PlaybyPlay (2 page)

Chapter One

Three Months Later

“Seth—I need you—
now
.”

Seth stood just outside his boss’s office but he didn’t move
a muscle, except one. His lips quirked into a tiny smile at Katherine’s choice
of phrase. Those words—he’d often imagined them spilling from her lips just
before he buried his cock deep inside her, so deep she would never be able to
forget he was there. But to hear her belting them out in a shrill voice tinged
with fury did nothing for him.

He remained rooted to his spot, leaning against the wall
with his arms crossed. The only clue he gave that he’d even heard her words was
the slight arching of his brow when she stormed out of her office, her eyes
hurling violent daggers at him.

“You wanted something, boss lady?”

“Didn’t you hear me calling you?” she snapped.

He remained stoic, knowing it pissed her off. “I heard you,
but it sounded more like you were calling for a dog than a human being. I
figured you weren’t talking to me.”

Katherine’s nostrils flared and she bit down on her tongue
to keep from letting out a string of expletives. Seth Kyoto was a thorn in her
side. She wanted to wrap her fingers around his neck and strangle him, right
after she wrapped her body around his and fucked him until he was completely
out of her system and she didn’t burn with this obsessive need that she seemed
to have for him.

She took in a deep breath, tempering her anger. He’d been in
her employ for two years and she knew this was not how to deal with Seth.
Unlike most of her employees, who cowed at her commands and jumped when she
barked, Seth was his own man. She didn’t intimidate him, she didn’t scare him.
If she wanted something from him, she had to be…
nice…polite
—two
adjectives that did not describe her. Katherine lived and worked in a man’s
world as the CEO of Taboo
,
one of the largest casinos in Las Vegas. She
often had to be tough as nails—not soft, and definitely not
nice
.

She gritted her teeth.

“Seth, could you come take a look at something with me,
please
?”

His lips twitched at the saccharine tone of her voice, but
he didn’t smile. Instead he nodded curtly as he pushed his brawny frame past
her into her office.

Ugh, she
really
wanted to strangle him now. He was
just so—so
arrogant
.
So unflappable. Nothing she did, nothing she
said ever seemed to ruffle him, and she hated that he never lost control, that
he was always so composed. He rankled her, rattled her, but she couldn’t fire
him.

Before he’d come on board as her bodyguard/head of
security/sometimes assistant, she’d been losing money to one con artist after
another. But when Seth showed up all that had changed.

A whiz with numbers, his reserved demeanor and quiet
intensity were somehow at odds with his full body tattoos. Still, there was no
denying Seth was smart, tough and intimidating as hell—the perfect right-hand
man. Now if only they could get along.

She turned at Seth’s sharp intake of breath, and knew he now
saw the note on her desk.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded, his tiger-gold eyes
blazing with anger as he read the note with the words
Die Bitch
painted
in vivid red.

“That’s what I was just about to ask you. It came in the
mail,” she said, pointing at the envelope. “No name, obviously no return
address.”

“I’ll get Aaron on the phone to see if we can get some
prints.”

Aaron was their contact in the Las Vegas Police Department
and both Seth and Katherine considered him a friend. But even with Aaron’s
expertise and resources, she heard the weariness in Seth’s voice and knew he
was thinking the same thing she was.

“You don’t think Aaron will find any prints, do you?’

Seth shook his head. “He hasn’t before, but it’s still worth
a try.” With a long sigh, he shoved a hand through his shoulder-length black
mane. Tension radiated from his rigid form.

“I don’t like this,” he said finally. “First your car, then
your doorstep, now your office. Whoever this asshole is, he’s making a point
that he can get close to you if he wants.”

Katherine didn’t like it either, but what could she do? Each
time he left a note inside an envelope with
Die Bitch
written in what
appeared to be red polish.

She’d gotten her share of death threats before, mostly from
people who’d been banned from her casino for cheating. The threats bothered her
but they didn’t rattle her, not like these did. A note here and there was
common, but these were systematic, and from the same person. Seth was right.
Whoever this was wanted to let her know he could get into her private space and
there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop him.

She sighed. She didn’t like this any more than Seth did but
she wasn’t going to lose a good night’s sleep over it. That was Seth’s job.
Her
job was to run a multimillion-dollar casino. She had a long day full of
meetings tomorrow, so for now, she was going to let Seth do what he did best
while she got some much-needed rest.

“Well, let me know if Aaron finds anything—” She grabbed her
purse from her desk.

“Where are you going?”

Katherine had no choice but to stop when Seth blocked her
path. “I’m going home.” She looked him up and down with her icy stare as if to
say “Get out of my way”.
But as usual, he ignored her.

“Fine. Just let me make a few calls and get Joshua up here
and then I’ll follow you home.”

She frowned. Joshua was the assistant director of security
at Taboo
—
Seth’s right-hand man
.
She knew why Seth wanted to talk
to him, she just didn’t know why
she
had to wait for him. She was a big
girl. She didn’t need an escort and she said as much.

“This is not a joke, Katherine. This is the third note in as
many weeks. I need you to take this seriously.”

Katherine. He only called her by her first name when he was
really pissed at her. Most of the time it was boss lady, sometimes Miss
Higgins, but never Katherine.

She stilled. “I
am
taking this seriously, but I’m
ready to go home, and I see no reason to wait for you.”

She shook her head when Seth opened his mouth to protest.
“The nice thing about being the boss is that I am the one who gives the orders
and I always have the final say.” She stepped around his muscular frame. “Good
night, Seth.”

* * * * *

Katherine Higgins was a world class, Grade A
bitch
,
but damned if that didn’t turn him on. He let her walk out of her office
because it was better that she think she’d won. He then phoned both Aaron and
Joshua as he left Taboo. Satisfied that the matter of the threatening note was
being investigated, he turned his thoughts to his lovely but infuriating boss.

By the time he got to his car she was gone, but her SUV was
no match for his sporty convertible. When she finally pulled into her garage,
he was already sitting on her couch, his legs stretched out before him.

He heard the door to the garage slam shut with a violent thud.
She was pissed, but that was her problem. She’d hired him to fill that vague
role of bodyguard and assistant, which meant he had keys to just about
everything—her home, her office, even her vacation spot in Saint-Tropez. If she
didn’t want him to do his job then she needed to fire him, which he was sure
she was on the verge of doing when she stormed into her living room where he
waited.

“I told you I didn’t need an escort.”

“And since you were gone by the time I got to the garage,
you didn’t get one.”

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” she fumed.

“I’m here to make sure you’re safe—which is my job,” he said
patiently, as if he were talking to a petulant child. Some days—
many
days—Katherine could be trying, but he knew her well enough to know her tough-girl
attitude was necessary in her line of work and was more a façade than anything
else.

She’d had to fight tooth and nail to build Taboo from the
ground up into one of the hottest, trendiest casino resorts in Vegas. Katherine
had a reputation for being cold as ice, and she didn’t easily let people behind
her steely armor.

He stood. But she’d let Joshua in. She’d also let her guard
down around her secretary, Michelle. There were probably only a handful of
people who could say they knew the
real
Katherine, but he wasn’t one of
them. For two years he’d been by her side, spent more time with her than anyone
else, and during that entire time she’d never once let her walls down around
him. It had taken him up to a few months ago to figure out why that was.

Seth ambled to his feet, towering over Katherine. The
mocha-skinned beauty stood before him with her hands on her rounded hips, her
caramel-brown eyes flashing, the smooth skin of her cheeks blooming red and her
full breasts jiggling as her chest heaved from anger. She was all masculine
bravado rolled into the sexiest, shapeliest, most feminine package he’d ever
laid eyes on.

“You can go home now,” she said, her chilly words breaking
through his thoughts.

He snorted. “I’m not going anywhere.” To emphasize his
words, he peeled off his blazer, carefully watching her.

Her gaze followed his every move, her breath quickened and
the flush in her cheeks turned redder.

He hadn’t set out to draw her attention, but now that he had
it, he relished it. He bit back a smile of triumph—the icy queen wasn’t so cold
after all. Of late, Katherine was doing a poor job of hiding her attraction to
him, as if something had changed that made it hard for her to keep her desire
for him out of her wandering gaze.

She wanted him.
Good.
At least he wasn’t alone in
this intense attraction that pulsed between them, hidden beneath the layers of
their animosity toward one another. With her taste in men, he hadn’t realized
she was attracted to him until recently, until there were moments like this
when he caught her watching him, her eyes burning hot with lust. It had taken
him some time to figure it out, but now he understood why she fought so hard to
keep her guard up around him. Her attraction to him scared her, and the only
way she knew how to deal with it was to push him away. But the desire radiating
from her was impossible to ignore, even harder to withstand. If she wasn’t
careful, one day he might just demand that she fulfill the promise of passion
burning in her honey-brown gaze.

He’d wanted her for a long time, had been attracted to her
from the moment she’d hired him, but he’d kept his thoughts and feelings to
himself. He liked his job, was good at it—he had no desire to fuck things up
with an ill-fated affair. And that’s exactly what it would be.

As much as his body desired her, as much as he was attracted
to her feisty and fiery personality, he’d soon come to realize Katherine lived
for power, thrived on being in control, which he was content for her to have at
work, but not at home, not in his bed, and he wasn’t certain she could
relinquish her authority even there.

The men she dated—if he could even call them that—were
wimps, puppies, boy-men who had no backbone. If those were the type of men she
wanted then he stood no chance.

Seth would never, could never be that type of man. He knew
he didn’t always have to be in control to hold the power. She could be the boss
lady all she wanted, but if he ever took her to bed, he would
take
her,
master her, brand her until she was so thoroughly dominated that when he made
love to her, she wouldn’t even dare to come without his command.

“Seth?”

He stiffened, remembering where he was. “Hmm?”

“I asked, what are you doing?”

He glanced over at his discarded jacket. “That should be
obvious.” He stepped closer toward her, drawing in a ragged breath to ease the
lust that his wayward thoughts had conjured. “I’m going to be glued to your
side until we catch whoever is doing this.” He shook his head when she parted
her lips to speak. “You hired me to be your bodyguard. Now if you have a
problem with that, then you’d better fire me.” He waited for her to say
something, but she said nothing. Instead, she snapped her lips shut and pursed
them into a tight line. “All right. Since you’re not going to fire me, then I’m
headed to your kitchen to make dinner.” He shot her a wry glance. “Because we
both know you can’t cook.”

He bit back a smile when she stuck her tongue out at him and
rolled her eyes.

Brat.

“Since I came straight over, I didn’t have time to stop by
my place to get a change of clothes, so Joshua is going to drop by with some of
my things. I suggest you take a bath and relax. I’ll call you when dinner is
ready.”

With that, Seth brushed past her into the kitchen, leaving
her standing there in the middle of her living room, fuming mad.

She hated being dismissed, hated taking orders, but until he
caught the creep threatening her,
he
was the one in charge, not her, so
she’d just have to get used to it. He bit back a sigh.

That was easier said than done.

* * * * *

Katherine’s stomach rumbled at the tantalizing aromas
wafting down the hall as she strolled toward the kitchen. Even after a relaxing
bath in her Jacuzzi tub, she was still furious with Seth.

No one dared boss her around—except him, apparently. He didn’t
do it often, but when he did it had a curious effect on her. It rankled her,
but somewhere beneath her irritation it stirred something within her, something
she didn’t want to examine too closely.

“How was your bath?” Seth asked as she walked into the kitchen.

She sat down at the table and reached for the glass of wine
sitting there. “Relaxing, although I probably would have relaxed more had you
not been here.”