Free Bear-ly A Hero (Bear Claw Security 2) by Terry Bolryder

though there shouldn’t be anyone left at the office.
    Someone could always come back for something.
    “What the hell was that?” she asked, folding her arms. “You bugged my purse? I told you to let me handle it.”
    “You didn’t actually think I’d listen to that, did you?” Limes asked disbelievingly. “I’m your bodyguard.” He motioned to her purse. “It’s on the pepper spray.”
    “What is?” she asked.
    “The bug,” he said. “If you want to remove it. Tonight, we’re going to get serious about this security stuff. And we’re going to talk about whether there are any other Milos out there I should ‘talk’ to.” He raised his hands to put air quotes around “talk,” and she almost let out a laugh.
    But it was all too much. She was humiliated by what had happened with her boss and humiliated Limes had seen it, and she also didn’t know what to do about the fact that he’d saved her and threatened her boss at the same time, upsetting the careful balance she’d tried to keep here.
    “Just what are you angry with me for?” he asked, folding his arms and stepping forward, backing her against the tile wall next to the sink. “I did what I was paid to do.”
    She looked up at him defiantly. “Oh, I think you’ve been doing much more than I’m paying you for,” she snapped. “I think seeing me with the other men drives you crazy.” What was she doing? What was she saying? Why did Limes always pull this out of her?
    His expression darkened and then softened as he looked over her face. Gosh, he was huge. But he didn’t make her uncomfortable in the way Milo or other men did. He was scary but in an exciting, unknown kind of way.
    She liked the way he’d made Milo look like a flea.
    Protector. We want him , the wolf in her said. Her body responded to his nearness.
    Now she just needed to provoke him in return. Get him thinking along the same lines.
    “I was just doing what you pay me to do,” he said again, as if trying to convince himself.
    “Maybe in there, with Milo, but you’ve been crazy all day. Every man who’s even looked at me, even the nice ones, you’ve been glaring at. You tell me I don’t fight enough, but I can tell you’d fight all the time if you could,” she spat.
    His green eyes darkened in intensity and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Damn straight. I’d fight all day if it meant keeping all of them away from you.” He put an arm above her on the tile, so warm and tense and so close she could almost taste him. “Did you mean what you said in the office?”
    She blinked up at him, kind of lost in her own arousal, overwhelmed by his male power. “What?”
    He leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “That you want me,” he said in a husky voice that sent shivers all the way down to her toes.
    She swallowed. What she said next was important, would determine everything that happened from here on out.
    Did she want to get involved with her bodyguard, whom she’d only just met?
    The wolf in her howled, giving her no choice. Hell yes she did. She needed him, now. He woke the female in her, and she couldn’t slake her need without him. She needed his maleness, all of him.
    “I meant it,” she said softly, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him close.
    He studied her as if trying to decide what to do. Then he lowered his lips to just a hair above hers. His eyes glanced down at her lips and then back up to her eyes, and he let out a pent-up breath.
    “I can’t resist you anymore,” he said.
    “Then don’t,” she said, bringing their lips together.
    He pulled back from her kiss, reached down, and grabbed her hands, pinning them over her head. “This is such a stupid idea.”
    She struggled lightly, testing his strength, and then grinned up at him, feeling the animal inside her purring contentedly at what was about to happen.
    She couldn’t believe it because she’d never wanted it like this. This badly. Her fear of men, her hatred of them, had