Falling For Her Bodyguard: A BWWM Suspense Romance (4 page)

Gianni stood with his
back turned from her. His shirt was off, the muscles of his back
rippling as he was in the middle of putting on another one. His dark
hair was longer than she’d thought as she watched him push it
back, tucking some behind his ear. The man turned around to see her
standing in the door, mouth open.

“I’m
guessing your bath is done?”

Kenzie nodded
distractedly before she found her voice. “Are you living here?”

“For a while,
yes. How can I watch you at a hotel?”

“You could have
rented another apartment.”

Gianni shook his head.
He flipped the lights off as he walked up to her, cutting off the
view of his bedroom. The maroon colored shirt he wore stretched
across his broad chest. She wondered what the rest of him looked
like.

“Are you
hungry?”

“Hmm hungry?
What do you mean?” She asked before her eyes went wide. “Oh!
Like food. I could eat. I think I was heading there already.”

“You don’t
know?”

“I don’t
know anything right now.”

The man looked at her
before he slowly walked around her. “Okay. You’re a
little strange.”

They went to the
kitchen together, him helping her along whenever she started limping
again. When they reached the kitchen she walked to the fridge before
sticking her head in. It was beyond stocked with food. She looked
through everything, her stomach twisting in hunger.

“Oooh this, with
this and some of this on the side,” she mumbled to herself as
she went through the cabinets as well.

Kenzie limped over to
the stove, wincing when she came to a stop. When she looked up Gianni
was next to her, a hand on her shoulder as he steadied her. The man
looked at the food that she’d pulled down.

“What are you
cooking and why are you trying to give yourself a heart attack?”
“Two words: Potato chip burger.”

“That’s
three words.”

“Are you going
to help me cook or criticize my English language skills?”

Gianni pursed his
lips. “Hard to tell at this point.”

Kenzie rolled her
eyes. “Give me the ground beef.”

Kenzie was almost glad
her ankle was screwed up. It was enough of a reason to call Cassie,
tell her everything that had happened. The girl let her off the hook,
wished her better soon then undoubtedly went off to party. It would
have been nice to hang out with Benjamin though. As if he heard her
thoughts, a get well text popped up on her phone. She smiled before
slipping her phone back into her pocket.

Gianni was looking at
the plate in front of him as if it contained poison. He poked at the
burger. Kenzie watched him for a few minutes before shaking her head.
Since he’d helped her, she thought it was only nice if she made
him some food too. Now, he was picking the burger apart.

“What’s
wrong with it?” She finally asked.

“Do you always
burn your food?”

“It’s not
burnt. It’s well done.”

“Burnt.”

Kenzie rolled her eyes
at him. She looked down at her food. Okay, it wasn’t a gourmet
meal, but it had gotten her through plenty of drunken nights and low
grocery days. She pushed at her bun.

“It’s not
like you can do any better,” she mumbled.

One of Gianni’s
eyebrows shot up. She watched him stand up, push back his chair and
disappear into the kitchen. Sounds drifted from the kitchen, pots,
cleaning, chopping. She shrugged. He was a weird man. She limped over
to the couch, propped her foot up and watched TV for a while. There
was already a story about her being attacked in the park. She blew
out her breath in a huge puff. Great.

There was even a video
of the thing. Not the whole thing, but the moment when Gianni, whose
back was facing the camera, pulled a gun on the guy. The
commentator’s speculated about who he might be, but so far they
didn’t have a clue she’d hired security. Kenzie groaned
as she leaned her head against the couch. She had just wanted a
moment of peace.

“Here.”

The woman looked up as
he held a plate out to her. It looked like a regular plate of
spaghetti with bread on the side to her. He pushed it out again until
she took it from him. When she took a bite of the food, she melted.

“This is really
good. Why is it so good? It’s just spaghetti.”

“That’s
because I actually make it right. Eat up.”

“Thank you.”

Gianni nodded before
sitting in a chair beside the couch. Sick of seeing her face on the
TV, she flipped the channel to an old black and white cop noir film.
They were some of her favorite movies. The drama, the style, it was
beautiful. She glanced over at Gianni. He seemed to approve at least
as his eyes were glued to the TV.

“Hey, Gianni.”

“Yeah?”

“How old are
you?”

Kenzie watched him
choke, a grin coming to his face. “That’s such a weird
question. Why?”

“I just want to
know.”

The man looked at her
for a moment before returning his eyes to the screen. “I’m
thirty-two.”

An older guy. That
could be fun.

Kenzie sat her half
empty plate on the coffee table. “Want to have sex?”

For a moment, she
thought he would choke for real. It made her wonder if she still knew
CPR. The man looked at her with wide eyes.

“What is wrong
with you?”

She shrugged. “I
just thought you’d want to.”

“No, I don’t
want to. This is my job. I don’t need anything interfering with
it.”

Kenzie huffed, her
lips pouting out. “You’re no fun.”

“So I’ve
heard.”

The possibility of a
little bedtime sex gone, Kenzie sighed. She pushed herself up from
the couch, holding her hand out when he started to stand to help her.
The walk down the hall was a slow one. She wondered how long it would
take for the sprain to heal, she didn’t like the thought of
being cooped up inside of the apartment for too long. When she
reached her room, she grabbed her laptop and opened up the email from
Marco. The demo tracks were there, thirteen in all. Some had partial
lyrics, some not at all. Kenzie liked to write her own lyrics, so she
shied away from writers. Grabbing her headphones, she popped them in
and went to work.

*****

It took a week for her
sprain to heal completely. In that time she limped around the house,
wrote lyrics and pestered Gianni every chance she got. Through it
all, she had to admit that he was growing on her. Sometimes he’d
bring takeout back when she was in the middle of a writing session
and forgot to eat. Other times he’d create hearty dishes and
they’d eat together on the couch, watching a movie. At first,
he didn’t talk much. Kenzie was determined to know about him
though, so she didn’t give up.

At first, she blamed
her curiosity on the boredom of being cooped up in the apartment, but
she knew that was a lie. She liked him. It wasn’t love, but
more like lust for everything about him. There were rare occurrences
when he smiled, that made her whole body warm. Sometimes he’d
place a hand in just the right spot to make her want to climb on his
lap and ride him. Mostly, he was the quiet protection she needed. He
would disappear until she called him, then he’d appear without
her ever hearing him walk up. She slept better at night because of
him.

When the week was up,
she was feeling more like herself. Half of the songs in her notebook
were fully fleshed out songs. And she was missing her friends
terribly. Gianni wouldn’t even allow them to know where she
lived. As he said, the less people who knew, the better. She would
have argued with him on the point, but she knew he was at least right
about that.

It was still early
morning when she walked out of her room wearing a pair of jean shorts
with a band t-shirt. Her hair had been dyed purple and was pulled
into two pigtails. Her usual boots or heels were discarded in favor
for a pair of sensible, studded sneakers. She grabbed her backpack as
she hit the door.

”Where are you
going?”

Gianni stood in the
entrance of the kitchen. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, only a pair
of red, flannel pajama pants. The black mug in his hands was
undoubtedly filled with coffee as the smell had filled up the entire
apartment. His hair was disheveled, but Kenzie found that alluring.
His chest was smooth, muscular and his hips were small. The pants
slid down a bit revealing a deep v that she couldn’t take her
eyes off of.

“Kenzie?”

“Hmmm? Oh,
studio. I’m going to the studio. I have to record these songs.”

“I’ll get
dressed and come with you.”

As he walked back to
his room, Kenzie followed after him. She leaned against the doorway
as he pulled out a suit. The woman shook her head.

“You want a bit
of advice? The suit’s nice, really nice, but you’ll never
catch anyone with that thing on. I mean, you look like you’d
shoot someone.”

“It’s not
my job to catch anyone, just stop them.”

“That’s my
point though. If you were dressed normally, people would just think,
I don’t know, that you were one of my friends or something.
Then maybe the police would actually stand a chance of catching this
guy so I can have my life back. Come on, is it really that hard to
blend? You have to wear something besides suits when you’re not
working.”

Gianni seemed to mull
over her words before he pushed her out of the room. She waited by
the front door, texting on her phone. Just when she was losing what
little patience she possessed, she heard him walking up the hallway.
A grin spread across her lips.

He was wearing a pair
of dark blue jeans that fit in all of the right places. He wore a
plain black t-shirt with black and white chucks. Kenzie couldn’t
hold back her laugh. He stopped in his tracks.

“I’m gonna
go change.”

Kenzie ran over to
him, grabbing his arm. “No, don’t! You look good. I just
didn’t think you remembered how to look like people.”

Gianni grumbled as he
grabbed his wallet, stuffing it into his pocket. She knew the gun had
already been placed on him before he left the room. When they left
together, another guard took their place to watch over the apartment.
They rode the elevator down in silence before Kenzie started to
speak.

“Don’t,”
Gianni said before she could even get out a word. “Just don’t.”

Kenzie zipped her lips
with her fingers. When they emerged in the lobby the day was still
bright. A few people walked around, but no one paid any attention to
them. They walked through the doors to the waiting car outside.
Kenzie slipped into the backseat, glad to be outside again. Now that
she was better though, she knew she couldn’t avoid the party
with Cassie. She silently wished for the good days, when she could
lie to a friend, tell them she was sick then do her own thing. Now
lying just meant her face was all over the internet the next day as
they described in detail exactly what she’d been doing and at
what time. It had happened once before, she tried not to repeat it.

“I see you’re
feeling better! Look at that smile,” Marco said as she walked
through the door.

“Stop kissing
ass. Let’s make music.”

The man grinned.
“Let’s do it.”

Kenzie spent the next
six hours in the studio singing the same songs over and over until
she thought she would get sick of her own songs. She could see Gianni
sitting in the corner of the room, a book in his hands. Every once in
a while, he’d look up and their eyes would meet. A shiver would
run down Kenzie’s spine as she tried not to grin like she was
back in high school.

Marco handed her a
bottle of water once she’d finished the last song. She sat down
for a moment, trying to make her voice work. She was out of practice
she realized. Marco promised to set her up with a voice coach.

“It’s
bound to happen. You haven’t had the chance to get much singing
done. I’ll make sure you’re smooth by the time your
concert comes around.”

“Thanks, Marco,”
she said as she stood up from the chair. “I’ve got to get
going, but I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Where ya going?
We still got daylight left.”

“Tomorrow,”
she called over her shoulder as she left the recording booth.

There was a list of
things she needed to do before she could meet up with Cassie and Ben.
First, she had to find a dress. Then, something to match the dress
since her usual crazy shoes were out. After that she had to put
herself together. The only good thing in all of the planning was the
fact that she’d get to drink her ass off for free. As they
pulled up in front of the dress shop, Kenzie heard Gianni groan
quietly.

“I heard that,”
she said while still texting. “What do you have against
shopping?”

“It takes too
long.”

Kenzie laughed,
bringing a grin to his face. “Well, if you want to get out of
here earlier, help me pick out a dress,” she said as she
stepped through the door he held open.

Punk Pride wasn’t
the normal dress shop, it was her kind of dress shop. A row of
dresses immediately caught her eye. She slipped one from the rack and
held it up to herself in the mirror. Making a face, she put it back.

“Kenzie! I
haven’t seen you in forever.”

Kenzie smiled as she
kissed Lilly’s cheek. The woman not only ran the store, she
designed half of the things they carried. Kenzie had been shopping
there since she first started her singing career. She had made the
little boutique famous.

“I know. I’m
finally feeling better.”

“Good, I’m
glad to hear it. What are you looking for? Is that a new boyfriend I
see?” She said glancing at Gianni.

The man pinched the
bridge of his nose. She thought it entirely possible that he would
either have an aneurysm or laugh himself to death. She could see him
keeping the laughter in, but it clearly wasn’t easy.