“He said the big bad Dom wouldn’t like it. I’m sick of this shit, Lara. I’m sick of men who make fun of me because I’m not some perfect little vanilla princess.”
Lara sighed. “Okay, sweetie. I’ll talk to Ian. I’m sorry. He’s a good friend. I thought he could help. Have you talked to Storm about this?”
Storm was the Dom Serena had been talking with for a couple of months. She’d only recently met him, but he was an incredibly open man. Maybe she should talk to him. He might have some connections. She turned away and walked to the back of her bedroom. “I have a meeting with Master Storm in a couple of days. I’ll talk to him.”
“All right.” Serena could hear Lara’s tiredness. She wished she wasn’t the cause of it. “I’m sorry. I thought it was the best I could do. Please don’t throw them out. They really will protect you until we can get someone else in place. Just go to bed and don’t talk to them.”
She hated the thought that she wouldn’t see them again. She really was an idiot. They were jerks who had thrown her out of their office, broken into her house, and made fun of her work. And she was hurt at the idea of them walking out of her life.
She really was a masochist.
She should probably talk to Master Storm about that, too.
“I promise.” She felt her whole body sag. “I’ll be a good girl. I really do appreciate it, you know. I just…I can’t deal with it. I’m so tired of getting the shit kicked out of me for being honest. But I’ll handle it while we find someone else.”
“All right, sweetie. Talk to Master Storm. I’ll talk to Ian tomorrow. I’ll find someone who works. Hey, Brian just walked in. He says hi. You know he loves you, too.”
Brian was Lara’s husband and her partner. He handled the more mainstream clients. Serena wasn’t sure he loved her. Sometimes she thought he could barely stand the erotic clients his wife had brought in, but he was still Lara’s husband. “Tell him hi. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Lara.”
She hung up the phone. She felt weary, too. She pulled her robe around her and took a deep breath. It was time to set the ground rules with her new bodyguards. She steeled herself. This time when she talked to them she wanted to at least sound like a professional.
“Who is Master Storm?” a low voice asked.
She shrieked like a five-year-old girl. Jake Dean had somehow gotten into her bedroom and behind her when she wasn’t looking. “You have to stop that! God, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“He’s good at that. It’s one of his great life skills.” Adam leaned negligently against her doorframe. Mojo sat beside him, their enormous bodies blocking her escape route. Mojo’s tail thumped and his mouth hung open, tongue panting. At least her dog found them amusing.
They were both here in her small bedroom. It was the most straight-man attention this bedroom had gotten in years.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that.” She forced herself to look at Jake. Between the two of them it was obvious Adam would be easier to deal with. Jake was the hard-ass. She didn’t deal well with hard-asses.
A single brow arched above his model perfect face. “I didn’t sneak up. You weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. You were far too busy telling your agent to fire us.”
Adam’s face fell. “What? But we just got here. Look, sweetheart, I know the whole breaking-in thing was scary, but we did have a point. Your security system sucks. And, in our defense, we did call and ring the doorbell. We can’t do our job standing on your front porch waiting for you to finish with the dancing thing. That was adorable by the way.”
She flushed. God, she hated the fact that a part of her wanted to believe he wasn’t insulting her. His teasing tone was soft and cajoling. When he smiled, the most gorgeous dimples showed up on his face. Adam Miles was just about everything she could want in a boyfriend. He was charming and smart, and he came with a built-in alpha-male partner.
Stop right there, Serena Brooks. Your imagination is running wild. The world doesn’t work that way.
“I don’t think this is about the break-in. She said we were making fun of her.” Jake’s brows drew together in a serious expression as though he was working through a problem. “I didn’t make fun of her. I told her to stop yelling. I have excellent hearing. I can’t stand yelling.”
And he apparently thought she was dense. “You know I wasn’t talking about you.” She turned to Adam. It had really hurt coming from him. She’d expected someone like Jake to think less of her for what she wrote, but Adam had seemed more tolerant.
“What? Me? Are you serious? How did I make fun of you?” He seemed to really struggle with the idea.
“You obviously read some of the titles of my books. Look, I get that you wouldn’t read a book like that, but I won’t listen to anyone denigrate the choices I’ve made in my lifestyle. You might not understand or accept it, but I will demand that you respect it.”
Jake actually laughed. “The little sub thinks we have problems with BDSM.”
Adam’s eyes rolled. “Yeah, uhm, you do have some problems, sweetheart. How long have you been in the lifestyle? Or are you a little tourist who likes to rage against the machine?”
“I had to take off my leathers to come here. I was at a club called Sanctum.” Jake’s face had softened a bit. “Adam knows my limits. I don’t like pretty subs spouting filth at me in anger. He has a smart mouth, but he would never ridicule you. Lightning would strike.”
Adam smiled at her. “And the earth would shake. Seriously, we don’t think that way. We’re far too odd on our own. And I haven’t read any of your books, but I would like to.”
Jake’s whole body went on wary alert. “We actually need to. From what I understand, this is about your books, correct?”
She was caught between relief and a dangerous joy. She believed them. They really didn’t care. In fact, Jake seemed to be involved in the lifestyle. She didn’t know many men outside the lifestyle who would use the term leathers when talking about a pair of pants. The thought of Jacob Dean in a pair of leathers, his cut chest on display as he nodded to the floor, silently requesting that she kneel at his feet, made her heart pound. About a million questions popped into her brain, but she forced herself to keep to the questions asked. “The man who’s doing this seems to be familiar with my books. Like I said earlier, I thought it was a woman because this person seemed to take issue with some of my plot choices, but now I think it’s a man. I don’t think he likes my books very much. At first I thought he was your run-of-the-mill creep trolling the internet, but lately he’s gotten uglier. He left me a text today.”