Part 2 (1/2)

She'd been a stunner last night in black jeans and boots, and he'd done enough security in the tech world to guess that she must have come straight to the gallery from her office. But maybe he'd been wrong, because this morning she'd poured herself into a purple sc.r.a.p of fabric that had his eyes bugging from his head like a cartoon character's.

He didn't know where to look. Or where not to let himself look.

Tall and curvy, Suzanne definitely wasn't some scrawny computer geek. If he'd been asked to define the looks of his perfect woman, she'd be standing right here in front of him.

Her long, dark hair fell like silk down her back and over her chest. His mouth watered and he swallowed hard as he averted his eyes from her gorgeous b.r.e.a.s.t.s...only to be hit with a view of tanned, toned legs that were a mile long.

”Good morning.” The two words drawled from her lips in a way that reminded him of her brothers' innate confidence. Brothers who would tear him into a million little pieces if they knew he was having s.e.xual thoughts about their sister.

When he finally managed to drag his gaze back to hers, one corner of her mouth was slightly lifted, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking despite his attempts not to.

”Ready to go?”

Her tone was surprisingly cheerful. But she couldn't have flipped to her brothers' viewpoint this quickly. Not after how furious she'd been last night. Unfortunately, his brain was addled enough simply from being this close to her that he couldn't work out her motives this morning.

Giving her a strictly professional smile, he gestured to the elevator. ”After you.”

Too late, he realized he should have rethought the smile. Because when she smiled back at him, for the first time in his life he lost his breath just from standing in a hallway. He could scale a mountain without so much as breaking a sweat, but her smile was that blindingly beautiful.

Distance. He needed to try to keep some distance between himself and his new client. But that was the very opposite of what he'd been hired to do. Where Suzanne went, Roman would go too. No matter how much being close to her messed with him.

When the elevator came and they stepped inside, he was palpably aware of what a small s.p.a.ce it was. She didn't just smell good-she smelled downright amazing.

Another string of silent curses let loose inside his head. Enough. He was a professional. It was time to start acting like one again.

In a normal bodyguard/client situation, they would already have sat down together so that she could detail the threats against her. But in this case, since she'd made it clear last night that she didn't want him around, he decided it was wiser to wait until she was more receptive to his being there before he pushed for the information.

”Did you sleep well?” he asked, an innocuous enough conversation starter.

”I had some work to take care of for a few hours, but I finally found my way to bed.” She nearly purred the word bed, which made his brain short-circuit again. ”By the time I woke up this morning, I had a great idea for how to achieve one of my biggest goals.”

Though it was taking most of his focus to corral his brain-and body-away from thoughts of Suzanne slipping naked between her sheets, he said, ”Sounds like you're off to a good start.”

”Oh yes,” she said in a slightly husky tone that went through him like a shot of the finest Scottish whisky. ”I have a really good feeling about how things are going to go today.” She licked her lower lip, leaving it looking just kissed. ”On all fronts.”

Working like h.e.l.l to force all thoughts of kissing away, he said, ”I'd appreciate it if you could take me through your plans for the day.”

They walked out of the elevator, through the lobby, and onto the sidewalk, where she raised her arm to hail a cab. He found it interesting that a woman as successful as Suzanne leased an apartment from her cousin and took a taxi to work. Anyone else in her financial position would own a multimillion-dollar home with staff to cook and clean, and have a full-time driver who jumped at her every whim. It was almost as if those trappings of wealth and power didn't mean anything to her, and she was happy just to put her focus into her work instead. If that were actually the case, she would be the most unique woman he'd ever known-he'd never met a woman whose head wasn't turned by money and power.

”I have a meeting with my investors this morning, and then I'm going to try a couple of different things with the new software I've been working on.”

The taxi skidded to a stop in front of them, and a few moments later she was sliding into the backseat. Only a monk would have been able to keep from noticing the way her barely there dress tightened over her hips, then rode up her thighs when she sat. He was gritting his teeth hard enough to break a molar when he got in beside her.

If only she'd pull the dress down. But she didn't seem to notice that she was displaying nearly as much skin as she would have in a pair of short shorts.

If this was what she wore to the office, what the h.e.l.l would she wear out on a date? He prayed she wouldn't have too many hot nights out planned while he was working for her. He didn't want to rip the throats out of too many guys for daring to touch her.

Thinking about all the guys he'd likely have to restrain himself from tearing apart over the next weeks-or months-that he worked as her bodyguard made it difficult to keep the growl out of his voice. ”After that, will you play the rest of your day by ear?”

She nodded. ”If there are fires to put out with my employees or customers, I'll put them out. And then I have a meeting with Rosa Bouchard and the staff of her new nonprofit tonight at eight.”

Roman was impressed that Suzanne was running such a big, powerful company at only thirty-one. Investors, employees, customers-she had so many people to keep happy. Sullivan Security was one of the hottest tech firms in the world.

No wonder she was a target.

”Although,” she continued, ”if everything is cooking along well, maybe I'll try to squeeze in a run through the park at some point during the afternoon.” She paused, and from the look on her face, it almost seemed as if she had suddenly remembered something important. A moment later, she turned her gaze back to him, then ran it slowly from his torso down the rest of his body. ”You look like you work out a lot.”

Jesus. She hadn't even needed to touch him to send him straight to the edge of losing his mind. He'd worked for a lot of tough clients, but he had no doubt that Suzanne was going to be his toughest yet. He'd take being screamed at and treated like dirt over trying to corral an impossible attraction any day. What's more, most clients didn't ask him questions. Primarily because they didn't give a c.r.a.p about him. And that was just fine with him. He wasn't interested in opening himself up to his clients. Better to keep his past buried deep where it belonged.

But since she was obviously waiting for him to reply, he said, ”I make sure to keep in shape so that I can do my job.”

She raised an eyebrow, and even that simple movement was s.e.xy. ”Your version of keeping in shape seems different from most people's. I've never seen anyone with muscles like yours.”

Her skin flushed, as if she wasn't used to saying anything quite so direct. The innocence of her blush didn't match either the outfit she had on this morning or the way she'd just been looking at him, as though she wanted to eat him up. Suzanne Sullivan was more of a puzzle than he'd thought. A puzzle he was far too interested in solving.

”When do you even get a chance to go to the gym if you're stuck shadowing your clients all the time?”

”I don't need a gym to stay in shape. I can do everything I need wherever I am, no weights, no machines, just by using my own body weight for resistance.”

”I'd like to learn how to do that. I'm in my office more often than I'm not. And I usually can't get away.” She half smiled. ”Okay, I probably could get away, but I don't want to, especially when things start clicking with my code. Which I'm always convinced is going to happen any second if I only keep at it for another five minutes.”

Her half smile s.h.i.+fted into another brilliantly beautiful grin. Though he tried to brace for impact, it didn't do any good. Every time she looked at him like that, his heart raced as though he'd just sprinted around a track at full speed.

”If there were things I could do to get my heart rate up while I'm waiting for my code to compile or thinking through a bug fix, that would be awesome.”

”I can show you.”

Wait. What the h.e.l.l was he saying? The last thing he needed to do was offer to get sweaty with her. It was her smile. It messed with his head so much that he couldn't think straight.

Before he could take it back, she said, ”Great!” Her grin turned the suns.h.i.+ne up another notch inside the dirty taxi.

”So your brothers were right when they said you work around the clock?”

At his mention of her brothers, her smile fell away. ”I'd appreciate it if you could leave them off our list of discussion topics. I still haven't forgiven them for their underhanded, low-down, ridiculous-” She stopped, paused, breathed. ”Sorry, you were asking about my work schedule. I do work a lot, but it's because I really love what I do. I love knowing that my digital security software helps people. I always feel like I have a purpose. As long as I have my work, I'm not going to just float away one day, not going to feel lost.”

In his line of work, Roman made sure to pay close attention to absolutely every cue-both from his clients and the strangers around him. He couldn't miss the pa.s.sion in Suzanne's voice when she spoke about her company and about having purpose. Her word choices were interesting as well, considering that he couldn't imagine her ever floating away or being lost. And yet, those seemed to be concerns for her.

”My brothers are all workaholics too,” she said, temporarily forgetting that she'd banned them from the conversation. ”I'm pretty sure we get it from my dad. I'm a.s.suming you know who he is?”

Roman never took on a job without researching his prospective clients. Due to the jobs he'd taken with Alec's company, he already knew the public information about the Sullivans. ”Your father is a famous painter.”

”He was. Until my mom-” She inhaled a breath that shook slightly in her chest. ”You've been friends with Alec and Harry for long enough that you probably also know what happened to her, don't you?”

Her brothers didn't talk much about their past-none of them did, which Roman appreciated, since he didn't plan on sharing the past he'd put behind him with anyone. But Suzanne's past wasn't something that could be hidden, not when her father had once been such a worldwide sensation in his field that he'd ended up on the cover of Time magazine.

Neither Roman nor Suzanne had grown up with mothers. But where Roman's father had kicked his mother out for lying and cheating, Roman had learned on Wikipedia that Suzanne's mother had taken her own life when Suzanne was only a toddler.