Wilde Nights in Paradise (Wilde Security #1)

Chapter Two

“Late again.”

“Dammit, I know.” Libby Pruitt shoved into her office, hooked her purse over the back of her chair, and searched her desk drawers for a hair clip. Noah Saunders, her intern for the semester, lounged in the doorway, his skinny arms crossed over his chest. He already had a coffee stain on his tie, even though it was barely eight thirty, and his kinky, orange-red hair looked as if he had styled it with an explosion.

Unfortunately, he was the more organized out of the two of them this morning. Where was that damn clip? Despite her efforts, her hair was already out of control.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he said.

“Again, I know.” Especially since her boss expected nothing less than 110 percent from his underlings. But it didn’t help that her father seemed intent on making her life into a special kind of hell. With one ten-minute phone call, he’d managed to ruin her entire day before she’d even had her first cup of coffee.

Noah frowned. “You never used to be late for work. What’s going on?”

Ah-ha. Hair clip. She twisted her hair into a ponytail and clipped it up. “We need to analyze the police reports regarding the Gatewood case—”

Noah straightened. He may have been a toothpick, but he was a tall toothpick and used his entire height to block her escape. “Libby, slow down a second. You can talk to me. Is something wrong?”

Her heart tripped, but she managed a smile she hoped didn’t look as fake as it felt. “Of course not. It’s just stress.”

“Over K-Bar’s release?”

Sure, she’d go with that. In a roundabout way, it was the truth. “He shouldn’t have gotten out, and I feel somewhat responsible that he did.”

“You did everything you could.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t enough. He’s still free to terrorize people.” One of those people being her, but she didn’t mention that to Noah. He didn’t need to know about the messages. The dolls. The disturbing voice mails. The distorted videos sent to her e-mail. Besides, she honestly didn’t think K-Bar would try anything more than make scary, but idle, threats. She’d spent enough time studying him to know that if he’d wanted her dead, he would have convinced someone from his gang to get rid of her a long time ago. It would’ve been a quick, execution-style kill that she never would have seen coming.

So, no. K-Bar didn’t want her dead. Of that, she was certain. He just wanted her terrified.

Now if only she could convince her dad of that. He was just compounding her stress by inviting a bodyguard into the mix—one he expected to play her boyfriend, of all crazy things.

“Libby?” Noah’s hand passed in front of her face.

She blinked. “Sorry. What?”

“This zoning out… It isn’t like you, either.”

“I know.” Shaking off her fears over her father’s mental health, she bit her lower lip. “I’m okay. Really.”

“If you’re worrying about K-Bar walking, don’t. Your case is airtight. He’ll be back in jail before the end of summer. You got him,” Noah said and offered a shy, goofy smile. “You’re amazing.”

Libby laughed and patted his arm. “I already told you, I’m too old for you.”

His face flushed to a color that nearly matched his hair. “I-I didn’t mean…”

“Joke. Relax.” She gave his arm another pat, then ducked under it. Noah raced after her, stammering apologies for once again being unable to tell when she was joking with him.

“Noah, stop. It’s fine. You have no need to apolo—” At the other end of the hall, a man stepped off the elevator with Kenneth, and her heart did a loop-de-loop. The stranger was around six one, his wide shoulders tapered into slim hips, and his jeans clung to his thighs as if they never wanted to let go. His dark hair was short on the sides and spiky on top, and she could just barely make out the ink of a tattoo on the side of his neck. Another peeked out from under the sleeve of a dark blue T-shirt. The shirt declared, “Trust me, I’ve done this before,” in white letters. A wide, stainless steel hoop glinted from his earlobe as he nodded at something Kenneth said.

Earring? Tattoos?

Libby willed her heart to start beating again. Her imagination must be playing tricks on her, conjuring the image of the one person she thought about far too often but never wanted to see again, because for a moment, she thought this man was—

As if sensing her, he glanced up from his conversation and met her gaze with eyes the color of a cloudless morning sky. A flicker of unease passed over his expression before he gathered himself and straightened his shoulders as if preparing for battle. His dimples flashed, and the entirety of her existence flipped on its axis.

What. The. Hell?

Before she realized she was moving, she stalked down the hall and stopped in front of him. His grin only widened, and he snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her against all that hard muscle she remembered too well. He used to pull her in like this and kiss her every time he saw her, no matter if she had been gone for an hour or a week. It had made her feel special, wanted, adored.

What a crock.

“Hey, babe,” he said with the same crooked half smile that at one time made her go all gooey-kneed. Except there was something different about him now, a tentativeness as he held her, a trait she’d never associated with him before. “I missed you.”

She opened her mouth to tell him off—but his lips descended, hesitating only the barest of moments before lightly brushing hers. He lifted his head and stared into her eyes with an unreadable expression in his own. Then, with a groan, he drew her tighter against his body, and his lips dropped to hers again in an overwhelming, desperate kiss that crushed the last eight years into mere moments and short-circuited her mind with an electric pulse of sheer desire.

But she was…angry. Right? At him. Yes, the man who was currently rubbing his tongue over her bottom lip, seeking entrance, the man she didn’t want to want—she should be furious at him right now. She just couldn’t remember why as his kiss sizzled over her nerve endings and filled her head with white noise. God, did the man know how to use his lips or what? He always had, could always make the world melt away until she was nothing but a bundle of sensation.

Off to her left, Kenneth rudely cleared his throat, and the world snapped back into sharp focus.

Wait.

Babe?

Libby ripped away from the kiss and stared up into pale blue eyes rimmed with ridiculously long lashes. “Jude?”

His expression was a little dazed and his breathing ragged, but that didn’t stop his gaze from dropping to her mouth. “Yeah?”

She rolled her hand into a fist, hauled it back, and punched Jude Wilde so hard the impact rung up her arm and into her own teeth. “Don’t call me babe ever again.”

…

The woman had a fist of steel.

Jude’s head snapped back at the impact of Libby’s punch, and he was pretty sure he had cartoon Tweety Birds circling his noggin when he straightened. Even getting socked in the face by Vaughn, who expressed some of his more aggressive urges as a cage fighter, didn’t rattle him half as much, but he’d long suspected his brother of pulling punches whenever they got into it.

Libby wasn’t going to afford him that courtesy.

She balled up her fist like she planned to hit him again, but a giant matchstick, complete with the flame-red hair, stepped in front of her.

“Libby, stop!”

Burke sucked in a sharp breath through his nose. “Libby, what is wrong with you?”

She shook out her hand and drew a shuddering breath. Then, like nothing had happened, she straightened her suit jacket and turned on her heel. Matchstick spared Jude a confused glance before chasing after her.

Holy fucking ouch.

Jude worked his jaw. He’d be surprised if he didn’t end up with a bruise as bad as the one Vaughn currently sported around his eye from yesterday’s office rumble. “I thought Pruitt explained this charade to her?”

“He did,” Burke said stiffly.

“Did he mention that I’m the guy he hired for the job?”

“It didn’t come up.”

“Of course not.” Goddamn Pruitt. If he really loved his daughter so much, why would he spring this on her without preparing her first?

Burke paced the hallway, indignation seeping from his every pore. “I told Elliot this was a bad idea. We should have handled this on our own. We didn’t need to bring in outsiders.”

Jude didn’t waste time with I-told-you-sos, even though he sorely wanted to say it. Maybe he was becoming a masochist, but now that he’d seen Libby again, and had tasted her, he couldn’t leave without talking to her for real, no pretense.

And maybe one more taste.

Christ, that kiss. It should have been just a quick hello, a smooch from him playing the part of her lover. But once he felt her soft lips yield under his, he’d lost his fucking mind. He’d needed to kiss her.

So much for his acting skills.

He started down the hallway, intent on finding Libby and apologizing for the way her father blindsided her with him—but Burke caught his arm.

“Who are you to her?” Burke demanded. “Elliot won’t tell me why he trusts you of all people to protect Libby.”

The lawyer had the hands of a pansy, soft and thin, and Jude peeled those fingers from his arm with ease. “I could ask the same of you, GQ.”

“We went to law school together.” Burke sniffed, straightening the lapels of his suit coat. “We’re friends.”

Man, that uppity tone of his really grated on the nerves. “Friends. Aw, that’s cute. I was her fiancé, so back off and let me do what Pruitt hired me to do.”

Scowling, Burke backed up a step and then another. He kept backing away until he reached the elevator, then turned and jabbed the button.

Jude waited until Burke disappeared into the elevator before continuing down the hallway on his mission to apologize to Libby. The place was a maze of office doors. After two wrong turns and a set of ass-backward directions from a flirty brunette paralegal, he found her seated at her desk in her office, flipping through a stack of files. Matchstick stood beside her with a clipboard in hand and seemed to be taking notes.

Jude tried the doorknob. Nope. Locked. Damn.

Going with plan B, he tapped on the window with his knuckle. Matchstick looked up and scowled. Libby’s shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t lift her eyes from the papers on her desk.

Okay.

He doubled his fist and gave the lightly frosted glass a few good thumps. Matchstick, the flame-haired prick, positioned himself like a human shield between the door and the desk, then went back to note taking. Libby still didn’t move.

Plan C then.

Jude grinned and started banging out a rocking drum solo on the window. Before he was even half way through “ Another One Bites the Dust ,” Libby shoved away from her desk. By the time she twisted the lock and yanked open the door, an aura of pissed off all but sizzled the air around her. She had never looked hotter, and his cock took instant notice. Man, this woman could still turn him on like no other, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

She grabbed hold of his arm and dragged him into an empty conference room across the hall from her office.

“What grade are in you in?” she demanded as soon as the door clicked shut behind them. “Second?”

“Fifth. Never grasped the concept of long division and they kept holding me back.”

“Unbelievable.” She pushed out an exasperated breath. “You’re still the same asshole I know and hate.”

“Whoa, now, Libs. Hate? That’s a strong word.”

“So is restraining order. Now are you finished?” She spun away and reached for the doorknob. “Because if you’re done making a fool out of yourself, I’m going back to work.”

Guilt left a bad taste in his mouth. As the woman he once loved to distraction, she deserved better than childishness from him. They were stuck in this less-than-ideal situation together, so why make it more difficult by being a jerk? The end of their relationship hadn’t been her fault—that was 100 percent on his shoulders. And he was okay with that. Mostly.

He caught her hand. “Libs, wait.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Fine. Libby.”

“Assistant District Attorney Pruitt to you.”

His jaw tightened against the barb in her tone. Her coldness toward him shouldn’t hurt. He deserved it and more. But, dammit, it did hurt. “All right, A.D.A. Pruitt, can we start over here?”

Her ponytail flopped as she shook her head. “Not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re… you .”

Another barb, and it cut deeper than the first. “The fuck up.”

“Yes. No.” Sighing, Libby rubbed her eyes under her glasses with the fingers of one hand. “Jude, I’m not the girl I was eight years ago, okay?” Finally realizing he still held her other hand, she shook off his grip and reached for the door handle. “And I don’t want any kind of relationship with you ever again.”

Ouch.

No , he thought and touched the ring in his pocket to anchor himself, not ouch . This had been his goal when he hurt her—but that was supposed to have been all there was to it. Hurt her, move on with his miserable life without her, the end. He never would have guessed the whole nightmare of a situation would come back to bite him in the ass now.

Hand still on the doorknob, Libby stared at him over her shoulder as if she expected some kind of response to her declaration.

“Well,” he said finally, “that’s unfortunate, since your father hired me to be your bodyguard-slash-pretend-boyfriend.”

Did she just go pale? Maybe it was the harsh lighting in the conference room, but it sure looked like her complexion had lost a few shades of color when she spun back to face him. And, damn, there was that surge of guilt again. Even so, he couldn’t tell her any of the whys because the truth would be much more painful than anything he’d done to her.

“W-what about the Marines?” she asked.

“Officially out a month ago.”

“Oh.”

“And seeing as we now have to convince everyone I’m your main man,” he added after a beat of silence, “we need to learn to play nice with each other.”

“Oh,” she said again, apparently at a loss for words.

Another beat, longer this time.

“So,” he prompted. “Can we start over?”

Libby chewed on her lower lip, naturally drawing his gaze to her mouth. Christ, the dreams he’d had about that mouth… He could still taste her, too, from his earlier attempt at playing his part, which didn’t help dull the throb of need behind his fly. He remembered exactly how good it was between them and wanted that mouth on his again. And on other, lower portions of his anatomy.

“Meet me in the parking lot after work,” she said finally, interrupting a particularly X-rated fantasy that had to do with her lipstick and his cock. “Jude, hello, did you hear me?”

“Er, right.” He shook himself. “Parking lot. Gotcha.”

“Five. Don’t be late. I need to get home.”

“Sure. See ya around.” He gave a dorky half wave as she shook her head and opened the door. Cursing at himself, he stood in the empty conference room and shut his eyes.

See ya around?

Shit, maybe he was mentally stuck in the fifth grade. Where was his head?

Okay, dumb question. As soon as he’d seen Libby again, his brain had migrated south. She just looked so good, all curvy and womanly, and the fire in her eyes every time she looked at him…

Damn.

She’d always been fierce, but as a young college co-ed, she’d kept it carefully leashed and hidden behind a sweet exterior. At least until they hit the sack, and then she’d rock not only his world, but his whole freaking solar system. Adult Libby—now she was something else. She all but crackled with passion. Made a guy wonder…

And fantasize…

And lust…

Oh, man. He needed an ice bath, a-sap.