forged ahead. “He followed me. I didn’t know it until yesterday when this arrived.”
She unzipped her boxy coat just enough to fish out a folded-over envelope from the
oversized purse bisecting her chest. Morgan handed it to him with a shaking hand.
Tension gripping his gut, Jack ripped it open. Pictures spilled out. Morgan in an
airport, dressed in low-rise jeans, a baggy T-shirt, and her hair shoved into a baseball cap.
He only recognized her profile, her stubborn chin, the freckles across her nose that made
him wonder how far they extended down her body. They gave him an insane urge to play
connect the dots.
The next one was of her reading a magazine on a patio chair. The magazine covered
her face. He saw only her hands, the cover of People, a splattering of delicate freckles on
her arms— and sweet, unbound breasts, nearly visible through a thin white tank top,
with ripe cherry nipples that made his mouth water.
From the instant he’d heard whispers that she was his former pal Brandon’s fiancée,
he’d been intrigued. Talking to her online had only heightened his interest. Morgan in
these pictures, in the flesh, engorged his cock. He couldn’t wait to get her bound to his
bed and begging to come—granting his revenge.
But there was something else about her…something pounded him with familiarity.
He felt as if he should know her, like he’d seen her before and not just her picture on her
show’s Web site. Had he ever met her? No, he would have remembered a woman like
Morgan. Still, there was something about her. He’d figure it out.
Swallowing a lump of rising lust, Jack flipped to the last picture and froze. The
always-elegant Brandon Ross in a designer suit. He had his back to the camera as he
leaned down to kiss Morgan. Jack could see only her half-bare legs covered by a bit of
green silk and black lace, and the lightly freckled arms she curled around the Brandon’s
neck. The sight made his gut roll.
And the haphazard scrawl of the note at the bottom of the envelope, with its
ominous, possessive tone did nothing to ease his tension.
The last picture, the wife-to-be saying goodbye to her man before he left for a day at
the office, also confirmed that Morgan O’Malley was Brandon Ross’s woman. She was the
means to pay his old buddy back for his stab in the back. He had to get Morgan out of
here alive and undetected to do it.
“So this stalker followed you here from L.A.?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her voice still shook.
Jack sighed. “Dedicated and sick. Not a good combination. Clearly, he’s smart if he’s
able to take pictures of you without you knowing it or his identity. He knows his way
around a gun. I don’t think you can just walk out of here on your own unharmed,
Morgan. You need help. I can give it to you.”
She hesitated, then spoke in a surprisingly smoky voice. “You’ve gotten me out of the
path of bullets that would have likely killed me. I can’t ask you to risk—”
“You didn’t ask; I’m offering.” The asshole clearly knew his way to Brandon’s house,
and Morgan didn’t look like the kind of girl with training in weapons and hand-to-hand
combat. It was up to him to keep her alive. “Morgan, I’m a bodyguard. I won’t watch you
die when I can get you out of here in one piece.”
“How much?”
Jesus, someone had been shooting at her and she wanted to barter? “On the house.”
Surprise widened her mouth. “Why?”
He sent her a cool shrug. “If you’re dead, there goes my fifteen minutes of fame.”
She lifted her red-rimmed blue eyes to him and shot him a cynical glare. “Seriously.
It’s clear you’re not a famemonger.”
So she had better sense than to fall for his line. But Jack still wanted to make her look
at him with those innocent blue eyes while he force-fed her some logic. She couldn’t be
sane and deny that she needed help. But he understood why she’d try.
He was a relative stranger—but that wasn’t her only hesitation. He’d bet every dime
in his pocket on that. From their brief face time before the shooter arrived, he realized
Morgan had some interest in him. And that she had curiosity about his sexual leanings.
More curiosity than someone merely researching a TV show. Her reluctant arousal drew
him like nothing had in years.
“That still doesn’t change the fact you need me. The shooter knows you’re in this
building. You can’t just walk out now. I can get you out of here.”
Morgan set her jaw. Jack watched her fighting the urge to bite off a refusal. She
didn’t, proving once again that she was smart.