Guarding Mr. Fine (Tough Love #2) Read online

  Rick walked out of the closet and headed for the window again. From there he could see right into the heart of the closet. He balanced his fists on the built-in bookcase under the window and glanced at the bulletproof window. Something still nagged at him.

  He turned around and surveyed the room. Huge bed. A shiny marble bathroom right there. The bookcases. Lots of places to hide things but nothing hidden.

  He pushed off from the shelves and his heel knocked against the wood. The hollow thud had him looking down. There was nothing special there, just finished wood and…wait. His gaze went to the window again then back to the floor. He felt the itch of confusion, a fact he wasn’t reading right, but his brain couldn’t grab it.

  He stepped back and sized up the area again. The closet, the window. The bookcases. All of it looked ordinary. Then the measurements started to click in his head. Too shallow. The shelves didn’t appear to go back as far as the wall. Not on this one set of shelves under the window. The top of the case did. It sat flush with the wall and looked the right depth, maybe fourteen or so inches. But not the actual shelves. They were shorter.

  Rick crouched down and spread his palm out on the shelves. Yeah, too short to hit the wall. No question about it.

  After a quick look behind him to make sure he was alone, he tugged on the shelves, really yanked. The top one didn’t move. Neither did the middle. But the bottom made a squeaking noise. Rick pulled harder and shifted. It moved out just far enough for Rick to inch his fingers inside. His hand was too big to jimmy up in there, but his fingertips touched something. A very familiar something.

  He strained, ignoring the squeezing sensation against his hand and the prick of the wood on his skin. He got a good grip and ripped at the object. Pulled it down just far enough to make it out.

  The end of a gun. Partially wrapped in a cloth but still clearly a gun.

  He had no idea how long it had been up there or who put it there. It might have nothing to do with Ed or what, if anything, was happening in Munich. But hidden weapons were usually not a good sign.

  Footsteps sounded on the grand staircase leading up to this floor. As Rick waited, they drew closer, then retreated.

  That was enough of a charge to get Rick moving. He scrambled to his knees and dropped the gun. Next he shoved the shelf back into place. He’d just put his hand on his thigh to stand up again when a voice rang out in the quiet room.

  “Are you okay, sir?” Ben asked.

  There he was again. Ben showing up without announcing a warning first. Rick was not a fan. “You need to stop doing that.”

  “Sir?”

  He stood up and turned. Watched Ben’s gaze flick around the room. Interesting.

  “Nothing.” But maybe something.

  Rick needed hidden video in here. He also wanted the small space dusted and the gun inspected. He just wished he knew who he could trust to do all that.

  Then it hit him. There was one guy and he was on the way. At first Rick said no to the added protection arranged by his CIA contact Helena Bond. Having a random guy on-site struck him as too hard to explain. Now he silently thanked her.

  “We should get back to the consulate.” Rick glanced at his watch and saw he had about an hour. “I’m expecting guests.”

  “Sir?”

  The whole deference thing was going to work on his nerves and fast. “A bodyguard.”

  Ben’s mouth opened twice before he got any words out. “Personal protection?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you have diplomatic security.”

  Yeah, that was the one part of Helena’s plan that caused a problem. Rick rushed to fill in with the cover story. “There was a concern, in light of Ed’s suicide, that security might be spread thin and some might be rattled and needing a bit of a break.”

  “People can still do their jobs, sir.”

  Exactly. Rick hoped that included the people messing with the vaccines and weapons. “I’m counting on that.”

  Chapter 4

  Three days after the sex in the club Seth still thought about the guy. On the way from Berlin to Munich, memories kept flashing through his mind. The way Blue Eyes looked up while sucking him off. His fingers holding the edge of the desk in a death grip. The sexy sounds he made as Seth plunged inside him.

  The guy had a killer ass. Sweet damn.

  Something about the guy had called to him across that crowded bar. Through the group of women with sexy straight hair and the hot bartender with the tongue piercing. God knew Seth liked that sort of thing. But Blue Eyes had been the one. That half hour had been time well spent.

  Seth hadn’t expected the whiff of regret after. It didn’t come from getting laid. No, this started when he let Blue Eyes walk away without asking him for another drink and maybe a second round with their pants down. Or for his name. Maybe that explained why he’d scooped up Blue Eyes’s glasses and didn’t even try to race through the club to hand them back.

  Too dangerous. One-time sex was one thing. Wanting more spelled disaster.

  “You can go in.” The assistant lowered the phone in her hand long enough to deliver the message and nod at the closed door across from her. Then she went right back to talking.

  About time.

  The whole assignment reeked of an undercover op. He’d been in London, taking his mandatory time off when the call came. He had to get to Germany for a very hush-hush temporary solo assignment. Seth was all for working and was fine with going in alone, even though that wasn’t how he usually operated. Fine until he found out the mission consisted of making sure some diplomat didn’t fall down the stairs or get hit by a car or otherwise cause an international incident.

  But Seth had been in the field long enough to know this was not a simple bodyguard position. First, he didn’t do those. Second, his file about the consulate and this assignment contained very few details. Limited background on the consul general. An absence of photos. Generally, no real intel on the office or staff.

  His superiors sent him in blind, which likely meant they feared a mole. He’d been through this cycle before. But what a mole had to do with a random consulate office in Germany was the question. One he planned to find an answer to very soon.

  Seth inhaled, calling up all his control and punching down his frustration. He hated bureaucratic bullshit. The chain of command thing, following orders by people who sat at desks…fuck all of it. That was one of the benefits of working in SAD. Limited oversight because so few people had access to his file and his operations.

  The one thing he’d learned the hard way was that the guys in suits determining strategy were often too far removed from the action to be anything other than a detriment. He had the scars to prove that.

  He knocked once before opening the door. He figured he might as well let this suit know he wasn’t a march-to-orders type. Once inside, he spied the U.S. flag in the corner and an oversized desk stacked with files at the far end.

  And Helena Bond.

  Now there was a surprise, and not a completely welcome one. He admired her well enough. That wasn’t the point. She was his boss’s boss. Seth reported to Max Brighton, the team commander. Max now reported to her, and if she was in Germany that meant trouble.

  She was new to the job, having recently gotten a promotion, thanks in part to the case Seth had just worked on. She’d switched from the CIA operations side to SAD. At six foot in bare feet and much taller in heels, she towered over many of the men back in the office. A fact that made Seth laugh.

  She was determined and smart. Being a forty-something black woman in a white-male-dominated field, she’d also fought for every step. She’d earned her position and had a reputation for being loyal to her people. Seth appreciated both of those qualities. But she was still a desk jockey, which meant she should actually be back at her desk, and not in Germany bugging him.

  “You doing spot-checks on the team now?” he asked as he closed the door and walked over to her.

  She barely glanced u
p from the file in her hands. “Do you need to be checked?”

  She didn’t take his shit. He liked that about her, too. “Some would say so.”

  “I need an actual file on this guy you’re bringing in. When is he getting…”

  At the sound of the familiar voice, Seth’s gaze shot to the door at the far end of the room. This time his clothes were on, but Seth knew the ass hidden under those gray dress pants.

  There he was. Fucking Blue Eyes, standing in the middle of the office still all nerdy hot but wearing a different pair of glasses. He also looked like he fit here, which was just about the worst news Seth could imagine. No way he fucked his new assignment. Even his luck wasn’t that bad.

  Helena closed her file and looked back and forth between the men. “Seth Lang, this is Richard Fine, the new consul general here.”

  Blue Eyes didn’t lose a beat. In two steps, he stood in front of Seth with his hand out and all recognition and that short spark of surprise wiped off his face. “Mr. Lang.”

  The guy sure could fake it. Seth wasn’t sure he liked that piece of information. “Mr. Fine.”

  He dropped Blue Eyes’s hand as soon as he could. Touching him sent Seth’s mind spinning back to the other night. To the feel of him tightening…yeah, he could not go there right now.

  Helena leaned against the edge of the desk. “I’ll let you two work out the details and logistics of protection.”

  “Interesting,” Seth mumbled.

  “You’re the one who brought down Pentasus?” Blue Eyes sounded skeptical.

  It also sounded like the nerd had access to top-secret CIA intel. Not many at Langley knew the truth about Pentasus, the crime family that had engaged in high-level kidnappings and murders on behalf of governments, billionaires, drug lords and gun runners. They were thought to be nothing more than a rumor, but they were all too real and they’d left a pile of bodies throughout the world. Until they were stopped.

  “I was on the team that uncovered and disbanded Pentasus.” And that was all Seth wanted to say about that.

  The corner of Blue Eyes’s mouth kicked up in a smile. “So humble.”

  “Hardly.” Seth had never been accused of that before. He had no problem with the smartass tag. He wore it proudly.

  This time he was the one who couldn’t stop staring. Seeing Blue Eyes—Richard or whatever his real name was—standing there, in his habitat, wearing the suit, should have turned him off.

  It made him want to strip the guy’s tie off nice and slow.

  Helena cleared her throat. “We do have one issue.”

  That snapped Seth out of the haze that had his brain in lockdown. He doubted one was the right number. “What?”

  “Mr. Fine prefers to stay here rather than the consular residence. At least for now.”

  Talk about dangerous. As if Seth didn’t hate this babysitting gig enough. He turned to Blue Eyes. “You afraid of ghosts?”

  The guy didn’t even flinch. “I’m not sure I’ve ever met one.”

  “A guy dies in a house…” Seth shrugged. “Maybe that creeps you out?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Then what? Don’t want to ride in cars? Hate going outside?” Seth quickly ran out of stupid excuses for the bad decision. “Why would you choose to bunk here?”

  Blue Eyes didn’t blink. “We can discuss that at our meeting.”

  “Right.” Helena stood up again and snagged her file off the desk where she’d dumped it. “Which starts in ten minutes.”

  Seth forced his gaze away from Blue Eyes to Helena. “Then are you going to tell me why you’re in Germany?”

  One of Helena’s eyebrows lifted. “If you can’t figure it out by then we’ll know you’re not smart enough to handle this job.”

  Typical of Helena to get in a shot. Seth just hated that she beat him to it. “I prefer having the assignment spelled out in advance.”

  “It’s not your choice,” Blue Eyes said.

  “I see we’re off to a good start.” Helena started walking toward the door, clearly expecting them to follow. “Should we go to the meeting room?”

  Seth had some other business to handle first. “In a second. I want to talk to Mr. Fine, if that’s okay.”

  Helena smiled at Blue Eyes. “He’s all yours.”

  “Lucky me.”

  Seth waited until the door clicked shut. This guy could act cool if he wanted, but seeing each other now, undercover and at work, had to shake him. Seth refused to believe it didn’t. “So, what do I call you? Richard…Dick?”

  For a second, the guy didn’t answer. He walked around his desk and sat in his big leather chair. Made quite a show of it, too. “How about boss or Mr. Fine. Even sir.”

  Ego, good. Seth handled ego bullshit all the time. “I meant in private.”

  “So did I.”

  Seth stepped up to the opposite side of the desk. He didn’t bother sitting. Looming over Blue Eyes worked better. “So, Your Highness—”

  “If you insist on being insolent, use Rick.”

  “Big, fancy words.” Seth decided not to mention how the last time they were together they spoke mostly in grunts.

  “I can spell them for you, if you like.”

  Yeah, Seth wasn’t going to play this game. Rick acted detached and in control. That tended to bring out the worst in Seth. Since they had to work together and had enough unexpected baggage piled between them, he wasn’t looking for more.

  He came around to Rick’s side of the desk and leaned his hip against the edge. The move put them about a foot apart. “Why don’t I spell out some things, Rick?”

  Rick’s gaze moved over Seth, but he didn’t push his chair back. No, he held his ground. “As if I could stop you.”

  Okay, Seth had to give the guy credit for that. Still…“Do you often break protocol, abandon your security and head to a bar for raunchy sex with strangers?”

  “Raunchy?”

  Seth breezed right by that. It was either that or think about the sex, which could lead them down a path guaranteed to make them miss the meeting. “I should probably have a heads-up if that’s your thing since I’m the one who’s supposed to be guarding you, at least temporarily. I’d prefer if you didn’t get taken out on my watch.”

  Rick folded his hands in front of him. “Your watch or not, I’d prefer if that never happened.”

  “That’s hard to tell right now.” Seth tried to ruffle him but Rick refused to be baited. That was an impressive skill.

  “Keep up the attitude and I can have you taken off my private detail.”

  That was adorable. “Or you could answer the question, Rick.”

  “I was in Berlin before my assignment here started. I went out for drinks with some people from the embassy. They left and you walked in.” Rick held up his hands. “No rules were broken, except for maybe a few personal ones.”

  “Uh-huh. Let’s get to the point, shall we?” Seth shifted. Moved back just far enough so he could stare down and make his point. “Anyone could have come after you. I could have attacked you, kidnapped you. Slit your fucking throat. You need to be smarter and I think you know that.”

  “I was never in danger.”

  He was either clueless or possessed stone-cold insides. Seth suddenly wanted to know which. “What kind of response is that?”

  “An honest one.”

  “You’re not taking your safety seriously.” And that could get them both killed. Seth liked to play hard, but on the job he expected his orders to be followed and his rules to be obeyed.

  “I assure you, I am.”

  “Maybe act like it.”

  Rick balanced an elbow on the armrest of his chair and eyed Seth. “Admittedly, this whole tough alpha thing you’re doing right now is hot. Like, fuck-me hot. Clearly it appeals to me since I dropped my pants without even getting your name the last time we met, but here in this building, there is one rule.”

  Danger or no, Seth had to admit he liked the verbal sparring. Rick
didn’t back down. Seth found that hotter than he wanted to admit. “Enlighten me.”

  “I’m in charge. You show some respect or you’re on a plane to Yemen.”

  Nice try. “That was a great speech.”

  “Good.”

  “No, really.” Seth stood up because he figured he’d made his point with the close-up-and-threatening thing. “Not that I give a shit about anything you said because—and let me be clear so that there’s no misunderstanding here—I do not work for you.”

  Rick made a humming sound. “Did you quit already?”

  Everything he shoveled at this guy came flying back to him. Seth couldn’t scare him or shake him. That made him wonder if good ole Rick really did ride a desk most days.

  He’d figure that out later. Now he needed to drive this home. “You know how the chain of command works and that you actually aren’t my boss. Helena is. I’m assigned to you because someone at the State Department wants you to stay alive. Not you, apparently, because you don’t seem to give a shit about your safety.”

  Rick’s arm dropped and he sat up straighter. “I’m responsible for everyone in this building, including you.”

  “I’ve been brought in to babysit you. I’m not sure why the very capable marines and diplomatic security personnel and the private security personnel here can’t do it, or why you’re so damn special that you need an extra layer of protection from CIA special ops, but I assume I’ll find out in the briefing that’s going to happen in”—Seth pretended to look at his watch—“ten minutes.”

  “Five.”

  This guy had a comeback for everything. “Fancy suit or not, I protect that fine ass of yours until someone at Langley tells me to stop. Understood?”

  “You’ve been clear.”

  “I should think so.” Seth walked around to the other side of the desk. It was time for the first test. To order Rick into the conference room.

  “Just so I’m clear.” Rick stood up but he didn’t leave the safety of his desk. “Next time I want to get laid you’ll tag along and, what? Stand in the corner and watch?”