KIRKLAND: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Read online

  She pushed my shoulders, forcing me to roll onto my back. Then she was off the bed, grabbing her clothes off the floor.

  “You’re an asshole!”

  “I was a little drunk last night. But I’m not now.” I sat up and reached for her arm, but she jerked out of the way.

  “I don’t do this,” she said, pausing to glare at me from the doorway. “I don’t have one-night stands, especially not with assholes like you. But here I am…” She shook her head, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “And you don’t even know my fucking name!”

  “Casey!” I said, jumping off the bed and chasing after her. “Karen?”

  “Kari!”

  She spun around just as I came up behind her and slapped me hard enough to make my teeth snap together. When she turned, the front door was already open. Joss, wearing a loose t-shirt over her growing pregnancy, was standing there with her hand on the doorknob, a bewildered look on her face.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  The blonde—Kari—stopped dead still, her clothes clutched to the front of her naked body. Then she slowly pivoted and stared at me through wide eyes.

  “You’re married?”

  Joss laughed. “No, sweetheart. I’m afraid he’s too much man for me.”

  Kari continued to stare at me for a minute longer. I reached for her arm again, but that seemed to shove her out of her thoughts.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  She spun around and stepped out onto the porch, naked as the day she came into the world except for the clothes she held to her chest. Joss looked at me and, for the first time since I met her, she blushed, turning her head away. “I’ll…” She gestured with her thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll take care of this. You should probably go get dressed. Ash has a new client for you.”

  She turned and stumbled out the door before I could say anything.

  That’s when I glanced down and realized I was just as naked as Kari was.

  I laughed.

  What a way to start the day!

  Chapter 3

  Kirkland

  I was getting it from both ends. Joss lectured me on the way to the main house on how I treat women. Then Ash lectured me all the way downtown on keeping my hands off of clients. Especially this client. I guess she was a friend of Ricki’s, David’s fiancée. And that I could understand. Ricki was family now, and there was no messing with family.

  Despite what everyone thought, I did have some standards. I might be willing to bring home a girl from a bar whose name I couldn’t remember, but I wasn’t going to love and leave a member of the family. Or a friend of the member of the family.

  “What do we know about this client?” I asked when Ash finally stopped lecturing.

  He pulled a file folder from between his seat and the console, handing it to me as he navigated the SUV around a corner.

  “She owns Cumming’s Treasure. It’s a—”

  “Porn site. Yeah, I know.”

  Ash glanced at me—as if he didn’t know that I watched porn. All men watch porn. If they deny it, they’re lying.

  “You’re familiar with it?”

  “Sure. They have amateur videos that are quite interesting.”

  Ash nodded, his eyes on the road again. “She’s been getting death threats. The first one came about a week ago. There’ve been four or five since then. Each one with a picture of some sort of death situation: a hanging, a beheading, a shooting. And the pictures are all captioned with the same words: This will be you by the end of the week.”

  “I assume David’s traced the emails.”

  “He did even before Ms. Watson contacted Gray Wolf. He did it as a favor to Ricki, but whoever’s doing it knows how to cover his tracks. The perp used several different public Wi-Fi services to send the emails, so tracing them didn’t tells anything except that he favors coffee shops in Los Angeles.”

  “Does she have any idea who might want to threaten her?”

  Ash shrugged. “She runs a pornographic website. It could be anyone from some housewife who doesn’t like how much time her husband spends on the site, to a jealous boyfriend whose girlfriend made an amateur video with or without him.”

  “True.”

  I looked through the file folder, noting the client’s name, Mabel Watson. Old-fashioned name. It brought to mind the girl who sat at the back of every classroom in all American high schools, that girl with the glasses and braces and too many pimples. But I couldn’t imagine a woman like that running a porn site. I imagined a woman who was impossibly tall with legs all the way to her chin. I saw curves that were subtle but perfect for holding onto. I saw a face that was symmetrical, everything proportioned as it should be. I saw a beautiful, sophisticated woman, the kind I loved to welcome into my bed.

  It was going to be harder than I thought to keep my hands to myself.

  “And David’s done background checks, looked into the people she interacts with on a daily basis?”

  “The preliminaries should be in there.”

  “What about her home?”

  “An apartment building in the valley. David’s got a team on the way over already.”

  “An apartment? Doesn’t she make good money?”

  “David said she’s lived there since coming to Los Angeles and she’s reluctant to leave.”

  “Why?”

  Ash shrugged as he guided the SUV around another corner, slowing as he approached a stop light. “I get the impression she’s kind of eccentric.”

  “I guess you’d have to be eccentric for the line of business she’s in. Not many women run these websites.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Is there anything else I need to know?”

  Ash looked over at me. “Just keep your hands to yourself. David’s wound up enough over the wedding. Don’t want you to add to his stress.”

  “I won’t.”

  Ash pulled into an underground parking structure, working his way down into the bowels of the street. I watched a couple of ladies dressed in business attire talk as they walked to their car, hoping that most of the ladies in this building looked like them. I might not be allowed to touch the client, but there were no rules against the rest of the staff.

  I finished looking through the file folder, making note of the names that came with some sort of black mark on their background checks. Then I closed it and climbed out of the car, tugging the wrinkles out of my suit jacket and buttoning it so that it fell properly from my shoulders. It never hurt to make a good first impression.

  We boarded the elevator. I have to admit that I was pretty excited about this assignment. Imagine, being in the offices of the hottest porn website on the internet! The things I would probably see days or weeks or even months before all the idiots who paid for the service! Sometimes this job has some real perks.

  Ash’s phone rang as we stepped off the elevator.

  “It’s David. I should take this.”

  He stepped away, but not before he pointed toward the reception desk.

  I had my orders.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the perky blonde behind the desk, “can you tell me where Ms. Watson’s office is?”

  The blonde looked up and then did something of a double take when she saw me, a slow smile taking the place of the impatient grin that had been there before.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  I leaned against the top of the counter. “I do. I’m with Gray Wolf Security.”

  She looked me over, her eyes lingering on my shoulders, my chest. “You’re a bodyguard?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Impressive.”

  I smiled, running my finger over the smooth counter to just within a breath of her hand. “I’d like to make a good impression on the boss. If you could…”

  “Of course. To the right, through those doors. Her office is at the very end of the corridor. You can’t miss it.”

  “Anything I should know about the boss?”

  The sed
uctive smile turned into an amused one. “I’m sure you’ll make quite an impression without any help from me.”

  “Thanks.”

  I headed down the corridor, glancing back at Ash. He was still talking on the phone, his shoulders hunched and his back turned to everyone. I hoped David wasn’t giving him bad news. I hated starting a new case with bad news.

  The corridor ran past a few closed office doors and a conference room with huge televisions hanging on the walls. I imagined the type of videos viewed there and wondered how the people who worked here could make it through the day without wanting to duck into a supply closet with their secretary, or rush home for a quickie with the wife. But, again, maybe they didn’t resist the impulse. These people probably had a better sex life than I did. And that was saying a lot.

  I reached the end of the corridor and found myself blocked by a narrow metal desk. There was a woman hunched over, searching through a bottom drawer for something. She was wearing a bulky sweater that was a God-awful blue color with little, black dogs all over it. Her hair was pulled back into pigtails that were then twisted into cutesy little buns like something kindergarten student might wear on the first day of classes.

  I cleared my throat, and she bumped her shoulder into the front edge of the desk as she turned to look at me. She cursed, a very dirty word slipping from between her full lips as she turned big, gold eyes to me.

  “Can I help you?” she mumbled, her eyes moving over me with nothing more than a questioning glance. I couldn’t remember the last time a woman looked at me quite like that. Usually there was at least a little bit of interest in the first glance. Maybe she was a lesbian.

  I had no problem with lesbians. The idea of two women going down on each other was actually quite erotic.

  “I’m here to see Ms. Watson. Would you mind telling her I’m here?”

  She didn’t miss a beat. She bent over again, grabbing some brightly colored form from the bottom drawer of the desk.

  “What’s this regarding?”

  “I’m with Gray Wolf Security.”

  She looked up again, a new interest in her eyes.

  “Are you? You’re not Mr. Grayson.”

  “No. I’m Kirkland Parish.”

  Her eyebrows raised, as she once again looked me over. Then she stood, brushing a hand over her voluptuous black skirt. She actually had on knee socks. I don’t think I’d ever seen a grown woman wear knee socks. And they were a horrible mixture of black and blue strips that were just…hideous didn’t seem to be a strong enough word. She was not the kind of sophisticated woman I expected to see up here. I found myself wondering why Ms. Watson would hire such a woman to represent her office. Definitely not a great first impression.

  “Kirkland. That’s an unusual name.”

  “My folks were unusual people.”

  “Yeah. Mine too.”

  She turned and gestured toward the double doors behind the desk. “Follow me.”

  She pushed the doors open, nearly tripping when one of them stuck as she tried to thrust it open with something of a flourish. It thought I was going to have to catch her, but she managed to get over the threshold without face-planting. She strode toward the desk like a horse clomping through a muddy paddock. It was a large office, a typical CEO’s office, complete with the glass and chrome bar in one corner—though this one didn’t display expensive bottles of bourbon like most—a falsely intimate sitting area in another corner, and a large, unusually messy, L-shaped, dark walnut desk with a pale gray finish that sat directly in front of a wall of windows.

  The secretary stepped behind the desk, tripping over a trail of cords. She caught herself on the edge of the desk and fell into the tall executive chair with a sigh.

  “Is Ms. Watson—?”

  “They were down in the mail room,” a voice behind me announced.

  I turned and a dark-haired woman in a basic black suit was striding into the room, a handful of DVDs in her hand. She glanced at me, shooting me an appreciative smile as she passed, and set the DVDs down on the edge of the desk with a bunch of others.

  “Anything else?”

  The woman behind the desk shook her head. “Thanks, Carrie.”

  “No problem.”

  Carrie?

  I felt like Alice after she fell down the rabbit hole.

  “I’ve never hired a security firm before. I mean, I have security here at the office, but they sort of came with the office space. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do first.”

  The dark-haired woman closed the double doors, locking me away with this eccentric woman with the Mary-Jane-style, black patent leather shoes.

  “Excuse me?”

  She waved at a chair set in front of the desk, indicating I should sit.

  “I assume you’ll be following me around all day. What else do you do? Ricki wasn’t terribly sure.”

  “You’re Mabel Watson.”

  Amusement flooded her eyes. “Disappointed?”

  “A little surprised.”

  “Did you think I was the secretary?”

  I tried not to meet her eyes as I took a seat, unbuttoning my jacket as I did.

  “You have to admit, it was an easy assumption to make.”

  “I suppose so.” She leaned back, tugging at the front of her oversized sweater. “It’s happened before.”

  I could feel her checking me out again, as though it took three tries to get it right. It was a little unnerving. I looked at her, met her eyes when she finally pulled them up from the length of my body, and tried to start again.

  “So, I’m Kirkland Parish from Gray Wolf Security. I’m the operative assigned to your case.”

  “Operative. Like a spy or something?”

  I shrugged. “It just seems like a better word than bodyguard.”

  “You’ll be following me around?”

  “I’ll be with you twenty-four seven.”

  “Twenty-four seven? Ricki didn’t mention that.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “I just assumed you’d follow me around during the day. It never occurred to me I’d have to take you home.”

  “It’s been our experience that when people make threats like this, when they follow through—if they follow through—it’ll be more likely to happen on private property. Which means this guy would be more likely to come after you at home than here at the office. Too many potential witnesses.”

  The color drained from her face, leaving her creamy skin even paler than it already was. It was actually kind of attractive, the way her dark brown hair looked against her pale skin. If she let her hair down and dressed a little more…normal, she might be a very attractive woman.

  “I told Ricki that these threats probably don’t mean anything. But she insisted I call your firm. She didn’t want anything bad to happen to me this close to her wedding.”

  “You and Ricki are really close?”

  She picked at some fuzz that was stuck to the sleeve of her sweater. “We met a year or so ago at a conference. Turned out we had some things in common.”

  I thought of Ricki, petite, beautiful Ricki. She was always dressed appropriately, even now that she’d sold her business and didn’t go into the office every day. She was quiet and soft spoken, even when she was angry. This woman appeared to be the exact opposite of Ricki.

  “And you’re going to be in the wedding?”

  “Maid of honor.”

  I looked her over, wondering what kind of awful dress she’d be wearing. I could see it now: all the ladies would be in classy, mermaid-style dresses that clung to their shapely bodies, and this woman would show up in a bright orange ruffle nightmare like something out of one of those cheesy chic movies Joss sometimes made me watch with her.

  There was a tap on the door and Ash walked in, strutting in his heavy boots as if he owned the place.

  Mabel stood up and watched him, clearly impressed with his commanding demeanor. I watched the admiration come over her face. She didn’t even
try to hide it. It was pretty clear the dark haired, overly muscular, GI Joe type was more her style than I was.

  Thank God for small favors. This job was going to be a piece of cake after all.

  Chapter 4

  Mabel

  My hand shook as I accepted Ash Grayson’s proffered hand. He was quite a commanding presence, even in the jeans and sports coat he wore. I could imagine what he would look like in Army fatigues, and the thought made me want to swoon on the spot. Too bad he wasn’t an actor. I could sell millions of videos with him in them.

  Ash took a seat beside his operative—such an awkward word!—and looked me over without so much as a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. That was a leg up on his buddy who could hardly keep his distaste of my style of clothing out of his expression. He thought I didn’t see the sideways glances and the purse of his lips when he saw my shoes. I liked my shoes. It wasn’t often you could find genuine Mary Janes in my size.

  “As I explained on the phone,” Ash began, “we will assign an operative to trail you everywhere you go for the next few weeks. He will need to have full access to your home and office—”

  “Kirkland was just explaining that to me,” I said, glancing at the incredibly handsome man sitting to Ash’s right. I quickly turned my eyes away because he was so handsome. How was I supposed to go about my normal day with a guy like that following me around? And sharing my little apartment… “The thing is, I live in a one-bedroom apartment. Is it really necessary for him to stay the night?”

  Ash glanced at Kirkland, then his warm, green eyes focused on me. Again I thought of what a great asset he would be on my website, if only in a print-type ad.

  “We find that most of these threats are carried out in non-public areas, when they are carried out at all. So, yes, it would be in your best interest to have Kirkland stay with you at your apartment. Or, if you were uncomfortable with that, we could arrange for you to move to a safe house we maintain.”

  The idea of staying anywhere but my own apartment seemed bizarre. It also felt like I’d be letting this person—whomever it was making these threats—win. I really didn’t want that.

  I waved my hand, as though waving away that idea like it was an annoying insect.