Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
She just wished they didn’t remind her of guppies compared to Kyle’s obvious shark.
“He was all right, but I don’t think I’ll see him again,” she admitted. The lawyer had been her third blind date this month. It had also been her worst date, and it seemed like that story had already made the rounds. “He gave me a kind of creepy vibe and now he seems to always be around. He keeps calling and texting and showing up. Now Hutch wants me to take someone with me when I’m out of the office. It’s annoying. I will not let a guy set me up again. Women have way better instincts on who’s going to potentially murder us.”
A brow rose over Kori’s eyes. “Murder?”
She shrugged. “I’m being overly dramatic. It was just something about the guy.”
“Yes, if we’re going to talk about instinctively knowing which guy is potentially covering a dark past, we should discuss the way you watch Kyle Hawthorne walk by,” Kori pointed out. “Because damn, girl, he’s got do not touch may explode written all over him.”
“I’m not touching Kyle. I barely know the guy.” It was kind of a lie. She felt like she’d gotten to know the man that night in Tag’s office. She’d opened herself up to him.
“That is not what I heard. I heard a tale of an epically annoyed Big Tag who had his booze and treats stash raided by young Kyle so he could woo you with criminally obtained luxury items.”
Big Tag should have been a bard. “I had a bad night, and I couldn’t go back to my place. He happened to be working late, and we sat in Big Tag’s office and talked. That was all. His brother gave me a ride home, and we haven’t said much more than hi since then. He’s been training, and he went with Liam to New York when Erin couldn’t go, and that was a two-week assignment. Since then I’ve been down in the bodyguard unit to fix stuff two or three times, and we briefly chatted about how his trip went. I asked him if he wanted to come to game night and he said he wasn’t into those kinds of games.”
Kori’s eyes went wide. “Oh, and then the relationship was totally over.”
She had been surprisingly disappointed. Since that night over a month before when they’d sat up late talking and drinking, he’d put a wall between them. From what she could tell he’d put a wall between himself and everyone. As far as she knew Kyle Hawthorne worked and went home to his brother’s place and then got up and started it all over again. He ate lunch at his desk if he was in the building and worked out every day in the bodyguard gym. He didn’t seem to have made friends. She’d seen him at Top when she’d gone on a Saturday night with Hutch and some of the subs from Sanctum. They’d gone in for dinner before heading to the club, and Kyle had been hanging out at the bar. When she’d asked if he wanted to join them, he’d suddenly remembered he was supposed to be somewhere else.
She got it. That night had been a one-off and they weren’t going to be friends. The attraction was all one way.
So why did she catch him watching her?
Still, it wouldn’t be a good idea to let the world know she thought of the gorgeous bodyguard way too much for her own good. “Yes. Any chance that man had with me was totally gone when he looked at me like I was some weirdo asking him to play Chutes and Ladders.”
Kori snorted. “Yeah. He would soon discover how seriously you take board games.” She sobered. “But honestly, I think that dude has got some shit to work through, if you know what I mean.”
She felt the odd need to defend him. “He was in the Navy. He said he’d seen some things. He had an op go badly. I think he’s also still dealing with the car accident that took his friend.”
“That was a long time ago, but I suppose since he won’t go to therapy, he could still be dealing with it.” Kori waved as a couple of people they knew from Sanctum walked by.
MaeBe leaned in so no one would hear her. Dinner was over and there was a small dance floor and an open bar. She’d heard they’d already done a couple of weddings in this space, but Kim and Beck were planning on getting married in their new home in Bliss, Colorado. This was a way to say good-bye to a longtime employee and member of Sanctum, so there were lots of ears around. “I thought no one got into Sanctum without going through Kai or one of the other therapists.”