TooDangeroustoLove Read online

  “But know this, Brandt Fowler.” She turned and pinned him with a pair of eyes that sent a chill up his spine. “Do something like this again, or even remotely similar, and I will remove you from this place so fast your head will spin and put you somewhere that I can keep an eye on you. I don’t have the time to play these games with you.

  “The closer the deal comes to happening, the more attacks there will likely be. Fighting with me will only make it harder for me to keep you alive. Despite what people say, I don’t like taking lives. God help me, I don’t, but I’m good at it.”

  “And you want to keep me?” he asked, boring his eyes into hers. He yearned for her to affirm that for him. Brandt wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her. The look he gave couldn’t hide the double meaning of his words.

  “Alive, yes. That is my job.”

  “You are a cold woman, Raven. That is all you can say, it is your job?” He rose slowly and walked towards her. “Don’t you feel what’s between us?”

  “There is nothing between us.”

  “How can you say that? I can feel it, it’s fighting to escape.” His voice once again dropped to the seductive purr he used to talk to all of his dates.

  “Perhaps your head injury is more severe than I thought. Get some sleep, Brandt Fowler.” She barely even blinked as he cornered her between him and the wall. If he could have put a name to the expression on her face, it would have been boredom.

  “Don’t you want to feel something? It could be great between us.” His whole body was tight for this woman. He wanted to grab her and bury himself deep within her, taste her and learn all her erogenous zones. The more he saw her, the more he wanted her.

  “I’m not your type of woman, Brandt Fowler. And you are crowding me.”

  “How do you know you aren’t my type of woman? I didn’t know I had a type.” Momentarily rebuffed, he took one step back.

  “Of course you do, your kind always does.”

  His kind? “Explain yourself. What do you mean, ‘my kind’?” His voice had a cold, aristocratic undertone to it.

  “Rich, white good-looking men. In the past sixteen days I have seen you out with fourteen different women. Ten of them were blonde, thin and white. Two were brunette, thin and white and two were redheads, also thin and white. Let me see what the similarities are: yes, I am a brunette. That’s it.

  “I have a brain, I use it. I’m not swayed by your eloquent words, I’m not thin and I’m definitely not white. Therefore, from what I have seen about your personality, I am not your type. I grow weary of this conversation.”

  His heart skipped a beat. “Good-looking, you think I am good-looking?” All coldness gone, he obtained a devilishly silky tone with a hint of challenge.

  Brandt moved over to her phone in that way he had, and picked it up. He dialed a number from memory and spoke to the woman that answered. “Sherri, it’s Brandt. Sorry to do this, but I have to cancel our date for next weekend.”

  He paused and cast a look that bordered on possession at the woman whose room he was in. “Because a friend from college is here and I will be catching up with her. Yes, a her. Her name is Raven.”

  Again he halted briefly, but this time his head rose directly to Raven’s and his eyes flared with blatant challenge. “Well actually, we were involved with each other, Sherri, and to be honest I’m hoping we will be able to pick it back up where we left off. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her until she showed up.

  “Perhaps even take it a step further.” A wicked grin crossed his lips. “I think my wild days are over. Raven is a woman like no other. I see myself marrying her.”

  * * * *

  By nothing less than the grace of God did Raven remain stone-faced. What the hell was he trying to do? And why did those words triple the speed of her heart? Conceivably it was another challenge. Well, she liked them—hell, she reveled in challenges. That was one of the reasons she was stuck in this house protecting this man. A challenge.

  Was she still the best?

  Hell yes, she was.

  It would be interesting to see what this man was willing to do. She had never really flirted with—much less dated, even if it would just be a pretense—a man like him before. But this gave her an excuse to touch him. Yum.

  Her sharp mind crunched the numbers and gave her an equation she liked. He would rue the day he set out to test her mettle.

  She sat down and slapped her Glock on the table next to her as she looked unflinchingly at the onyx-haired man. She gave absolutely no indication of what plans were cruising around in her head. Brandt invited Sherri to come over in a few days before the party and meet Raven before he hung up.

  “Well now, look at that. Apparently, you were wrong. We were involved and, since there is still that spark between us, we will get to explore our feelings for one another a little more.”

  His male ego had been tweaked.

  His frosty eyes were full of friendly fire as they stared at her face, hoping for any kind of expression. He was disappointed again, for she barely blinked. “Apparently I was. Good night, Brandt Fowler.”

  He didn’t respond to her subtle hint for him to leave. “You know, in school I had a nickname. If we were such good friends don’t you think you should call me by it?”

  “You’re right. What was it? Stud? Jock? Superman? Spiderman? Jackass?” Her words teased.

  He smiled, showing his perfectly straight white teeth. “Careful, Raven, I might think you were beginning to joke with me. My nickname was. . .”

  “Ice. Your nickname was Ice.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I know all about you, Brandt Fowler.”

  “What is my middle name?” He sat down in a chair across from her and zeroed in on her black gun.

  “What is the point of this?” She did, however, reach out one slim hand and move her gun out of his line of sight.

  “I want to know just how much you know about me.”

  “It’s late. I have some things to clean up.” That was the truth, she had to leave.

  “So, you really don’t know anything about me then, do you?”

  He goaded her and, against her better judgment, she responded.

  This man—this, handsome heart-stopping man—got her to forget her own rules. Remain distant. Aloof. Keep to yourself. All that went right out the window. She’d watched him over the past two weeks and admired his work ethic, he was only an ass around his father. To those he worked with, a completely different man emerged, one she respected, and she had begun to fall for him.

  “Your name is Brandt Owens Fowler. You’re thirty-five years old. Went to college at Stanford and majored in accounting. Took lots of architecture classes to offset the boredom you felt with accounting. Your father has been back in your life for four years now and the two of you seem to disagree on everything. He came back to find you at your mother’s funeral.”

  He stiffened but she didn’t stop. He’d challenged this out of her.

  “You want nothing that he has to offer you and it took a lot for you to come back to this place to live. You work construction and love it. This is pointless, everything that you have done over the past thirty-five years I know about. I know how old you were when you were potty trained, where you went to preschool. What do you hope to gain from this?”

  His gaze narrowed. “How do you know so much about me?”

  “I read the file.” She took a deep breath, trying to find something nice to say. “I don’t care about your past; my job is to keep you alive so you can have a future. I just want to do my job. Do it and go home. I’m sorry that I am disrupting your life; believe me, I don’t want to.”

  “It must be lonely for you.”

  “My life is no matter.” Raven’s cell phone rang and she answered it on the second ring. “Ready? Be there soon.” She ended the call and looked at the man before her. He was so ruggedly handsome. Even after what he had gone through tonight, he still made her pulse go all wonky.r />
  Not the threat of danger at the restaurant, no. All it took was this man’s pale blue eyes staring at her to make her heart pound and her breathing irregular.

  Chapter Three

  “Who was that?” He didn’t want her going to some other man. The thought of her being his was one he liked.

  “I already told you I had some things to attend.” She stood and walked into her large closet. When she returned she was clad in solid black leather—pants, boots, and a black tank top with a black leather jacket over it.

  Raven picked up her gun, checked it and slipped it in the back of her tight pants. His mouth had gone dry and parts of his body had way more blood in them than others.

  “Stay inside for the rest of the night, Brandt Fowler. I will be sorely upset if I return to find you gone.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She picked up a shiny black helmet as she walked to the door and peered out. “Damn, your butler is just too damn nosy. I have to go find out about the guys that attacked you tonight. And smooth over the mess.”

  “I will go with you.” He rose and stopped as she looked at him.

  “No.” She walked to her laptop and typed a few things and studied the screen. He took in the ease with which she moved in the leather outfit and the heeled boots she wore.

  “Look, I can help.” Brandt didn’t want her to go, didn’t want to be without her right now.

  “You want to help? Stay here.” He began to argue and she cut him off, “I mean here in the room. Your butler is too interested in where you go and what we do. If I leave he will suspect something. Stay in this room and maybe he will think we are spending the night together.”

  She silently slid open the balcony door. With a quick salute to him she jumped. Brandt ran out there but she was gone.

  * * * *

  Commander Morgan sat in the dark waiting for her. As she entered the shack, took off her helmet, and shook her head, he looked up.

  “How bad is it?” She placed her helmet on a nearby chair.

  “Not bad. We got what we needed from him. How are you doing?”

  “I’m surviving. Mr. Fowler and I have come to an understanding of sorts.”

  A smile cracked the commander’s face. “What is that?”

  She cocked an eyebrow at his reaction. “He behaves and is allowed to live here. Any more misbehaving and I will take him somewhere I can keep an eye on him.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “I don’t.” Well, that was one whopper of a lie. That man had invaded her dreams.

  “Where is he right now?”

  “In my room, pretending that we are sleeping together.” The words were spoken in a bland tone, so Raven. Yet, on the inside, she was eagerly looking forward to his reaction. He didn’t disappoint.

  The commander sputtered, “What? What did you say?”

  “You heard me. I don’t like the butler. Check on him. I have to go. Keep me informed.”

  “Be careful, Raven.”

  “I always am.”

  “Stay safe,” he said automatically.

  “Stay alive,” came her unthinking response to his statement. She nodded once before slipping the helmet back on her head and merging once again with the darkness.

  * * * *

  Brandt was making himself at home in her room. He crawled onto the side of the king-sized bed that he knew she used, for it smelled like peaches.

  Dressed only in his boxers, he fell asleep. He woke to a knock on the door. He slid out of bed and walked to the door to crack it open. Butters stood there and seemed surprised to see him standing before him in the door, his hair tousled and yawning with sleepiness.

  “Sorry, sir. I was looking for Ms. Dare.”

  “She is sleeping right now, Butters. We both were.” That would be so nice if it were true. “Why do you need to see her so late?” Why would the butler come to her room in the middle of the night? Why was he jealous of that thought and the picture it created?

  “I just had a question for her.” The man could barely contain his disgust at seeing Brandt in Raven’s bedroom.

  “Well, she is not awake, so maybe you should ask her in the morning.”

  “It is pretty important, sir.” The man pressed hard.

  A light touch at the base of his spine startled Brandt. It was Raven, but it wasn’t. She wore, barely, a floral silk robe. It was off her shoulders, exposing the smooth skin he loved so much; she had it clutched in her hands by her full breasts. The material stopped above her knees, showing off her long, toned legs.

  Her hair was free and looked tousled. In fact, she looked tousled. She appeared to have been pleasured, often and thoroughly. Eyes were heavy and sated as she leaned against Brandt, spreading flames of desire where they touched, and looked at the butler. Her naturally husky voice woke every nerve in Brandt’s body. “What is going on here? Oh, hello, Butters. Is something wrong?”

  “I just wanted . . . wanted to tell you that, well, we thought someone had taken your bike. Then we thought maybe it was you, but since you are obviously here then maybe I should go see if it’s alright.” The man was obviously surprised to see her there.

  “I am sure it couldn’t have been my bike. The keys are right here in my room, and if it is touched in the slightest without first deactivating the alarm then we would be hearing a very loud noise. But thank you for your concern. Come back to bed, Brandt, we aren’t done yet.”

  Those words set a flood of blood through his body to settle in the lower regions. How he wished the words were true. She sent the dour-faced butler a nod and shut the door in his face.

  Raven headed for her computer and pushed some keys on it, and was given a bird’s eye view of the outside of her bedroom door. The butler stood there still, but now he was on a phone. Brandt watched over her shoulder—well, more like looked at her scantily clad body. Damn, but she was fine.

  “Where did you come from? And what is all this?” he asked after she watched the butler walk off down the hall.

  Without an answer, she hit a few more buttons, and the screen went to a screen saver. Raven walked back out to the balcony and gathered her leather jacket and helmet.

  “Thank you for your help. You can go back to your room now.”

  Brandt was having a hard time focusing on anything but the way that silk floated around her body. The clothes she wore during the day just didn’t do her justice.

  The robe was pale ivory with pink and purple flowers on it. The color offset her skin in a magnificent way. He had never been so jealous of an article of clothing before. Brandt almost lost control of his ability to behave himself. Never had he experienced need so great as he did with her.

  For some reason this woman had reached out and intertwined herself into his body. Into his soul. Made him want to discover every inch of her luscious body. Show her what pleasure was. He wanted to fall asleep with her in his arms and wake the same way.

  “Perhaps we should keep up the appearance.” His own voice was lower than usual as he tried to speak coherently.

  “Then you should go. I’ve never seen you stay the whole night with a woman. You tried to pretend but you always left. Don’t forget, I was there.” She dropped the robe and he saw she was dressed in black shorts and her tank top was pulled off her shoulders, leaving them bare. Her toned legs were works of art and they made his tongue sneak out and lick his lips. He wanted her so badly it hurt.

  “But Butters has already seen me here.”

  “Uh huh. So stay if you wish, Brandt Fowler. But you will be sleeping on the couch for I will not share a bed with you.”

  “It is a king-size bed. Surely we can share it,” he coaxed. “Surely a woman who tackles armed men without hesitation isn’t afraid of sharing a bed with me.”

  “You stay on your half and I will stay on mine.”

  Raven missed the arrogant smile that crossed his chiseled features at her statement.

  * * * *

  When the early
morning Kentucky sun reached through the large windows into the peach and blue room, it touched the couple that lay sleeping. Together. Sometime during the night they had spooned. Brandt lay on his side with one strong tanned arm around the bared taut stomach of the woman settled into the curve of his body.

  Raven’s butt was tucked into the groin of the man behind her. Her legs were trapped by his and her arms resting under her chin, with Brandt’s second arm stretched under her neck and fingers twisted in her thick hair.

  Her back was pressed tight against his broad chest. They both slept soundly as if they had been sleeping together like that for years.

  Raven’s internal clock went off and she transgressed from sleep to immediately awake, but her body stayed still as she registered the situation.

  As fast as she could disentangle herself from the man that shared her mattress, she slid out of bed and headed for the shower. By the time she returned dressed he was gone. There was no sign of him at all in her room, only the impression that his head had made on the pillow.

  Her computer told her she had a message. No time was allowed to dwell on the man she had slept with, or the fact that she actually felt rested. Sitting down in front of her top of the line laptop, she began to work. She emailed all she could to the commander and gave more of her plans to him so he could make the arrangements for her. With the party coming up, she needed as much information on the people coming that she could get.

  She downloaded and read file after file on the expected attendees, putting all the acquired information in her head. Raven barely saw or spoke to Brandt as she watched over him day to day. For once, though, he did not go out at night, choosing instead to stay home. Working out in the gym or something like that.

  She always felt his eyes on her and the tension, the sexual tension, between them was increasing. His looks got hotter and more primal as he stared at her. Lord, how she wanted him. It was easy for all to know he wanted her as well. But she kept her distance. Nothing close or personal.