Crazy Sweet by Tara Janzen Read Free Book Online Page B

worth.”
    Somehow, that was not a very comforting thought, that he could deliver five hundred dollars’ worth of violence in five minutes or less, especially when the message was delivered in such a stone-cold tone of voice.
    “D-do you know them?”
    “Only by reputation.”
    And that didn’t sound good. Oh, no, not at all.
    “Wh-what kind of reputation?”
    His gaze slid to her again, his face grim, and suddenly—oh, quite suddenly—all she wanted to do was run.
    “Don’t,” he said, which disconcerted the hell out of her.
    “Y-you can’t possibly be reading my mind.”
    “I don’t have to. Every thought you have is written on your face.” He turned back to the door, and she heard him mutter something about “must be a goddamn awful way to live.”
    It was. She let out a shaky sigh, trying to buck up, think clearly, and trying very hard not to cry.
    “Do not cry,” he said very succinctly, shooting her another quick glance, his voice taking on a very cold edge.
    Damn him.
    “That’ll bring them right down on top of us,” he warned.
    And oh, God, she didn’t want to do that. She was so out of her element. So far out.
    And she wanted back in—back into Saks and valet parking, back into cosmopolitans, one of which she could use right now, and most immediately back into the safety of her suite at the Royal.
    Relative safety, she reminded herself between short, shallow breaths she was doing her damnedest to slow down and deepen. The explosion last night had been less than two blocks from her hotel. The burned-out hulks of the two cars that had been set aflame two nights ago were still smoldering in the San Luis Yacht Club’s parking lot.
    “Wh-what is your name? Your real name?” She really should know, just in case she survived.
    He shook his head once and turned his attention back to the door, and she decided he probably could read her mind, because she’d sure as hell just read his. His name wasn’t any of her business, not for love or money. Five minutes, five hundred dollars, and then she was on her own.
    In El Salvador —oh, God, what was going on out there? Where were those men? The ones with the really big guns? She’d heard them come into the hotel behind her, talking, one guy shouting orders and scaring the holy crap out of her. She’d all but flown up the stairs, and practically fallen right on top of— him .
    Her gaze dropped down the length of her “bodyguard,” from top to bottom, then went back up: camouflage boots, baggy cargo pants, and the rest of him, all wrapped in a faded and worn gray T-shirt and a once-upon-a-time-blue parrot shirt—shoulders, chest, arms.
    Especially shoulders.
    And chest.
    And arms.
    He worked out.
    A lot.
    Messy haircut, scruffy stubble along his jaw, short nose, small mouth, high cheekbones, dark eyebrows, and Ray-Bans, aviator style. Slouched in his chair in front of the cantina, a beer bottle dangling from his fingers, he’d looked like a thousand other slackers she’d seen in dozens of other tropical beach towns all over the world.
    But standing in a grade D hotel room with no air-conditioning, with his gun drawn, he looked like the Great Wall of China, like it would take more than a horde of Huns to get through him, and with that realization came another: He really was a bodyguard.
    For real.
    Kip-Woo had a gun. He’d even taken her shooting and shown her how to use it before she’d left Puerto Vallarta to come to San Luis. But even with a gun in his hand, and even at six feet two, Honey doubted if it would take much more than a disgruntled guest or a drunken bar patron to get through Kip.
    Mr. You Don’t Need to Know My Name wasn’t six feet of anything, but he was built like the Rock of Gibraltar, steady and solid from the inside out, and suddenly, for no other reason than that, she knew she was going to get through the next five minutes, no matter what those minutes brought.
    After that, she’d be on her own again, but as long as he was