I don’t bother to hide a smile whatsoever. Maybe this is my victory after all. “Score one for the farmer girl.”

  Banks shakes his head, like not so fast. “I’m not sure you won. Since you actually wanted to shake me today but didn’t.”

  But he’s wrong there. “No. I didn’t entirely want that.”

  “You weren’t trying to shake me by taking me on a girlie outing?”

  “I was trying to rise to the challenge,” I say with a confident lift of my chin. But I don’t add I may have met my match.

  “Have you ever not risen to the challenge?”

  I tap my chin. “My friend Chloe dared me to bungee jump, so I did it once to prove I could do it. So I’d have to say no. Also, it was fun.”

  Smiling, he leans back in the chair as the tech pats his feet dry. “You,” he begins, then shakes his head, as if that’s all he can say—just you. But it’s said with affection, exasperation, and honestly, a little unchecked desire.

  Like how I feel.

  When we leave the shop a little later, a pretty woman with sleek chestnut hair nearly bumps into me on the street.

  She’s not a photog though.

  It’s Bridget. Then, a redhead knocks into me. Chloe.

  Gee, it’s almost as if they’re stalking me since they knew I’d be here at this time. “Fancy meeting you here,” I say.

  Bridget says, faux innocently, “This must be your hot bodyguard.”

  The look on Banks’s face is pure satisfaction.

  I want to kill my friends.

  20

  HOT BODYGUARD MOVES

  RIPLEY

  Since I did serve up the details of my whereabouts with them this morning, I only have myself to blame for their appearance. Still, I can’t be responsible for the way I introduce them. “This is Bridget. She’s Chief Troublemaker,” I say, squeezing her shoulder so hard. Then turning to Chloe and giving her the same treatment. “And Chloe is Number One Pain in the Ass.”

  Chloe beams, evidently loving the nickname. “What are friends for?” Chloe says, then extends a hand.

  Banks shakes it. “Nice to meet you, Chloe,” he says, then offers a hand to Bridget. “Pleased to meet you too, Bridget. I’ve heard so much about both of you.”

  “I swear none of what she says is true,” Bridget says, pointing to me after she lets go of his hand. “Ripley was the one who Saran Wrapped Scott Nelson’s truck back in twelfth grade.”

  I snap my gaze to her. “Dude! That was you, Bridge!”

  Chloe bounces on her pink Converse-clad toes. “And Ripley was the one who insisted, too, that we remove the door to the science lab and hide it in the boys’ locker room.”

  “Again, not me. That one was you,” I point out. “Also, I stopped you from doing that, Chloe.”

  She frowns. “I know. I’m still sad about it.”

  After scanning behind us, then across the street, Banks smiles her way. “Tell me more. What was Ripley like in high school, and do you have pics?”

  “Of course,” Bridget says, then digs into her pants pocket for her phone. I slap her hand away.

  “Anyway, as I was saying, we need to go,” I say tightly, then try to send them mind messages to please leave because I can only imagine what they’re going to reveal about me next. Photos of me in braces. That video they took when I tripped on my own sneakers after scoring a goal in a soccer game in twelfth grade. My prom hairstyle. (Sadly I was not able to make retro 80s hair come back in.)

  But Chloe’s brain receiver must be on the fritz since she waves off my protest, saying to Banks, “We have lots of time to hear more about all your hot bodyguarding and to show you Ripley’s hairstyles through the years.”

  “I am going to Saran Wrap your car,” I hiss out at her.

  Chloe grins evilly. “And please take the passenger door off while you’re at it. It’s dented so maybe I can claim it was stolen and get a new door.”

  “And we really need to go, because with friends like these…” I say, exasperated.

  If Banks was enjoying himself before, he’s having the time of his life now, his amused gaze ping-ponging between my two friends.

  They’re not even close to done since Bridget clears her throat. “But don’t leave until you two share all the on-the-job stories of how this hot-bodyguarding thing works. Don’t skimp on a single detail, please.” Bridget slides close to me. Actually, it’s more like she plasters her body to my left side while Chloe wedges herself to my right. What the hell are they up to?

  They’re sandwiching me as Bridget looks to Banks, saying, “Like, for instance, what would you do if her two besties crowded her on the street and you needed to tug her close to keep her safe?”

  I blink, and then I’m looking at the sky. In no time, Banks has roped one big arm around my back, the other around my hamstrings, and he’s lifted me up. He carries me in his arms down the street away from the salon and them.

  Bridget and Chloe squeal and clap.

  “Again! Do it again,” Chloe calls out as we go.

  “Best show ever,” Bridget hoots.

  From all the way across the street, Noah at The Slippery Dipper has stepped out of his shop and is shouting his approval, “Nice move, man.”

  Even Salma has a front-row ticket to the show. She’s outside the market, laughing at my friends’ antics.

  “You two are in so much trouble,” I shout at them as Banks grips me tighter, then turns down the alley behind the salon.

  He doesn’t set me down. I’m still in his arms, his warm skin against my bare legs in my shorts. He doesn’t need to be carrying me. There was no real threat. There weren’t even any photographers around. None that I saw at least, and I suspect Banks didn’t either since he was scanning the street while my friends were giving me a hard time. And yet, he’s still holding me close, striding down the alley, arms wrapped around me like he won’t let go anytime soon.

  I don’t protest either. I let him carry me because I like it. Because his arms feel so good wrapped around me. Because his chest is a strong, safe place, and I can feel his heart beating against my shoulder. Because his arms anchor me to him, almost, almost like he wants me close. When we’re several feet away from the street, he finally sets me down, away from them, away from everyone.

  With my flip-flopped, freshly pedicured feet on the ground, I smooth a hand over my shirt. Try to collect my thoughts. My racing pulse too. It takes a few seconds before I ask, “Were you just…flexing?”

  “Maybe I like challenges,” he says.

  “I knew that about you.”

  “And maybe I liked that challenge.” His deep, dark eyes don’t look away.

  My pulse skitters. “Did you?”

  “It was a little,” he says, then takes his time before he adds, “irresistible.”

  He makes no move to leave. He stays a foot away, his fists clenched like he’s holding back, his eyes locked on me.

  Maybe I’m reading something into nothing, but it sure feels like he’s saying I’m irresistible. In this moment, I almost feel that way. It’s the opposite of how I felt when I left the hotel the night I met him. I felt rejected then. I feel craved now. For a few tantalizing seconds, I’m holding my breath, hoping he’s going to kiss me in an alley behind the nail salon in my hometown.

  The sound of a door opening breaks the moment. Someone who works at the salon heads outside, then tosses a bag of trash into a can.

  It’s enough to send us both back to the street where Chloe and Bridget are waiting, like they’ve just exited their new favorite theatrical production—the Interactive Wind-Up Ripley Show.

  “Dude, that is my new favorite thing ever,” Chloe says to Banks.

  “Glad to help,” Banks says, then the corner of his lips curves up. “It’s only one of my many hot bodyguard services, isn’t it, Ripley?” He turns to me, eyes glinting, the delight in them reappearing.

  The joke’s on me. But considering how much I liked him carrying me for a whole block, maybe it’s on them too. Trouble is I’m also pretty sure I finally like having a hot bodyguard, and that’s a whole other problem.

  One that weighs on me as we head to my car, but then I stop in my tracks after a few feet, remembering a return text that landed on my phone during the pedicure. “Chloe!” I shout.

  She turns around.

  “Sheriff Simmon said she’d love some lessons. Her new dog is a toy guarder.”

  Chloe’s eyes pop. “You’re the best, and I won’t show anyone your 80s phase now.”

  I roll my eyes, and we leave.

  On the drive back to the farm as the sun dips lower in the afternoon sky, I’m stuck on something—how the man’s always a step ahead.

  I’m replaying all the moments. Like when he picked me up in a flash, like it didn’t even faze him. But before then, he didn’t flinch either when I took him for the pedicure. He went along with it, even though he’d never had one. The day before, he anticipated I’d try to ride off on my bike, and he was ready first thing in the morning with a bike of his own.

  He doesn’t break, and I’m dying to know why. As he slows to a stop at the last light downtown, I turn to him, blurting out, “How are you so unflappable?”

  He looks my way. “How are you so on top of everything?”

  “You think I’m on top of everything?” I ask, a little surprised he’s turned my question around.

  “I do. You take care of everyone and everything. Like when you talked to Ramona yesterday. Like how you take care of your sister. Like helping Chloe with the dog-lesson thing.”

  “I guess it’s just…my job.”

  “Same for me,” he says as the light changes and he taps the gas.

  “But it’s part of who you are,” I say, curious, so damn curious to know more about him.

  He shoots me a look. “Same for you, Ripley. It’s not just the job. It’s who you are.”

  There he goes again, deflecting. I turn to the window, twirling a strand of hair.

  But Banks sighs, then says, “When my mom left my dad, it was a whole fucking mess, Ripley.” I turn back, my attention only on him. “I had to be…steady.”

  I wasn’t expecting that kind of admission from him. “For them?” I ask gently.

  “Yeah. Things were hard for Mom. Real hard for a while. Someone had to step up,” he says, swallowing roughly.

  My throat tightens with emotions. I feel deeply for the younger Banks, and I feel like I understand so much more of him. “Like, you looked out for her and your sister?”

  He nods. “I did. Still do. Can’t help myself.”

  “It was good they had you then and now,” I say, without knowing the details.

  “I’m glad I had them. So, yeah, I guess it’s in my nature to be unflappable, but also…” He purses his lips, his brow furrowing. He goes quiet as he turns down another road, a quiet one that winds past a small chicken farm, then a pasture with horses. We’re cruising past patches of land, hemmed in by white fences and wide-open skies before he finishes the thought: “I have to be.”

  “To do your job?”

  “Yes. But I have to be unflappable with you. I need to be professional with you, Ripley.” There’s no teasing in his tone this time.

  He’s all business, almost like he’s issuing a directive. Drawing a line in the sand.

  “Well, you’re good at it, Banks. I can’t get you to break,” I say, injecting a little levity into the conversation. “And trust me, I’m trying.”

  “I know you are,” he says, then his jaw ticks. He rolls his lips together, and I swear there’s some battle going on in his head. Then, with his hands firmly gripping the wheel, he steals a glance my way. “But maybe you didn’t try the right thing to get me to break.”

  “I didn’t?” I ask carefully, trying to figure out where he’s going.

  He shakes his head. “Maybe if you did then I wouldn’t be so unflappable.”

  Another stolen glance. This time with heat in his eyes. I’m not sure we’re talking about our game of chicken anymore.

  Or maybe that’s all we’re talking about, so I push a little more. He’s the one who suggested I’m irresistible. He’s the one who said he remembers everything from that night we met. He’s the one, too, who said he’d be ready for my next dare.

  I’m not even sure if I’m daring him. But I am sure I’m goading him as I say, “If you hadn’t run that night, there’s no way you’d be acting so professional now.”

  “You think so?”

  “I sure do.” It comes out flirty on purpose.

  There’s a heated pause even as he drives. An electrical charge sparking between us. Then, a challenge of his own as he says, “Try me, sweetheart.”

  My pulse speeds up. With excitement. With danger. “What do you mean?”

  “This,” he bites out, brusquely. He pulls over to the side of the road, cuts the engine, and says, “You won.”

  He curls a hand around my head and kisses the breath out of me.

  21

  SEEMED LIKE A BAD IDEA AT THE TIME

  BANKS

  There are bad ideas and then there are spectacularly bad ideas. This would be the latter—messing around with a client I promised to protect—and yet I can’t find it in me to stop.

  Ripley tastes too good. Smells too intoxicating. Responds too temptingly. Her lips part the second I seal my mouth to hers. She invites my kiss, and I take everything she offers on the side of a quiet road in her pickup truck.

  I travel my hand up the back of her neck, cataloging the way she trembles as I touch her. Her murmurs as my fingers glide into her hair. Her sighs as I hold her tight.

  The kiss is a little frantic, a lot noisy. Or maybe that’s the rub of denim from my jeans against the old leather of the seats, or her thigh against the gearshift as she inches closer, or my arm knocking against the steering wheel as I reach for her.

  But I’m not going to let something like limited space stop me now that I’ve given in. I kiss her harder, like that’ll cover up the annoyance of no fucking room. The only space I truly care about is the distance between us, and I’d like to turn that to nothing. Dipping her head back, I capture each plaintive moan of hers with another hungry kiss. She reaches for the collar of my polo, jerking me closer. I nip the corner of her mouth, then kiss her hard again.

  Until my elbow scrapes the horn and it bleats. “Fuck,” I mutter, wrenching away.

  I should stop. This is a sign. This truck is too small. It only has front seats and mine’s nearly all the way back. It’s late afternoon and the sun is still bright. There’s no privacy. But then my gaze lands on her bee-stung lips. Yeah, I’m not unflappable now whatsoever. “Guess you got me to break,” I mutter.

  Her lips twitch, like she’s trying not to show how pleased that makes her. “Guess I did.”

  I grab her jaw. Her breath hitches. I slide my thumb along her face. Ripley is such a conundrum. A tough-as-nails woman who seems to like being…taken. I glance around the cab, assessing the space quickly, making plans in a second. “Fuck it,” I say with a shrug. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

  She gives a dutiful nod. I open my door, shut it, then quickly survey the surroundings as I move to the passenger side. There’s no one here on this stretch of road. I open the passenger door. Standing by her seat, I reach across her and unbuckle her seat belt.

  The look in her eyes is full of anticipation. Excitement even. That revs me up—I felt the chemistry between us the first night. I feel it even more now. A heady possibility.

  “You can move,” I tell her. She shifts to the driver’s side, and I get in and shut the door.

  She swallows noticeably. “Now what?” It’s asked with an eagerness that sends a jolt of lust down my spine.

  I sigh, both relieved and wildly turned on as I stare at the woman who drives me wild. “Now, get the fuck on me.”

  She scrambles to climb onto my lap, and I help her along, manhandling her a little as I adjust this gorgeous woman so she’s straddling my thighs. Her shorts ride up farther, so her bare thighs bracket mine. She sets her hands on my shoulders, then sinks a little lower, her center grazing the ridge of my erection.

  I groan, unbidden.

  She smiles. “Better?”

  So much, but I’m not letting on yet. Not when I can tease her.

  “Let me see if this is better.” I roam my eyes up and down her strong body, toned from years of hard work on the farm. Drinking in every detail. Her glittering eyes. Her parted lips. The flush across the top of her chest. Most of all—the way she waits for my answer.

  Ripley is a firecracker every second I’m with her, but in moments like this, she’s someone else too. She’s softer, eager, hopeful.

  “Better now?” she asks.

  I tilt my head, like I’m giving it real thought.

  “A little,” I say, then I slide a hand down the soft flesh of her chest, over the tops of her breasts, teasing her before I travel back up to her eager mouth. I trace my thumb along her bottom lip, eliciting a shudder from her. Her eyes flutter closed as she moves slowly with me.

  This is the opposite of our first night, when we smashed into each other in the booth in the bar. Now, it’s like we’re spending a lazy afternoon in the sun, when we have all the time in the world to do the things we want to do.

  Even though I don’t.

  Even though we shouldn’t cross this line.

  But I do it anyway. “This would make it better,” I rasp out, then reach for her hands on me. I take the right one from my shoulder, moving it off me, then behind her back. I reach for her other hand, shifting that one behind her back too.

  Desire thrums through me, hot and sizzling, and wickedly hopeful too—I fucking hope she likes this. She parts her lips on a gasp, a bit of an answer, as I bind her wrists in one hand, gripping them both tight.

  She shudders, a clearer answer.

  Yessss.

  I dip my face to her neck and blaze a trail of kisses up the hinge of her jaw, kissing her there. She moves with me, stretching her neck as I go. I lift my free hand, cup her jaw, then jerk her gaze to me. Her eyes are blue flames. My body is a furnace. “So much fucking better, sweetheart,” I say, then I kiss her lush lips while I hold her in place.