Free Seducing the Bodyguard by Capri Montgomery Page A

happen again. Trust me when I tell you, Valencia, I would never betray your trust, or your love.” He stroked his thumb over the delicate skin on her wrist. “If I had your love, Valencia, I would give my last breath to keep it. I would walk through hell for you.”
    She pulled her hand from his grasp. “We can’t,” she whispered before pulling her thoughts out of what could be and forcing them back on what should be.
    “Why not?”
    “Because it’s my job to protect you. I have to stay focused on that. You have to let me stay focused on that.”
    And now it was his turn to be upfront and honest with her. “I can’t,” he said, and that was the only truth he would admit, or so she thought. “I won’t,” he confirmed. “I know you’re skilled enough, and talented enough, to split your attention between the love we could have for each other, and the life you’re trying to protect. I’ll wait,” he brushed a finger over her cheek, “as patiently as I can, for you to realize that. But, and I stress this clearly, I won’t wait forever before showing you why you should be my woman and I should be your man.” He recaptured her wrist in his hand.
    “I just admitted to you that I killed people for a living. Doesn’t that bother you at all? Aren’t you afraid to be with somebody who can kill without conscious?”
    He shook his head. “First of all what you did in the past is not who you are now. Secondly,” he looked deep into her eyes as if trying desperately to pierce her armor. “You clearly had a conscious or you wouldn’t have changed your profession. You wouldn’t have tried to save the man you loved. You wouldn’t be trying to save me now. You’re a good person, with a good heart, and I don’t need your resume to prove that.”
    She pulled her wrist free of his hand. “I have to focus,” she restated. “And you have to let me focus.” And on those words she left him sitting on the couch, lost with his own thoughts as she tried to come to terms with the words he had uttered to her, to the feelings he had reignited in her.
     
    “No I don’t,” Harrison whispered as he sat back on the couch. He didn’t have to let her do anything. His life wasn’t in any danger and he wasn’t about to miss a perfectly good opportunity to have in his life one the most amazing woman he had ever met. He wanted her to be more than just a bed buddy. That thought alone should have scared him because he knew so little about her still. But what he did know he liked. He wanted to know more. If he had his way he would know more. No, not if . He would have his way. He was Harrison Sinclair and he was going to do whatever it would take to have this woman in his life past the few months she planned to protect him.
    Harrison was so sure of himself, so sure of his ability to seduce this woman that he assumed the quest would take less time. He knew what he wanted. He went after it. And any other time, when he went after what he wanted he got what he wanted. But this woman was resisting his charms with a vigor that had him gasping for air. Days turned to weeks and he still hadn’t claimed her. She had accompanied him to the opening. She had pretended to be his woman, but at the end of the night, when they were back behind the walls of the hotel room, she was about business only. Hell, even the outside life was business for her. They were pretending to be lovers; it was just an act, another facet of her job that she vowed to do well.
    The more he tried to seduce her, the more he learned about her, the more he wanted her. She was amazing. She was the polar opposite of women he had dated before. It wasn’t that the women before Valencia hadn’t been smart, or successful, but this woman was smart, successful, lethal and more than capable of knocking him on his behind without breaking a sweat. Something about that had him intrigued, captivated, hooked on her.
    What he needed was help. He had never needed help getting a