At Peace (The ‘Burg #2)(39)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“But –”

“Not to mention it’s wired straight into dispatch and Colt’s told them, they get the signal, they go in hot.”

“But, I –”

Cal tipped his chin down to look at her and tugged on her hair to force her to tilt her head back.

When his eyes caught hers, he spoke, “I thought for a second they were unsafe, I’d be in your bed.”

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

What he was sure of was that he was relieved that she wasn’t slipping out of his bed to make some bitchy point or that she was using him to get off and leaving him to go home and sleep. Why he was relieved, he had no f**king clue. Any other woman did any of that shit, he wouldn’t care less and some of it he’d encourage.

Vi, it’d piss him off.

He was also sure nothing would happen to her girls. Daniel Hart might have money and power but he didn’t have anyone on his payroll who could slip through Cal’s system.

“I’m sure.”

Her body relaxed, settling into his. He loosened his hand in her hair and she tucked her face back in his throat.

“It’s weird,” she said softly and after she spoke her body got tense again.

He waited for her to say more but she fell silent.

“What’s weird?” Cal prompted.

“Nothin’,” she replied quickly.

“Buddy.”

She changed the subject, not that she introduced the subject in the first place still she changed it.

“I’m just gonna doze before I go home.”

“Vi, what’s weird?”

“Really, it was nothin’. I was just thinkin’.”

“About what?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

His hand slid from her waist to her ass, he cupped it and he squeezed his warning while verbalizing it. “Not gonna ask again.”

She was silent a second then she sighed.

Then she asked his throat, “How do you play bodyguard and be home all the time?”

“What?”

She tilted her head back so he again dipped his chin.

“You’re security to the stars, how do you guard them if you’re here so much?”

“Don’t do the bodyguard thing much anymore, buddy,” he told her. “Special gigs if the pay is good. Mostly do their systems.”

“Systems?”

“Kinda like I did for you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, means I have to deal with their shit for a week, not for f**kin’ ever.”

“So you just install their systems?”

“Nope, stopped doin’ most of the installs awhile ago too. Just design ‘em, contract out to guys I trust to install the hardware and I come in to do the wiring.”

“Really?” she repeated as if this was surprising.

“Yeah. That surprise you?”

“Um… I guess not.”

Cal rolled into her, taking her to her back and got up on a cocked arm, elbow in the bed, his head in his hand and he looked down at her shadowed face as he ran his fingers in random patterns across the skin at her ribs.

“They call me in, I recon their houses, tell ‘em what they need, do the design, hand it over to firms who do the installs, maintenance and watch. Wiring is my signature, my systems are sound but my wiring is impenetrable. No one can do what I do, my designs are comprehensive, seamless but my wiring is what they pay for. ”

“But you used to be a bodyguard?”

“Natural progression.”

“Oh,” she whispered but he knew there was more.

“What?” Cal asked, she didn’t respond so his hand flattened on her ribs and he pressed in lightly before he repeated, “What?”

“If you only do, um… recon and design, how’d you get mixed up with Kenzie?”

It was then Cal understood her hesitation.

He blew out a sigh, rolled to his back and she rolled with him, coming up on an elbow with her head in her hand like he’d been moments before.

“Sorry, was that…?”

Cal cut her off. “Kenzie had a situation. Stalker. Bad shit. The guy was f**ked up. He broke into her house while she was out, did shit you don’t wanna know. They upped her security, he slipped through it, did his shit again. They called me to look into her systems, I made some modifications. She was there when I did the walkthrough. I have a reputation, she’d heard about it, she talked to her people, wanted me close and I didn’t blame her. This guy was whacked. She has three houses, I designed new systems for all of them in the meantime, until they caught this guy, I took her back at her request and she paid big for it. She took an interest while I was doin’ that. You know the rest.”

“Did you stop having her back after you two –?”

“Yeah.”

“So you were, um… having her back when you were gone so much before?”

“I don’t hang in Indiana in the winter, buddy. Got a place in Florida. I hang there. Come home to check on things every once in awhile. Kenzie got a message to me, I knew she was at my house, that’s why I was home that night. I came home to deal with her.”

“Oh.”

She fell silent and he could see even in the dark that her eyes were resting on the bed beside his shoulder. She was na**d beside him after he’d f**ked her, they were talking, another thing he never did with a woman, and she wasn’t touching him.

And Cal found, he didn’t f**king like that.

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her forearm, sliding them down to her hand which he brought up to his chest and pressed it flat.

When he did this, her eyes came to his face.

“Did they catch him?” she asked quietly.

“Who?”

“Kenzie’s stalker.”

“Yeah, a coupla weeks after I quit her. It was in the news, buddy.”

“I must have missed that,” she whispered then asked, “Do you see a lot of stalker stuff with those people?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you help?”

“Yeah.”

“So you know a lot about it.”

He left her hand at his chest and curled his fingers under her hair where her head met her neck.

“Yeah, baby.”

Her body relaxed into his again. “Do they catch them a lot?”

“Always.”

“Always?”

“Yeah,” he told her, not telling her that the folks who got that obsessed sometimes crossed over the line, doing stupid but seriously sick shit and exposing themselves but usually terrifying the person they were stalking in the meantime.