Sweet Possession (Sweet #5)(14)

“I’ll deal,” she said. “I won’t like it. I doubt you’ll like it. But I get it. My record label thinks I’m in danger and they hired you to babysit me. I’m not the idiot you think I am. I have no desire to die at the hands of some lunatic. Or be kidnapped and forced to live in a basement somewhere as a sex slave.”

Connor let out a chuckle. “You have a vivid imagination. That’s good. The more hideous a fate you can imagine if this guy gets his hands on you, the easier you’ll make my job because you’ll stick like glue to me.”

She turned so that their gazes met. “I thought you were supposed to stick to me like glue.”

“That too. If we stick to each other, then we won’t have to worry, now, will we?”

Coming from him, in his sexier-than-sin voice, the innocent words sounded like seduction. She’d never been wooed and seduced in her life and damn if he didn’t make her want to be.

She’d be willing to bet he was one of those rare males who took his time with his lover. Coaxing, pleasuring. Unselfish. She’d bet money he’d give a woman complete and total satisfaction.

Chill bumps danced down her arms, raising the tiny hairs on her skin. She could feel the heat radiating off him and it made her want to burrow against his broad chest and absorb him.

What would it be like to lie in his arms? To have him hold her. Nothing else. Just . . . be.

It was a ridiculous fantasy given the fact she didn’t want to be that close to anyone. The only thing worse than being alone was being one-on-one. Allowing someone to see inside her. To see the truth.

Connor stood, shaking her from her reverie. “You were right about this room. It’s barely bigger than a closet. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be caught dead in anything smaller than a suite. You have so much stuff stacked up in here that you can barely take a piss in the toilet.”

She smiled faintly. “I was supposed to be here for two weeks. I need my stuff. I didn’t bring my tour bus and I don’t have anywhere else to put everything. I gave my crew time off. I’m doing the show with a skeleton band. It’s just a few songs. The rodeo isn’t a full concert and they do the stage.”

“It’s going to be a bitch to move all this stuff,” Connor muttered.

She looked up sharply. “Why are we moving it? Why did you tell the clerk I was checking out tomorrow?”

“Because you are.”

She raised her hands in exasperation. “But why? Where am I going?”

“Someplace safe. No one but Phillip will know and the only reason he will is because he’s making the arrangements.”

She frowned. “But that’s ridiculous. I can’t just fall off the face of the earth. I have things to do.”

He leaned against a stack of luggage and eyed her. “Like?”

“I don’t know. Yet. But I’ll need Trent and R.J. You’ll need them too. They’ve been my personal bodyguards since I began touring.”

“Bodyguards or f**k-buddies?”

She flushed and looked away, and then it infuriated her that she allowed him to shame her.

“If they’re f**king me, then someone else can hardly hurt me,” she taunted.

“If they’re f**king you, they aren’t doing their job,” he said through tight lips. “Their first and only priority is your safety. If they’re focused on you and the next time they can get in your pants, they aren’t watching what’s going on around them.”

She didn’t want to acknowledge that he had a point. Trent and R.J. weren’t around for their security skills. She didn’t even know if they had any prior experience before coming to work for her. They were glorified male prostitutes and the truth of it hit her like a punch to the face.

She paid them. They slept with her—or at least they used to. She wasn’t about to admit to Connor that she hadn’t had sex with them for the last few shows because it would seem too much like she wanted his approval.

Oh, it wasn’t as if she’d hired them for the purpose of sex, but it had dissolved into that and nothing more, so really what were they if not prostitutes?

Nausea swirled in her stomach. When had her life become such a sad mess? When had she become so desperate not to be alone that she paid people to surround her? And then anyone who got too close was quickly shoved as far away from her as possible.

“I can’t fire them. They have a contract,” she said in a low voice.

“They can have their duties reassigned,” Connor said with a shrug. “I don’t give a shit whether you pay them or not. But they aren’t going to be trusted with your safety.”

She closed her eyes, aware of the headache that was intensifying rapidly. She was tired. She hadn’t lied when she’d said she hadn’t slept the night before, and it wasn’t for the reason she’d led Connor to believe.

She’d lain awake in this very room, like she did so many other nights, afraid of monsters from her past, afraid to turn out the lights because she was alone.

Giving her crew vacation time had been a necessity. They were as burned out as she was. But right now, she’d sell her soul to have them with her, surrounding her, to lose herself in the noise and chaos of so many people.

But no, she’d sworn to herself that the next two weeks were going to be a test of her mettle. She was going to step out and face her fears. Even if it killed her.