried her spine off the door. Rushing across the room, she set the box on the bench at the foot of her king-sized bed and pulled out the items one by one. When she set the pill dispenser next to the bottles, she stood back to study the gifts.

Before she could think better about what she was about to do, she had her phone in hand. Rachel’s contact flashed on the screen, and her publicist and good friend answered on the first ring.

Her face filled the screen, glowing from being freshly washed as part of her own evening routine. On days that they weren’t engaged in concerts, they all took the time for self-care.

She smiled. “Hi, Juliette. Everything okay?”

“What do we know about Theo?”

Her question wiped the smile off Rachel’s face. “What’s going on?”

“How much are we paying him? Where did you find him?”

Rachel’s brows pinched. “Henri found him, remember? I’m not sure what we’re paying him, but your safety is worth every penny.”

Somewhere in the confusion of the day, Juliette forgot that her tour manager had hired her bodyguard. But she couldn’t bring herself to call the older gentleman—the time he got off was precious, and she wouldn’t disturb him unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Why, Jules? You’re worrying me.”

She stepped back and flipped the camera to show the items from the box.

“Because he bought me supplements to replace mine. They’re not the cheap ones either.

And this pill dispenser is so expensive that even I balked at buying it.

I figured for that much money, I could open a bottle and dispense my own pills. ”

The light tapping sound wasn’t coming from the front room where Theo was jumping rope. In fact, all was silent out there.

The thought of him lounging on the sofa, shirtless, in only those gray sweats, had her mind working through excuses to see for herself.

Maybe he was doing other exercises. Sit-ups. Push-ups.

Her mouth dried out.

“I got some information on the bodyguard.” Rachel drew her attention away from what was—or wasn’t—happening only feet away in her own hotel room.

Rachel’s face glowed under the blue light of a computer screen. “Henri entered Theo’s name into the books. He works for his family’s company, Black Heart Security.”

She rolled the name around in her mind.

“Ooh!” Rachel practically squealed. “The agency is set on a real ranch, though the address isn’t given on the website. There’s also a veterans’ program on site.”

Juliette sank to the edge of the bed and plastered her hand over her face. She’d been rude and uncooperative every step of the way, and Theo was only trying to do his job. A job for his family’s company.

Rachel’s stare burned through the screen at her. “Jules. You’re not going to believe this. His family is all military. Navy SEALs.”

That explained so much about Theo’s appearance, his demeanor…his muscles.

“I feel like such an asshole,” she groaned. “His family not only served in the military, spilled blood, but they’ve opened their home to wounded veterans?”

“Yup. They run a whole program to help them recover from trauma.”

“And I only throw money at a charity!”

Rachel opened her mouth—probably to argue—but anything she’d say was cut off by a knock on the door.

She opened her eyes wide at her publicist. “I’ve gotta go! He’s at the door!”

Before she could respond, Juliette ended the call and tossed the phone on the bed, trying to appear nonchalant.

“Come in,” she called.

Theo walked in. A light sheen of perspiration made his muscles glisten, causing every single ridge of his washboard abs to glint in the low light of the bedroom.

If her publicist was still on the line, she would have mouthed are you seeing this?

Of course she was. A god was standing in her hotel room.

He darted a glance between her and the items lined up on the bench at the foot of her bed.

They were only steps away from the mattress. If he wanted to, he could reach her in one stride, pick her up and hook her legs around—

“I realized you might not know how to program the dispenser.”

She ran her tongue over her very dry lips. “Oh. No, I don’t know how. Do you?”

His mouth did that insanely sexy quirking thing again. The one that had distracted her twice now. “No, but how hard can it be?”

He picked up the box and carried it out of the room.

Juliette watched him go. Specifically, she watched the carved planes of his back and hard buttocks in those loose sweatpants moving away from her.

She hurried after him.

In measured strides, he crossed the room to the wet bar and set the dispenser on it.

“There must be batteries somewhere. Ah.” He located them taped to the side for shipping and peeled them away. She stared at his long fingers as he fitted the batteries into the device.

It beeped, and he leaned over, hand resting on the granite edge of the wet bar, peering at it.

A shiver of pleasure coursed down Juliette’s spine, and she couldn’t rip her gaze away from all those muscles.

Suddenly, Theo swung around…and caught her staring.

She’d spent her entire life on a stage, and all kinds of mishaps happened to her. By now, not much embarrassed her.

But this did.

Heat crawled up her cheeks.

With a crooked smile, he walked past her into her room and came back with the bottles of pills.

“I took the liberty of ordering you NAD with coenzymated B-3 for cellular energy. Have you looked into it?”

“No.”

“It adds a layer of stress defense. NAD therapy can put your cells under pressure while it’s doing its job—repairing, boosting energy, all that. NAC helps take the edge off. It backs up your system, boosts your defenses so you don’t crash while everything’s getting overhauled.”

Without realizing, she’d drifted closer.

The warmth of his body mixed with the clean, masculine scent clinging to his skin—something sharp, almost woodsy, layered with the faintest hint of soap.

She inhaled before she could stop herself, filling her lungs with it.

She wasn’t sure if it calmed her or made everything tighter under her skin.

If she didn’t step away, she would need a supplement to calm her hormones.

“It sounds like you did your homework,” she managed to say.

“It’s important to me to keep my body in good working order.”

Oh, it was in good working order. Excellent, in fact, judging by the way her pulse stuttered.

He opened a bottle and poured it into the dispenser. With a few taps of the buttons, he programmed it like he’d done this a hundred times.

The little machine whirred and clicked. A soft chime sounded. He reached for the plastic medicine cup, then turned to her. No words—just a quiet offering he held out.

Her fingers brushed his as she took it, warm skin against warm skin.

The touch sparked something electric between them. Her breath caught. He didn’t move. Neither did she. The silent pause was filled with everything they weren’t saying—curiosity, attraction…

Something neither of them expected but couldn’t ignore.

* * * * *

Theo hadn’t really slept.

He’d crashed on the couch somewhere around three in the morning, feet hanging off the side, his weapon within reach. But real sleep hadn’t happened, not with his ward ten steps away.

He spent half the night wishing his glare could dissolve the closed bedroom door into thin air so he could catch a glimpse of that tantalizing sliver of skin on his ward’s stomach, and the other half thanking whatever powers there might be that he couldn’t.

What time he didn’t devote to thinking—or forcing himself not to think—about how Juliette’s fingertips were actually lightly callused from playing violin, Theo’s brain remained wired.

He ran through threat assessments, replaying entry and exit points of the hotel…and yes, thinking about how Juliette’s thick hair swayed against her spine as she strode away.

By morning, his body ached like he’d gone a few rounds in the field, but there was no time to shake it off. Today wasn’t a day to let his guard down.

Somehow, he made it through the morning of packing and her team coming and going from the hotel suite, all chattering about things he couldn’t keep track of. When they got on the road to the next venue, he had a firm grip on himself.