Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1) (7 page)

Shock coursed through her, and from the corner of her eye she saw the bartender stop in mid-movement. A sense of panic gripped her even though there were other people in the bar.

“See?” Aiden asked. “See how easy it was for me to disarm you?”

Her heart still pounding, she stared at him with widened eyes. This had not been on her predictability list. “But… but I wasn’t prepared in here. We’re in a bar.”

He shook his head and placed the can of mace back in her hand. “It can happen anywhere. You’ll always have to be prepared.”

His voice carried a heavy dose of insistence with it as if he wanted to make sure she didn’t forget the lesson he’d just taught her.

She’d always thought she was prepared, but this stranger had just proven to her that she was nowhere near close to dealing with the unpredictable. She made a mental note to work on that, how, she wasn’t quite sure. “You had an advantage because I showed it to you.”

She felt the need to defend herself, not wanting to come across as a weak woman who needed a man’s protection. Particularly not in front of Aiden. When she looked at him, she felt the strange need to show him that she was strong, that she needed nobody—as if to prove something to him, even though she didn’t know what.

He smiled and put his hand over hers. Instinctively she tightened her fingers around the can.

Aiden nodded appreciatively. “Good, you’re learning. Because anybody could be an attacker.”

“Even you? Even though you saved my life?” She had no idea why she asked him that, her lips forming words without her permission.

He briefly squeezed her hand, then severed the contact, a strange look on his face. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

Leila lifted her chin. “So you’re telling me I can trust you?” Could she trust him? Or was she letting herself be fooled by his handsome face?

He leaned closer and reached for her free hand. His eyes penetrated her as if he was trying to see deep into her. When his lips parted, he did so only to whisper so quietly she barely heard it, “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Then he pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a warm kiss on the back of it. When he let go, a smile played around his lips. Her belly fluttered excitedly in response. Now she understood. It had all been a joke. He’d just pulled her leg.

She drew in a breath of relief. As she exhaled, a chuckle rolled over her lips.

He stared at her in surprise. “What’s so funny?”

“You. You were trying to scare me, but you couldn’t keep a straight face. Do you always do this to charm women?”

“I was charming you?”

She preferred not to answer that question.

Aiden smirked. “I guess you found me out.” For a moment, she could see the little boy in him that he must have once been. “A woman’s intuition?”

She tilted her head, studying him. “Maybe.”

Nervously, she reached for the glass again, but he anticipated her move and handed it to her. When she took another sip, another wave of heat spread in her body, but she wasn’t certain whether it was the alcohol causing this reaction or the fact that his eyes were pinning her. Returning his intense gaze, she suddenly realized that she was flirting with him. Everything feminine in her bloomed in an instant.

“And what else is there to know about you?” she asked before her courage could desert her.

“I’d hate to bore a woman by talking about myself.”

“So you prefer to remain mysterious,” she countered.

“Is that what I am to you, mysterious?” His eyelashes lowered a fraction, heat blazing in his eyes. “Good mysterious or bad mysterious?”

She swallowed quickly. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“What will help with that decision?”

“I’d have to know more about you.”

He let out a hearty laugh. “That defeats the purpose of remaining mysterious. If I tell you all about myself, there’ll be nothing mysterious left about me.”

“Would that be so terrible?”

“You’ll find me boring and uninteresting.”

She chuckled. “I doubt that very much.” She paused for a moment, her eyes suddenly honing in on the scar above his eyebrow. She pointed to it. “Tell me how you got this scar.”

He rubbed his finger over it. “This? That’s an old one. I was a boy.”

“And?” She motioned for him to continue.

“You really want to know?”

Leila nodded.

“My twin sister and I were little hellions. We were always roaming through the woods, disappearing for hours and hours. We were driving our parents nuts.”

She smiled. “Roaming in the woods? My parents would have been beside themselves with worry.”

He grinned. “We were ten, and trust me, my parents were glad to have a few hours to themselves. They had their hands full with us.”

“I believe it,” she murmured, noticing the excitement that gleamed in his eyes.

He looked mock-surprised. “I wasn’t the problem! My sister was. She was the wilder one.”

“Sure.” Leila chuckled to herself, enjoying him reliving his childhood adventures.

“I heard that.” He winked. “Julia always thought she could do anything. But… she slipped and fell. There was a cave, and she was dangling there, about to fall into it.”

“Oh my God, how deep was the cave?”

“Deep. I was horrified, but I reacted out of instinct. My hand went around her wrist, holding her while I braced my feet against a massive root that was anchored in the ground. I pulled her out, but the moment she was safe, the root snapped under our weight and hit me. Narrowly missed my eye.”

Leila let out a breath. “You saved your sister.”

He nodded, a sad look crossing his face. “That time, yes.” Then he smiled, changing the subject. “So, how’s your foot feeling?”

She looked at it. “Actually, I haven’t even been thinking about it in the last few minutes. You’re a miracle worker.”

“Hardly.”

“Thanks for helping me.”

“It’s all in a day’s work.”

She studied his face. “But you said you’re not a doctor.”

“I’m not.”

Surprised that he didn’t take the lead-in to talk about his job, something most men liked, she dug further. “So if it’s not medicine what do you do?”

“Security things.”

“You mean like a security consultant?”

“Not exactly.”

“Military?” God, she hoped not.

He hesitated as if contemplating what to tell her.

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s f—”

“I’m a bodyguard.”

Of their own doing, her eyes instantly roamed his body. Yes, he was tall, and when he’d carried her, it had seemed without effort. She’d felt his muscles flex beneath her. Yet he wasn’t just muscle and strength. He had speed too. The quickness with which he’d grabbed her and moved her out of the way of the speeding car, had been a blur.

Excitement and disappointment collided inside her. He was a man with a dangerous job, somebody so very different from herself, from her ordered life. A man not to get involved with no matter how hot he was and how much she owed him. She didn’t need to add another person to her life who she would worry about. She worried enough about her parents. That took all her energy. There was nothing left for a man who would be gone for days on end, likely without a word. No, she would never be able to do that.

The one-night-stand she had contemplated only minutes earlier lost its appeal. She didn’t want to be tempted to want more. Because things happened, and what if a one-night-stand turned into two nights, a week or a month? It was the same reason she never dated a policeman, fireman, or anybody who was in the military. A bodyguard fell into the same category.

With regret she allowed her lips to form her next words. “It’s getting late. I should call a cab.”

He seemed jolted by her answer for a moment. Then he emptied the last of his drink and looked into his glass. “I’ll make sure you’ll get home safely.”

SEVEN

Aiden insisted on waiting for the cab with her. As he helped her into the taxi, his mood was gloomy.

Why did it bother him that Leila had suddenly cut their impromptu evening short? He should be relieved. But after telling her about Julia and their adventures together, he’d felt a strange sense of wanting to open up to her, when he rarely talked to anybody about his sister.

Why Leila’s mood had suddenly changed when he’d told her he was a bodyguard, which came pretty close to the truth, he had no idea. Her rejection should suit him fine, but for whatever reason he didn’t like it. Intellectually, he knew that the more distance he could keep between him and her, the better for everybody involved. They weren’t friends, and she should never make the mistake of seeing him as such. Neither should he want anything from her but her compliance, so he could protect her. End of story.

No, it’s only the beginning,
his inner voice insisted while his heartbeat accelerated in agreement.

Not wanting his thoughts to go farther down that road, he watched the taxi disappear around the next corner and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed Manus’s number and started walking in the direction his car was parked.

“Yeah?” his second answered immediately. Of all people, the council had assigned Manus to him.

“I need you to check on a license plate for me. My charge was nearly run over by a car tonight.”

“No shit.”

“Could be a coincidence… ”

Manus snorted. “Since when do you believe in coincidences?”

Manus was right. He didn’t.

“What’s the plate number?”

Aiden recited it from memory. “I didn’t get the last number. There was some dirt on the plate, obscuring it.” He’d only had a split second to read the plates as the car had whizzed past him. But his preternatural senses had picked up what they could anyway.

“What kind of car was it?”

“Toyota, looked like a Corolla.” A very indistinct car, like millions of others.

“Give me a few hours. I’ll text you what I find.”

“Good, I’m going to Leila’s place now—”

“Ah, it’s Leila now. Interesting.”

Aiden’s hand tightened around his phone, anger surging. “Dr. Cruickshank’s apartment,” he corrected through clenched teeth.

“What’s she like?”

“Not your type,” Aiden bit out, his hackles rising once more. It would be a cold day in hell if he ever allowed Manus to guard her in his stead. She was his assignment. His responsibility.

“Ah, so it’s like that now.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You want her—Leila, is it?—for yourself,” Manus guessed.

“Bullshit! She’s my charge, that’s all. I don’t get involved with my charges.” He obeyed the rules. Even if his body wanted something different this time. Something that would not only break the Stealth Guardians’ rules but his own code of ethics.

“You’ll see the light one day, believe me.”

“Just do your job!”

Aiden disconnected the call and looked down the dark alley at the entrance of which he’d parked his black Ferrari. It was the same type of alley where only days earlier he’d lost a charge. Shaking off the unpleasant memory, he unlocked the car and slunk into the driver’s seat.

The engine howled seconds later, and the car shot into the street. Traffic was light, making it easy to slip back into his thoughts even though he didn’t want to.

He forced his thoughts away from Leila and back to his best friend. Best friend? He had no best friend anymore: Hamish was gone, by the looks of it seduced to the dark side by the demons. Was that what had happened? Had he turned bad? If that was true, then next time they met, it could be as enemies, clashing swords.

It was a gruesome prospect, one that for a moment even drowned out his thoughts about Leila. Aiden felt the blade that was lodged in the side of his right boot, a dagger forged in the Dark Days. Would he have to use this weapon against Hamish one day? He felt his heart contract painfully at the thought of it, but he knew it had to be done.

As a Stealth Guardian, Hamish knew too much. He was aware of the portals that connected all compounds with each other. Like worm holes, they allowed their kind to step into a portal at one compound and emerge, seconds later, at another, even if it was thousands of miles away. It made travel between their strongholds child’s play. But should demons ever get wind of the location of their compounds and therefore the portals, they could destroy the Stealth Guardians from within. A frightening prospect, and the reason why no charges were ever allowed inside the walls of any compound, even though it would be the safest place for them.

Aiden pulled the car to a stop opposite the small building Leila lived in. Her apartment was on the second floor and faced the street, making it easy to watch from the outside. The lights in two rooms were on, the living room and her bedroom. Earlier, before he’d gone to Inter Pharma, he’d entered her apartment, passing through the locked door as if it were air, and had scoped out her place. He’d found nothing amiss, no traces of demon activity, nothing unusual.

Her bookshelves were stuffed full with medical textbooks, her coffee table littered with medical journals, and her refrigerator bare. He knew that Inter Pharma had a canteen, and he assumed she ate there rather than cooking at home. The apartment was neat, yet it lacked the frills he’d encountered in other women’s homes.

His sensitive hearing picked up the ping of a microwave, and moments later he saw Leila limping back into the living room, plate in hand.

Aiden drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, contemplating whether to go up there and sit with her. He knew it wasn’t necessary, because from the short distance he was at, he had no trouble cloaking her with his mind. She would be invisible to any demon in the vicinity. Yet, something inexplicable made him want to draw closer.

The decision was made for him when he heard a doorbell ring in Leila’s apartment and saw her rise. His head shot to the front door of the building, but there was nobody.

He catapulted from the car and raced across the street, bolting through the door and up the stairs. He turned the corner after the first flight of stairs and looked up to the next landing, just as Leila opened the door to the young man who hovered there.