Courting Trouble (Reality Romance Book 5) (13 page)

Chapter Twenty

Adam woke up feeling inexplicably amazing—then he rolled over and saw the explanation, sprawled out on her stomach, one arm hanging loosely over the side of the bed, the sun from the skylight painting her skin a rich golden hue.

Gorgeous.

Who wouldn’t want to wake up to that for the rest of his life?

Not that he was going to. Her life was in uproar at the moment. He represented comfort and safety to her. A temporary sanctuary. He knew better than to expect anything more from her right now. And even if he had wanted something real and permanent, something more than just coming together in the night, he didn’t have anything to offer her at the moment. His life wasn’t stable. His future, when he looked into it, was still murky. The job with Elite Protection was a temporary measure. Something to keep him afloat until he figured out who the hell he was now that all his goals had been stripped away.

He wasn’t in a position to make promises that lasted. But for now he could be here for her. Make her life easier any way he could.

He saw the moment she woke up. He tended to come awake all at once—like being shot out of a cannon, one of his non-morning-person exes had grumbled—but Elena’s waking was a slow, inch-by-inch process. Her shoulders tensed, her hands spasming as she fought to stay asleep. Then the muscles along her spine clenched, one by one, as consciousness invaded and her troubles returned. She released a soft, disgruntled sigh and he knew she was truly awake, though her eyes stayed squeezed closed.

Unable to resist, he leaned over her, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder blade. “Good morning.”

She released an irritable grumble and opened one eye—and he was gratified to see her irritation melt away. Her face was pointed away from him, toward the view out the windows. He’d woken up to this for the last several months, but it still startled him sometimes, the ocean right outside the glass.

He tried to see it through her eyes—the same long bank of windows like the living room below, but brighter here, blazing with light from the pale hardwood floors to the giant gleaming skylight. The room seemed to have been designed to bring the sea closer and accent the light on the water. The bed was a large four-poster, sturdy and massive, like something that had been taken from an old sailing ship—or made out of one. From her position she wouldn’t be able to see the fireplace or the reading nook, nor the walk in closets and luxurious master bath that jutted off this room—but the view was enough.

He’d never felt like it was his, sleeping in this bed, living in this room. He’d never fit. But with her here… It still didn’t feel like his, but he felt right being here somehow. Like an expensive hotel room he could indulge in for a few nights before returning to reality. The kind of hotel room he would want to get for Elena, to spoil her. To see her smile and sigh as she gazed out over the view.

“Wow,” she murmured.

He hummed against her skin, kissing along her spine now, his hands sliding over her silky smoothness. Her muscles slowly began to unknot.

“That is some view to wake up to.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

She turned her head enough to see his face, realized he was ignoring the view outside in favor of the one in his bed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be cliché.”

He shrugged—it had been a cheesy line—and went back to saying good morning to every inch of her gorgeous self.

She sighed, going loose-limbed beneath him. “Can I just stay in this bed and never leave? Pretend nothing else exists?”

“I certainly wouldn’t mind,” he said. “I have a job tonight, but I’m yours until three.”

“Oh?” She twisted, stretching beneath him, all lovely soft limbs and sweet curves.

“Mm.” He bent his head to kiss her—and her stomach rumbled loudly. Adam lifted his head. “We need fuel.”

Only when he said the words did he become aware of his own stomach’s complaints. They’d never gotten to dinner the night before and by the angle of the light, they’d already missed his normal breakfast hour this morning. And after their marathon last night…

“Sadly, mankind cannot live on sex alone,” he declared, already rolling out of bed. “How do you feel about pancakes?”

* * * * *

Elena sank deeper into the plush covers on the massive bed, watching Adam’s world-class ass disappear into the bathroom. Moments later she heard the water running, but before she could work up the energy to decide whether she wanted to join him in the shower it shut off again and Adam came out, wearing a pair of dark blue cotton pajama pants and rubbing a towel over his wet hair.

“That might be the fastest shower I’ve ever seen,” she commented, still without moving from her cozy nest on the bed.

“I was motivated by starvation,” Adam said, moving to the bed to drop a smacking kiss on her mouth. “Gotta keep my woman fed.”

He straightened and headed for the bedroom door, tossing the towel back into the bathroom as he passed it.

She shouldn’t like being called his woman. Especially considering she couldn’t keep him. They were just playing. Enjoying the moment. But it was a good moment. One worth enjoying. So she let herself bask in the feeling the words conjured.

That would be her motto today. Live in the moment. The sensory. Enjoy the scents and sights and not think about anything outside this room.

She heard him banging around in the kitchen below, whistling little snatches of an old Otis Redding song, and she smiled to herself, dragging herself out of the most comfortable bed on the planet to go investigate the shower.

It was—unsurprisingly—glorious. Cassandra Newton the Elder had excellent taste in everything, and that included walk-in showers with half a dozen adjustable shower heads and automated temperature controls. Elena rinsed off the sweat and scent of sex from the night before, quickly washing her hair before adjusting the massage settings to pound the kinks out of her shoulders.

She could get used to this. Nothing like a zillion dollar showerhead to deal with the effects of having your life shredded by the press.

Apparently the moral of the story was if your life is going to hell, make sure the amenities are top notch.

She found a hair-dryer wedged all the way at the back in the cabinet beneath the second of the two vanities in the spacious master bath. The other vanity held Adam’s toothbrush, deodorant, comb and shaving detritus, but this one looked abandoned. Like it hadn’t been used since he moved in.

She didn’t care to examine the thrill of possessive pleasure that he’d never had anyone else use this vanity. Instead, she dried her hair and found the top half of the pajamas he’d been wearing sitting neatly folded on a shelf to one side of his laundry hamper.

She buttoned the top, picturing him carefully laying out his pajamas the morning before in preparation for his evening routine. Dirty clothes off and in the hamper, quick shower, clean pajamas folded and waiting.

He was so organized. So disciplined.

So unlike her.

She took another look around the bathroom and bedroom, noting how tidy everything was. A peek in the closet revealed the same ruthless order. It looked like a catalogue. Whereas the guest room she’d only been in for three days looked… well, she’d just choose to think of it as thoroughly lived in.

It was a good thing they were just temporary. She’d drive him crazy with her mess in under a week if they were really a couple.

Elena padded barefoot down the risers. Adam was humming now, slightly off-key, and cooking merrily away, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that reality was waiting for her in the kitchen.

Her phone was down there.

“Smells good.” She walked into the kitchen, inhaling the inviting scent of bacon, and boosted herself up onto one of the breakfast bar stools, grateful his shirt was long enough to keep her bare ass from touching the chilly stool. And on the topic of underwear… “I’m running out of clothes.”

She hadn’t been thinking long term when she packed her bag. She’d brought a variety of items, but only enough to last a couple of days.

Adam glanced up from the skillet, pausing in his pancake flipping. “You’re welcome to the washer and dryer. Or we’ll buy more.”

She was glad he hadn’t suggested braving the paparazzi at her place to get to her clothes, but it still felt cowardly. “I hate the idea of leaving LA to get away from the drama—like it’s letting them win. But is hiding out here any better than that? If I really want to show them I don’t care, don’t I have to face them?”

Adam ignored her questions, asking instead, “Do you want to face them?”

“Not today.”

He shrugged as if that said it all and turned back to the pancakes. “We’ll swing by a store after breakfast.”

She studied his bare shoulders, marveling at him—and not just his physique. He was so different than anyone she’d ever met. Whatever she felt, he accepted it. If she wanted to hide, he didn’t think less of her. If she was feeling wild and manic, he didn’t shy away from her. He just let her be…
herself
. And he seemed to like it. Had anyone ever done that before?

She was good at shoving who she was down people’s throats—because she had to. Because everyone seemed to be trying to fix her. But Adam… he was built differently.

“Syrup?” He set a plate of pancakes in front of her, still holding the spatula with his other hand.

She caught his bicep before he could turn back to the stove to load up the other plate. She stood on the rung of the stool, balancing with her free hand on the breakfast bar, and kissed him.

It wasn’t fast and lusty and open-mouthed. It wasn’t urgent and pleading and needy. It was simple. It was brief. It was all she could do to thank him.

She fell back onto the stool as he blinked at her. She could feel herself blushing, squirming under his gaze, inexplicably more exposed now than she had been last night laid out naked on his bed. She focused on the plate. “Syrup would be great. Thanks.”

Adam shook himself and turned away, returning moments later with his own plate and the syrup. He took the seat beside her, diving into his own pile of pancakes with gusto.

They sat side by side, having breakfast. Such a normal domestic scene for distinctly non-domestic people.

“I should check my messages,” she commented when the silence began to get to her. “See if there’s anything new from the lawyers.”

Adam nodded. “I’ll call Max’s detective again. See if there’ve been any developments there.” He forked in another bite of pancake. “I was serious about not having to work until three today. If there’s nothing more we need to do for your case, how do you feel about a field trip?”

“To get clothes?”

“That, too, but I had another idea. A surprise.”

Elena was not a fan of surprises—they always seemed to backfire and disappoint—but there was something about the glint in his eyes that appealed to her. “All right. Surprise me.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The Elite Protection offices in Beverly Hills were not what Elena had been expecting when Adam had said he had a surprise for her. Typically when men said those words to her they were followed up by some hackneyed romance-by-the-book date. Generic red roses. An overpriced restaurant. Tickets to an opera she’d never heard of.

Adam had brought her to his office, as if it was Take-Your-Live-In-Friend-With-Benefits-to-Work Day.

She climbed out of his Jeep, eyeing the motorcycle in the next space as he rounded the hood. “Clearly I’m shacking up with the wrong bodyguard. Who’s the biker?”

“My most repellent coworker,” Adam joked. “Lucky for you, he’s offered to let me borrow it whenever I want. Play your cards right and I’ll even teach you to drive it. Come on.” He took her hand, tugging her toward the building.

She was tempted to pull back, to argue that she knew how drive it, to beg him to jump on that bike with her and just go, but she let him guide her in through the back employee entrance and down the stairs into the basement. He didn’t stop until they reached a large open room with weight equipment and a central ring of padded mats.

“If this were a movie, we’d have a training montage right now,” she commented, eyeing the hanging punching bag in the corner dubiously.

Adam grinned. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

She transferred her doubt from the punching bag to her lover. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I only sweat when I’m naked or there’s a really good song playing so loud I can’t hear myself speak. I pretended to jog while I was at the Suitorette Mansion so I would have an excuse to sneak over to Daniel’s mansion on the other side of the wall, but even pretending to be a runner was miserable. I have no idea why people do that voluntarily.” She waved a hand at the training room. “This isn’t happening.”

He caught her with one arm when she tried to bolt. “Aren’t you even curious why I brought you here?”

“To
exercise
apparently,” Elena said, making the words sound like
to get a root canal.
She should have known something was up when he told her to bring a yoga outfit, but she’d been secretly hoping their destination was a day spa.

“Not to exercise. To teach you how to kick ass.”

The first little glimmer of interest flickered in the back of her mind, quickly quashed by reality. “I’m five-one and I weigh one hundred and four pounds. Whose ass am I going to kick? Minnie Mouse?”

“Size helps, I’m not gonna lie, but you don’t have to be huge to be a badass. There’s a woman upstairs who can probably take me to the cleaners if she ever decides she wants to and she’s only a few inches taller than you.”

“If you teach me to kick ass, what will I need you for?”

“I don’t want you to need me. I want to know you can get out of any situation you don’t want to be in. And I want you to know it too.”

Another glimmer of interest kindled.

“Come on,” he cajoled, seeing an opening. “You can take out all your aggressions on me. I’m volunteering to be the whipping boy for every guy you’d like to beat senseless.”

“Funny. Because you’re the one guy I’ve never wanted to beat senseless.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Sure. Fine.”

He grinned and pointed her toward a closed door. “Changing rooms are through there. Suit up, killer.”

* * * * *

Two hours later, Elena sank down onto the mats, sweaty, sore and feeling ever-so-slightly badass, though she still complained, “This training montage sucks. Aren’t I supposed to be Bruce Lee by now?”

“You’re getting it,” Adam encouraged. He’d been unfailingly encouraging all morning as he showed her pressure points and weaknesses in various holds so she could get the most impact with the least force. “You were able to get away from me a couple times—now you just need to work on it until it becomes natural and instinctive.”

He was a good teacher, patient and clear, explaining repeatedly that the best way for her to end a fight was to escape it and tailoring the moves to someone her size—and it hadn’t hurt that she was rolling around with someone ridiculously hot who turned her crank big time. Though he’d been nothing but professional as they grappled—even when his hands had been all over her body and she’d been twisting and pressing against him.

She watched the bend and shift of his body as he pulled two water bottles out of a mini-fridge. No wonder Cassie Newton had a thing for him. “You know, if you wanted to grope me all morning, you could have just said. This elaborate set-up was entirely unnecessary.”

“You found me out. All this so I can cop a feel.” He tossed her a water bottle and she caught it, pressing the coolness against her forehead. Adam settled down beside her, everything about him graceful and contained. He’d barely broken a sweat, the jerk.

She cracked open her water and drained a third of it in one go, eyeing him. “You’re good at this. The teaching stuff.” Of course, she’d yet to find something he
wasn’t
good at. “Have you ever considered offering your celebrity clients self-defense courses?”

He cocked his head. “That’s not a bad idea. Max has probably already thought of it as part of his master plan for this place, but it wouldn’t hurt to mention it to him.”

“Just be sure you give me credit. If he makes millions off making celebrity chicks feel badass, I want a cut. I’m too broke to be generous with my genius.”

“Deal.”

She recapped her water and flopped onto her back on the mats, resting the bottle on her stomach beneath her sports bra, idly rolling it back and forth. “You’d think with all my dance training I’d be better at this.”

“Different kind of movement. How do you feel?” The question was cautious enough she knew he wasn’t asking about the muscles that would be sore tomorrow.

“Badass. Thought I’d go pick a fight with a biker gang tonight.”

Adam sighed his irritation, but didn’t rise to the bait.

Lesson One—as he’d drummed it into her head—was don’t get cocky. Apparently the worst thing about having a little training was thinking you were tougher than you were. Elena wasn’t in danger of that. She’d managed to twist out of a few holds and learned a lot about where to squeeze to get the most impact, but she didn’t fool herself that she was a ninja after two hours.

But it was nice in a way. The little knowledge she had now. The way it gave her a feeling that she wasn’t
completely
helpless. She’d always had one option before this—talk her way out of situations—but now if a man grabbed her wrist in a bar she knew how to twist away, suddenly so she could surprise him and putting all her limited force against the weakest part of his grip, where his thumb and fingertips met. And then run. Don’t give him a chance to get his hands on her again.

It was a small thing, but it was an option she hadn’t had before.

“I hate that this is necessary.”

Adam was silent, but then that wasn’t unusual. And she could feel his attention on her, knew he was listening.

“It’s
wrong
.” And the injustice of it burned beneath her skin. “It’s wrong that women have to learn how to kick ass so they won’t be date raped. That we have to guard our drinks so we don’t get roofied and have a designated friend we check in with when we’re going out with someone new or going home alone late at night.
If I don’t check in, call the police
. It’s not just that it’s happened to me. It’s that it happens to
anyone.
How can this be a thing? How is it okay that we live in a society where those kinds of precautionary measures are necessary?” She sat up abruptly, squeezing the water bottle between her hands. “And then if we aren’t cautious enough and some predatory dick takes advantage, we get assaulted again by public opinion because our lifestyle allowed it to happen. It’s
wrong
.”

She catapulted to her feet, flinging the half-empty water bottle. It smacked into the wall with a satisfying thud. She should throw things more often.

“Men are animals and we should know that and take appropriate measures. God forbid they should be held responsible for their actions.” She pivoted, looking for something else to throw and Adam extended his water bottle. He watched her calmly, making no move to interrupt, always so tuned in to her, always knowing when she just needed to rant and throw things. She snatched the bottle out of his hand. “Dermott planned this.” She wound up and fired, the plastic thwack of the second bottle hitting the wall echoing startlingly loud. “The lighting was perfectly set—he was practically
directing
me. Which made it look like I knew I was being filmed. He
set me up
.” She needed something to throw. “Of course, that’s what you do with a sex tape, isn’t it? It’s not exactly spontaneous. He’s a predator and he should be in jail, not potentially making millions if the decision goes against me and he gets custody of that damn tape. It was freaking entrapment. I should be able to sue him.”

“Maybe you can,” Adam said and she looked at him sharply.

“What?”

“Maybe you can. I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.”

God, how good would that feel? To punish the asshole for everything he was doing. “I need to call my lawyers.”

* * * * *

Adam sat on the mats, watching Hurricane Elena charge off to call her lawyers and wreak justice. He knew shit about the law, but he hoped she could sue. She deserved a win. And that asshole deserved to be behind bars.

Adam couldn’t think about the tape without his vision going red. He wanted to pummel the asshole who had betrayed Elena’s trust to within an inch of his life, but she was right. He was going to end up in jail himself if he kept trying to fight her battles. But he hated that there was nothing he could do.

Something needed to happen to Dermott Kellerman. Something painful and lasting.

Elena returned a few minutes later, frowning at the cell phone in her hand. He didn’t have to ask what her lawyers had said—Elena was never shy about volunteering things.

“Apparently it’s not entrapment—that’s something else—and he still thinks the invasion of privacy thing will be a hard sell because of who I am—which is idiotic, but I get it—but he says if we prove premeditation it could help us with public opinion, but hurt our claim to ownership. He wants me to focus on being happy that the injunction is working and they’re building a case for my custody of the video. He says they feel good about getting a hearing soon so things don’t drag on—and then I practically hung up on him because I remembered phone calls count as billable hours and I could feel my bank account emptying the longer he talked.” She glared at her phone. “I hate this.”

An idea whispered in the back of his mind—a way he could finally do something to help. He couldn’t really afford to keep the house anyway… he’d have to sell it eventually. And if he did it now, there would be plenty left over to pay legal fees. He wouldn’t have to work for Elite Protection anymore if he didn’t want to. His life could go from being a temporary measure designed to keep from losing the house to being about the kind of man he wanted to be again. Not just babysitting celebrities, but doing something meaningful. He could call a real estate agent today, get the ball rolling…

“I’m making a resolution,” Elena declared with dramatic flair and he brought his focus back to the present.

“What’s that?” he prompted when she didn’t immediately go on.

“I’m not going to let them change me.” She turned to him with a blend of triumph and stubbornness blazing in her eyes. “I tried to be good, but I am sick of playing by their rules. Fuck that. I want to be me again.”

He felt his lips curve. “Good.”

Her answering smile was full of wicked intent. “Wanna get into trouble?”

He wanted her to be happy. Whatever it took. “With you? Always.”

Her grin broadened until it was wild and blinding. “Let’s get out of here.

He was with her until they changed and hit the parking lot—and the searching mischief in Elena’s eyes found a target.

“Hello, gorgeous.”

She approached the gleaming black and silver Yamaha like it was a puppy at an animal fair, both hands outstretched to pet with a covetous affection in her eyes. She stroked her hands along the lines of the motorcycle. “Can we keep her?”

“She isn’t mine.”

“I know.”

He unlocked the Jeep, tossing in both of their bags. When he shut the rear door and turned back to her, she was still paying homage to the bike. “Pretty Boy might be easy-going, but I think he’d draw the line at me stealing his motorcycle.”

“We aren’t stealing. We’re borrowing. Didn’t he say we could?”

“I think he meant at a pre-arranged time.”

“If he didn’t want us to borrow it today, why did he leave his keys where anyone could swipe them?” She held up a hand, Pretty Boy’s keychain dangling from her index finger.

“Where did you get those?” But he already knew the answer. There were lockers in the changing room, but none of them were in the habit of locking their things because the only people who could get to the lower level were EP staff.