Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3)

wasn’t my objective. I was here to insure her safety. I didn’t need any distractions.
Her face and her ass were distractions enough.
“From where I’m sitting,” she said, collecting herself, “you’ve already put me in more danger than you’ve saved me from. I’ve never been that close to a car accident in my life.”
She stared at me, and I stared right back.
“If that’s how you really feel, you can fire me.”
Right. That was bullshit.
Brody and Jude had hired me, and I wasn’t going anywhere. But I also didn’t need her trying to push me out the door all damn day.
When she failed to retaliate with a sassy comeback, I informed her, “The truth is, you need someone like me in your life.”
She knew it, I figured, but it was tough for her to swallow. I got that.
Maybe she really wanted to believe the world was filled with the good guys. That what happened last night was a total anomaly.
Unfortunately, I knew for a fact that wasn’t true.
She looked out the window and took a deep breath. After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry. I apologize for my bad attitude. I don’t usually apologize for anything. So please take it. I’m not likely to say it again.” She glanced at me and gave me a faint, forced smile. “I haven’t been myself these last few days.”
“You don’t owe me any apology.”
Her gaze drifted over my face, and her expression changed. For the first time, a little of the fear I’d seen last night showed through.
“How did this happen?” she said, quietly.
It was a question I had no answer for, yet.
“Fuck,” she breathed, looking away. “You know… I didn’t even remember his last name. I had one semi-date with him. If you could call it that. He joined me and some of my friends for drinks one night after a show. Then he asked me to have dinner with him sometime, but I declined. He seemed cool, for maybe an hour. After that, I didn’t like his vibe, or whatever, and I just stopped noticing him. I don’t even know for sure at what point things went… wrong.” She looked at me. “You have to understand, I welcome people into my world. I’m a DJ. I go to half a dozen parties a week, or more. I’m often hosting those parties. And I just assume everyone’s partying with me. I hope they’re partying with me. I can’t possibly like everyone who walks through the door, but I try. I’ve had thousands of Blairs come and go, and usually, when they’re not wanted, they just go. This one… didn’t.”
She shook her head. She looked like her thoughts were far away now, like she was searching her memory for some clue that she’d missed.
“And now… he tries to break into my house in the middle of the night? Why? I didn’t even remember his last name until the police said it to me.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Summer.” I had this strange urge to take her hand in mine, or something. Comfort her. Reassure her. But touching her was out of the question. So I just said, “No one asks for someone to break into their house.”
Her blue eyes met mine. “I didn’t tell the police that I knew him,” she confessed. “When they arrested him. I just pretended he was a stranger to me.”
“Why?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. I guess… I felt guilty somehow. And scared. Afraid that anything more I told them would complicate things. Maybe they’d recommend I get a restraining order, or I’d have to appear in court or something… and it wouldn’t all just go away like I wanted it to.” She shook her head again. “That sounds so damn lame now. So… cowardly.”
“You’re not a coward, Summer. You were scared. It’s understandable. And you’re safe now. Okay?”
She nodded, like she was still trying to digest that. “Okay.”
“You okay to drive?” I asked her. “I can take over.”
“I’m fine.” She looked me in the eye again, and the resolve I saw there made me settle back in my seat.
“Okay,” I said.
She pulled out into traffic, and neither of us said another word for the rest of the drive back to her place.
When we walked into Summer’s house, she said, “Do you carry a gun?”
I’d barely taken off my shoes and she was studying me, warily.
“Private security professionals aren’t allowed to carry guns in Canada,” I informed her as I slipped off my jacket. “Usually.”
She planted her hands on her hips and frowned at me, watching as I lay my jacket on top of my shoes; I didn’t know where else to put it.
“That is so not what I asked you. I asked you if you carry a gun.”
“Sometimes.”
“Like… when it’s legal for you to do so?”
“Yes. But I’m not carrying one now.”
She made a little Hmmm noise, then shrugged off her jacket. She hung it in the coat closet, but didn’t offer me a hanger.
She sat down on the step up to the living room, and started unzipping her tall, sexy boots. But she was still eying me.
I looked away, pretending to be absorbed in examining the lock on her front door.
“Who do you intend to have in and out of this house, besides Maddox?” she asked me.
“Like I said, he’ll be bringing a guy from his brother’s alarm company. I’ve already checked them out. You can believe me when I say I’m thorough.”
“Uh-huh.”
I looked at her. She’d removed the boots and now stood on the step, looking up at me. Even elevated on the step, she was a little shorter than me, though it put her much closer to my eye level.
I tried not to stare at her pale-blue eyes, but they were pretty damn mesmerizing.
Shit, I needed to get myself together. I couldn’t afford to be getting lost in her eyes every five seconds.
“Anyone else?” she asked.
“I’ll have some of my guys here. Sometimes.”
Usually, on a twenty-four-hour detail, I’d have three guys on the client in rotating