The Men with the Golden Cuffs (Masters and Mercenaries #2)(19)

She felt her mouth drop open a little. “You looked through my day planner?”

“Oh, yes. And we’re going to upgrade you to a PDA. Really, that day planner thing is a mess. Don’t worry. I’ll have you organized in no time at all. Consider it all part of the service.” His eyes came open. “Don’t hide anything from me, Serena. Jake and I are here to protect you. If that means violating your privacy, I’ll do it, and I won’t blink. You can choose to view it in that fashion or you can treat me like a personal assistant who also happens to know how to kill a man in two point three seconds and not leave a drop of blood. It’s all in your point of view, isn’t it?”

Adam Miles knew how to go for the throat. He might look softer than that caveman currently prowling her living room, but he was no less dangerous.

And she could keep them. For a little while.

Serena climbed into bed, certain she would never be able to sleep. She closed her eyes and for the first time in weeks fell into pleasant dreams.





Chapter Six


Jake punched the button to call the elevator, a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. Serena was quiet, her pretty face a pale white. So very different from the vivacious woman who had woken up and fixed coffee. She’d been smiling this morning, as though her natural vibrancy couldn’t be defeated by anything as inconsequential as two bodyguards in her house.

She’d made a pot of coffee, offered him a cup, and sat down to work, all that soft hair of hers tied in a knot at the top of her head. She’d been happy while she worked. She’d been a little insane. He wondered if she even realized she talked to herself. She’d muttered quietly as she wrote. Jake had found himself watching her, getting caught up in her enthusiasm, wondering exactly what was going on in that head of hers.

The morning had been oddly comfortable.

Until she’d seen her car.

Jake hadn’t even thought about it. He’d assumed she had known about the long scratch.

“While you’re talking to Eve, we’re going to run a few things through our system.” Adam had been the one to hold her while she cried over her car. Jake had held himself apart, preferring to spend his time on the phone with the police. Not preferring, exactly, but he had forced himself to stay away. “After we take a few pictures of the car and check for prints, I promise I’m going to make sure your car gets fixed. And we’ll park it in the garage tonight.”

She sniffled, the sound doing strange things to Jake’s gut. “He’ll just do it again. It’s not really about the car. I mean, it is, but it isn’t.”

Adam reached out and touched her. Damn, Jake envied Adam’s ability to just do what felt good to him. “It symbolizes something, doesn’t it?”

She nodded, proving Adam, as always, was right on target when it came to reading a woman. “It was the first thing I bought after I really started selling books. You have to understand, my husband had divorced me. My parents are dead so I don’t have support there. I had friends who sided with Doyle. They couldn’t believe I would write a book like that. They didn’t actually read it, just saw the cover. My first couple of checks were small. I managed to pay off my portion of Doyle’s debt because, yay, we split that. And then after my fifth book came out, I got a check that was free and clear, and I bought the car of my dreams.”

“It’s a gorgeous car.” Adam smiled at Serena, but his eyes sought out Jake’s. Jake knew it was his cue to say something, anything.

“I like it. It’s got a great engine. 3 liter V6.” Yeah. That sounded good. He was really f*cking smooth.

She turned to him, her eyes finally lighting up a little. “I wasn’t thinking about the engine. I was thinking about the fact that Doyle never let me buy anything but a crappy sedan. We only had the one car. I had to take the bus to work. I had to take the bus everywhere.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. The bus could be dangerous. He would never let his sub take a bus if he wasn’t there to make sure she was all right. And his wife? God, he couldn’t imagine driving off in a car when his wife was forced to take a bus. What the hell kind of man did that?

The elevator finally dinged, and she started to walk in. Adam’s eyes widened in a way that told Jake he wasn’t doing something right. He leaned in.

“Escort her. Treat her like a lady.” Adam’s words were low, meant only for Jake’s ears.

Jake wasn’t exactly sure how he was supposed to escort her to the elevator. But he could make more of an effort. He’d sat up for what had felt like forever looking through her house. He’d found a stack of trade paperbacks she’d written. He’d picked up the first Texas Sweethearts book. He hadn’t put it back down.

Serena wrote ménage, and not some crazy sex book where the woman simply slept with a bunch of men. She wrote about love. She wrote about love between one woman and two men who couldn’t seem to live without each other. For the first time in his life, he’d read a book and seen a piece of himself.

He was dying to ask her if she’d been in the center of a ménage before. He just couldn’t figure out a way to ask the question without seeming like a freak. Or a pervert. He’d already scared the crap out of her. He’d been a little surprised when she’d put a cup of coffee in front of him with a smile on her face.