Audition (North Security 4)

Well, you can’t fault her for taste.

“Normally I have to say something for women to hate me,” I say, strolling into the warehouse, pretending my heart doesn’t thud at the sight of her lithe body. Pretending my cock isn’t a breath away from rock-hard. “I have to say something about their tits or their ass.”

Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t seem particularly shocked by my crude language. No, she wouldn’t be. Not in this place. She would have heard much worse. “I told him no more guards.”

“You told who?”

“Who else?” she says. “Your boss.”

My boss? I work for the US government. My job is to drive around godforsaken deserts and pray I don’t get blown up by a bomb buried underground. If I play my cards right, I might move into special operations. That’s what was implied before I went on leave. Go along with what Caleb Lewis offers. Collect information. Report back.

It’s a chance to be somewhere other than the bottom rung. Maybe the only chance I’ll ever get. Which means I have no business being interested in this girl. She probably isn’t even eighteen. “My boss,” I repeat, my voice flat.

“Isn’t that why you’re here? To guard me?”

“Why don’t we do this—you dance again. I’ll stand here, but if anyone attacks you, I’ll just let them have at it. No bodyguards for you.”

She’s not amused. “The guards aren’t there to protect me. You’re here to keep me in the warehouse or keep me at home. Make sure I don’t wander away. Make sure I don’t talk to anyone.”

“You’re talking to me.”

“You tell Caleb we had a deal. And it doesn’t include some—” Her narrowed gaze sweeps down my body, as if she’s only now noticed that I have a body. “Some overmuscled asshole on steroids.”

I put my hand over my chest. “Direct hit. I’m wounded you think I’d resort to steroids. These muscles were earned the old-fashioned way, thank you very much.”

She snorts, which somehow sounds feminine and delicate. “I’m sure you do much worse things than steroids. And there is no way, absolutely no way, that you’re going to be my new guard, so tell Caleb he can forget it.”

“Would it put your mind at ease to know he didn’t send me?” Though I’m curious how he’s connected to her. We enlisted at the same time. Went through basic at the same time. We’ve never been close, really. When we both had leave, I was surprised he offered for me to hang out with him in New Orleans. I accepted because I have nowhere else to go. At the time I had no idea that I’d be approached by some special department to gather intel for them. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out Caleb’s into some bad shit.

“Right,” she says, unconvinced. “So you’re standing in the one warehouse that doesn’t contain anything illegal because…?”

“Total coincidence. I was looking for the illegal stuff.” Which means I have no business staying to chat with this woman, no matter how compelling she looks with that notch between her eyebrows. She looks goddamn fierce. “Honestly.”

A roll of her eyes. “Tell my brother he doesn’t need to waste time and energy watching me. I’m staying out of trouble.”

Her brother. Jesus. If she’s Caleb Lewis’s sister, then she’s not staying in trouble. It won’t be a clean shot that brings him down. It’ll be a grenade launcher that hits him—metaphorically speaking. Or literally speaking. Everyone in his vicinity will end up in jail or dead. That’s inevitable.

And she’s right here.

Don’t fucking feel bad for her. For all I know she knows all about her brother’s misdeeds. She might even participate in them. She could be his right-hand man.

I don’t want to feel bad for her, but I can’t control the heavy beat of my heart. She shouldn’t be in this dump. She shouldn’t be left unguarded. I know better than to let a pretty face or a tight ass make me vulnerable, but I can’t help thinking she wouldn’t do that. As if her dancing has shown me a window to her soul. You’re a dumb motherfucker, North.

“You’ll have to tell him yourself,” I say, taking a large step forward. Circling her. Forcing her to turn to face me. “I’m not working for him. I’m here on leave. He invited me to come drink and fuck around for a couple weeks.”

Her dark eyes shutter. “You’re in the army with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Say no to whatever he offers you.”

What exactly will he offer me?

Some kind of job, that much I know. Something illegal.

I’m tempted to grab the next flight out of Louisiana right now. I don’t want to become a snitch, not really, but I have no loyalty to Caleb. The fact that this girl wants to protect me, that she wants to warn me, when she doesn’t even know me, turns my stomach to stone. Her feline grace makes me hard. The faint scent of lavender makes me hard. In other words I’m two seconds away from pushing her down into the dirt and fucking her. I could make her like it. Judging from the way her breasts rise and fall in rapid rhythm, she already does.

“What do you think he’s going to offer me?”