Colton Family Bodyguard, page 10
She let him take over and began dressing two Barbie dolls.
“This is Angie,” Evie said, showing him the doll dressed in a sparkly dress.
“She’s pretty, like you.”
Evie beamed up at him before going back to her dolls. He finished arranging furniture and got out of her way.
She instantly dove into playtime, speaking in a low voice, pretending the dolls were talking about going to their new house.
He left her to it and went to the kitchen, where Hazel was cleaning up after a day of cooking. “What’s for dinner?”
“Spaghetti.”
“Nothing too fancy. Too bad.” He dipped his finger into the sauce for a taste.
She swatted the top of his hand. “Raised the way you must have been, you didn’t spend much time in a kitchen.”
They’d had servants to do the cooking and serving. “Your cooking is irresistible.” He could get accustomed to this, a delicious meal every day...and a beautiful woman by his side.
That thought came unbidden. She was a beautiful woman, no denying that. And he could get accustomed to a delicious meal every day. What troubled him was much more than how those two things appealed to him. The idea of living with them made him feel good. Too good.
“Why don’t you set the table?” Hazel asked.
Callum did so, enjoying the sense of being part of a family unit. Hazel put food on the table and had to force Evie away from the dollhouse. They all sat together, something he hadn’t often done with his family growing up. The Coltons had formal gatherings and sat together on holidays. He and his siblings had tremendous respect and love for one another, but Callum had drifted apart from them after Annabel passed. Since he’d been back in town, he had grown closer to Marlowe and Bowie. And he couldn’t imagine Ace could ever have shot their father...
He ate dinner without talking, because he feared he could not survive the cost to his heart. Despite all his efforts to steer clear of women with children, he was falling headfirst into a powerfully moving relationship with Hazel and Evie. Where had all his resolve gone?
* * *
Hazel tucked Evie in to the sound of Callum cleaning the kitchen. She hadn’t missed his joy in seeing Evie’s excitement over receiving the extravagant gift. Sharing dinner tonight had been especially poignant. He genuinely adored Evie. He looked at her as though they had been a family for years. When he let his guard down—unaware or not—he was a phenomenal man. Evie could look up to someone like him.
That terrified Hazel.
She had to know more about him before they sank into a lovestruck quicksand.
“I’d like a glass of wine before we turn in,” she said. “You?”
A few seconds passed before he said a tentative, “Sure.”
After she had two glasses on the counter, she took out a chardonnay from the cooler and found an opener. Manly hands took over from behind her. Putting her hands on the counter, she watched him open the bottle, feeling his arms on each side of her.
After he uncaged her with one arm, she rolled to lean on her lower back against the counter.
He handed her a glass.
Taking it, she said, “Princesses all over the world must have cast a spell on you.”
“I’ve protected many princesses.”
His deep, chocolaty voice and intimate tone riveted her. “You have? Like who?”
“They were from Morocco, Spain, Japan and Sweden. Most of them are repeat clients and usually need me when they travel.”
Which must be often. He lived such a glamorous life. He came from a wealthy and prominent family and he protected affluent people. But then, he must be used to that way of life.
He was so different from the kind of man she had envisioned for herself after Ed ran off. She couldn’t forget the promise she had made. Up until Ed, she had left her fate to chance, believing that everything happened for a reason and that the right man would come along naturally. Well, Ed had come along naturally, all right, but he’d turned out to be all wrong. Nothing should be left to chance. Maybe some things happened for a reason, but finding a good man was not one of them.
After sipping some wine, she asked, “What made you decide to become a bodyguard?”
He took a moment before he answered. “I was on a mission in Ukraine and noticed two men waiting outside of an apartment building. A young woman came out and they abducted her. I followed them. Watched them force her out of the vehicle and into a house. They had her blindfolded and tied.”
Hazel listened with increasing horror.
“I went to the door and knocked. One of them answered and I gave him a throat strike.” He gestured with his hand, putting his fingers to her throat. “I heard the girl screaming down the hall and the other man yelling for her to shut up. I heard him hit her and tell her he’d kill her if she didn’t be quiet. By then I was at the doorway. He had already torn her shirt and was trying to remove her jeans. He saw me and stopped and asked who the hell I was. I told him I would be the last person he’d ever see alive if he didn’t get off the girl.” He stopped as though back in the scene.
“What happened?” she asked.
“He got off her and lunged for his gun. I threw it out of reach and gave him a good beating. Just before I knocked him unconscious, I told him if he ever hurt another woman again I’d come back and finish him off.” He drank some wine.
“Then what?”
“I called the police and told them what happened. The two were arrested and sent to prison.”
“What happened with the girl?” Had she been the woman he had lost?
He shrugged. “She thanked me and I never saw her again. That was my last mission before my service ended and I left the navy.”
Callum had done a very heroic thing and that woman had to have been so grateful. If that had happened to Hazel, she would have wanted to find the man who saved her from rape and possibly murder, to thank him when she wasn’t traumatized.
Looking at him and his handsome face and messy hair and into his blue eyes, she fell for him even more. Although she tried to ward the feeling off, the warmth mushroomed and gave her a tickle in her stomach.
“When I returned to the States, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. All I knew was I didn’t want to work at a corporation, especially Colton Oil.”
Hazel hadn’t expected him to continue talking, but welcomed it.
“Being a SEAL taught me how to fight and use guns and do both really well. That was my skill set. I ran into an old friend who told me about Executive Protection and put me in touch with the CEO.”
“And the rest, as they say, is history,” she said, admiring his tall, muscular frame and his SEAL background that he put to good use. She sipped wine and put down her glass on the kitchen counter.
“A little more history than I like,” he said.
Could it be he’d talk about the woman he had lost?
“I almost stopped working for Executive Protection a year after I joined.”
“Because of her?” she asked quietly.
He nodded, the mood turning darker. Putting his glass beside hers, he walked into the living room and stopped before the windows.
Hazel followed, standing beside him and resting her hand on his forearm, urging him to face her.
He did.
“Tell me, Callum.” It would help him if he talked about it. And since she was losing her fight not to fall madly in love with him, her best interest was to help him help himself.
“I was protecting a witness in the trial of a drug dealer who murdered someone,” he said. “I did my job and saw that the witness made it to court, testified and sent the dealer to prison.” He stopped.
Hazel could see he had come to the most difficult part. She stepped closer and put her hands on his impressive chest, encouraging him without words. The painful storm in his eyes eased a little.
“No one knew he wasn’t just any dealer. He was high level and dangerous, with ties to one of Mexico’s most notorious cartels. Living in the shadows of the underworld. I was seeing Annabel during the trial. She lived in the city where we met. The dealer must have found out. She was run off the road and killed.”
Hazel felt his pain, shared it and wished she could take it away.
“I protected the witness but I couldn’t protect Annabel or our unborn child,” he said, grinding out the words with deep and barely leashed anger.
“Listen to me, Callum.” Hazel had to reach him now. He was vulnerable. “You didn’t know he would send someone to kill her. It is not your fault.”
“The person who ran her off the road was never found. I tried, but...”
Hazel touched both sides of his face. “You didn’t kill her. The drug dealer did.”
“He did it to get even with me. To make me pay.”
“It is not your fault.” She stopped him from turning away. “I know people say that too much, but it’s true, Callum. An evil man killed her, not you.”
“I vowed to never protect women and children after that.”
Hazel slid her hands to his shoulders. “But you protected princesses.”
“That was different.”
“How?” She watched him ponder that. Princesses were women. Some of them had to have kids.
“I don’t know. They didn’t make me think about Annabel.”
She had a question she dreaded to ask because she was pretty sure she’d hate the answer. “Do I make you think about Annabel?”
“You make me have to try very hard not to. You and Evie both.”
Well, that was better than an all-out yes. “You need to confront your grief, Callum. Have you talked with Annabel’s family?”
“Not since the funeral.”
“Maybe you should. It might give you closure.”
“They blame me.”
“That’s what they said? Are you sure they really blame you? Any parent would be distraught over losing their child. Have they tried to contact you?”
“They invited me to a gathering they planned on the one-year anniversary of her death, but I didn’t go. Even if I’d wanted to, I was out of the country. I didn’t get the invitation until after the memorial.”
“Do they know about the baby?” she asked.
“Yes. Annabel told them.”
“And no one in your family knew you went to her funeral?”
He shook his head. “At the time all I thought about was getting away.”
He had submerged himself in work, traveling all over the world, never taking a break to be with family or friends. What a lonely existence. And the burden he had carried with him must have been suffocating at times. Hazel couldn’t believe he hadn’t told anyone about the baby. Well, maybe she could. He hadn’t been able to talk about them.
Until now. With her.
Hazel became aware of his hands on her hips. At some point during their exchange he’d placed them there. Her body pressed against his. Her gaze melded with his, seeing into him without barriers. He’d opened himself to her and their connection blossomed.
“Why me?” she asked, her voice low with rising desire.
“I wish I knew.” He lowered his head and kissed her. His lips touched hers, featherlight, brushing over them and then taking her mouth for an intimate mating.
After he had poured out his heart to her, Hazel felt secure in giving herself to him. Everything.
Chapter 7
Hazel looked up at Callum when he broke from another impassioned kiss. His eyes burned with lust, fueled by the significance of what he had confided, as though freed. She reveled in the deep meaning in his next kiss, and was glad she had put Evie to bed. She had the night with Callum. With his arms around her back, she looped hers over his shoulders.
He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around him as he carried her to his room, kissing all the way to the bed.
Hazel had to fight for a few seconds of clarity before this continued.
“Callum, I’m not on the Pill.”
He rose above her, looking intently into her eyes. She didn’t want him to stop but they had to behave like adults.
“I don’t have anything, either. I have something at home but I didn’t bring it.”
Neither one of them had thought they’d end up in the same bed, especially this soon. She did some quick calculations.
“I just had my period. We should be safe.”
She spent a long moment wavering between temptation and logic. He had to be thinking the same thing. What if she got pregnant? How would she feel about that? Was this worth the risk?
Her heart charged forward with an affirmative while her brain cautioned to slow this down. Lying here like this, with him hovering over her and her hands on his hard chest and the vision of his face, so manly and full of desire, temptation hummed into a roar. She could feel his member against her. Kissing had made her hot; this wasn’t lessening the effect.
“Are you sure?”
He wasn’t asking if she was sure about the timing. He asked if she was sure if she wanted to take this risk.
“Are you?”
He lowered his mouth to hers for a soft kiss. “I asked you first.”
“I’m sure.” Especially now that he had resumed kissing her.
“Me, too.” He kissed her harder, lowering his body onto hers and sending lightning bolts of sensation through her.
She sank her fingers into his thick hair and moaned. In response to that sound, he moved against her, teasing, hinting at what would come.
Sliding her hands down to his T-shirt, she lifted the hem. He moved back and removed the shirt the rest of the way, sending it sailing to the floor while his eyes devoured the sight of her. The blue sundress dipped modestly low in the front, but there was enough cleavage to show off.
He lifted the dress up and she sat up as he pulled it over her head and dropped it on top of his shirt. His eyes took their fill of her naked breasts before he came down and sampled one in his mouth, flicking the nipple while his hand ran over the other breast.
Eager to see him, she tugged at his jeans’ button. He withdrew and helped her, having to get up to take them off. Convenient that they were both already barefoot. She kicked off her underwear and waited for him to climb back on top of her. She was traditional that way. She loved the feel of a man’s weight on her before he entered. While that was her favorite position, it most certainly wasn’t the only one she enjoyed.
Callum crawled over her and slowly lowered his body onto hers. A delicious shiver coursed through her. He kissed her softly for endless moments before kneeing her legs apart. She was ready to give herself to him, more ready than she had been for any man in a long time.
He guided himself to her and slowly pushed into her, filling her deliciously. The initial friction against her sensitive spot drove her to near orgasm.
“Wait. Wait,” she rasped.
He stilled above her, his breathing faster and his eyes ablaze.
Hazel dug her head into the pillow against unbearable pleasure. She didn’t want her first orgasm to end so quickly. But he turned her on so incredibly much!
Callum groaned. “I can barely hold still when you look so sexy and beautiful.” He withdrew and thrust into her and then repeated the action over and over, moving her body on the bed and sending tingles of ecstasy radiating from her abdomen all the way out to her limbs.
She bit back a cry as she came on an explosion of orgasmic fireworks. He groaned again and slowed as he experienced his own release.
Then he put his head beside hers, each of them catching their breath.
“That was incredible,” he said next to her ear.
“Like the Kentucky Derby, except the most exciting two minutes in sex.”
He chuckled, then rolled off her to prop his head on his hand. “Are you usually this responsive?”
“No. Ed had to work at it for at least fifteen.” Suddenly disturbed by that revelation, Hazel averted her eyes from Callum. What was different about Callum?
After a moment, she turned her head and saw his thoughts had taken a sober turn as well. Not wanting this moment or the beauty of what had just transpired to fade yet, she rolled onto her side with her back to him.
“We can at least spoon for a while, can’t we?” she asked.
After a few brief seconds, he moved closer and said above her ear, “Yes.”
The feel of him against her calmed her and enveloped her in warmth. When his hand caressed her arm and he planted a soft kiss on her cheek, she knew he had fallen under the same spell, the spell that had landed them in bed together. Tomorrow would bring whatever it brought.
* * *
Callum ordered room service the next morning. Hazel had gotten up after him and gone into her room before Evie woke. Now Evie was busy with her dollhouse and Hazel was finishing getting ready. He’d heard her shower turn off a few minutes ago.
When he had first awakened to Hazel’s sleeping face on the same pillow as his, he had been overcome with affection and arousal. Her ankle was over his calf. Her plump breasts were molded into tempting mounds above the sheet and blanket. He could start every morning like that.
And that was precisely the thought that had sent him careening back to reality. Annabel’s face rushed forth. He didn’t feel guilty or that he had betrayed her. It had been too long since she had died. It was more of a threatening feeling. He was in danger of welcoming a woman and her five-year-old girl into his life. He had failed at protecting the last mother and daughter he had been involved with. Did he want to take that risk? No. At least not now. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for that.
