Diva (Ironclad Bodyguards Book 2) (5 page)

“How long are we staying? This place is really crowded.”

“I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”

She surged into the energetic mass, insinuating herself between pockets of humping, bumping dancers, which was easy enough to do when you were tiny. He had to nudge people aside to follow her. No way was he letting her roam freely around this place. People were drunk and high and really handsy.

His last client had been an alcoholic actor. There had been no nightclubs, no sequined hot pants, nothing but making sure the client didn’t drink too heavily before he learned his lines for the next day.

Ransom would have given anything to be running lines with a half-drunk actor right now.

He called Lola’s name when she got too far away from him. Somehow she heard it, even in the deafening clamor of the club. She turned to him and held out her arms. “Dance with me.”

He shook his head and leaned against a nearby pillar, close enough to watch her, but not so close that she could grind against him with those hips. She found someone else to grind on, a sweaty, muscled Teutonic Adonis with spiky blond hair. The man leered down at her like a creep, and she encouraged him, drawing his arms around her.

Ransom rolled his eyes and let out a sigh, even if no one in this godforsaken club could hear him. He was the only person in the vicinity who wasn’t jerking to the skull-shattering music.

A few minutes later, Lola was gyrating in the middle of a Hans and Franz sandwich. Hans, the original creep, had been joined by a creepy friend and all of them were basically having sex without taking off their clothes. Bodies pressed in around them, party people who wanted to brush up against the actual, real Lady Paradise. People took pictures, poking her, prodding her to get her attention, but she kept dancing, and Hans and Franz kept most of the interlopers away.

Finally, Ransom got too disgusted to deal with it anymore. It was almost two in the morning. Time to go. He wove through the group surrounding Lola and got her attention, and pointed at his watch.

She laughed and shook her head. He pushed past Franz, holding up a hand when the man released a string of irritated German.

“We need to go,” he said to Lola. “Say goodbye to your friends.”

Instead she gripped Hans and Franz’s hands and dragged them along with her as they made their way to the quieter lobby of the club.

“Come on, Ransom,” she whined. “It’s so early.”

“It’s the opposite of early, and you have to perform tomorrow. I mean, today.” He scowled down at his watch, then grabbed one of the security guys and asked him to hail a cab.

Lola huddled with her German studs, her eyes bright and flirtatious. They stroked and fondled her, spellbound. Ransom had to resist the urge to swat their hands away. At last the manager gestured from the door.

Ransom tapped Lola on the shoulder. “Come on. Ride’s here.”

She popped up along with her fondlers, and brought them with her toward the exit. Toward the taxi. Ransom stepped in front of the car door before they could slide in.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. No extra passengers.”

“It’s okay, Ransom,” Lola called from inside. “You can sit in front. We’ll sit in the back.”

“They’re not getting in the car. We’re leaving.”

She looked out at him like he was an idiot. “They’re coming with me. They’re coming back to the hotel.”

“Like hell they are. No.”

The taxi driver watched without comment, his dark eyes bugging behind black-framed glasses. Lola pouted and reached for the men. “They’re coming back with us,” she insisted.

“They’re not coming back with us,” Ransom replied in a calm, patient, and very firm voice. “They’re going back inside the club, and you’re returning to the hotel to go to bed.”

Hans and Franz exchanged tragic glances. Ransom jerked his head toward the nightclub’s door. “Leave. Go back inside. Not tonight, fellas.”

Lola grabbed their hands and spoke to him through clenched teeth. “I don’t think you understand. They’re not leaving. They’re coming back to the hotel to have some fun with me. I have needs, you know. You can wait out in the hall if you like.”

He could
wait out in the hall?
Disbelief transformed to something more like fury. She thought he’d wait in the hall while she cavorted with these two complete strangers in his hotel room? “I don’t think
you
understand,” he said, aware that a dozen or more people were watching this sordid exchange. “No one is coming back to the hotel with you.” He said it slowly, with dire emphasis. “No one. Tell your boys goodbye.”

She must have seen something in his eyes that finally convinced her she wasn’t going to win this battle.

“Fine,” she yelled. “Fuck you.” She turned to the Teutonic wonders. “Good fucking night. It was nice meeting you.”

She ducked back into the cab and slid across the seat as he entered behind her. “Fairmont,
bitte
,” he said to the driver, giving him the name of the hotel.

The cab eased into traffic as Lola seethed beside him. “You’re such an asshole,” she said. “You’re so joyless and horrible. I hate you. I fucking despise you.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

She turned to him, ready to attack. He grabbed her hands before she could hit him. “Don’t. Ever,” he said, and he meant it. “Calm the fuck down.”

“I can’t calm down. I don’t want to calm down. You’re going to deny me sex when you’ve already taken away my drugs? How am I supposed to have fun?”

“You seemed to have plenty of fun tonight without the drugs. Now it’s time to get some sleep.”

“I won’t be able to sleep, you stupid ass bodyguard. I’m fucking horny as shit and you just double cock blocked me.”

He glanced at the cabbie, who was pretending not to listen to the drama in his backseat. “Keep it down, okay? You’re going to be embarrassed about this in the morning. Show some self-respect.”

“Self-respect?” She looked like she was about to combust. “I wanted to fuck those guys. They were fucking hung.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they were rubbing their erections on me for the last half hour.”

“Oh, that’s classy, Lola.” She flabbergasted him. He didn’t know what to say. “You seriously thought I’d allow you to bring those two guys, who you’ve never met before, back to the hotel room?”

“You could have waited outside!”

“Forget the whole waiting outside thing. It’s never going to happen. I’m your
bodyguard
. Strange, foreign men alone with you in a hotel room? Not a fucking chance.”

“What am I supposed to do for sex?”

He had to hand it to the cabbie for keeping a straight face. “Use those toys I saw in your luggage,” Ransom said. “They’re safer.”

“Fuck you.” She turned away from him, blinking at the back of the seat. “Are you seriously telling me I can’t have sex the entire rest of the tour?”

“I’m saying you can’t pick up strangers in nightclubs and bring them to our hotel room.”

“Who else am I going to have sex with?” She turned back to him, her cheeks flushed with vitriol. “Maybe you should fuck me, Mr. Bodyguard, since you just dismissed my perfect chance at two big, fat, delicious co—”

He held up a hand to silence her. “No. That’s enough. You’re not allowed to talk to me that way.”

“Who’s going to stop me?”

“You’re going to stop yourself, because you’re screaming at me like a jonesing crack whore, and it’s uncomfortable for everyone in this car. Enough.”

She subsided. He expected her to, because he’d used his mean bodyguard voice, and it was no-nonsense.

She turned instead to the window, her fingers tapping against her knees. After ten blessed seconds of silence, she started up again, only quieter this time. “Any woman who enjoys sex must be a whore, right?”

“I didn’t say you were a whore. I said you were screaming like a crack whore, which is the truth.”

“Those guys were hot.”

“They were strangers. It’s not safe.” He put a finger under her chin so she’d have to stop fuming and look at him. “And for the record, I don’t ever want you to talk to me about other guys’ cocks again, especially about how fat and delicious you imagine them to be. Do you understand? Have some respect.”

“I don’t respect you. I’ll never respect you.”

“I’m talking about respect for yourself.”

That shut her up all the way back to the hotel, although he began to think her ranting and raving was better, since it distracted him from inconvenient thoughts.
Who else am I going to have sex with?
she’d asked.
Maybe you should fuck me, Mr. Bodyguard.

If he wasn’t her bodyguard, and she wasn’t his nutso client, he would have been happy to assuage her rampant horniness. But that wasn’t possible. Aside from the fact that he’d probably break her if he fucked her the way he wanted to, there would be the messy emotional aftermath. He knew with a sixth masculine sense that her aftermath would be crazy. Batshit, atomic crazy. He’d dealt with enough craziness in his career.

He didn’t need or want it in his personal life.

*

Once again, Lola
found herself standing in the shower, staring at a stranger’s fucking toiletries. A cock-blocking stranger who’d lectured her like he was her dad, although her dad had never lectured her like that. Where did Ransom get off?

Ugh. She needed to get off.

And it wasn’t happening tonight.

She’d tried. She’d attempted to rub one out in the shower, but his dumbass shampoo was staring her in the face, making her go cold.

She couldn’t go on like this. At the very least, they needed to move to a suite, so she could escape into the privacy of her own space, and not just the privacy of a long, hot shower. Greg would have to help her convince the tour producers. If he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, she’d have to beg them herself.

She finally gave up on trying to find release in the shower, and shut off the water with a string of oaths, the nastiest ones she could think of. Because he was out in the room, she had to dress in the steamy, humid bathroom. Either that, or parade naked in front of him. She considered doing it, just to make him as blue-balled as he’d made her, but in the end, she couldn’t scrape up the courage.

She pulled on her pajamas and the long fleece robe she was glad she’d packed, even if it took up a lot of room in her suitcase. She’d brought it because hotel rooms were sometimes cold.

And sometimes infiltrated by asshole strangers.

When she opened the door, she found Ransom stretched out on top of his bed in a worn tee and dark gray sweatpants. It was the first time she’d seen him without the suit and tie. He looked more like a regular man, which was unsettling. She wondered if he was married, even though he didn’t wear a ring. Jesus, she’d screamed at him about fat, delicious cocks. She’d screamed that he had to fuck her.

No, not exactly. She hadn’t exactly said
that
, but she’d been thinking it.

She was still kind of thinking it now, but that was just because of frustration and horniness. Ugh.

She put on some hand cream and went to her bed. Ransom ignored her, flipping through the local TV channels, and she was grateful for it. She slipped off the robe and got under the covers, pulling the sheets up as far as she could without smothering herself.

“Going to sleep?” he asked.

“Yes.”
God, yes, I don’t want to stay up and spend time with you, you cock-blocking asshole.

He turned off the TV and got out his laptop. “Just so you know,” he said as he opened it up, “there’s an alarm on the door. If you touch it, or try to disable it, it’ll go off.”

“Afraid I’ll sneak out?”

“No one’s been able to manage it yet, so I wouldn’t recommend trying. It’ll also keep anyone unwelcome from sneaking in.”

She turned away from him and closed her eyes, and tried to think how she felt about a door alarm. All of this was crazy. She lay very still so he wouldn’t look at her, but she found she couldn’t drift off. It’d been a long time since she’d gone to sleep on her own, without the help of downers or black outs, or minibar booze, or sex, especially after she’d been out partying. She felt wound up, with too many thoughts. She couldn’t sleep.

After a while, she heard him get up. In the silence she could make out his progress across the room. He went into the bathroom, peed, and brushed his teeth. She heard all of it. It was both fascinating and disgusting. She covered her eyes in dismay. God, this was so messed up, but Greg was right. She’d brought this on herself. She’d been too wild, too careless, too much of a party girl.

Ransom came back out when he finished brushing his teeth. The darkness behind Lola’s lids got darker, and she knew he’d turned out all the lights. She could hear the bed sigh under his weight, and the whisper of the sheets as he pulled them up over his body. Without drugs to dull her senses, she was hyper aware of every sound of his existence. She could even hear his breathing, in, out, slow, calm.
This must be the quietest hotel ever
, she thought,
to hear him so clearly.

In the end, it was his slow, steady breathing that finally delivered her into sleep.