Perhaps that had been the beginning of it all?
But that didn’t explain the absence of a steady girlfriend throughout high school. Or the way his balls throbbed whenever he thought of Liev in the shower. Watching a fellow actor work out was one thing. Thinking about a virtual stranger’s naked body in the shower and how much he’d like to see that naked body slicked with water was another thing entirely.
Chris’s cell phone rang.
He flinched, banging his shin on the steel rung running the length of the railing.
“Shit,” he muttered, rubbing at the ache as he dug in his back pocket for his cell.
“Are you okay, Mr. Huntley?” Bethany called from the kitchen where, as far as he knew, she was preparing a post-dinner cheese and fruit platter. She had a thing for cheese and fruit platters he’d noticed. It was the third she’d made since they’d arrived in Australia.
“I’m fine,” he called back, yanking his still-ringing cell free of his jeans. “Just trying to break the railing with my leg.”
“Please don’t do that.” Her stern voice floated back to him from the mansion’s interior. “Clumsiness isn’t covered in the property insurance.”
Snorting, he tossed the kitchen a disgruntled look and rammed his cell to his ear. “Speak to me.”
“Congratulations, Chris,” Aslin Rhode’s deeply-British voice rumbled through the connection. “You’re now a proud uncle.”
“Booyah!” Chris punched the air. “Way to go, Rhodes. Details, dude. I need details.”
His brother-in-law chuckled down the phone. “Baby girl. Eight pound six. Came out fighting already. She kicked the obstetrician in the throat as he was helping her out.”
Chris laughed. “Just like her mom. Awesome. What’s her name? Tell me you named her Christine.
Tell
me you named her Christine.”
“We did not name her Christine,” Rowan’s faint voice called across the line and Chris burst out laughing again.
“Tess Emily Rhodes,” Aslin said, pride and love threading through each vowel and syllable.
Chris’s heart clenched at the name and he smiled, leaning his butt against the railing before sliding down to sit on the balcony. “Tess Emily Rhodes,” he tried the name out, loving the way it sounded on his tongue. His niece. Holy shit, he had a niece. “It’s beautiful.”
“She is,” Aslin answered. “I’m sending you a picture now.”
Chris’s phone bleeped in his ear and he pulled the cell away to gaze at the image on the screen. Rowan smiled up at him, her face red and puffy, her hair a scraggly mess, her eyes tired and shining with so much joy his throat squeezed tight. His sister had never looked so beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the tiny pink baby with a shock of black hair wrapped in a fluffy pink blanket in her arms.
Grinning, he put the phone back to his ear. “Thank God she got her dad’s looks.”
“I heard that,” Rowan said, her indignant protest faint.
“I’m hanging up now,” Aslin said “Just wanted to let you know what we did.” Once again, Chris couldn’t help but smile at the pride in his taciturn brother-in-law’s voice.
“You did very well, Rhodes,” Chris replied. “Very well indeed. Give my sister a hug for me.”
“I will. Oh, before I go, how is Reynolds going for you?”
Bam. Just like that, Chris’s gut clenched. His heart jumped into his throat. His breath joined it. “Good,” he answered, squeezing his eyes shut—a stupid move, given that the second he did an image of Reynolds popped into his head.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Good? What’s going on, Chris?”
Chris shook his head. Another stupid move, given Aslin was on the other side of the world. “Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He pulled a face, scraping the fingers of his free hand through his hair. “You’re starting to sound like Rowie.”
“No, I sound like a suspicious sod, which I am. Tell me what
good
means?”
For a crushing second, Chris contemplated telling his brother-in-law what was going on. He trusted Aslin with his life. The Brit was the most honest, real person Chris knew. The words were there, on his tongue. And then he swallowed them. Forced them down.
Aslin was real and honest, but he was also more a…a…
man
than any other Chris knew. How would his British ex-SAS commando-cum-bodyguard-cum-brother-in-law react to the possibility Chris found one of his colleagues arousing?
How would Rowie deal with it?
Jesus, how was
he
dealing with it?
“Good means we’re still figuring each other out,” Chris finally answered, opening his eyes to stare with blank focus into the living area. Movement inside told him Bethany had finished with the platter creation in the kitchen. There was still no sight of Reynolds.
“Do you not feel safe?”
Aslin’s blunt question made Chris groan. Safe? No, he didn’t feel safe. Not from his body’s response to the guy.
Goddamn it, where was his psycho ex-personal assistant when he needed her? At least all Tilly had attempted to do was kill everyone who tried get in her way of looking after him. That was a cakewalk compared to this.
With a snort, he raked at his hair again. “I feel safe. Just getting used to the accent. It’s only been half a day. Ask me tomorrow.”
He could almost see Aslin digesting his words. If Rhodes decided there was an issue, Chris had no doubt Liev Reynolds would be replaced immediately. Aslin may be on the other side of the world, but he still protected Chris no matter what.
Did Chris want Reynolds gone? That would solve one problem, wouldn’t it?
Without Liev Reynolds around, Chris could go back to his simple life, right?
“Do you want me to find a different guard, Chris?”
Chris pulled a face at Aslin’s astute perception. He thought about the man in the shower causing him so much grief, the man who was going to be living under the same roof as him, shadowing him for the next seven days. “No,” he said. “It’s all good. Honest.” He forced a smile into his voice. “Now fuck off and go take care of my niece. And I’ve changed my mind on hugging Rowie. Punch her in the arm for me instead. I’m still wounded she didn’t insist on naming my niece Christine.”
“Never going to happen, squirt,” Rowan called out, the soft gurgles of a newborn babe’s cry punctuating her reply.
“Screw you, sis,” Chris said, hiding the lump in his throat with a choked chuckle. “Call me tomorrow, Aslin. Oh, and send more photos.”
He killed the connection before his brother-in-law could interrogate him more. Closing his eyes, he pulled in a slow breath and slid to the floor, leaning his back against the railing. Why had he said no? It had been a perfect opportunity to remove the Australian from his life. To remove the confusion before it became something…inconvenient.
“Like another fucking hard-on?” he muttered.
“You okay, mate?”
With a strangled yelp, Chris snapped open his eyes.
Reynolds stood before him. A curious frown furrowed his forehead.
Oh Christ, help me.
The man radiated confident strength, even with his dark blond hair a tousled mess of damp strands. A black polo shirt covered his torso, emphasizing his muscular frame with a subtle perfection Chris had never noticed on another man before. Black denim jeans hugged his long legs, and if it wasn’t for the fact Chris couldn’t stop his gaze lingering at the rather impressive bulge at Reynolds’s crotch, he would have made some wise-ass comment about the fact the bodyguard wasn’t wearing shoes.
But his gaze
did
linger on Reynolds’s groin. Long enough for the man to clear his throat.
Chris’s gut knotted. Heat flooded his face. Holy fuck. Holy fuck, he’d just been staring at another man’s package.
“Mr. Huntley?”
He jolted to his feet, unable to meet Reynolds’s eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t…geez, I…” Clearing his own throat, he scraped his hands through his hair and forced his stare to Liev’s. “I didn’t mean to, y’know…look…
there
. It was just at eye level.”
Reynolds’s laugh surprised him. “No worries, mate. I’m used to it.”
Chris raised his eyebrows. “You’re used to guys looking at your junk?”
“Well, when you put it like that, no. But I’ve been in the state firefighting charity calendar four years running. When you spend a month on someone’s wall dressed in nothing but a half-unzipped pair of loose work trousers you get used to being checked out. Especially when you make appearances at events to sell those calendars.”
The ball of tension in Chris’s gut didn’t loosen at Liev’s answer. It only made it worse. He’d known the man was a firefighter when he wasn’t working as a bodyguard, but now all Chris could do was picture him half-undressed, glistening with sweat, his hands wrapped around a freaking massive hose jutting out from the region of his groin. Subtlety, it seemed, was not one of Chris’s newly confused brain’s strong points.
Nor was remaining impassive to the thought of Liev. At least, Chris’s
cock
wasn’t remaining impassive. The stiffening heat in his trousers was enough to make him want to groan.
Damn it, he needed to get laid. By a woman. Fast.
“Want to hit a bar?” The question burst from him before he could stop it.
Liev narrowed his eyes.
Chris puffed out a ragged breath. “I’ve just become an uncle. I need to loosen up.”
A muscle in Liev’s jaw twitched. “Loosen up?”
“Ah, shit,” Chris held out a hand, “no drugs. Honest. My sister would kill me. Hell, Rhodes would kill me. No, I just need to blow off some tension. Do you know a place? Somewhere noisy?”
“I do.” Liev crossed his arms. “But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I took you there. Too accessible to the public. Too easy for you to be swarmed. And then Rhodes would kill
me
.”
“And I don’t want to lose my new bodyguard before I break him in, right?”
The quip was meant to be just that. A quip. It was what Chris did best—make jokes when things were tense. And things were tense. At least, for Chris they were. But Reynolds didn’t laugh.
He stood motionless, his blue stare holding Chris’s, his jaw clenched. “No. You don’t.”
A lump filled Chris’s throat. His breath choked him. He couldn’t move.
Every fibre in his body strained for the man in front of him. Every nerve-ending sparked with a carnal need he couldn’t understand. His palms itched. His mind told him exactly how smooth and perfect Liev’s muscled arms would feel to touch, how hard his chest would be, how sculpted his abs.
How thick and heavy Liev’s cock would feel in his hand.
Chris stared at him. Into his eyes. Eyes that only a short while ago were unknown to him.
Eyes that revealed nothing.
And yet, the tension hung on the air between them. Chris wasn’t completely naïve. He’d seduced his fair share of women. He knew exactly what sexual tension was. He mastered it on screen. He’d mastered it in the bedroom.
What this was, right now, was sexual tension.
Real
sexual tension. This was explosive. This was tearing him apart.
This was…this was…fuck, this couldn’t be.
It couldn’t—
Liev’s nostrils flared. He swayed forward, barely. An almost imperceptible movement.
It was enough. Enough to jerk Chris out of his frozen state. He stumbled back a step, forcing a weak chuckle from his constricted throat, through his dry lips. “Damn, I think…” He stopped. Swallowed. Raked his hands through his hair. Scrubbed at the back of his neck. “I think jet-lag has finally hit me.” He flicked his gaze up to Liev’s face, unable to look at him for more than a second. “I’m going to call it a night.”
Ducking his head, he hurried past the Australian. “I think Bethany wants to go over tomorrow’s events with you,” he all but stammered over his shoulder as he scurried from the balcony. Yes, scurried. God, he was pathetic. “She’s…” He swiped at his mouth, catching a glance at Reynolds’s bemused expression. “She’s made a cheese platter.”
And with that, he turned completely away from his bodyguard and bolted for his bedroom.
Yes, bolted.
Because he really
was
that pathetic.
Chapter Four
Liev gripped the balcony rail and stared hard at the dark water before him. Sydney Harbour never slept. Boats and yachts moved over its calm surface even at two in the morning.
He scanned the marine craft closest to the jetty. Since contacting the water-taxi companies and water police a few hours ago there had been no more ecstatic women in bikinis squealing for Chris’s attention. That didn’t mean the water way was safe. It wouldn’t be long before a group of resourceful fans decided to charter a boat of some sort and try to gain access to their object of adoration that way.
As it was, more than one privately owned yacht had elected to anchor just offshore of the mansion’s jetty in the last four hours. The water police moved them on quickly, but Liev didn’t think it was a co-incidence. To be safe, he’d taken the identification of all the craft, along with a snapshot of each boat. His contact in Sydney City Police Command was checking each one out.
Liev had never been a boy scout, but he firmly believed in being prepared. He wanted to know who owned each and every boat posing a possible risk, just in case.