She grinned. “Oh, yeah, my stud-muffin. Let’s do just that.” She giggled.
He led her back to her room, too aware of the guns still out and the eyes trained on his back. One of the guards followed him, and he was going to have to have words with the head of security about this kind of thing. Those guys should have split up, put someone on Keira and stopped her from entering. They’d been too focused on him and weren’t thinking a woman could be a threat. That kind of thinking could get you dead.
Inside her room, Keira dropped the drunken act. “Nothing. That woman wasn’t there—meaning she’s got a way in and out that Trent doesn’t know about.”
Brock glanced around. The habit was automatic—you sized up the scene to make sure it was safe. Always.
Keira’s room looked a lot like his. Thick, patterned carpets, big furniture, and a lot of drapery. Carved wood decorated the walls with pillars and elaborate doorways—sandalwood and cedar, he expected, both local exports from Jawhara. The effect was like being in a tent, but he found all of that heavy fabric a little stuffy.
He would have preferred naked walls and fewer places for bugs to be planted and people to hide. He headed to the TV, turned it on, found a station playing country, and turned up the volume.
Keira wrinkled her nose. “Couldn’t you find some real music?”
Ignoring her question, he asked, “You think she used the window to get out?”
Keira shoved a hand into her messy hair. “Locked from the inside. I’m going to need another look at that room.”
“I’ll talk to Talib—he’s head of security here. He knows about our cover, but he’s the only one who knows why we’re here. Him and PJ.”
“And our clients.” She flopped into a chair and pulled off her heels. “I read the brief, but you’ve met these people—you know them. What are they really like?”
Brock wandered over to the window and glanced out. From here, he could see down to the party in the garden. It looked like Sheikh Kamal and his new wife were about to cut the cake. He turned away, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and moved so he had his back to the bed. He didn’t need to see that, either. With Keira in the room, a bed seemed like far too much temptation.
Keira had tucked her feet up under her and was rubbing her toes. He had to look away from that, too. It was a job he wanted all too much.
“They’re good people. Slade doesn’t take on clients without digging into their background first.” Heading to the bar provided for each guest, Brock dug out two bottles of sparkling water. He handed one to Keira. “If you read the brief, you know just about everything you need to know. Honeymoon’s going to be here. Kamal wants to make sure Erin’s safe. He even flew her parents over, and he’s sending them off on a world cruise after the wedding. Oh, and Erin’s pregnant with the future ruler of Jawhara.”
Pausing with the water halfway to her mouth, Keira stared at him. “Anyone know about the baby?”
“You, me, PJ, Kamal. I think Talib’s guessed. When Erin was kidnapped, she was forced into the desert. She did okay, except for throwing up way too much, which most folks might put down to being terrified.”
“Poor kid. She doesn’t seem to have any PTSD from what happened—at least not that I saw.”
Brock shrugged. He kept prowling around the room. Stopping at a desk, he picked up a deck of cards and cut it. “She’s a little jumpy. But it takes people different ways. Look at PJ—she was with Erin and now she’s partying hard. I asked PJ to make sure Erin got a nice wedding present—a pendant with a heart rate monitor and a GPS locator beacon. We’ve got trackers on all of our clients—even the sheikh, but he hated to start wearing one.”
Eyes narrowing, Keira stared at him. “This is my operation. And you should know better. A woman on her honeymoon isn’t likely to be wearing anything.”
The image popped into his head of Keira wearing nothing more than her bra and panties. She was still slim—model thin. But she had curves in all the right places now, and small, pert breasts that would just fit in his palms. Sweat popped on his upper lip and his heartrate kicked up. He drank down his sparkling water; let the wetness cool his jets a little. “Yeah, well, PJ’s told her to keep it on. If Erin gets into trouble again, all she has to do is grip the crystal in her palm. The extra heat activates an alarm. I should get you one of those.”
Keira gave a snort. “Save it for Shira. We’re here to protect her, too.”
“And I’m here to watch your back.”
Standing, Keira stretched. “Well, you can just watch it from downstairs. I don’t think anything’s going to happen in that crowd downstairs, but you never know. I need a hot bath and two hours of sleep.”
“And then?” Brock asked.
She started for the bathroom, throwing a grin over her shoulder at him. “Then we’re going to do some prowling and see just how good security is here.”
Brock shook his head. “We get caught, that blows our cover. A sugar daddy and his model aren’t supposed to be sneaking around.”
“You want to trust that Talib knows his stuff? You said it—we
may have an inside leak, meaning it’s not the guys breaking in who we have to worry about. It’s someone living inside this palace. So get your sweet ass outside and come back in two hours—oh, and turn that music over to some classic rock, will you?”
Brock watched her head into the bathroom. He heard water running. She’d left the door open a crack. The idea flashed into his head that if he hung out he might get another glimpse of her—oh, how that tempted him.
But this was work—they had a job. Heading over to the TV, he changed it to a rock music station. He headed out, keeping his eyes straight ahead, but that didn’t help him keep his mind on the job. He was seeing Keira, naked in a tub, dressed only in bubbles, those endless legs of hers stretched up and out.