Guarding His Body Read online

  “Besides, he’s out of your league,” she muttered as she slapped the blanket, still annoyed. “He hires and fires people like you.”

  She pulled her mobile from the pocket of her track pants, checked the charge then laid it with a click on the glass-topped side table next to the sofa.

  By the time Yves walked back into the bedroom, she was settled under the blanket, looking and feeling a little more composed. The thick blackout curtain linings cancelled all light from the balcony outside. When he switched off the bathroom light, the room was plunged into pitch blackness.

  “There’s still room in the bed, if you want.”

  Somehow, it was easier to stick to her guns when she couldn’t see him. The task was merely difficult instead of being almost impossible.

  “Goodnight, Mr. de Saint Nerin.”

  “Yves,” he corrected, and it was a sensual whisper in the darkness.

  “Goodnight...Yves,” she finally said and prepared for a night of sleeplessness.

  * * * *

  She was warm and soft, and her prickles were nowhere in sight. Yves smiled in the darkness as he carried Helen’s sleeping form to the bed. He had heard her toss and turn on the thin, awkwardly shaped sofa, and his sense of chivalry would not let him fall back into slumber while his small protector was in such discomfort.

  Non. Who was he kidding? The fact was, he wanted Helen Collier with a need that was all-consuming, and he had barely a handful of days left before he had to leave the country. Who knew when he would find the time to come back? And, in the meantime, there was a strong, giving woman who was fighting herself as well as him. Yves only hoped she was exhausted enough from the struggle to yield to his enticements.

  He laid her carefully in the middle of the bed. His eyes had grown used to the lack of light in the room, but she was still little more than a shadowed outline. Slowly, he lowered himself down next to her, his head just by her feet. With a wicked grin, he kissed her instep. There was no response and Yves quirked an eyebrow. He kissed her instep again, and flicked a tongue against her ankle.

  Helen moaned and moved her foot away, shifting sideways on the bed, one leg kicked up as she made herself comfortable. In a nimble move, Yves settled behind her, spooning her as he shuffled close to her body. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this. And normally, he never had to resort to such actions in order to literally get a woman into his bed. But, in addition to being a spicy challenge, Helen appealed to something deep inside of him. Her spirit and intelligence increased the lust he felt for her. No, it was more than lust—Yves knew that much—but he wasn’t going to think about it. There was still Alexandrov in the back of his mind. The broken relationship with his sister and brother-in-law that he had to mend. The rest of his business empire to look after.

  At that moment, he wished he was someone else. An uncomplicated associate of Ryan Greenwood’s, for example. Or a fellow martial arts instructor. Anything that meant he could grab what was blossoming between him and Helen and spend enough time on it, with her, so some kind of resolution could be reached. Either an eventual drifting apart or...something else.

  But he wasn’t such a man. He had a business. Responsibilities. He would have to leave Helen when he went back to France. Which meant there was only the now. For both of them.

  He stretched his hand around her ribs and cupped her breast, slowly pinching at the nipple through the thin material. Responding to his touch, it puckered in his hand, and that was enough to harden his cock. He increased the pressure slightly as he pushed against her back, his erection fitting neatly in the crease between her buttocks. Helen squirmed, making Yves groan. He knew the moment she woke when her body tensed against his.

  “What—?”

  “Non,” he said quietly by her ear. “No questions. No thought. Just two adults. And a long, dark night.”

  “We can’t.” She shifted around, sending more torment through Yves’ groin before she faced him. There was a respectable distance between them, with only his hand resting on her shoulder. There was also torment in her voice. “I can’t, Yves. It was bad enough before, when I thought it was Guy, who was my employer.”

  “Regardless of who we are, we’re attracted to each other,” he countered softly.

  “That may be true,” she conceded, “but there are lives at stake here. Yours and Guy’s.”

  His hand moved up her shoulder, caught a tendril of her hair and smoothed it against her head. “I wish I could explain this,” he told her, the darkness making him honest. “There is some magic around you, enticing me, tempting me. Tell me you don’t feel this as well, tell me this heat through my blood is only on my side, and I promise I’ll let you sleep in peace.”

  “I...,” she paused before she could utter her lie. “No,” she finally admitted. “It’s not just you. I feel it too.”

  And she hated herself for it. Helen didn’t say the words, but Yves knew she was thinking them, and he wondered how a passionate woman had managed to so effectively close off part of herself like that. No more! No more thinking. No more running away.

  He pulled her forward, tasting her lips gently, seducing her with tenderness. When she groaned, a small sound of capitulation, Yves pushed his advantage, tunnelling one hand along the mattress beneath her while his other moved under her tank top. Her nipple peaked against his fingers. She would have pulled back, but his arm was already there, holding her tight. Lifting himself on the elbow closest to the bed, he kissed her neck and felt her shiver against his mouth. Her tendons were taut, dipping into a shallow valley along her throat. With infinite care, Yves followed the inviting crease, smiling into her flesh as he felt her hands grab at him.

  Swiftly, he lifted the edge of her tank top and suckled deeply on her. With a gasp, she arched against him, her fingers digging into him, urging him to pull her aroused nub deeper into his mouth and run his tongue over its heightened sensitivity. Yves was more than happy to oblige. He held her trembling body against his as he rolled her onto her back. Mindlessly, they both shucked their pants, and Yves’ thick shaft bobbed against Helen’s abdomen, softness against softness, slick with the thick drops of his lubrication. He nibbled, moving from one breast to the other, plumping their roundness in his hands, massaging one while he suckled on the other.

  With heated impatience, he felt Helen pull the top up over her head, throwing it into the darkness, groaning as her naked body rubbed against his. She groaned with incoherent need, moving her legs apart in blatant invitation. , Yves moved away, but it was only to grab a condom from the bedside table drawer. He liberated the contents of the small packet with economical movements, and fitted it onto himself, letting his heavy, sheathed erection fall between her thighs, his engorged head brushing past her pubic thatch, the texture making him catch his breath. Every second of his time with Helen was crystal-clear in his mind, every brush of her against him etched on his body. Even without burying himself in her, it was a surfeit of sensation, threatening to topple him over the edge. Her strong fingers gripped him, meeting his rising passion with her own, demanding that he touch her, kiss her, lick her. He positioned his hips, pushed forward and gasped as his cock drowned in Helen’s own slippery wetness. It was an invitation his body couldn’t resist. Sliding into her was like being in the one place he belonged. Her curves and heat cradled him. Her tremors aroused him. He started moving, taking his weight on his elbows and brushing her hair back from her face. Under his fingertips, he felt her head move from side to side, and heard the gasps of pleasure emerging from her lips.

  The darkness was almost complete, but his sense of sight was unnecessary. Every quiver of Helen’s body told its own story, its building tension telling him of her imminent orgasm. Lifting himself onto his hands, he lowered his head and kissed her. She gasped into his mouth as his tongue flicked against hers. He increased the tempo of his body, driving into her as she wrapped her long, lithe legs around his body, meeting each thrust with one of her own. The shudders hit his body in a wave of sur
prise, an aching peak of pleasure that arched his back and stretched his throat, shouting his climax to the room. Beneath him, Helen was also in the throes of a tempest, shuddering against his groin, milking him of his semen as she bucked and cried out in the darkness of his bedroom.

  * * * *

  Helen’s phone rang early the next morning, waking her from sleep. It was six in the morning, and she was momentarily disoriented. Her fingers ran over the padded outline of a mattress rather than a large sofa cushion. And there was a solid length of bulky arm holding her close. She moved her feet and held her breath when it encountered a leg.

  Oh no! What have I done? Again!

  Caught between a flood of sudden recollection, and the insistent ring of the phone, she stumbled out of bed. She was completely naked. Looking around frantically, she spied a robe casually thrown over a chair and carelessly threw it on, grabbing the phone and pressing a button with shaking fingers.

  “Hello,” she half-whispered, willing her voice to sound calm as she exited the bedroom. As she passed the bed, she saw the dark outline of Yves’ body move under the covers, tried to imagine that it was something else, and quickened her step.

  Ryan’s bluff voice boomed in her ear. The man had always been an early riser, and it sounded as though he had already been up for hours.

  “Hel, it’s me,” he said, without preamble. “Thought I’d check in with you. How’s it going?”

  Helen ran a distracted hand through her hair, trying to get her thoughts into order. Feeling damned guilty. She wondered if Ryan could feel the heat from her flushed cheeks buzzing through the air between their phones.

  “Well,” she cleared her throat, “first, the client was not exactly who we thought it was.”

  Knowing him as she did, she heard the question in his silence and, glad to be on impersonal ground, briefed him on the fact that it was Yves who was the real client not Guy Aubrac. Ryan grunted and explained that that was not an unknown tactic. Helen just raised her eyebrows as a personal editorial and continued, but Ryan’s answers became less relaxed as she related the attack on them at New Farm.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” he told her angrily after she finished. “Whether to front up and call Nerin a fool, or whether to wipe the floor with you for not calling the police.”

  “I think he had a good reason to do what he did,” she replied, stung. “If he’s right about this Alexandrov character having friends in law enforcement, then calling in the authorities could have made things worse.”

  She heard her mentor’s long, bitter sigh down the receiver. “I still think it was bloody hare-brained of the both of you,” he muttered, “but there’s no help for it now. How stubborn is the man?”

  Stubborn? The word had been invented with Yves specifically in mind.

  “You have no idea,” she breathed with a touch of amused asperity.

  “Hmph. And what’s your plan now?”

  “We’re due to have the first in a series of corporate meetings today.”

  “Is that with the computer company?”

  “That’s right.” Helen shifted, uncomfortable with what she left unsaid.

  “And Alexandrov’s men have already seen you in New Farm and, from what you say, managed to track you from Heritage House.”

  “That’s right.” She winced, but kept her voice even.

  “Great. And what if Alexandrov tries again?”

  “Yves doesn’t seem to rate that possibility very highly,” she said slowly.

  “Yves, is it?” Ryan paused, but Helen didn’t answer. Had he heard the thread of feeling in her voice? She remained quiet and Ryan eventually conceded, filling in the silence. “Yves is the client. He’s not supposed to think anything. That’s your job.”

  “I know, but he’s very—”

  “Do you have a safe house?”

  Helen thought up, and discarded, several choices. Another hotel? No, that would be easily traced. Her place in the Valley? No, that was obvious as well. A friend’s? She couldn’t do that, place friends in danger.

  “Yes,” she replied quickly, thinking of one other place she could go. “I have a place.”

  “Well, if something happens again, you get him there, then call me. No mobiles, not until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  She took a deep breath. “Done. I’m sorry, Ryan. I know you put your trust in me—”

  “A Russian criminal hell-bent on revenge is even a new one for me, Hel.” His voice was gruff. “Just don’t keep me in the dark from now on, okay?”

  “Okay.” She terminated the call and rested her head against the wall. If she could ignore her enormous pile of guilt at the moment, the conversation had not been as painful as she’d expected, and she was thankful that she and Ryan finally had a chance to talk. Events seemed to have flashed past in a whirl ever since she first stepped into Heritage House.

  A voice at her ear made her jump.

  “Was that Ryan Greenwood?” Yves asked, his head poking around the corner.

  Helen used indignation to cover her embarrassment. “Were you eavesdropping on me?”

  Yves shrugged. “You were outside the bedroom. And the door was open.”

  He looked alert but still a bit tousled, with his dark hair arranged chaotically and his pyjama pants—he had obviously put them on when he got out of bed, and Helen’s mind ran riot at the thought—riding low on his hips.

  She took a deep breath and brushed past him to walk into the bedroom again, picking up her watch and slowly latching it to her wrist. She could almost feel him follow her.

  “Ryan just reminded me how foolish it was not to contact the police after that altercation yesterday,” she said, closing her eyes. She didn’t want to think about what had happened the night before—with her full consent. Once again, she had compromised her principles for a hunk of gorgeous man. Was she stupid? Or just besotted?

  “But we agreed—”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” she interrupted, her voice rising. She spun to face him. “But he also reminded me that that’s what you’re paying me for. I’m the one who should decide where you go.”

  “A woman in charge?” his eyes gleamed. “I think I’d like that.”

  She ignored the implications in his statement. “One more attack, and we leave.”

  Yves sobered at that. “Where to?”

  “A safe house.”

  He looked down at her, gauging the truth of her words. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am. Just as you should be,” she rebuked.

  He nodded and had the grace to look abashed. “Oui. I know. But I would not have been so adamant if I’d thought for a moment you or Guy had been in any great danger.”

  She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Was he saying that he had the utmost confidence in her ability to defend him? Or that he thought she was somehow being hysterical? Either way, it didn’t matter. She was here to do a job and was happy that Ryan had given her a much-needed kick up the pants, even if she felt out of her depth. Her pleasure at the amount of money she was due to receive was tempered by the fact that, by the end of the two-week assignment, she was sure she would have earned every penny of it.

  “If I was Leonid Alexandrov, I don’t think I’d give up,” she remarked, watching him. Trying to reduce him to a cipher. A client. Nothing more. Certainly not the man who had caused that delicious ache in her loins or that feeling of gentle lassitude.

  “Alexandrov’s reach doesn’t stretch as far across the world as he’d like to think.” Yves hesitated, as if debating whether to share something with her. “The Russian population in this city is small,” he finally said. “I did my homework before we flew to Australia. I don’t think Leonid will have much success finding killers to do his dirty work here.”

  “Russians aren’t the only violent ones in this country,” she countered.

  “No, but that’s the way Leonid likes to do business. He likes to keep things ‘in the family’, as he p
uts it. He believes it makes his messages more…personal.”

  She caught his gaze on her, intense and watchful, waiting for her reaction. He might be a wonderful businessman, she thought, but he was wrong to think that he could apply the logic of high finance and corporate life to emotion-laden issues. Maybe she wasn’t as useless as she thought.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “You could be right. But, then again, you could be wrong. And I don’t like playing the odds when there are lives on the line.”

  Yves arched an eyebrow. “Do you know, Helen, I’m not sure I’m used to having anyone disagree with me on such a regular basis.”

  “Does it bother you?”

  Her voice held an element of challenge, and he smiled. “Au contraire. I find it most refreshing.”

  It was his smile that did it—that lazy curve of lips that sent lightning zapping through the room, stinging Helen, and sending a small shiver up her spine. His smile told her exactly what he wanted to do with her, exactly how he wanted to explore her refreshing disagreement. She didn’t dare even cast a glance at the bed, or she knew she’d be lost. Again.

  “What time is the meeting with Tech-88?” she asked in a voice that was much calmer than the tumult in her stomach suggested.

  “Nine-thirty.” He paused. “We have plenty of time to get ready. Hours…to relax, have something to eat.”

  Go to bed.

  The invitation hung, unsaid, between them.

  He was here, offering himself to her—every inch of a sunbathed body, toned, muscular, hard. Eyes that saw into her soul, hands that held her tight, and lips that drove her to distraction. Who would have thought that Yves, just standing there, was enough to knock almost every ounce of sense from her body?

  A compulsion gripped her, even sent her a half-step forwards, before sense reasserted itself. How she wanted to lose herself with that body, just one more time. To give his mouth free rein over her, to clutch and caress his hot, hard flesh. And maybe, if Ryan hadn’t called that morning, they might have been staging a repeat performance even as she stood there. But her old teacher’s words were still fresh in her mind, delivering a timely reminder of her responsibilities, and why exactly she—Helen Collier—was in a beautifully appointed suite with Yves de Saint Nerin.