You're Mine, Maggie by Beth Yarnall Read Free Book Online Page A

thoughts.”
    “Come on.” He shifted a little closer and a cloud of Gent cologne crawled up my nose. “It could be fun. Relieve a little stress.” He waggled his eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
    I didn’t need to hear Super Agent to know that his back teeth were grinding.
    “Yeah. No,” I answered. “I’m pretty sure I already have plans to jab my eye out with a hot poker.”
    He chuckled. “That’s what I always liked about you—your sense of humor.” His gaze drifted south and his tone turned oily. “But not the only thing. There’s a whole lot about you to like.”
    I scrunched up my nose, trying to prevent a sneeze, and pointed to the other side of the cosmetics department. “You can like it from over there with all of your teeth intact.”
    “Your mouth says one thing, but your body tells me another.” He moved even closer, crowding my personal space and pissing me off. “So which should I believe?”
    “My fist.”
    I popped him one. He went down like the stiff, life-sized cardboard cutout of the Gent spokesmodel.
    Uh-oh. This wasn’t going to go over well with my probation officer.

Chapter Eleven
     
    Son of a bitch. I cradled my abused hand . That hurt.
    And then holy hell broke loose.
    The reporters smelling fresh blood in the water—Lance’s, which was spurting from his nose—and a new angle on Shasta’s murder, exploded through the doors. Camera flashes burst in the air around me, drawing customers to what was going on.
    Damn it. More YourVid clips.
    Suddenly there was a lot of noise and a lot of people all around us. I got jostled and bumped back by the crowd that had started to form around Lance, who was out cold. I moved back, desperately needing to get away from all the noise and confusion. Someone shoved a cell phone in my face and blinded me with the flash. I stumbled around, my vision dotted and blurry, right into a body.
    A hot and hard body. A body I’d felt before. A body I’d had on top of me, all around me, inside me.
    Super Agent.
    He wrapped an arm around me and hustled me out of the growing crowd and into the elevator.
    “How am I supposed to keep you out of jail when you keep assaulting people on camera?”
    I blinked up at him, trying to clear my vision. “Are you laughing at me?”
    “You’ve got quite a right cross there, Knockout. Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
    “He’s had that coming awhile, but damn.” I shook my hand. “That hurt.”
    He took my hand in his. “I’ll see if I can get you some ice.” He placed a kiss on the back of my hand. “Are you all right?”
    “I’m clearly not right in the head.” I flexed my fingers. “Or in the hand.”
    “You’ll make better mistakes tomorrow.”
    “I thought so yesterday, but I’m not so sure today.”
    The elevator doors opened to the first floor. Super Agent guided me toward store security office where he’d been hanging out all day watching me and listening in.
    As we entered, one of the security personnel scooted past us. “I’ve got to go help with crowd control,” the guy said. He nudged his chin at me as he left. “Nice hit.”
    “I have a feeling the guys around this store are going to start giving you a wide berth,” Super Agent said.
    “You seem awfully pleased about that.”
    He hitched a shoulder and headed for the door. “Where can I find some ice?”
    “You’re jealous.”
    His gaze connected with mine. “You’re a beautiful woman, Maggie. Guys are gonna notice. I like it. What I don’t like is them forcing you to protect yourself. The ice?”
    “Employee lounge. Go back out the way we came and go toward the escalators then hook a left. You’ll see the door. The code is 1-2-3-4.”
    “Are you kidding?”
    “Yeah, we’re like the Pentagon around here.”
    “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
    Alone in the security office I took a moment to look around. I’d been in here once before to collect a reward for catching a customer trying to pass off