Free Protect and Service by Mina Carter Page B

muscled frame as he yanked me up against him. He was hard, aroused…the thick bar of his cock pressing against the soft swell of my belly. A belly that carried a little more padding than I was comfortable with.
    But there was no arguing with the heat in his eyes as he bent his head, his lips a hairsbreadth from mine as he whispered. “I’d get rid of your lover, then prove to you that you only need one man ever. Me.”
    “Stone, put her down, or else!” The order was barked and no nonsense. Slowly I was set back on my feet and my new admirer stepped back, hands raised as though someone had a gun trained on him. Perhaps they did. As he moved back, a small woman rushed into my line of sight, her expression swinging between pissed off and apologetic.
    “I am so sorry about Stone,” she assured me, casting him a furious glance as she got between us. “I’m Iliona, I run the agency. Please, come sit down and we can discuss why you’re here.”
    The two men behind her… I blinked, sure I was seeing double before I realised they were twins…stepped between Stone and us as she led me through into the office at the back. Abruptly I felt bereft. Even though he’d almost assaulted me, there was an aura of capability about him. Instinctively I knew that whatever he set out to do, he would succeed at.
    “It’s okay, I’m okay…honestly,” I assured her, smiling to put her at ease that I wasn’t going to sue the company over their wayward werewolf. I looked over; he was prowling like a caged dog behind the twins. I took a deep breath and looked at Iliona directly.
    “I need your best man for a…delicate assignment. Is he up to it?”
    She nodded, her expression firm. “He’s an ass but he’s the best I’ve got. Whatever you need, he’ll get it done.” She grinned suddenly. “Or I’ll have him neutered in the morning. With a blunt spoon.”
    * * *
    “Shaken, not stirred. Yeah, right Eloise. You’re stirred in the freaking head.”
    Shaken was not the word. Even now, hours later, I was still unsteady on my feet after that near kiss in the PPA offices. Stone had turned out to be Jared Stone, one of the agency’s operatives, and a werewolf. A hot, sexy as hell werewolf with a hard, muscled body just made for…things I shouldn’t really be thinking about since he was…well, since I was paying him to escort me to the hospital’s charity ball tonight. Thinking about sex and money in the same sentence just didn’t sit well with me. There were words for things like that. Not nice ones.
    It was bad enough that I’d needed to book an escort in the first place. The admission that I couldn’t find a date, a human date, that was willing to take me. Thanks to Pete, the ass-wipe. It hadn’t taken me long into our relationship to work out that my ex was vindictive, but even I hadn’t guessed he’d stoop so low as to have a curse put on me.
    Nothing serious or life threatening. Just…things tended to happen to every guy I dated. James had been wonderful, great company over dinner with a fantastic sense of humour. He’d ended up with a three-week case of acne. Green and pink acne.
    Liam had taken me to the skating rink, holding me in his wonderful strong arms as he’d guided me on my unsteady way around. The next morning he could have played Pinocchio without resorting to prosthetics.
    Steve had spent three days squawking like a chicken.
    Nathan had developed a froglike desire for flies, with the tongue to match.
    Net result: No second dates and the word had spread like wildfire. I was, in a word, un-dateable, with the most important social event of the hospital calendar breathing down my neck. The event that my ex, Pete, would be at with his new girlfriend. His skinny, blonde new girlfriend. The one I couldn’t even call a bimbo because she was a doctor as well. A damn surgeon, no less. Pete would be smug, I just knew it.
    Bastard.
    Blowing a breath out and disturbing my bangs, I studied myself in the full length