CHAPTER 1
Vaughn
My buddies had done this to me on purpose. I was sure of it.
Logically, I knew that me being left to man the office was probably just all a coincidence. My two closest friends and I had set up a security firm, Elite Protection and Consulting—EPC for short—and oftentimes, our work took us afield. We catered to the needs of our customers—going to a location to guard someone, or set up a security system, or something else of that nature wasn’t unusual.
Both of my work partners being gone on assignments at the same time? Sure, it was bound to happen at some point. And since I currently wasn’t on a case, that left me in charge of the office—my very least favorite thing in the world to do.
I wasn’t what anyone would consider a cordial, sociable man. Or even a patient man. I liked losing myself in an assignment, preferably outside of the office and alone—my sole focus on getting my client a positive outcome. I liked the mental and physical exertion of doing, not sitting idly behind a desk tapping away on a computer for hours at a time.
Being the cheerful meet and greet at the office was scraping the bottom of the barrel of my skillsets and social abilities. Cheerful wasn’t a word in my vocabulary and my partners knew this. I’m sure they were laughing their asses off when they realized I was going to have to be the one to deal with any issues or problems that arose where clients demanded to speak to someone in charge.
Admittedly, I loved being in charge. What I didn’t love was coddling anyone. Including a client.
“It’s only a few days,” Bryce, one of the partners, said before he left to take care of an out of state case. “You can handle a few days on your own here at the office.”
No, I really couldn’t.
I was bored out of my mind on top of it all. I was a man of action. We all were, obviously, so it wasn’t like I was special in that regard, but without anything to do I started to climb up the damn walls. There weren’t any other really pressing matters going on at the company, so between fielding the needs of difficult clients and being stuck in the office, I thought I was going to go insane.
Then I walked in on Monday morning.
The weekend hadn’t really been a weekend for me, since I’d had the aforementioned demanding clients to wrangle and appease, but I hoped that with the start of a new week things would look up. That maybe, hopefully, an exciting case would come my way that would send me back into the field, where I did my best work.
I walked into the lobby and nodded at our receptionist, Lisa. “Anything interesting going on?” I asked, even though we’d just opened.
“There’s donuts in the break room,” Lisa suggested with a grin.
“Are they poisoned?” I deadpanned.
“I could poison them for you, if that would make you happy?” she suggested, unfazed by my dry, and sometimes cantankerous, humor.
Lisa was our receptionist because she had the excellent ability to dish my sarcasm right back at me, and was eager to please. It wasn’t an easy combination to find in an employee, which made her invaluable, in my opinion.
“I think I’ll live,” I replied.
“Not if there’s poison in the donuts.”
I chuckled, my mood a little lighter—and then I saw Lisa’s eyes widen as she took in something over my shoulder. I turned, wondering what her had so confused.
A woman was entering the building… with a slight limp?
The closer she came to the reception area, the more I could see she was a disaster. She looked like she’d sprinted here, her hair a bit frizzy and her face pink and shining with sweat. Her eyes were wide and wild, and she looked like she was in a panic as she kept glancing over her shoulder as if she’d expected someone to be chasing her.
“Ma’am?” Lisa said, standing up, instantly in work mode. “Are you all right?”
I noted that the woman wore expensive, well-made clothes. Nothing that obviously screamed designer label, and nothing that most people would notice at first glance—but having worked with a lot of rich people, I’d learned how to recognize higher end clothing.
Aside from the clothes she wore, which were slightly wrinkled and askew, I noticed some pale patches on her skin, specifically her wrist and the ring finger on her left hand—spots where jewelry had been. There was also odd amounts of dirt on her shoes, and heavy dark bags under her eyes as though she hadn’t slept peacefully in days.
Usually, this was a woman I would call beautiful. She had the facial features and curves for it, and wavy strawberry blonde hair with warm brown eyes. Full breasts, killer legs, and a lush mouth that had my brain conjuring all sorts of filthy fantasies.
But right now, she was frazzled. No . . . she actually looked—hunted. That was the word I would use to describe her. As if she were a gazelle being chased down by a predator and she had nowhere left to go to escape the threat.
“Hi.” The woman straightened herself up and smoothed her hand over her blouse in a vain attempt to act like everything was normal. “I’m Claire Turner. I was hoping I could hire this firm’s services?”
Her voice was rich, low, and velvety, and I felt my cock twitch in my pants. It was the kind of voice I’d normally fall head over heels for. If we were at a party, or a club, I’d be figuring out how to hear that voice scream my name as I fucked her through the damn mattress later that evening.
This wasn’t a party or a club, though. This was the lobby of my office building, and she was talking like we had a standing appointment. Which we didn’t.
She held out her hand. I stared at her. I was pretty sure Lisa was staring at her, too. Was she really going to act like she hadn’t just rushed in here like a masked killer with a machete was on her tail?
Be professional you dickhead, a voice in the back of my head chided me. It sounded annoyingly like Bryce.
I slid my hand into hers. “I’m Vaughn Hughes, one of the three men who run this place. Nice to meet you, Miss Turner.”
As I shook her slender hand, I noticed the expensive clothes would normally suggest she could afford our services, but not in their current state.
Maybe you should get her out of those clothes…
I mentally swatted the dirty, inappropriate thought away. My brothers-in-arms would never let me hear the end of it if I fucked a client. We had a strict policy about not mixing business and pleasure. All three of us were men who heartily enjoyed women and all the things we could do with them, so when we’d formed EPC, we’d promised to keep it in our pants when it came to clients so that we wouldn’t cause any problems like conflicts of interest.
“Miss Turner, what exactly is your problem?” I asked.
Claire’s eyebrows rose, along with the tone of her voice, as if I’d just insulted her. “What exactly is my problem?”
Yeah, this was why I let the other guys deal with people.
I tried to be a bit more diplomatic. “You’re in one of the best and most expensive security firms in the area. I assume there’s a problem you need us to handle?”
I realized I was still holding her hand and forced myself to let go. Claire’s cheeks flushed a little pink. Mmm. That knowledge brought a pleased little purr to my chest. Good to know she was equally attracted and that I could probably still make her my plaything if I wanted to, even though she was technically off-limits.